On 2. Nov 2004, at 16:46, Robin Berjon wrote:

one feature I would really love to have would be the ability to have tabs without needing a project [...]

In the future there'll only be one type of window, and it'll better serve single files and ad hoc scratch projects -- but there's currently no ETA. Probably it'll be 1.1, which is likely to see the light of day before christmas.

I really like tabs but I only occasionally work using projects. Having the option to say "any files I open are opened as a tab in the current window" would positively rock.

If you drag multiple files to the application icon, it creates a scratch project, i.e. groups the files in a single window, but doesn't require a specific project file.

Also, if you new a project (ctrl-command-n) you can drag the proxy icon of existing files to the project drawer -- so it's rather easy to create “projects”. But it'll improve though!

Kind regards Allan

On 03/11/2004, at 4:59 AM, David Casal wrote:

Sorry to bug people again with this, but it's the only thing keeping me from buying textmate right now; otherwise, I'm really happy with it and would wait for SFTP and SVN support patiently; however, I can't really live without XML support, since 80% of my job involves XML editing in some way or another.

Is there any news on what happened to the XML bundle which used to be on the wiki? The svn repo for it is dead, the guy doesn't answer mail.

It is such a pity, because XML syntax highlighting and completion are such a basic, important part of a good editor, IMHO.

If the answer's going to be 'no, texmate is made so you write *your own* bundles, that's why they're there', could you point out how difficult it is to make one, and how to go about starting? (it just seems like reinventing the wheel, IYSWIM)

David,

I imagine that the HTML bundle is a really good starting point -- can you just use the HTML bundle? What's missing from the HTML bundle that we'd need to implement for the XML bundle? If you can start putting together a wishlist of changes based on the HTML bundle and what needs to change for the XML bundle, then I'm happy to build the XML bundle, or even teach you how to do it.

It's pretty easy, and my thinking is that 99% of the work has already been done in HTML.

Justin

Hi Justin,

Thanks for your reply.

On 3 Nov 2004, at 01:51, Justin French wrote:

I imagine that the HTML bundle is a really good starting point -- can you just use the HTML bundle? What's missing from the HTML bundle that we'd need to implement for the XML bundle? If you can start putting together a wishlist of changes based on the HTML bundle and what needs to change for the XML bundle, then I'm happy to build the XML bundle, or even teach you how to do it.

I'm just wondering though, what happened to the existing XML bundle?

In any case,

The HTML bundle is indeed able to highlight syntax for XML efficiently. However, there are weaknesses, from my POV:

-the HTML bundle seems to underline each tag (why does it do that?) -however, it underlines the namespace, not the tag itself, when a namespace is used. For example, map:components will get 'map' highlighted but not components. -because the HTML bundle is not namespace-aware, textmate cannot offer any validation. I don't mean validating against particular schemas, but just whether the document is well-formed XML. Here, we're talking about the fact that if I give <foo><bar>foobar</bar></foo>, the editor will understand I need to close tag <bar> before I can close tag <foo>.

I've never had to write text editor plugins, even less XML-aware editors, so I'm going to be pretty useless at this, though I'm perfectly willing to learn.

I suppose the bundle paradigm in textmate might be similar to the JEdit plugin structure (though that's in Java, and David Hanson is going to call me a blasphemer here). Please look at:

http://plugins.jedit.org/plugins/?XML

The most important parts of that plugin in my working life (and I assume anyone's who is involved in dealing with XML webapps) is tag and entity completion, and well-formed checking.

It's pretty easy, and my thinking is that 99% of the work has already been done in HTML.

Is the Textmate bundle scheme suited to tag-checking, etc.? Or does it simply aim to cope with syn tax highlighting and completion?

Hope to get this off the ground, as the combination of bash scripting and simple interface makes TD my favourite editor right now and I'd like it to stick.

david

On 3 Nov 2004, at 11:32, Allan Odgaard wrote:

On 3. Nov 2004, at 12:05, David Casal wrote:

...

I've never had to write text editor plugins, even less XML-aware editors, so I'm going to be pretty useless at this, though I'm perfectly willing to learn.

Currently there are no plugin support in TM. The syntax highlight files are 100% declarative and contain no code. ATM recursion is not supported (but it's on the to-do), so it won't be able to do the “correct nesting validation” that you seek, but over time, it will be possible (and quite easy ;) ).

I see, thanks for your reply. Just curious though, how high is recursion support in your todo list ? ;-)

...

Is the Textmate bundle scheme suited to tag-checking, etc.? Or does it simply aim to cope with syn tax highlighting and completion?

