For the last few years, all the clever macro programmings have been
utility features instead of text editing features. Has Tse Pro reached
its potential as a text based editor? Personally, I would like to see
the following features:
- native support of code folding
- better support of printing, e.g. printer setup and
WYSIWYG printing as in syntax highlight
I still use Tse quite heavily in text editing on Windows, but I also
use some freeware GUI based text editor 30% of the time. Once I port
all my customized Tse macros across, I believe I'll use less of Tse.
In the Unix world, vi is always needed when all you have is a text
terminal. Under Windows, such situation doesn't seem to exist. I hope
I can get some discussion going here on how Tse should evolve in order
to better suit the Windows environment and to attract new users.
TSE isn't perfect, but it's hard to say there's any major fatal gap.
And yet, sadly, I can't find another editor I find as compelling. A testament to TSE - despite its relative age and limitations, it still smokes the competition.
I've been recently doing some Ruby on Rails work and spent a little time burning thru various Ruby-aware editors. RadRails (i.e. Eclipse), SteelSapphire (i.e. Visual Studio), NetBeans, and a few Ruby-specific editors. None of the IDEs were really all that compelling, over a good editor and command line. Maybe someday, when type inference gets smarter and IDEs provide a real Intellisense experience for dynamic languages, but that day's not today.
NONE of the IDEs were all that great as editors. NetBeans was the best of the bunch, and TSE is still more productive.
NOTE: I used TextMate for the past year when I had a Mac at Amazon, and despite it being the #1 hot programmer's editor on the Mac, I still often yearned for TSE. Maybe TextMate 2.0 will improve matters. If it's ever finished.
You mention CodeFolding and Printing. Both would be improvements, but not fundamental improvements most would find helpful. Some, yes, but only some.
I think TSE's true weaknesses at this point are more subtle, often incremental features. * Unicode support * Improved macro language (in many little ways, e.g. dynamic/variable-length strings) * Improved syntax highlighting (e.g. mixed content, e.g. .ASP files with HTML, CSS and Javascript - 3 syntaxes, but TSE today only handles 1 at a time; ASP.NET, JSP, RHTML, and others would benefit. Ditto Java with Annotations and C# with Attributes, among others) * More
Regex support was a major addition to TSE that many benefit from. The change to a Win32 GUI app with true Font support was a big deal, but also a somewhat subtle change. TSE still largely looked and felt the same (yay!), but it just did what it did better.
The problem is, a lot of the enhancements at this point are either of benefit to a fraction of users, or are widely valuable but require fundamental internal changes to support (or at least, 'twould seem so, based on Sammy Comments <g> the past few years).
I check out alternative editors every few years, and keep coming back to TSE. A testament to its design and implementation. [Yes, I tried even vi and emacs. Again. And again, bleh.]
I'd love to see TSE under active development, but it sounds like at this point any major changes will require a lot of work, and the market ($) for editors has been shrinking. So unless Sammy hits the Mega Million jackpot and decides hacking TSE is how he wants to spend his retirement <fingers crossed :->, I'm having a hard time thinking of TSE enhancements that would justify the time investment (from a commercial sense).
Of course, I'm just an interested observer. You asked how TSE could evolve in the Windows market. I think first you need to understand what you mean by that. Who are the target users?
That's a smaller target than past years. Visual Studio, Eclipse and NetBeans are compelling to many, who'd rather (only?) have an IDE than an editor.
Then there's the vi and emacs fans, those who cut their teeth on Unix and like them. I doubt you'll find many (any) converts from this segment.
And those for whom Notepad is adequate for casual use.
That leaves the 'power editor' market. Seems to be largely programmers and sys admins, though I'm sure Sammy's got more solid breakdown past on past sales.
The competition in this area tends to be rather fractured, with the big expensive boys shrinking (e.g. Slickedit) or dead (anyone even know if Brief or Epsilon Editor are even still around?). It's the low-end (shareware/inexpensive and free) editors you're competing with.
I do believe TSE has most of the core features you need, but incremental and specialized improvements WOULD be welcome. Last time this came up (2 years ago?) there was a list of features tossed around. I'd start there - dust off that top N list from the archives, and see if it's still current.
Then of course there's the question of Sammy's time and interest. Or the alternative, if Sammy was interested in open source'ing TSE. Or somewhere in between, perhaps offering source access to a limited audience under NDA / controlled access. Several people (myself included) offered interest.
