Which editing program?
Aaron Spurlock
people just using NotePad, or is there an IDE-type program (integrated
development environment) that works for Inform or TADS?
Aaron Spurlock
Adam Atkinson
>Are most
>people just using NotePad, or is there an IDE-type program (integrated
>development environment) that works for Inform or TADS?
I'm not currently writing any IF, but if I did I'd probably use
GoldEd, which I use for everything - email, C, perl, scripts, TeX,...
NotePad is hardly state of the art in text editors. depending on your
preferences and operating system, try emacs, vim, PFE or any of
various others.
--
Adam Atkinson (gh...@mistral.co.uk)
ZOOGE
Mike Robinson
Spurlock) wrote:
>Which editing programs do people use to write their games? Are most
>people just using NotePad, or is there an IDE-type program (integrated
>development environment) that works for Inform or TADS?
Programmer's File Editor is very good, it's freeware, highly
customizable, and can be set up to run any program you like.
http://www.lancs.ac.uk/people/cpaap/pfe/
--
Mike Robinson | mp_ro...@yahoo.com | ICQ# 30411892 | AIM: MprAim
Jim Aikin
has line numbering, it saves long files faster than any word processor
ever built, and its automatic indent feature is only mildly annoying.
Now if there were some way to teach it the syntax coloring for Inform
reserved-words....
--Jim Aikin
Stephen Griffiths
>
> On Sat, 19 Jun 1999 06:46:17 GMT, aarons...@iname.com (Aaron
> Spurlock) wrote:
>
> >Which editing programs do people use to write their games? Are most
> >people just using NotePad,
The worst problem with Notepad is that it doesn't report line numbers
which is a very important feature when most compilers report errors with
messages like 'error abc in line 123'. Even the DOS Edit program does
better than Notepad. The version that comes with Win95 is quite useable
but its certainly not integrated with the rest of your Windows
enviroment so I'd recommend something else.
> >or is there an IDE-type program (integrated
> >development environment) that works for Inform or TADS?
There's a Windows 9x/NT editor specifically for TADS somewhere - I can't
find a URL for it just now, sorry. I haven't used it coz I haven't used
TADS.
> Programmer's File Editor is very good, it's freeware, highly
> customizable, and can be set up to run any program you like.
>
> http://www.lancs.ac.uk/people/cpaap/pfe/
I use PFE too. The range of configuration options is a bit overwhelming
at first but it is well worth-while figuring it out. The best feature is
that you can run your compiler and view the compiler's error messages
all from within PFE - its an 'integrated development enviroment'.
Even better than PFE, in my opinion, is UltraEdit ( www.ultraedit.com ).
For me, UltraEdit's advantage over PFE is syntax colouring. The
disadvantage is that it costs money. If I lived in the USA I would've
thought it good value for money. But taking my currency's exchange rate
into account I'm happy to use PFE instead.
Regards,
SteveG.
Irene Callaci
>>>people just using NotePad, or is there an IDE-type program (integrated
>>>development environment) that works for Inform or TADS?
TextPad, here.
irene
BWilliams
aarons...@iname.com wrote:
> Which editing programs do people use to write their games? Are most
> people just using NotePad, or is there an IDE-type program (integrated
> development environment) that works for Inform or TADS?
>
>
I use (and have trouble choosing the better of) two different editors.
The first one (that I write the "first draft" of anything in) is VIM.
The Win32 version is essentially a Win GUI version of the standard Unix
code editor VI. It comes ready to understand and syntax highlight
inform code, and does a great job of helping me to recognize when I
forgot an important symbol (closing bracket, semi-colon, closing quote,
etc.). It also does autoindenting for me, based on syntax. The ONLY
drawback, as far as I'm concerned, is that you can't compile code from
within the program, and it doesn't have a built in debugging
interface. If it did, or if I could figure out how to make it function
as if it had one, then I would use it for the whole thing. You can get
info about downloading VIM (which is distributed as donation-ware, if
you like it send a donation to the authors favorite charitable cause)
from the VIM home page, though I can't remember the URL right now.
When I am ready to start testing code, I switch to the Informer, which
is a bit more clunky than VIM in terms of syntax highlighting and auto
indent features, but has a bunch of really useful features for
debugging and fixing things that VIM can't do. You can compile from
the Informer and bring up a point and click error: message interface to
help you find where your errors are. If you code things properly (i.e.
in the Informer's favored syntax) it will give you all sorts of useful
information about your programs object tree, and it also has features
to help you build code more quickly. If the syntax highlighting
features were better, I would definitely use this program for avery
step of the process, because it is great. I just make too many typing
mistakes to start out with it. You can download this program (the
author readily admits that it is not a completely finished product, but
it is a great tool in my opinion) from the IF Archive.
