Text Editors

[Jason Munro]

On 8:56:49 am 08/18/05 Josh Charles <josh.charles at gmail.com> wrote:
> I realize I could be initiating a religious war here, but I'm at my
> wits end.  I've been working in Ruby lately, which has been going
> really well, but I'm having trouble finding an editor that fits me
> needs (or wants, I guess).
>
> Here's what I'm looking for:
>
> Syntax Highlighting
> Line Numbers
> File Browser that automatically updates with file system changes while
> the program is running
> Some Code Completion (not neccessary, but nice)
>
> It seems like these are easy requests, but it's the file browser that
> keeps killing off editors.  I've tried both the EMACS and VI Rudy
> plugins and found both to be lacking.  Not to mention the extremely
> unintuitive nature of both editors (to my mind at least).

Damn. I can't resist :)

Even though I am a die hard VIM user and have been using it for coding for
a long time I will not argue that it's intuitive by any means :) However I
would argue that with some investment you can easily achieve all of what
you are looking for and much more with a speed you cannot match with a
graphical editor. Since most of what I code is on a remote machine being
able to access a full featured editor via a terminal is a must for me. I am
not familiar with Ruby so maybe that is a major setback but I do know that
it's not hard to create your own word list for code completion in vim and
everything else on your list can be done with minimum keystrokes. As for
the file browser I am not sure exactly what you are missing. I guess I am
so used to bash that the ability to do :e then start typing and 'tabbing'
to autocomplete filenames is as natural to me as any other way to browse
files (actually vim's autcomplete is better than bash IMO). Did you know
that you can open a directory in vim and browse files via the arrow keys as
well. For example try this:

:e .   <- opens current directory list

now move cursor via the arrow keys (or j and k) to a file or dir and hit
enter. You can even do:

:cd /to/chosen/dir

all open files will adjust there file paths so you can navigate the
filesytem from within vim *while* you have files open.

Split windows (vertical or horizontal or both), multiple buffers, syntax
highlighting, brace matching, line number toggling, auto-complete, indent
based "folding", regex search+replace, mouse support (though using the
keyboard is faster as you learn the command syntax), complete control over
tabs and line wrapping and printing, auto export to HTML including syntax
highlights, easily mapped shortcuts, customizable status bar, quickly
jumping to line number or preset marks, the list goes on and on!
AND on everybody's favorite platform :)

Let the flames begin! hehe.

\__  Jason Munro
 \__ jason at stdbev.com
  \__ http://hastymail.sourceforge.net/