Off-topic- need a new programming editor..

Aquineas · Post by *Aquineas » 2004-09-14, 13:41 UTC

I've been happily using Multiedit for my code development for nine years or so, having switched to it from Boxer for OS/2 when I switched from DOS/OS/2 to Windows development (before that, I used Brief, which sadly, was purchased by Borland and then promptly killed so they could waste untold number of dollars buying Ashton-Tate. Buying Ashton-Tate was the first step in Borland's demise).

Well, I fear the time has come to switch again, as it seems Multiedit has given no indication of plans to correctly support the #region keyword in C#. The #region keyword is very useful when doing C# development, and not supporting it puts me at a disadvantage when coding in it as opposed to the native Visual Studio environment (which is terrible as an editing environment). What I'm looking for is this:

Must support brief command map
Must support #region keyworkd in C#
Must be customizable and extensible by file type
Must be fast
Doesn't necessarily have to integrate with an IDE, I've yet to see any editor do this well anyway
Preferrably is cheap (under $150 USD)

Thanks in advance.

Lefteous · Post by *Lefteous » 2004-09-14, 13:57 UTC

2Aquineas
Do you know ReSharper? It's not a standalone program just an addin for Visual Studio to make it much more powerful. If you already own the Visual Studio you should take a look at it. A free demo is available. The full version is at about 100$.

CopyCats · Post by *CopyCats » 2004-09-15, 02:35 UTC

Aquineas,

How about Boxer/10 for Windows?

* Comes with Brief and many other keyboard layouts
* Highly customizable and extensible by file type
* Fast! (see it execute some macros!)
* Flexible and powerful
* You won't miss an IDE
* Is only $59.99

If by support for the region keyword in C you mean an automatic folding mechanism, it doesn't have that built in yet, but I believe a user created a macro to accomplish that (see user group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/boxer, search for 'folding').

SanskritFritz · Post by *SanskritFritz » 2004-09-15, 07:49 UTC

2Aquineas
What exactly do you mean by "Must support #region keyword in C#" ?
In what way can an Editor support a keyword other than auto indent, syntax highlighting, auto expand etc?

Aquineas · Post by *Aquineas » 2004-09-15, 23:49 UTC

SanskritFritz wrote:2Aquineas
What exactly do you mean by "Must support #region keyword in C#" ?
In what way can an Editor support a keyword other than auto indent, syntax highlighting, auto expand etc?

Well, Visual Studio "folds", either collapsing or expanding a region to display or hide the contents as requested. When a region is collapsed, the editor will display a little "+" sign (like a treeview control). Basically, a "folding" text editor. It allows you to organize the code for better reading...

SanskritFritz · Post by *SanskritFritz » 2004-09-16, 07:16 UTC

I see. The only (free) folding editor I know of, is SciTe and similar projects, based on Scintilla. Scintilla is configurable, so even if it does not support the #region keyword by default, it can be configured. Don't ask me how though, I dont use Scite.
I dont think MultiEdit supports folding at all?

woefdram · Post by *woefdram » 2004-09-16, 19:01 UTC

Scite has a builtin C# language mode which implies syntax highlighting and probably folding and perhaps even configuring the interpreter/compiler so that you can edit and test run your programs from within the editor. You can also configure it to run a language help file. I use it mainly for Python development and I love it!
Another free (open source) editor that has syntax highlighting and folding is JEdit, it also has a C# language mode and many plugins, mostly geared towards Java though, as it is written in that language.

SanskritFritz · Post by *SanskritFritz » 2004-09-16, 19:56 UTC

2woefdram
Thanks for the info!
Even more offtopic: how can I force Scite to remember its window position? This is one of the most annoying problems i have with it.

woefdram · Post by *woefdram » 2004-09-16, 21:27 UTC

I think you can only set its initial position and width/height.
Oh and here's the link to JEdit

SanskritFritz · Post by *SanskritFritz » 2004-09-17, 06:53 UTC

2woefdram

I think you can only set its initial position and width/height.

That is good enough for me, PLEASE TELL ME HOW

klsgfx · Post by *klsgfx » 2004-09-17, 10:06 UTC

SanskritFritz wrote:2woefdram
I think you can only set its initial position and width/height.
That is good enough for me, PLEASE TELL ME HOW

If I am allowed to answer:
In SciTEGlobal.properties-file ( which resides in the scite-folder) somewhere at the beginning you should find this:

Code: Select all

# Window sizes and visibility
if PLAT_WIN
	position.left=0
	position.top=0
if PLAT_GTK
	position.left=5
	position.top=22
position.width=-1
position.height=-1

position.width=-1 and position.height=-1 just stand for maximise, so just change those values to whatever you need. For example position.width=500 and position.height=150 would result in a quite small window

Gruß,
Klaus

SanskritFritz · Post by *SanskritFritz » 2004-09-17, 11:18 UTC

2klsgfx
Thanx! Now, that the most annoying part is set aside, i will start using Scite... let's see how far we get...

woefdram · Post by *woefdram » 2004-09-17, 21:44 UTC

And to top it all off, here's how to bind your favourite interpreter/compiler to the "Go" (F5) command and a help file to the help (F1) command in the appropriate langauge.properties file:

Code: Select all

if PLAT_WIN
	command.go.*.py=<path-to-Python>\pythonw -u "$(FileNameExt)"
	command.go.subsystem.*.py=1
	command.go.*.pyw=<path-to-Python>\pythonw -u "$(FileNameExt)"
	command.go.subsystem.*.pyw=1
         command.help.*.py=<path-to-Python>\Doc\Python23.chm
         command.help.subsystem.*.py=2

if PLAT_GTK
	command.go.*.py=python -u $(FileNameExt)
         ... etc...

By the way, this is also in the help file but it may be a little hard to figure it out