--Brandon Williams--------------------------------
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
sg...@my-deja.com
s...@removethisword.xtra.co.nz wrote:
> There's a Windows 9x/NT editor specifically for TADS somewhere - I
can't
> find a URL for it just now, sorry. I haven't used it coz I haven't
used
> TADS.
ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/programming/editors/tfe.zip
Neil Cerutti
BWilliams <jiten...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> I use (and have trouble choosing the better of) two different editors.
> The first one (that I write the "first draft" of anything in) is VIM.
> The Win32 version is essentially a Win GUI version of the standard
Unix
> code editor VI. It comes ready to understand and syntax highlight
> inform code, and does a great job of helping me to recognize when I
> forgot an important symbol (closing bracket, semi-colon, closing
quote,
> etc.). It also does autoindenting for me, based on syntax. The ONLY
> drawback, as far as I'm concerned, is that you can't compile code from
> within the program, and it doesn't have a built in debugging
> interface. If it did, or if I could figure out how to make it
function
> as if it had one, then I would use it for the whole thing. You can get
> info about downloading VIM (which is distributed as donation-ware, if
> you like it send a donation to the authors favorite charitable cause)
> from the VIM home page, though I can't remember the URL right now.
I compile within VIM and use the excellent Quickfix mode for
debugging purposes. If you like, I'll send you a copy of my
vimrc file so you can see that autocommands needed.
Basically, you need to set makeprg, errorfile, errorformat, and you're
in business. You can flag the Inform compiler to output standard format
error messages so you can get away without setting errorformat.
Read the help pages on the above settings.
If you only want to use quickfix mode, then make sure Inform is
outputting the simplest possible error messages (check the command
line args) and redirect the output to a file. Edit the file by
starting vim in quickfix mode:
vim -q errorfile.txt
You use the command :cn to proceed to the next error message.
Good luck.
--
Neil Cerutti
ne...@norwich.edu
Jonadab the Unsightly One
> Which editing programs do people use to write their games? Are most
> people just using NotePad, or is there an IDE-type program (integrated
> development environment) that works for Inform or TADS?
>
> Aaron Spurlock
The One True Text Editor as far as I'm concerned is UED (stands for
Useful EDitor); unfortunately, it only runs out of DOS (Well, or out
of Windows, but you have no idea what I would give to have a Linux
port of it; I have tried unsuccessfully to contact the author hoping
to find what language it was written in -- I'd even be willing to
translate 8086 assembly language into something more modern if given
permission...) and only uses Conventional Memory (lower 640K) so
there is a limit on the size of your files -- a few thousand lines,
generally. It is free, though (in the sense of not costing anything,
not in the GNU sense).
But if you need to edit BIG files then PFE is another decent choice.
It has certain major inadequacies that UED lacks, however,
particularly an inability to cut copy and paste rectangular blocks.
(This comes up more often than one would think, and UED is the only
text editor I've found (out of dozens and dozens I've used) that gets
it right. However, my experience with both vi and emacs has lacked
any thoroughness sufficient to say what features they may or may not
hold for the savvy.) PFE's paragraph reformatting (wrapping) is also
a tad bit broken, featuring a total lack of ability to rewrap
indented materiel; also, the wrapping margin cannot be displayed
visibly AFAIK, which is a pain, and you can't have wrapping off most
of the time and turn it on for a moment to wrap a particular
paragraph (say, a comment or a long print statement), but it partly
makes up for that by being able to (if you enable the feature)
automatically match up your } to the same column as the corresponding
{, which is really handy from time to time and which UED does not do.
PFE also has the spiffy feature of being able to be configured
separately for different file types, which is cool. Switching
between several files open at once can be more of a pain in PFE, too,
but it's only an issue if you're switching back and forth every few
seconds.
Oh, PFE also lacks what I *used* to (Once Upon a Time(TM)) consider
UED's most important feature, the ability to load in under a second
on an 8088. Yeah, yeah, I know it sounds stupid, but running on my
old computer that was quite cool, being able to load a file in the
editor, make a minor change, save it, and exit, all in less time at
4.77 Mhz than it would take to do the same thing with PFE at 233 Mhz
now... but with processor speeds being what they are these days
UED's true strength in this regard isn't as important (or even
noticeable) as it once was, I'm afraid. I still use UED exclusively
whenever I do anything on my dad's 286, though...
-- jonadab
Username in email address is dyslexic; correct to jonadab
David Glasser
> Which editing programs do people use to write their games? Are most
> people just using NotePad, or is there an IDE-type program (integrated
> development environment) that works for Inform or TADS?
(Sorry, Aaron; I don't use Windows and thus can't help you.)