There's another idea that comes to mind that I don't recall having come up - open sourcing SC32.EXE. Some interesting things could be done at the compiler level w/o runtime changes, though I suspect most of the meaty improvements will require changes in TSE itself.
How (if) Sammy wants to proceed is, IMO, the most interesting question. TSE improvements are easy to enumerate (again). The big question is THE NEXT STEP.
Perhaps Sammy would like to chime in with his current thinking and plans.
On Sun, Apr 19, 2009 at 3:36 AM, Why Tea <ytl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> For the last few years, all the clever macro programmings have been > utility features instead of text editing features. Has Tse Pro reached > its potential as a text based editor? Personally, I would like to see > the following features:
> - native support of code folding > - better support of printing, e.g. printer setup and > WYSIWYG printing as in syntax highlight
> I still use Tse quite heavily in text editing on Windows, but I also > use some freeware GUI based text editor 30% of the time. Once I port > all my customized Tse macros across, I believe I'll use less of Tse. > In the Unix world, vi is always needed when all you have is a text > terminal. Under Windows, such situation doesn't seem to exist. I hope > I can get some discussion going here on how Tse should evolve in order > to better suit the Windows environment and to attract new users.
> anyone even know if Brief or Epsilon Editor are even still around?
1983 - BRIEF: The Underware corporation releases the BRIEF (='B'asic 'R'econfigurable 'I'nteractive 'E'diting 'F'acility) text editor, written by Dave Nanian and Michael Strickman.
BRIEF was bought by Solution Systems,
then bought by Borland.
At Borland it was used as the text editor in some of their programming language IDEs.
> > anyone even know if Brief or Epsilon Editor are even still around?
> 1983 - BRIEF: The Underware corporation releases the BRIEF (='B'asic > 'R'econfigurable 'I'nteractive 'E'diting 'F'acility) text editor, written by > Dave Nanian and Michael Strickman.
> BRIEF was bought by Solution Systems,
> then bought by Borland.
> At Borland it was used as the text editor in some of their programming > language IDEs.
I have used TSE since its beginnings. In my opinion, nothing comes close to its ease and benefits.
By the way, epsilon is still out there. TSE has sort functions which work far faster than epsilon.
I use the 16 and/or 32 bit versions based on the jobs required.
Michael
DataStream Content Solutions College Park, Maryland
________________________________
From: semware@googlegroups.com [mailto:semware@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Howard Kapustein Sent: Sunday, April 19, 2009 1:21 PM To: semware@googlegroups.com Subject: [TSE] Re: Desired text editing features
TSE isn't perfect, but it's hard to say there's any major fatal gap.
And yet, sadly, I can't find another editor I find as compelling. A testament to TSE - despite its relative age and limitations, it still smokes the competition.
I've been recently doing some Ruby on Rails work and spent a little time burning thru various Ruby-aware editors. RadRails (i.e. Eclipse), SteelSapphire (i.e. Visual Studio), NetBeans, and a few Ruby-specific editors. None of the IDEs were really all that compelling, over a good editor and command line. Maybe someday, when type inference gets smarter and IDEs provide a real Intellisense experience for dynamic languages, but that day's not today.
NONE of the IDEs were all that great as editors. NetBeans was the best of the bunch, and TSE is still more productive.
NOTE: I used TextMate for the past year when I had a Mac at Amazon, and despite it being the #1 hot programmer's editor on the Mac, I still often yearned for TSE. Maybe TextMate 2.0 will improve matters. If it's ever finished.
You mention CodeFolding and Printing. Both would be improvements, but not fundamental improvements most would find helpful. Some, yes, but only some.
I think TSE's true weaknesses at this point are more subtle, often incremental features. * Unicode support * Improved macro language (in many little ways, e.g. dynamic/variable-length strings) * Improved syntax highlighting (e.g. mixed content, e.g. .ASP files with HTML, CSS and Javascript - 3 syntaxes, but TSE today only handles 1 at a time; ASP.NET, JSP, RHTML, and others would benefit. Ditto Java with Annotations and C# with Attributes, among others) * More
Regex support was a major addition to TSE that many benefit from. The change to a Win32 GUI app with true Font support was a big deal, but also a somewhat subtle change. TSE still largely looked and felt the same (yay!), but it just did what it did better.
The problem is, a lot of the enhancements at this point are either of benefit to a fraction of users, or are widely valuable but require fundamental internal changes to support (or at least, 'twould seem so, based on Sammy Comments <g> the past few years).