It can only do limited checks with the current system -- e.g. the HTML syntax checks for bad comments, misplaced ampersands a.s.o., but checking the integrity of a recursive structure is not possible ATM, for this I'd suggest you setup an external command (which can report the line number of where the structure breaks and feed that back to TM).

Beyond my bash magic, sadly.

But, I can't be the only sad b*8stard out there who'd like to have TM point to a structural break? Has anyone done it already? Or, have any pointers?

Anyway, I'll stop hassling you guys now.

d

On 3 Nov 2004, at 11:50, Allan Odgaard wrote:

On 3. Nov 2004, at 12:40, David Casal wrote:

...

I see, thanks for your reply. Just curious though, how high is recursion support in your todo list ? ;-)

I probably shouldn't make my estimates public ;) but it's a 1.1 thing and I think 1.1 betas will start in 4-5 weeks, and 1.1 final will be around christmas.

Wohoo!

Ok so two last questions...do you expect that when you add recursion support, people will be able to use say (oh please) a bundle editor to do things like 'don't let me close parent tags against that namespace unless their child tags are closed' ?

And, are the TD team expecting that things like XML support and other bundles are always going to be up to users to craft? Meaning, will you never yourselves develop bundles? Just wondering, because even though people like Justin French may help newbies like me through making one, XML support (XHTML, XSLT for that matter, see request list) is pretty basic but hugely important stuff to most webapp editor/programmers (though yes, I realise TM came out of DHH working on RoR, Basecamp etc where the XML paradigm is less prevalent).

d

On 03/11/2004, at 10:05 PM, David Casal wrote:

I'm just wondering though, what happened to the existing XML bundle?

no idea... never saw it sorry.

-the HTML bundle seems to underline each tag (why does it do that?)

It was just a styling that was started by David way back, and I picked it up for the HTML bundle... It offers a nice visual cue as to what is the tag, and what are the atts. Most certainly you could edit this styling out of the bundle.

-however, it underlines the namespace, not the tag itself, when a namespace is used. For example, map:components will get 'map' highlighted but not components.

OK, will make sure this is in the XML bundle... currently trying to find out if it's part of XHTML or HTML... or perhaps we'll add it anyway, because there are many XML-like templating languages that are embedded in HTML which use them, like Textpattern (<txp:foo />).

-because the HTML bundle is not namespace-aware, textmate cannot offer any validation. I don't mean validating against particular schemas, but just whether the document is well-formed XML. Here, we're talking about the fact that if I give <foo><bar>foobar</bar></foo>, the editor will understand I need to close tag <bar> before I can close tag <foo>.

TM knows that it needs to use the correct closing order when you use the "Insert Closing Tag" command under the Automation menu, but correct, at this stage, the Syntax Highlighting does not know that your tags are/aren't nested correctly. I think it's beyond what's possible with SH at this stage.

I've never had to write text editor plugins, even less XML-aware editors, so I'm going to be pretty useless at this, though I'm perfectly willing to learn.

There's not a bunch to learn... I'll get a quick version happening by pruning/adding to the HTML one, then we can go back and fourth adding to it, and then schedule it for release with 1.0.2 or .3.

The most important parts of that plugin in my working life (and I assume anyone's who is involved in dealing with XML webapps) is tag and entity completion,

Well, TM doesn't do either of them, and won't for a while, AFAIK. The "completion" is either done with snippets, or it's done by hitting escape, which just looks at what you've already typed further up the page, which is great for a langauge like XML with no set tags, but not so good for HTML at this stage.

and well-formed checking.

I don't think it can do that yet... but future versions might be able to get it sorted. The SH is due for a major re-work at some point after (S)FTP I think.

Is the Textmate bundle scheme suited to tag-checking, etc.? Or does it simply aim to cope with syn tax highlighting and completion?

It's primarily syntax highlighting. We were able to do some nice highlighting of things like bad ampersands to highlight problems, but it can't really check syntax, and it can't really be language aware much more than what it needs to alter presentation of the characters you typed.

I'll email you a bundle in a few days to try out, once I clear some real work off my plate.

Justin

On 3 Nov 2004, at 12:43, Justin French wrote:

On 03/11/2004, at 10:05 PM, David Casal wrote:

...

I'm just wondering though, what happened to the existing XML bundle?

no idea... never saw it sorry.

http://wiki.macromates.com/textmate/show/Bundles

is where I saw it, but the link on that site: http://telly.bravo5.org/svn/repos/TextMate/trunk

gives you:

Expected version '2' of repository; found no version at all; is '/media/subversion/repos' a valid repository path?

