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| Tom Cant |
 Posted: Wed Dec 16, 2009 10:43 am |
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Registered User
Joined: 16 Dec 2009
Posts: 8
Location: Essex, England
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Greetings!
I'v been programming for around 10 years and have been in search of the best editor for nearly as long. For a long time I worked with VC++ which was actually perfect for C++. Now, I use PHP and sadly MS do not have their own PHP editor. A friend of mine uses Textmate for Mac and pointed me in the direction of e, which having used for the last few days at work seems to be near perfect (well, the actual code editing is better than I'v seen anywhere else). Anyway, enough of my life story... I have a couple of requests before I spend my hard earned money on this thing.
1) Upon highlighting a variable e should highlight all other occurrences of that variable in the current document. Netbeans and Notepad++ both do this and it's __extremely__ useful.
2) I want to click inside an HTML tag and have e highlight the opening/closing tag. Very handy for checking your nested elements are nested correctly!
3) I want to be able to close all documents and see a blank workspace. A lot of good editors fail on this. Why must there always be an open document?
4) I really like the integrated FTP access. I'v used it every day since getting e. It lacks a very simple feature, however. There are already buttons for creating new files/folders, but what about deleting them? And perhaps copying/moving them? It would be nice to just drag files around in the project view and have a right click menu for deleting them.
5) Is it just me, or does e forget about the tab settings in the status bar every time you restart it?
6) Ctrl + / for commenting/un-commenting code. With the language set to PHP and tab settings to (2 spaces, soft), I'm getting some strange output.
Code: {
function beforeFilter(){
$this->Auth->allow('upload');
}
}
When using Ctrl + / to comment out the function inside the brackets, I get this:
Code: {
// function beforeFilter(){
// $this->Auth->allow('upload');
// }
}
Ctrl + / again and I get this:
Code: {
function beforeFilter(){
$this->Auth->allow('upload');
}
}
So extra tabs are being added unnecessarily.
Ctrl + / works fine when the highlighted code is not nested (i.e. when it sits 0 spaces/tabs from the gutter).
7) When using e's search feature, I want to know how many occurrences of my search term there are in the current document. This is helpful because if there is only one occurrence, then you don't need to click next to find that out. This request really isn't as urgent as the ones above.
Apart from those small things, I think e is the best editor I'v seen so far. However, I cannot justify spending money on it while these problems still exist.
Otherwise, very nice indeed! Keep up the good work, Alexander.
[edit]: Added feature request number 7. |
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| charlesroper |
| Posted: Thu Dec 17, 2009 3:02 pm |
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Registered User
Joined: 06 Mar 2007
Posts: 1211
Location: UK
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Tom,
Thanks for the detailed feedback. Regarding your points:
1) This would make a great feature - +1 from me. Please consider adding it to UserVoice so people can vote:
http://etexteditor.uservoice.com/pages/4047-e-text-editor
2) HTML tag highlighting is the second most requested feature on UserVoice and so I suspect it's on Alexander's agenda. He (or adamv) implement 'quick win' features fairly quickly, so it's usually safe to assume that if an often requested feature isn't implemented soon (which this hasn't), then it's tricky to code for whatever reason. I'm just guessing here of course - if I'm wrong (I often am!), hopefully Adam or Alexander will step in to correct me.
3) Could you elaborate on why you'd like a blank workspace instead of a blank doc? What is the benefit?
4) FTP support is very basic at present. I don't know how committed Alexander is to improving it. It probably wouldn't be wise to hold out for improvements in this area and instead use something like WinSCP or FileZilla (which intergrate nicely with E) for advanced FTP work.
5) This is a bug in the current version, I think
6) This functionality is provided by the "Comment Line / Selection" command in the Source bundle. The author's (James Edward Gray II) email address is included in the source. You probably need to contact him regarding this issue. I don't think it is specific to E. Can anyone confirm this behaviour on Textmate? (perhaps your fried with Textmate can confirm?)
7) Sounds like a useful feature; +1
Quote: Apart from those small things, I think e is the best editor I'v seen so far. However, I cannot justify spending money on it while these problems still exist.
Seriously dude, ~£20 is not a lot to ask for the best editor you've ever seen. By purchasing, you support the development effort and therefore you're more likely to see the features you desire implemented. E is pretty much a one-man-band operation, with some community support (mainly adamv at present), so in purchasing you're making a very direct contribution. |
_________________
Charles Roper
twitter.com/charlesroper |
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| Tom Cant |
| Posted: Fri Dec 18, 2009 3:14 pm |
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Registered User
Joined: 16 Dec 2009
Posts: 8
Location: Essex, England
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Thanks for the reply. I posted a feature request on UserVoice, 420875-variable-highlighting. (I don't have link posting privileges yet. Perhaps someone else can post it as a link?) This feature is most important to me.
As for the blank workspace... perhaps this is just a personal thing. Like I said in my first post, I worked for some years with VC++ which is a full-blown project managing IDE and you didn't always need a document to be open. A blank workspace says to me that I'm not working on anything at the moment. I have my project files in the project view and when I want to work on something I'll open the relevant files from there. It's just always been the way... at least my way, anyway. There should be an option to turn it off.
The FTP panel is indeed very basic. I don't like the idea of keeping FileZilla open just so I can delete or move a file every once in a while. From a programming perspective, it really wouldn't take long to implement a right click menu for files/folders. It would be a nice feature to have in my opinion.
I think I will probably end up buying the product. Like you say, it's only £20 and that's a fair price to pay for the best editor I'v seen. I guess it's a case of, if I pay my good money for it, I want to be sure I will see changes in the (near) future. |
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| i0nutzb |
| Posted: Fri Dec 18, 2009 4:10 pm |
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Registered User
Joined: 05 Dec 2007
Posts: 195
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You can just select the file you want to delete and press... Delete 
Not a visibile option tho |
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| charlesroper |
| Posted: Fri Dec 18, 2009 4:45 pm |
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Registered User
Joined: 06 Mar 2007
Posts: 1211
Location: UK
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| Tom Cant |
| Posted: Fri Dec 18, 2009 7:05 pm |
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Registered User
Joined: 16 Dec 2009
Posts: 8
Location: Essex, England
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i0nutzb wrote: You can just select the file you want to delete and press... Delete
Not a visibile option tho
Ah ha! Thank you very much. It would still be good to see a button of sorts, though... for completeness! Is there a trick up your sleeve for moving/copying files by any chance? I highly doubt there is, but it's worth asking!
@charlesroper: Thanks very much. I see you already voted.
@everyone-else: Please vote!
Thanks. |
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| i0nutzb |
| Posted: Fri Dec 18, 2009 8:18 pm |
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Registered User
Joined: 05 Dec 2007
Posts: 195
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You can move filse from/to folders by dragging them. But you cannot upload files  |
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| Tom Cant |
| Posted: Fri Dec 18, 2009 9:18 pm |
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Registered User
Joined: 16 Dec 2009
Posts: 8
Location: Essex, England
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i0nutzb wrote: You can move filse from/to folders by dragging them. But you cannot upload files
This works locally, but not for remote folders, i.e. not with the FTP feature. Please remember to vote |
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