I check out alternative editors every few years, and keep coming back to TSE. A testament to its design and implementation. [Yes, I tried even vi and emacs. Again. And again, bleh.]
I'd love to see TSE under active development, but it sounds like at this point any major changes will require a lot of work, and the market ($) for editors has been shrinking. So unless Sammy hits the Mega Million jackpot and decides hacking TSE is how he wants to spend his retirement <fingers crossed :->, I'm having a hard time thinking of TSE enhancements that would justify the time investment (from a commercial sense).
Of course, I'm just an interested observer. You asked how TSE could evolve in the Windows market. I think first you need to understand what you mean by that. Who are the target users?
That's a smaller target than past years. Visual Studio, Eclipse and NetBeans are compelling to many, who'd rather (only?) have an IDE than an editor.
Then there's the vi and emacs fans, those who cut their teeth on Unix and like them. I doubt you'll find many (any) converts from this segment.
And those for whom Notepad is adequate for casual use.
That leaves the 'power editor' market. Seems to be largely programmers and sys admins, though I'm sure Sammy's got more solid breakdown past on past sales.
The competition in this area tends to be rather fractured, with the big expensive boys shrinking (e.g. Slickedit) or dead (anyone even know if Brief or Epsilon Editor are even still around?). It's the low-end (shareware/inexpensive and free) editors you're competing with.
I do believe TSE has most of the core features you need, but incremental and specialized improvements WOULD be welcome. Last time this came up (2 years ago?) there was a list of features tossed around. I'd start there - dust off that top N list from the archives, and see if it's still current.
Then of course there's the question of Sammy's time and interest. Or the alternative, if Sammy was interested in open source'ing TSE. Or somewhere in between, perhaps offering source access to a limited audience under NDA / controlled access. Several people (myself included) offered interest.
There's another idea that comes to mind that I don't recall having come up - open sourcing SC32.EXE. Some interesting things could be done at the compiler level w/o runtime changes, though I suspect most of the meaty improvements will require changes in TSE itself.
How (if) Sammy wants to proceed is, IMO, the most interesting question. TSE improvements are easy to enumerate (again). The big question is THE NEXT STEP.
Perhaps Sammy would like to chime in with his current thinking and plans.
- Howard
On Sun, Apr 19, 2009 at 3:36 AM, Why Tea <ytl...@gmail.com> wrote:
For the last few years, all the clever macro programmings have been utility features instead of text editing features. Has Tse Pro reached its potential as a text based editor? Personally, I would like to see the following features:
- native support of code folding - better support of printing, e.g. printer setup and WYSIWYG printing as in syntax highlight
I still use Tse quite heavily in text editing on Windows, but I also use some freeware GUI based text editor 30% of the time. Once I port all my customized Tse macros across, I believe I'll use less of Tse. In the Unix world, vi is always needed when all you have is a text terminal. Under Windows, such situation doesn't seem to exist. I hope I can get some discussion going here on how Tse should evolve in order to better suit the Windows environment and to attract new users.
Thank you for your view on TSE. It reflects my opinion to a very high degree of accuracy. I agree: there is nothing that I know of that comes even close.
I would like to add two things: - Recently, I tried to figure out what a certain JavaScript script did, and how. I rewrote it in TSE and then went on to debug it a bit. For arrays I used buffers and a very simple function that fetches the content of a certain row, thus retrieving the nth element of an array. Hmmm... arrays, maybe?
Also, I would like Unix-style regular expressions. As much as I like regular expressions (what did I ever do without them?) I would like the choice between TSE-style of regular expressions and "rest of the world" style regular expressions. But that could be a major job.
For me, TSE is the Tisroc from "The Horse and his Boy". May he live forever!
cheers, Rob.
________________________________
From: semware@googlegroups.com [mailto:semware@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Howard Kapustein Sent: zondag 19 april 2009 19:21 To: semware@googlegroups.com Subject: [TSE] Re: Desired text editing features
TSE isn't perfect, but it's hard to say there's any major fatal gap.
And yet, sadly, I can't find another editor I find as compelling. A testament to TSE - despite its relative age and limitations, it still smokes the competition.
