[TxMt] Help with bundles

[Mats Persson]

Note to general reader. This is not intended to put down any other  
application, system, developer or whatever. So *please* don't read  
that into it. ;-)


Neil,  I'm concerned that you are on the verge of making a big  
mistake, something that you will 'curse' yourself for one day, so  
hence this reply.

Yes,...
--  to use and understand all the powerful features of TextMate  
requires a bit of a learning effort. 

--  sometimes the existing documentation and information might not be  
perfect.

--  sometimes it can be hard when you're used to something else. 

BUT...
--  once you get it, once you understand TM, then you quickly begin  
to wonder how and WHY you were wasting your time with other editors,  
and you begin being far more productive than you ever were before.

--  where the documentation lacks, this ML or the #textmate IRC  
channel makes up for it. And please do not discount the fact that  
with Allan - the sole developer - you also have the best, most  
helpful, friendly and clued up app developer that I have met in my 15 
+ years working with computers.

--  everything that's radically new poses that same problem. It's  
sort of like comparing OS X with OS 9, or dare I say Windows. And  
surely you wouldn't want to remain on either of those now, when the  
'rest of the world' is on OS X ? ;-)


Now, onto the abbreviated "How to get the best out of TextMate" guide.

1. When working with a project in BBEdit, you would use a Finder  
window as your project window, where you look for, find and open  
files in the project.
In TM, that is possible through either...
-- the Project Drawer. A part from a few issues that will be  
addressed in 1.2, this beats working with the Finder hands down.
-- or Cmd+T which brings up a tiny search window that's smarter than  
you might think looking at it. (requires a Project to work though)

2.  When working with web development (like both of us do), you have  
a choice between working with the various bundles. Any flaws or  
failings in this area are mainly due to yours truly and others, and  
not really Allan or TM, and exists due to limitations in time and  
energy among us users/bundle developers.

Although imperfect at the moment, doing web development is a much  
nicer experience in TM, where you have features like this:

--  TM has a far more advanced syntax highlighting system, and it's  
scope system can enable you to highlight specific embedded  
languages / tags / functions in almost any way you wish if you so  
choose. The PHP syntax embedded in (X)HTML is one good example of  
this, although the visual display of this may be dependent upon the  
"Theme" you have enabled. (Pastels on Dark is my theme)

-- TM's scope system in combination with it's Commands, Snippets and  
Macros enables you to make your own time-saving shortcuts, such as  
automatically converting & into & inside HTML text, or the PHP  
completion system - [ www.imediatec.co.uk/tm/phpcc/ ], or so many  
other things. In other words, TM won't let you down, but your  
knowledge and/or imagination can/will.

3.  When you are looking for a feature in TM, that you use in BBEdit,  
there are three places to look.
--  Automation -> Run Command -> TextMate -> Show Keyboard Shortcuts
--  Automation menu in general
--  the general menu bar 

IF you can't find it in either, ask on the ML/IRC or sit down and  
think about IF it's really needed in the first place. If it was it  
would probably have been replicated by now. Why that order ?  Well,  
because Allan, wisely so, has chosen not to hard code features, but  
rather make it easy for us to add or change new/existing features to  
our own liking and/or needs.

4.  "Think Different".  BBEdit made you work in a certain way, TM  
will change much of that. Not for the worse, but for the better, so  
be prepared to let go of your old style, workflow, methods etc, and  
embrace the new. You are not alone in finding it hard to begin with  
in the first few days, but there are plenty of examples of users  
being converted very quickly. I am one of them :)



Finally, a related/un-related point. IF you're not already using  
RubyOnRails to do your web development stuff, then start using it  
now. I wasted a year of not wanting to change my workflow, learn  
something new, etc etc, and now I'm cursing myself to sleep every  
night ;-)  To wet your toes, try out Locomotive [ http:// 
locomotive.sourceforge.net/ ], the single installer app for Rails  
development and the tutorials on [ www.rubyonrails.com ].

Have fun !

On 4 Oct 2005, at 16:59, Neil Lee wrote:
> I'm sorry if this is a totally obvious question, but I'm trying out  
> Textmate after years of using BBEdit and I'm a bit lost.

On 4 Oct 2005, at 18:41, Neil Lee wrote:
> I'm trying really hard to integrate Textmate into my workflow, but  
> there so little that's documented I'm starting to wonder if I can  
> afford the time required to figure it out. It's really too bad -  
> it's pretty obvious how powerful bundles and TM's integration with  
> command line scripting is - but for me time is, unfortunately, money.

On 4 Oct 2005, at 19:03, Neil Lee wrote:
> Le 05-10-04 à 13:53, Allan Odgaard a écrit :
>> Yes, TextMate needs a lot of documentation work, but if you select  
>> Help -> Templates the first line says:
>>   Templates are used when creating new files (currently only from  
>> a project window).
>
> I saw that, but I didn't believe it. :) I just assumed that was a  
> weird oversight that had been fixed but not updated in the help  
> files. I'm not a hardcore programmer, so I would have never assumed  
> that a file template would actually create multiple files - I'm  
> mostly doing web development.
>
> I guess it's back to BBEdit for now, but I'll keep an eye on how TM  
> develops. I already paid the registration fee to support  
> development, after all!

On 4 Oct 2005, at 19:31, Neil Lee wrote:
> And just to be clear, please don't take my griping as all  
> negativity - I really like a lot of what I see in Textmate  
> (especially the very cool tag insertion feature) - it's just that  
> there's so much that's new it's hard to know where to start, or  
> where to look to figure out how to accomplish things.



Kind regards,

Mats

----
"TextMate, coding with an incredible sense of joy and ease"
- www.macromates.com -