Hi,
Congratulations for your TextMate software, I just switched to MacOS and I have to say that it seems to be very good. JEdit seems to be still ahead regarding features, but unfortunately it is almost unusable for me under MacOS because it is too slow. So I'm very interrested in TextMate, but it lacks several features I need.
Since it is payware, and because you may be interested in potential users' requests, here is what prevents me from purchasing TextMate for now :
- I use to write large documents in XML, and I use the soft wrapping feature. But unfortunately the indentation is not properly handled in this mode, since only the first "physical" line gets indented. You probably now JEdit does that very well, I may send a screenshot if you wish.
- I need some way to close XML tags automatically with the easyiest possible keystroke. For some reason, the shortcut for this feature does not work on my system (Tiger on iBook G4 and latest version of TextMate). Also, I think that the JEdit way to do this is very good : you just have to type "</" and the rest of the closing tag comes up automatically. For me this is far more natural than typing an arbitrary keystroke.
For me the lack of these two features above is a real show stopper. Also, I have some less important feature requests :
- It seems that it is not possible to use tabs without creating a project. It would be nice to have an option to say where newly open files should be opened (in a tab or a new window).
- I noticed that using the tabulation key when a block is selected does not increment the block but simply deletes it. I assume that there is another shortcut for this, but I think it would be much more convenient to be able to use the tab key as for a single line, as almost all good editors do.
- And of course, having the possibility to have a simple file browser without creating a project would be great. By the way, it also seems weird to me that the project explorer expands at the right of the main window and not at the left, which is quite unusual under MacOS and does not do well with window maximizing functions.
Thanks for your attention,
Best regards, -- Frédérik Bilhaut GREYC - Université de Caen Campus II - Sciences 3 - Bureau 385 http://www.info.unicaen.fr/~fbilhaut
On Sep 25, 2005, at 2:59 AM, Frédérik Bilhaut wrote:
- I use to write large documents in XML, and I use the soft
wrapping feature. But unfortunately the indentation is not properly handled in this mode, since only the first "physical" line gets indented. You probably now JEdit does that very well, I may send a screenshot if you wish.
I have never used an editor that indented soft-wrapped lines. I would think that would be annoying because the editor would control the indentation, not you.
- I need some way to close XML tags automatically with the easyiest
possible keystroke. For some reason, the shortcut for this feature does not work on my system (Tiger on iBook G4 and latest version of TextMate). Also, I think that the JEdit way to do this is very good : you just have to type "</" and the rest of the closing tag comes up automatically. For me this is far more natural than typing an arbitrary keystroke.
It may be possible to write a macro or something to do a closing tag when typing </ without requiring any changes to the actual program, but if so I don't know how. Allan?
For me the lack of these two features above is a real show stopper. Also, I have some less important feature requests :
- It seems that it is not possible to use tabs without creating a
project. It would be nice to have an option to say where newly open files should be opened (in a tab or a new window).
TextMate 1.2 is going to focus on re-doing the entire project interface and, I believe, removing the distinction between individual files and projects, which would solve this issue.
- I noticed that using the tabulation key when a block is selected
does not increment the block but simply deletes it. I assume that there is another shortcut for this, but I think it would be much more convenient to be able to use the tab key as for a single line, as almost all good editors do.
Having the tab key indent the entire line would be contradictory to standard Mac conventions, and in this case I think it's far better to stick to standard Mac conventions. Try hitting opt-tab instead.
- And of course, having the possibility to have a simple file
browser without creating a project would be great. By the way, it also seems weird to me that the project explorer expands at the right of the main window and not at the left, which is quite unusual under MacOS and does not do well with window maximizing functions.
I believe the project drawer is set to open on either side, and it picks the one with more room. If you want to "fix" this, close the drawer, drag the window to the right side of the screen, and re-open it. The drawer will pop open on the left side because there's no room on the right. And it will stay this way until you try to open a new project without enough space on the left for the drawer. This is fairly standard behavior for drawers that aren't fixed to one side or the other.
On 25/09/2005, at 9.15, Kevin Ballard wrote:
On Sep 25, 2005, at 2:59 AM, Frédérik Bilhaut wrote:
- I use to write large documents in XML, and I use the soft
wrapping feature. But unfortunately the indentation is not properly handled in this mode, since only the first "physical" line gets indented. You probably now JEdit does that very well, I may send a screenshot if you wish.
Indented soft wrap is something I plan for 1.3.
I have never used an editor that indented soft-wrapped lines. I would think that would be annoying because the editor would control the indentation, not you.
I haven't used an editor which supported it myself, but I think given proper regexps and setting it on a scope level might allow for quite a lot of flexibility, so e.g. only comments in source code would be wrapped and indented, bullet points would have the bullet included in the indent of next line etc.
- I need some way to close XML tags automatically with the
easyiest possible keystroke. For some reason, the shortcut for this feature does not work on my system (Tiger on iBook G4 and latest version of TextMate).
Not sure if latest version is 1.1b17 from the webpage or actually latest build (rev. 469), you can get the latter from: http:// get.textmate.org -- and I have done some workaround for a menu key problem since the actual 1.1b17, so this might be the problem.
Also, I think that the JEdit way to do this is very good : you just have to type "</" and the rest of the closing tag comes up automatically. For me this is far more natural than typing an arbitrary keystroke.
It may be possible to write a macro or something to do a closing tag when typing </ without requiring any changes to the actual program, but if so I don't know how. Allan?
Indeed it is: In an HTML document, type < (it inserts <>, but ignore that), now do: 1) Automation / Start Macro Recording 2) Backwards delete (to delete <, which also removes >) 3) Automation / Insert Closing Tag 4) Automation / Stop Macro Recording
Now save this macro, give it key equivalent /, and here's the sneaky part: set the scope to: text.html invalid.illegal.incomplete
The scope controls when the macro should “fire”, and if you press ctrl-shift P inside <>, you'll see the scope of that position, which is what's quoted above. So only inside <> will / fire this macro, which first removes the <> and then inserts the closing tag.
In a future version input patterns will be another way to achieve the same, w/o having to use scopes.
- And of course, having the possibility to have a simple file
browser without creating a project would be great.
Try dragging a folder to TextMate, then it'll make a project out of the folder, you can navigate it either using the project drawer, or using Navigation / Go to File (cmd T) which beats most file browsers :)
On Sep 25, 2005, at 1:15 AM, Kevin Ballard wrote:
On Sep 25, 2005, at 2:59 AM, Frédérik Bilhaut wrote: I have never used an editor that indented soft-wrapped lines. I would think that would be annoying because the editor would control the indentation, not you.
FWIW, TextPad on Windows does this, and I find it quite convenient.
On Sep 25, 2005, at 5:04 PM, Gavin Kistner wrote:
On Sep 25, 2005, at 1:15 AM, Kevin Ballard wrote:
On Sep 25, 2005, at 2:59 AM, Frédérik Bilhaut wrote: I have never used an editor that indented soft-wrapped lines. I would think that would be annoying because the editor would control the indentation, not you.
FWIW, TextPad on Windows does this, and I find it quite convenient.
Xcode has an option to do this as well. It doesn't track the indentation properly (1 tab only, ignoring the line's actual indent level), but it's better than nothing.
Chris
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Allan Odgaard -
Chris Thomas -
Frédérik Bilhaut -
Gavin Kistner -
Kevin Ballard