I've been recently doing some Ruby on Rails work and spent a little time burning thru various Ruby-aware editors. RadRails (i.e. Eclipse), SteelSapphire (i.e. Visual Studio), NetBeans, and a few Ruby-specific editors. None of the IDEs were really all that compelling, over a good editor and command line. Maybe someday, when type inference gets smarter and IDEs provide a real Intellisense experience for dynamic languages, but that day's not today.
NONE of the IDEs were all that great as editors. NetBeans was the best of the bunch, and TSE is still more productive.
NOTE: I used TextMate for the past year when I had a Mac at Amazon, and despite it being the #1 hot programmer's editor on the Mac, I still often yearned for TSE. Maybe TextMate 2.0 will improve matters. If it's ever finished.
You mention CodeFolding and Printing. Both would be improvements, but not fundamental improvements most would find helpful. Some, yes, but only some.
I think TSE's true weaknesses at this point are more subtle, often incremental features. * Unicode support * Improved macro language (in many little ways, e.g. dynamic/variable-length strings) * Improved syntax highlighting (e.g. mixed content, e.g. .ASP files with HTML, CSS and Javascript - 3 syntaxes, but TSE today only handles 1 at a time; ASP.NET, JSP, RHTML, and others would benefit. Ditto Java with Annotations and C# with Attributes, among others) * More
Regex support was a major addition to TSE that many benefit from. The change to a Win32 GUI app with true Font support was a big deal, but also a somewhat subtle change. TSE still largely looked and felt the same (yay!), but it just did what it did better.
The problem is, a lot of the enhancements at this point are either of benefit to a fraction of users, or are widely valuable but require fundamental internal changes to support (or at least, 'twould seem so, based on Sammy Comments <g> the past few years).
I check out alternative editors every few years, and keep coming back to TSE. A testament to its design and implementation. [Yes, I tried even vi and emacs. Again. And again, bleh.]
I'd love to see TSE under active development, but it sounds like at this point any major changes will require a lot of work, and the market ($) for editors has been shrinking. So unless Sammy hits the Mega Million jackpot and decides hacking TSE is how he wants to spend his retirement <fingers crossed :->, I'm having a hard time thinking of TSE enhancements that would justify the time investment (from a commercial sense).
Of course, I'm just an interested observer. You asked how TSE could evolve in the Windows market. I think first you need to understand what you mean by that. Who are the target users?
That's a smaller target than past years. Visual Studio, Eclipse and NetBeans are compelling to many, who'd rather (only?) have an IDE than an editor.
Then there's the vi and emacs fans, those who cut their teeth on Unix and like them. I doubt you'll find many (any) converts from this segment.
And those for whom Notepad is adequate for casual use.
That leaves the 'power editor' market. Seems to be largely programmers and sys admins, though I'm sure Sammy's got more solid breakdown past on past sales.
The competition in this area tends to be rather fractured, with the big expensive boys shrinking (e.g. Slickedit) or dead (anyone even know if Brief or Epsilon Editor are even still around?). It's the low-end (shareware/inexpensive and free) editors you're competing with.
I do believe TSE has most of the core features you need, but incremental and specialized improvements WOULD be welcome. Last time this came up (2 years ago?) there was a list of features tossed around. I'd start there - dust off that top N list from the archives, and see if it's still current.
Then of course there's the question of Sammy's time and interest. Or the alternative, if Sammy was interested in open source'ing TSE. Or somewhere in between, perhaps offering source access to a limited audience under NDA / controlled access. Several people (myself included) offered interest.
There's another idea that comes to mind that I don't recall having come up - open sourcing SC32.EXE. Some interesting things could be done at the compiler level w/o runtime changes, though I suspect most of the meaty improvements will require changes in TSE itself.
How (if) Sammy wants to proceed is, IMO, the most interesting question. TSE improvements are easy to enumerate (again). The big question is THE NEXT STEP.
Perhaps Sammy would like to chime in with his current thinking and plans.
- Howard
On Sun, Apr 19, 2009 at 3:36 AM, Why Tea <ytl...@gmail.com> wrote:
For the last few years, all the clever macro programmings have been utility features instead of text editing features. Has Tse Pro reached its potential as a text based editor? Personally, I would like to see the following features:
- native support of code folding - better support of printing, e.g. printer setup and WYSIWYG printing as in syntax highlight
I still use Tse quite heavily in text editing on Windows, but I also use some freeware GUI based text editor 30% of the time. Once I port all my customized Tse macros across, I believe I'll use less of Tse. In the Unix world, vi is always needed when all you have is a text terminal. Under Windows, such situation doesn't seem to exist. I hope I can get some discussion going here on how Tse should evolve in order to better suit the Windows environment and to attract new users.
