[TxMt] opening a file readonly

[Cliff Pruitt]

On Jul 19, 2007, at 11:30 AM, Andy Armstrong wrote:

>
> I think you've missed the point Cliff. There are all sorts of reasons
> why you'd want to open a document read-only. Other editors have great
> r/o support (vim/gvim springs to mind). In general just because you
> don't want to change the document doesn't mean you don't want to work
> with it in a familiar user interface will all the syntax highlighting,
> clever selection modes, folding etc that TextMate brings.
>
> --  
> Andy Armstrong, Hexten

Hey Andy,
I hear where you're coming from and I wont argue with the point that  
TM has a lot of features that are useful when you have no interest in  
editing.  I use it all the time without saving so I sure never  
claimed that it didn't and I'm sure a read only feature is useful to  
many people.  I did claim that TM an editor, not a reader.  To me  
(and I know my opinion is only an opinion) an editor doesn't  
specifically imply a read-only mode.  The vast majority of  
"editors" (Photoshop, Final Cut, Pages, etc...) have no real concept  
of a read-only mode, hence my "... you'd not really *expect* ...".   
vim may have one, but that doesn't really make that feature an  
inherent part of a text editor.  If it did, I'm sure TM would have it  
already.

When Pete sent his first email, he gave no real indication of what he  
was doing with the file, or what he was even reading.  That's why I  
didn't give him a "go find something else" answer, but asked "Is  
there maybe a better tool for what you're trying to do?".  The answer  
might very well be "No" but given the fact that he didn't state what  
the task was, it may very well have been "Yes".  If he's searching  
files, maybe grep would indeed be better. If he's reading some  
free .txt e-book and doesn't want to alter the content maybe he'd  
rather convert it to a PDF.

I completely get what you're saying, but it's not that I missed the  
point, I just asked the first reasonable (imo) question.

I'm honestly not putting down the desire for the feature, it's just  
not an "expected" feature in an editor.  Am I making sense?

- Cliff