Well, this question is obviously a FAQ. But as I don't use Windows and
thus usually skim idly over Windows editor threads, I need input from
raif. I'd like People Who Know Such Things to help the FAQ by emailing
me (no use tying up the group even more) at gla...@iname.com with
information on:
o Editors created solely for an IF language, including IDEs
o Editors that have some form of IF support, possibly with a separate
configuration file (like emacs)
o Editors without any IF support, but are good anyway
Windows, Unix, Mac (though I think I know this already, but if anybody
has information on Alpha I'd be grateful), or any other platform. I'd
basically just like a brief description of the IF-based features that it
has, where to get it and any IF-based 'plugins', etc. I'll turn it into
a nice article.
So, if you know what you're talking about, email me. I'd rather have
your up-to-date information than have to search through my raif archive
for possibly incomplete or obsolete info. Thanks, and may the FAQ be
with you.
--
David Glasser: gla...@iname.com | http://www.uscom.com/~glasser/
DGlasser@ifMUD:orange.res.cmu.edu 4001 | raif FAQ http://come.to/raiffaq
"So, is that superior artistry, or the easy way out?"
--TenthStone on white canvases as art, on rec.arts.int-fiction
Dylan O'Donnell
> But if you need to edit BIG files then PFE is another decent choice.
> It has certain major inadequacies that UED lacks, however,
> particularly an inability to cut copy and paste rectangular blocks.
> (This comes up more often than one would think, and UED is the only
> text editor I've found (out of dozens and dozens I've used) that gets
> it right. However, my experience with both vi and emacs has lacked
> any thoroughness sufficient to say what features they may or may not
> hold for the savvy.)
Emacs certainly has the facility to shunt arbitrary rectangles around;
C-x r k and C-x r y, amongst a few other rectangle-oriented commands
(for a list, see C-h a rectangle).
--
: Dylan O'Donnell : "Any sufficiently arcane magic is :
: Demon Internet Ltd : indistinguishable from technology." :
: Resident, Forgotten Office : -- Lebling's Inversion of :
: http://www.fysh.org/~psmith/ : Clarke's Third Law :
Alan Trewartha
David Glasser <URL:mailto:gla...@iname.com> wrote:
> Aaron Spurlock <aarons...@iname.com> wrote:
>
> > Which editing programs do people use to write their games? Are most
> > people just using NotePad, or is there an IDE-type program (integrated
> > development environment) that works for Inform or TADS?
G-gosh, doesn't everyone use !Zap with Graham's syntax colouring module?
Poor things.
--
Mail to alant instead of no.spam
wo...@one.net
Hi Aaron,
aarons...@iname.com (Aaron Spurlock) wrote:
>Which editing programs do people use to write their games? Are most
>people just using NotePad, or is there an IDE-type program (integrated
>development environment) that works for Inform or TADS?
I've used E! for years, unfortunately I just found out the author is
discontinuing it. :( He chose to write it in Turbo Pascal...) Anyway,
if anyone does still use E! I have syntax highlighting files for TADS,
Inform, Alan, Hugo, ADVSYS, and Python/PAWS.
Right now I'm using Origami Gold, a "folding" text editor that
supports limited (255 keyword) syntax highlighting. The company says
they're going to get around to breaking the 255 keyword barrier Real
Soon Now, and add quoted text highlighting.
Origami's $20 from Elcomsoft.
Folding is *really* neat. It lets you hide entire portions of the
program behind a single comment line, and "drill down" to the part you
want. Just the thing for handling large text files elegantly!
Respectfully,
Wolf
"The world is my home, it's just that some rooms are draftier than
others". -- Wolf
Jonadab the Unsightly One
> Emacs certainly has the facility to shunt arbitrary rectangles around;
> C-x r k and C-x r y, amongst a few other rectangle-oriented commands
> (for a list, see C-h a rectangle).
My experience with emacs is that it's almost good but has a few
conventions in the keyboard department which don't match what I'm
used to and make it very hard to use. For example, when I press home
(which in every other text editor under the sun (well, almost) goes
to the beginning of the current line) it jumps WAY up to the
beginning of the file. Same business for end. (The keys that
*should* go to the beginning/end of the whole file are, of course,
ctrl-home and ctrl-end. Everyone knows that ;-) After about the
eighth time in a minute that it jumps way off to neverneverland like
that and I have to manually refind my place in the file I get
frustrated and reboot to DOS or Windows so I can use a different text
editor. I would probably spend more time trying to learn the other
peculiarities of emacs (and therefore Linux) if I knew how to rebind
keystrokes such as these, but any time I try to look it up what I
cannot find is a step-by-step newbie's guide to rebinding keys in
emacs -- is there one out there somewhere?
Gareth Rees
> My experience with emacs is that it's almost good but has a few
> conventions in the keyboard department which don't match what I'm
> used to
Remember that Emacs predates DOS, Windows and IBM's CUA guidelines by
some years. You can't expect the maintainers to keep changing a useful
tool to suit the users of the latest here-today, gone-tomorrow operating
system...