/Why Tea
</PRE><p style="font-family:arial;color:grey" style="font-size:13px">This message contains information that may be privileged or confidential and is the property of the Capgemini Group. It is intended only for the person to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, you are not authorized to read, print, retain, copy, disseminate, distribute, or use this message or any part thereof. If you receive this message in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete all copies of this message.</p><PRE>
FWIW I never really missed arrays in TSE, as the buffer APIs were equivalent or more flexible. I think keeping that model serves TSE well.
There ARE things in SAL that could be improved. Strings for one. It's nice to be able to declare a fixed-size string sometimes (eg. when calling some native functions in DLLs), but most of the time it's a nuisance, and it's not too uncommon to handle strings >255 (TSE's limit). Especially these days, bigger strings are quite common. Given TSE's current behavior, if you need to handle strings that might be even slightly bigger, you're forced to use buffers. Makes sense when I'm handling 100M strings, but that 400 and 3K string are more annoying than anything else.
One option is a new data type, VarString, which acts like a string but is implemented as a facade over a buffer. Worst case that could be handled with just compiler changes (SC32.EXE). There's some warts doing that (e.g. debugging), but even that would provide a welcome enhancement w/o negatively impacting TSE.
A transpiler would work too, but that means writing your own TSE parser. Hmmm. Sammy, does SAL have a well defined grammar? You wouldn't happen to have an ABNF spec laying around would you? Or something like it?
- Howard
On Mon, Apr 20, 2009 at 5:35 AM, knud van eeden <knud_van_ee...@yahoo.com>wrote:
<howard.kapust...@gmail.com> wrote: > A transpiler would work too, but that means writing your own TSE parser. > Hmmm. Sammy, does SAL have a well defined grammar? You wouldn't happen to > have an ABNF spec laying around would you? Or something like it?
Last one we did - looks best with a fixed width font:
0
LAST REVISION: 18-APR-1991
1. FEATURE: TF-19 Macro Syntax Diagrams
2. PURPOSE: Documents the high-level syntax of QEdit 3.0's macro language.
3. USER INTERFACE: N/A. This may be included in the manual?
4. IMPLEMENTATION: Here are the diagrams (working from the top down in the syntax):
Since curved lines are difficult to draw in ASCII, the convention has been adopted here that forward pointing arrows are always "below" the center line, and backward pointing arrows (loopbacks) are always "above" the center line.
Literal keywords are enclosed in quotes within their box.
|| Anything that is not alphanumeric (like "." or "_") that is inside a box is also a literal symbol, the quotes || are left off for clarity.
|| Items that have changed lately are marked with vertical bars "||" in the left margin.
Notes: || Declarations at this level are "global" in scope.
ClipboardDefinition and MenuDefinition are not currently implemented and may not be for this release. Menus will probably end up being done directly in macros.
|| QMAC, when it is running, displays a "." for each "loop" through this part of the syntax. So the number || of dots is the number of top-level declaration/definitions.
|| Notes: || One of the very few parts of the language that is context dependent is here, in the recognition of || KeyLists. The KeyList must be the *first* non whitespace item on the line of text. The second key of || two keys in a key list must appear on the same line.
Notes: Opening and closing Ident must match. || String is optional "macro name" which is visible while in QEdit. The ExecuteNamedMacro command will use || these names. || The Ident name for the macro only exists at compile time, not when loaded into QEdit. Declarations must occur first, before other statements. || Declarations at this level are "local" in scope.
Notes: Used by/with QCONFIG to assign configuration variables in a text form. || Naturally, only certain variables (those which appear in the permanently configurable part of QEdit) are || legal for use in this context. || The Expressions in these assignment statements MUST be ConstExpressions.
|| Declaration || ═══════════ || ┌─────────────────────┐ || ───┬──>┤ IntegerDeclaration ├──┬──> || │ └─────────────────────┘ │ || │ ┌─────────────────────┐ │ || ├──>┤ StringDeclaration ├──┤ || │ └─────────────────────┘ │ || │ ┌─────────────────────┐ │ || └──>┤ ConstantDeclaration ├──┘ || └─────────────────────┘ || Notes: || Declarations at top-level (see DefinitionFile) are GLOBAL in scope and persist until the end of || compilation. Declarations within a MacroDefinition are LOCAL in scope, and cease to exist at the || end of the macro. Local declarations can supersede like-named global declarations.
