::scr Editors. Again.

[matt jones]

At 14:08 01/11/01 +0000, Earle Martin wrote:
> Alright - I wasn't sure whether the "towards a better text
> editor" thread had become taboo or not.

My current sweet li'l text hunny is TextPad[0]. It's rather saucy, I
feel. You can download and install custom syntax colouring schemes, you
can ... oh, sod it, just look at the features page:
http://www.textpad.com/about/features.html

The main ones which appeal to me are:
- customisable syntax colouring
- regexp hunt'n'hack
- auto indent/other easy formatting bobbins
- reminds me of my first love, a bit
- not having to learn a shedload of obscure keystroke combos

Yes, that's right, I don't like the idea of a text editor a dead sharp
learning curve. By that, I don't mean that I lack the intellectual
rigour/stamina to learn the features of complex pieces of software, nor
that I just want a bland, timid text editor suitable for small children
recovering from surgery. I mean that when I launch a text editor for the
first time, I want to be able to type and edit text in a basic way without
having to spend half an hour nosing through documentation[1].

(ooo! np: cop killer - bodycount)

Of course I want a full-featured text editor, but that doesn't necessarily
mean that it has to have a ghastly interface. I've had a pop at emacs, and
AFAIC its interface is not so much invisible as obfuscated. If I go to a
lot of effort to figure out how to do something, I want it to be something
significant. For example, Earle's example of easy navigation with the
cursor keys is a feature I look for, too. I don't want to have to look up
how to move the frickin' cursor around. At all.

Tangent: Could it be that what a GUI user is looking for from a text
editor may be different to what someone who primarily uses the command
line will be looking for? Is that because of the difference in interface
paragdims, or is it a cultural thing? Are those two factors even seperate
from each other?

-- 
mjx
hey captain strange, can you feel my devotion?
or are you like a droid, devoid of emotion?

[0] http://www.textpad.com
[1] That reminds me of something I read a bit back about how when people
say "intuitive", they actually mean "familiar". Hence the difficulty
encountered by dev teams when asked by the PHB to produce something that
is "completyely original and intuitive to use".