However, Emacs can be configured for people who are used to CUA-style
keybindings. Just type `M-x pc-bindings-mode RET' or put
`(pc-bindings-mode)' in your .emacs file. It does the following:
Set up certain key bindings for PC compatibility.
The keys affected are:
Delete (and its variants) delete forward instead of backward.
C-Backspace kills backward a word (as C-Delete normally would).
M-Backspace does undo.
Home and End move to beginning and end of line
C-Home and C-End move to beginning and end of buffer.
C-Escape does list-buffers.
(Followups set to gnu.emacs.help.)
--
Gareth Rees
Jonadab the Unsightly One
> G-gosh, doesn't everyone use !Zap with Graham's syntax colouring module?
> Poor things.
What's "!Zap"? AltaVista turned up nothing... Yahoo! doesn't list
it...
Dylan O'Donnell
>
> > G-gosh, doesn't everyone use !Zap with Graham's syntax colouring module?
> > Poor things.
>
> What's "!Zap"? AltaVista turned up nothing... Yahoo! doesn't list
> it...
An editor for RiscOS (the prepended pling is an Acornism). See, umm:
http://www.zap.uk.eu.org/ for details. Though I'm sure the Acorn users
in this group (of which I'm no longer one) will be able to give you
more details than you could possibly want...
--
: Dylan O'Donnell : :
: Demon Internet Ltd : I wonder if man will walk on the Moon :
: Resident, Forgotten Office : in my lifetime? :
: http://www.fysh.org/~psmith/ : :
Alan Trewartha
<URL:mailto:bad...@bright.net> wrote:
> Alan Trewartha <al...@no.spam.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > G-gosh, doesn't everyone use !Zap with Graham's syntax colouring module?
> > Poor things.
>
> What's "!Zap"? AltaVista turned up nothing... Yahoo! doesn't list
> it...
Sorry. I should have added a big ;-)
David Given
Alan Trewartha <al...@no.spam.demon.co.uk> writes:
> In article <1dtq3nk.1k8...@usol-209-186-16-102.uscom.com>,
> David Glasser <URL:mailto:gla...@iname.com> wrote:
>>
>> > Which editing programs do people use to write their games? Are most
>> > people just using NotePad, or is there an IDE-type program (integrated
>> > development environment) that works for Inform or TADS?
>
> Poor things.
!Zap? Ha! You want to use !StrongEd, you do. One of the One True Editors.
I only wish there was a Linux version...
--
+- David Given ---------------McQ-+
| Work: d...@tao-group.com | Look behind you! A three-headed monkey!
| Play: dgi...@iname.com |
+- http://wired.st-and.ac.uk/~dg -+
Discord
Aaron Spurlock <aarons...@iname.com> wrote:
>Which editing programs do people use to write their games? Are most
I am apparently masochistic, as I use 'edit'.
But if I had vi for DOS I'd be using it. :)
--
ti...@ripco.com - you...@foad.org - help, I'm stuck in a bottle
Ashley Price
Just to add my tuppence worth I use 'Wordpad' but then I am using the Hugo
IF creator.
Ashley
Nick C.
>In article <376b3c7b...@news.uswest.net>,
>Aaron Spurlock <aarons...@iname.com> wrote:
>>Which editing programs do people use to write their games? Are most
>
>I am apparently masochistic, as I use 'edit'.
>
>But if I had vi for DOS I'd be using it. :)
VIM, a VI clone, runs under DOS and WIN32. (And also happens to be the One
True Editor.) :)
--
sg
>In article <376b3c7b...@news.uswest.net>,
>Aaron Spurlock <aarons...@iname.com> wrote:
>>Which editing programs do people use to write their games? Are most
>
>I am apparently masochistic, as I use 'edit'.
So do I. The 'DOS edit' that comes with Win95 is not too bad at all.
>But if I had vi for DOS I'd be using it. :)
You can get vi for DOS - I've got a couple of versions but I can't
remember where from. Then there's vim - "vi improved" - which you can
get from www.vim.org (or something like that) and most software
archives (eg Simtel - www.simtel.net , ftp.simtel.net )
--
SteveG.
(Remove the 'wrongbit.' from my
address if replying via email.)
Adam C. Emerson
> VIM, a VI clone, runs under DOS and WIN32. (And also happens to be the One
> True Editor.) :)
Personally I like elvis for DOS better than vim for DOS
(I prefer vim undr Unix, though). Most of the interesting
vimly things were unavailable in the DOS port (at least the
version lihnked to from the Vi Lover's Home Page)
--
Adam C. Emerson aeme...@atdot.org
http://www.calvin.edu/~aemers19/
"Why risk eternal damnation? Remember, we love you almost as much
as he does."