On Apr 20, 9:13 am, "Mike Boyd" <mb...@atlis.com> wrote:
> Hello all,
> I have used TSE since its beginnings. In my opinion, nothing comes close
> to its ease and benefits
I used to think the same. I also believe that used to be the
case. Not anymore, as many text editors have caught up. Besides,
the limitation of memory and storage are no longer an issue. With
today's CPU, speed is not a problem either. So, what makes Tse
attractive in today's environment? I think because we are all
very familiar with it. To me, I pick the power of the scripting
language to be my main reason of staying with Tse because I'm
so used to the customized macros I wrote over the years.
When I was trying out various Windows free text editors, I
noticed that many of the Tse features implemented in macros
were standard features. I won't mention some of the nice
features that can only be done in GUI. I have tried and kept
notepad++, pspad and RJ Texted. Just for the sake of comparison,
have a look at R J Texted: http://www.rj-texted.se/ about
the following features:
- search/extended search
- scripting (in 4 languages with "stepping")
- syntax highlight
- unicode support and encoding conversion
- inbuilt nc-like file manager, ftp client
- etc.
With such a full list of features, it's still remarkably
easy to use.
Like many of you, I have used Qedit since the Dos days
before Tse came along. I'd love to see Tse evolve into
a more modern editor and live for many years to come.
On Mon, 20 Apr 2009, Why Tea wrote: > When I was trying out various Windows free text editors, I > noticed that many of the Tse features implemented in macros > were standard features. I won't mention some of the nice
...
It isn't clear from what you say whether or not these editors can execute commands from within the editor* - a basic function I use in TSE every day many times over. (Of course it's something emacs could always do, but the only way I'd be really happy with emacs would be to recreate my tse environment in it - and why not just use tse!?!)
-= rags =-
* PS - if it's not clear what I mean by this, here's an example. You are working on your (eg) tex file, you then hit a key making the editor save the file, execute tex on the file (to compile the code), then returns to your spot in the tex file when it finishes. Similarly you could launch a viewer, a spell checker, or whatever, always returning to your spot in the file (while the command executes in the background.
What is code folding or text folding, exactly? I remember this coming up before, but have forgotten what it is.
As for desired features for TSE's future, all I can say is to remind myself why I took to QEdit and TSE to start with and whether anything has changed significantly enough for me to make a change to another editor.
When QEdit came out, the max number of files that could be loaded for all other editors and word processors I was aware of was 9. QEdit could load as many files as you had memory for.
Second, speed. QEdit did EVERYTHING superfast. Nothing else even came close, even on my old 4mHz PC using floppies.
Third, QEdit offered a complete redefintion possibility for all of its key assignments, which I used extensively to suit my own preferences. My fingers could do the walking the way I wanted them to, not bound to someone else's idea of what key should do what, usually making a user hang from a tree like an orangutan for some of the key definitions.
Lastly, QEdit was free forever if you were so disposed to be a jerk that way. There was no trial period or limitations to the program. This kind of thinking at that time was unusual and much appreciated by me as I usually took longer to discover if I can use a program than most others.
With these notions in mind, I was happy when the day came that I realized that this was likely the best software that I would ever use for my purposes, and I ponied up for a license. TSE has carried on in much the same way, but with more power and I still support it.
The big question is, in my opinion, "Have my reasons for choosing to use TSE changed from those I had when I first encountered and fell in love with QEdit?
My answer is, no. My reasons for using it are the same and TSE performs those tasks for me. Now that I am learning some SAL, it is even more flexible and pleasant to use than ever.
Finally, I always fear when new versions come about for any program. Some I could mention are so heavily laden with features that they are about as useful as having Arnold Swartzenegger threading needles. I hope it remains as flexible, simple, and powerful as it is now.
I might also mention that it is well to remember what TSE's purpose for existing is. TSE is a text editor, not a word processor or exotic utility. For producing prodigious amounts of text or programming code, there's none better.
I WAS saddened to learn that a Linux version was coming rather than a Mac version. I've been itching to buy a Mac for ages and would have had a TSE been written for it.
Instead, I got a Dell. or , depending on your viewpoint.
FYI this isn't romanticism or nostalgia. TSE still ranks highly on the damned-effective scale. It lacks some eye-candy you'll find in other editors hence it's less appealing to new users, but that doesn't make it more dated.