...

-the HTML bundle seems to underline each tag (why does it do that?)

It was just a styling that was started by David way back, and I picked it up for the HTML bundle... It offers a nice visual cue as to what is the tag, and what are the atts. Most certainly you could edit this styling out of the bundle.

Oh I see, ok.

...

-however, it underlines the namespace, not the tag itself, when a namespace is used. For example, map:components will get 'map' highlighted but not components.

OK, will make sure this is in the XML bundle... currently trying to find out if it's part of XHTML or HTML... or perhaps we'll add it anyway, because there are many XML-like templating languages that are embedded in HTML which use them, like Textpattern (<txp:foo />).

Thanks!

...

-because the HTML bundle is not namespace-aware, textmate cannot offer any validation. I don't mean validating against particular schemas, but just whether the document is well-formed XML. Here, we're talking about the fact that if I give <foo><bar>foobar</bar></foo>, the editor will understand I need to close tag <bar> before I can close tag <foo>.

TM knows that it needs to use the correct closing order when you use the "Insert Closing Tag" command under the Automation menu, but correct, at this stage, the Syntax Highlighting does not know that your tags are/aren't nested correctly. I think it's beyond what's possible with SH at this stage.

Ok, patience then ;-)

...

I've never had to write text editor plugins, even less XML-aware editors, so I'm going to be pretty useless at this, though I'm perfectly willing to learn.

There's not a bunch to learn... I'll get a quick version happening by pruning/adding to the HTML one, then we can go back and fourth adding to it, and then schedule it for release with 1.0.2 or .3.

Great, thanks, I'll try to get up to speed in how to edit bundles in the meantime.

...

The most important parts of that plugin in my working life (and I assume anyone's who is involved in dealing with XML webapps) is tag and entity completion,

Well, TM doesn't do either of them, and won't for a while, AFAIK. The "completion" is either done with snippets, or it's done by hitting escape, which just looks at what you've already typed further up the page, which is great for a langauge like XML with no set tags, but not so good for HTML at this stage.

Hm. I see. This link:

http://wiki.macromates.com/textmate/show/XSLT

Highlights the problem well, I think. Because XSL is XML, it would be nice to support it but relies on XML support being namespace-aware. Bummer.

...

and well-formed checking.

I don't think it can do that yet... but future versions might be able to get it sorted. The SH is due for a major re-work at some point after (S)FTP I think.

Huh. OK thanks.

I'll email you a bundle in a few days to try out, once I clear some real work off my plate.

Ok I'll wait for that, thank you.

david

Sam Andrews wrote:

To be honest, i find tabs a real pain to use in editors, i often need to have a whole slew of files open (often with idiotically long names thanks to some of the stuff i get given), and as a result i can only fit a handful on my powerbooks screen.

Well that's a matter of taste :) I too often need to open a slew of files, and am happy with two piled up levels of tabs, and sometimes more.

What I do mind however are completely disorganised windows all over the place (eg SubEthaEdit and so many others), or absurdly unusable drop-down file switchers (eg XCode). I also often need to edit a bunch of files that are not logically related together within a project, so I don't want the project overhead (which currently incurs some indirection) or the drawer (which uses screen estate for little gain imho).

But that's text editors, if people agreed about them we'd only have one :-)

On 3. Nov 2004, at 14:17, Sam Andrews wrote:

[...] this sort of behaviour then gets me thinking along the lines of itunes' smart playlists, and whether you could implement a "smart groups" sort of functionality; groups that automatically update themselves based on certain criteria. so you could have "open files", "latest files", "css files" and so on and so forth. could be really useful for extremely large projects.

The details are not in place yet, but the project drawer will see some changes.

speaking of large projects - when i re-focus on textmate having been fannying around with another app, it can take several seconds to become "active".

Are you using 1.0.2b2 or b3? Here I think the problem should be much less severe, although a real “fix” will appear in the future.

Kind regards Allan

On 3 Nov 2004, at 20:19, Brian Lalor wrote:

On Nov 2, 2004, at 12:59 PM, David Casal wrote:

...

Is there any news on what happened to the XML bundle which used to be on the wiki? The svn repo for it is dead, the guy doesn't answer mail.

"The Guy" just needs a gentle reminder.

http://telly.bravo5.org/~blalor/XML.tmbundle.zip

Thanks, "The Guy"

Heh. Thank you, Brian.

d