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Textadept: fast, minimalist, and Lua-extensible cross-platform text editor

foicica.com

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Re: Textadept: fast, minimalist, and Lua-extensible cross-platform text editor

#11

Post by e12e »

dysoco wrote: post #3

Looks interesting, does it support TTY mode? I might try it.

From the link:

  > "The version of Textadept for the terminal requires only ncurses."
I suppose that would fit?

I notice that some keyboard bindings[1] are different in "Terminal"-mode (I suspect that means in terminal on GNU/Linux and possibly *BSD, but I suppose it might include MS Windows cmd.com (if supported) and OS X Terminal as well) -- as compared to the GUI-variants (MS Windows and OS X appear to just substitute control for command - while the "Terminal"-variant uses e.g. meta-control-n, rather than just meta-n or control-n for new file).

I think I'll stick with VIM, thanks. Still having another powerful editor available isn't a bad thing.

[1] http://foicica.com/textadept/api/_M.textadept.keys.html#Key....

Re: Textadept: fast, minimalist, and Lua-extensible cross-platform text editor

#12

Post by rainysunday »

leke wrote: post #9

Just tried the Linux version and I like it! If the Windows version is portable, I'll carry it around on my USB stick.

The Windows version is quite portable if you manually set the .textadept home to your USB stick. A while ago I wrote a Portable Apps launcher [1] that did that automatically for you, haven't used it in quite a while though. (I wrote this before GTK was included in the Windows package.)

[1] https://github.com/rgieseke/textadept-portable

Re: Textadept: fast, minimalist, and Lua-extensible cross-platform text editor

#13

Post by e12e »

anonymouz wrote: post #2

> Unparalleled extensibility. A bold claim to make when your competition includes Vim and Emacs. Is there some kind of feature comparison somewhere? Or any particular highlights? The feature list is a nice start, but basically what I would expect of any decent editor anyway (except for code completion).

The fact that this has a small core of C and Lua, according to the website, is a much better selling point than "unparalleled extensibility".

I don't think even most Vim fans would claim vim is "as extensible" as Emacs -- while maybe on paper -- not really. I prefer Vim, but it's hard to argue with the sentiment that "Emacs is a nice operating system".

Still with proper support for Lua, I suspect it might be forced to do a lot of the same things Emacs can be forced to do (such as email, for instance). Not sure if I want an editor that does all that.

Yes, I'm aware Vim can be made do a lot of stuff like that as well, I just don't think quite as many users actually enjoy using Vim like that -- as does Emacs users. I might be wrong of course.

Re: Textadept: fast, minimalist, and Lua-extensible cross-platform text editor

#14

Post by rainysunday »

farmdawgnation wrote: post #5
marcusramberg wrote: post #4

Have you seen the scroll bars on this thing? Or the Icon? No way I'm using this on OSX...

Agreed. Whoever suggested this thing is a good fit for OS X should be harpooned by the ghost of Steve Jobs.

I do use this on OS X and agree that it does not look quite 'native'. It might be possible to port Textadept to be fully native. Scite, which uses the same Scintilla engine, is available as a native OS X app.

It might also be possible to tweak the GTK layouts for the OS X version.

Re: Textadept: fast, minimalist, and Lua-extensible cross-platform text editor

#15

Post by rainysunday »

Breakthrough wrote: post #7
anonymouz wrote: post #2

> Unparalleled extensibility. A bold claim to make when your competition includes Vim and Emacs. Is there some kind of feature comparison somewhere? Or any particular highlights? The feature list is a nice start, but basically what I would expect of any decent editor anyway (except for code completion).

Don't forget about Notepad++ (Windows only though) and Sublime Text (best text rendering I've seen yet), which I'd argue are also valid comparisons - yes, even to Vim/Emacs. That being said, I did have a quick look through the Textadept manual, and there are quite indeed a few useful and unique features... Whether or not this indicates "unparalled" extensibility though, is another matter all together.

Textadept is build on top of the Scintilla engine like Scite and Notepad++.

Re: Textadept: fast, minimalist, and Lua-extensible cross-platform text editor

#17

Post by rainysunday »

anonymouz wrote: post #2

> Unparalleled extensibility. A bold claim to make when your competition includes Vim and Emacs. Is there some kind of feature comparison somewhere? Or any particular highlights? The feature list is a nice start, but basically what I would expect of any decent editor anyway (except for code completion).

> A bold claim to make when your competition includes Vim and Emacs.

The code base is actually small and mostly written in Lua, so that it is actually possible to change the editor to your liking.

Re: Textadept: fast, minimalist, and Lua-extensible cross-platform text editor

#18

Post by rainysunday »

e12e wrote: post #11
dysoco wrote: post #3

Looks interesting, does it support TTY mode? I might try it.

From the link: > "The version of Textadept for the terminal requires only ncurses." I suppose that would fit? I notice that some keyboard bindings[1] are different in "Terminal"-mode (I suspect that means in terminal on GNU/Linux and possibly *BSD, but I suppose it might include MS Windows cmd.com (if supported) and OS X Terminal as well) -- as compared to the GUI-variants (MS Windows and OS X appear to just substitu…

The terminal version works only on Unix/BSD, but it was only introduced in 5.5. (Which means there might be glitches as well on Linux.)

Re: Textadept: fast, minimalist, and Lua-extensible cross-platform text editor

#19

Post by amarsahinovic »

dotmanish wrote: post #8

Suggestion about the website: Please include a separate section called "Screenshots". A lot of people directly click there to get a feel of the software before they download.

Screenshot with dark theme: http://i.imgur.com/oqByS.png

Re: Textadept: fast, minimalist, and Lua-extensible cross-platform text editor

#20

Post by rainysunday »

leke wrote: post #16
dotmanish wrote: post #8

Suggestion about the website: Please include a separate section called "Screenshots". A lot of people directly click there to get a feel of the software before they download.

A video tutorial too would be awesome.

Not a video tutorial, but a demo of some Zen-Coding-like HTML editing on YouTube from 2010: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSAinGsc7dA
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