I checked out RJTexted. Thanks for the link, I hadn't seen that one before. [And what's with editors and Delphi? Seems like a popular choice I see pop up, more so than other types of software I run into.] But RJTexted is...very different.
I want a *text editor*.
RJTexted has a very...busy...user interface. I like Servant Salamander for my File Manager, thank you very much. And Explorer is adequate when used in small doses. A 'preview' mode is cute, but I don't live in markup editors, so if you're a heavy HTML/XHTML author you might find this more appealing. And the UI is somewhat...loose, to my eye. The general layout, padding and spacing of GUI elements are bit less...crisp, for my taste. I haven't checked out the scripting capabilities so can't say how it fares. I'll have to take a closer look when i get a moment, as it's interesting enough to be worth a deeper peek. But so far, TSE's still preferable.
On Mon, Apr 20, 2009 at 8:42 PM, Why Tea <ytl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Apr 20, 9:13 am, "Mike Boyd" <mb...@atlis.com> wrote: > > Hello all,
> > I have used TSE since its beginnings. In my opinion, nothing comes close > > to its ease and benefits
> I used to think the same. I also believe that used to be the > case. Not anymore, as many text editors have caught up. Besides, > the limitation of memory and storage are no longer an issue. With > today's CPU, speed is not a problem either. So, what makes Tse > attractive in today's environment? I think because we are all > very familiar with it. To me, I pick the power of the scripting > language to be my main reason of staying with Tse because I'm > so used to the customized macros I wrote over the years.
> When I was trying out various Windows free text editors, I > noticed that many of the Tse features implemented in macros > were standard features. I won't mention some of the nice > features that can only be done in GUI. I have tried and kept > notepad++, pspad and RJ Texted. Just for the sake of comparison, > have a look at R J Texted: http://www.rj-texted.se/ about > the following features: > - search/extended search > - scripting (in 4 languages with "stepping") > - syntax highlight > - unicode support and encoding conversion > - inbuilt nc-like file manager, ftp client > - etc. > With such a full list of features, it's still remarkably > easy to use.
> Like many of you, I have used Qedit since the Dos days > before Tse came along. I'd love to see Tse evolve into > a more modern editor and live for many years to come.
Look on the bright side. At least on the Mac there's TextMate (and perhaps BBEdit) so you'll only realize how close it could be and *semi-regularly* yearn for TSE.
On Linux, I never found an editor worth a damn I could stand that didn't make me *constantly* yearn for TSE. And yes, I tried several. Bleh.
P.S. I see 'E', the Windows-inspired implementation of TextMate, just went open source (sorta). Interesting to see if it's Mac port shapes up to beat TextMate before (if) TextMate 2.0 ever gets released.
I can't see a Mac port of TSE, FWIW. Sure, I'd love to see one. But it wouldn't be very...Cocoa-ish...so it wouldn't appeal to most Mac users --or-- it WOULD be, gone all GUI ga ga, but then it wouldn't be TSE anymore.
How heavy is a VMware Fusion process to host TSE? :->
On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 8:36 AM, Hayes Smith <hayes_sm...@hotmail.com>wrote:
> I might also mention that it is well to remember what TSE's purpose for > existing is. TSE is a text editor, not a word processor or exotic utility. > For producing prodigious amounts of text or programming code, there's none > better.
> I WAS saddened to learn that a Linux version was coming rather than a Mac > version. I've been itching to buy a Mac for ages and would have had a TSE > been written for it.
> Instead, I got a Dell. [image: Smiley emoticon] or [image: Sad smiley > emoticon] , depending on your viewpoint. [image: Smiley emoticon]
It is folding your text blocks together to a single line.
Very similar to a file directory structure in Windows Explorer. If you in the left pane click on the '+' you expand the directory (e.g. c:\Program Files" with the files in it out. If you click the '-' you make it small again.
----- Original Message ----- From: knud van eeden<mailto:knud_van_ee...@yahoo.com> To: semware@googlegroups.com<mailto:semware@googlegroups.com> Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 2009 11:43 AM Subject: [TSE] Re: Desired text editing features
> What is code folding or text folding, exactly?
It is folding your text blocks together to a single line.
Very similar to a file directory structure in Windows Explorer. If you in the left pane click on the '+' you expand the directory (e.g. c:\Program Files" with the files in it out. If you click the '-' you make it small again.
I bought the paid version at the time, because it had a lot of innovative features, and used Cygwin, and scripting languages like Python, Perl, ... to do its automation, and use it very briefly sometimes.
---
But it shows again and again that nothing in general is better than TSE for me. Still my most used program in all circumstances overall everywhere.
with friendly greetings, Knud van Eeden
________________________________ From: knud van eeden <knud_van_ee...@yahoo.com> To: semware@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 2009 6:39:43 PM Subject: [TSE] Re: Desired text editing features
> P.S. I see 'E', the Windows-inspired implementation of TextMate, just went open source (sorta).
If you ever worked with Lotus Notes mail client, in which they had created with databases, you possibly remember that text folding feature, where it is used heavily.
I currently personally do not have a strong need to use such a feature. I like to see it all. Of course if it is implemented in TSE it will be used.
One could maybe temporarily store (the text block information which you fold away) in some data structure like a buffer or an external datafile or memory. Using a method similar or analog to how an 'undo' and 'redo' is implemented in TSE. And when you need to see it put it back again.
But maybe working more on the native level of TSE would be preferable (faster, always possible, ...)
Hopefully I'll get the Linux version running under OpenBSD. My bonds of affection with vi are strained.
--
Ed Ahlsen-Girard Senior Network Engineer TYBRIN Corporation tybrin.com 850-337-2830 (mobile 850-543-9843) 850-337-2885 (fax) This e-mail and any files transmitted with it are the property of TYBRIN Corporation, are TYBRIN PROPRIETARY, and are intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to which this email is addressed. If you are not one of the named recipient(s) or otherwise have reason to believe that you have received this message in error, please delete this message immediately. Any other use, retention, dissemination, forwarding, printing, or copying of this e-mail is strictly prohibited.
From: semware@googlegroups.com [mailto:semware@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Hayes Smith Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 2009 10:36 AM To: semware@googlegroups.com Subject: [TSE] Re: Desired text editing features
I might also mention that it is well to remember what TSE's purpose for existing is. TSE is a text editor, not a word processor or exotic utility. For producing prodigious amounts of text or programming code, there's none better.
I WAS saddened to learn that a Linux version was coming rather than a Mac version. I've been itching to buy a Mac for ages and would have had a TSE been written for it.
Instead, I got a Dell. [cid:image001....@01C9C280.086D6800] or [cid:image002....@01C9C280.086D6800] , depending on your viewpoint. [cid:image001....@01C9C280.086D6800]
----- Original Message ----- From: Ed Ahlsen-Girard (TYBRIN Corp.)<mailto:Ed.Ahlsen-gir...@tybrin.com> To: 'semware@googlegroups.com'<mailto:'semware@googlegroups.com'> Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 2009 12:52 PM Subject: [TSE] Re: Desired text editing features
Hopefully I'll get the Linux version running under OpenBSD. My bonds of affection with vi are strained.
--
Ed Ahlsen-Girard Senior Network Engineer TYBRIN Corporation tybrin.com 850-337-2830 (mobile 850-543-9843) 850-337-2885 (fax) This e-mail and any files transmitted with it are the property of TYBRIN Corporation, are TYBRIN PROPRIETARY, and are intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to which this email is addressed. If you are not one of the named recipient(s) or otherwise have reason to believe that you have received this message in error, please delete this message immediately. Any other use, retention, dissemination, forwarding, printing, or copying of this e-mail is strictly prohibited.
From: semware@googlegroups.com [mailto:semware@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Hayes Smith Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 2009 10:36 AM To: semware@googlegroups.com Subject: [TSE] Re: Desired text editing features
I might also mention that it is well to remember what TSE's purpose for existing is. TSE is a text editor, not a word processor or exotic utility. For producing prodigious amounts of text or programming code, there's none better.
I WAS saddened to learn that a Linux version was coming rather than a Mac version. I've been itching to buy a Mac for ages and would have had a TSE been written for it.
Instead, I got a Dell. or , depending on your viewpoint.
> You mention CodeFolding and Printing. Both would be improvements, but not > fundamental improvements most would find helpful. Some, yes, but only > some.
I'm a bit surprised by this statement; you're probably the first programmer I have ever heard say that folding was not completely indispensible, once they've used it. To me, it's as critical as the projects feature. Personally, I'd find it hard to live without either.
Just curious; what type of programming are you involved with?
Regards, Jim
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