TextPad for Linux

BenjiSmith · Post by **BenjiSmith** » Fri Mar 05, 2004 6:39 pm

A few people have mentioned that they'd like to see a *nix version of TextPad appear someday. I'm one of those people, and I couldn't find an offical 5-option poll for it anywhere, so here it is.

s_reynisson · Post by **s_reynisson** » Fri Mar 05, 2004 6:49 pm

Apart from my M$ Links 2001, TP is the reason why I'm using WinXP

rasa · Post by **rasa** » Sat Mar 13, 2004 6:11 pm

Using Wine, I have never been able to install any version of TextPad. The installer would fail with mysterious errors.

Someone does claim to have installed 4.7.2, though:

http://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?app ... sionId=650

I would strongly suggest you first get TextPad working under Wine. Most Linux users would be happy with this solution.

It would give the maximum benefit with a minimum of effort.

lionelb · Post by **lionelb** » Fri Mar 19, 2004 12:03 pm

...already exists... it's called Nedit

tryl · Post by **tryl** » Mon Mar 22, 2004 3:32 pm

Now that TextPad is made only for one OS, it would properbly not be an easy task to make the code multi OS.

I've seen that kind of porting projects kill good software. And it's not like Linux lacks good editors. TextPad is a small, fast and excelent editor, but it can be replaced (please don't flame me for saying that

)

Zamdrist · Post by **Zamdrist** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 5:15 pm

Not that I'm a big Linux guru but Textpad on Linux doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Between vi, sed, awk and grep you can do whatever text manipulation you want to do.

It doesn't make sense, IMHO, to delay development of Textpad on Windows to satisfy a small segement of computer users. Sure it would be 'cool'...but doesn't make much sense to me at least.

Yes the user base for Linux is growing, and continues to grow but is still pretty small. And not many people are expecting to pay for Linux software.

BenjiSmith · Post by **BenjiSmith** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 7:41 am

Zamdrist wrote:Not that I'm a big Linux guru but Textpad on Linux doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Between vi, sed, awk and grep you can do whatever text manipulation you want to do.

Sure, you can do tons of programmatic text manipulation. (And that's why I'm a big fan of perl, which turned sed, awk, and grep into anachronisms) But I'm really not very fond of the current selection of text editors that are available for *nix, for these reasons:

I don't like vi, for the normal reasons why people-who-don't-like-vi don't like vi. Command mode? Geez, I hate that!
Emacs is pretty good, but....
There are no text editors for *nix which implement a decent Muliple Document Interface. I often work with fifty or a hundred files at a time, and I hate hate hate the way emacs/vi handle multiple files at a time.
I would really like to have a scriptable text editor. I think it's really cool how emacs is totally extensible with lisp. But I don't know lisp. And I don't want to learn lisp. I think it's probably far more likely that, within the next year or two, textpad will be available with scripted macros in JavaScript, perl, php, Java, or VB (all languages which I know, and love (to varying degrees)). I'd even settle for Python, Ruby, or Ocaml as TextPad scripting languages, if that's what the world comes to.
I'd prefer to learn only one set of keyboard shortcuts. I already use know all the kb shortcuts for TextPad, since I've been using it in Windows for so long.
I'd prefer to learn only one regex syntax, for doing search & replace from within my editor. (And I'd like it to be a perl-like syntax.) Regexes in EmacsLisp make my stomach go all batty.

skaemper · Post by **skaemper** » Wed Mar 31, 2004 12:55 pm

Hi all,

... and for one or another additional reasons, too.

Anyway, it just didn't find anything as comfortable as TextPad, especially not when it came to programming Ruby (among other things).

But that doesn't stop me from hoping for a Linux port of TextPad. In fact, I'm really really waiting for it.

Now, let's hope for the best.

Cheers

Stephan

CyberSlug · Post by **CyberSlug** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 2:22 am

You may want to look at SciTE http://www.scintilla.org/SciTE.html
It's free for Windows and Linux and offers features such as intellisense-like autocomplete and the collapsing/folding of code blocks.

However, it uses a long text config file instead of Preference Dialog windows.

posthumous · Post by **posthumous** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 2:54 pm

I wonder if textpad could make a serious impact on linux/mac os x/freebsd
because of the already daunting number of free, high quality editors.

anyway, i've always stated that i'd port textpad over to linux/mac os x/
freebsd given the source code.

also, textpad works fine using wine, just don't use the installer, mount
your fat32/ntfs drive and simply copy the whole textpad directory
over to your "program files" area. Textpad under wine sux though,
it just doesn't work like it does on win.

leegee · Post by **leegee** » Fri Apr 02, 2004 2:36 pm

First begged for this years ago - glad to see it's still a thought....

BenjiSmith · Post by **BenjiSmith** » Fri Apr 02, 2004 9:38 pm

posthumous wrote:I wonder if textpad could make a serious impact on linux/mac os x/freebsd because of the already daunting number of free, high quality editors.

There are dozens of free, high-quality text editors for Windows, and yet TextPad is still very popular.

dwelch · Post by **dwelch** » Tue Apr 20, 2004 7:44 pm

Actually TextPad has been running on Wine for a while now, what really bugs me about it though is syntax higlighting. You can change the background colors, but the foreground colors are either black or white, it ignores the colors you chose otherwise...Fix this one little thing and TextPad for linux is a go...

And another thing, is there a utility for saving your textpad preferences so you can move them from one machine to another, I hate having to go in and set up each machine separately (and I clearly dont like the defaults).

Linux does have gedit and kate but they just arent textpad, they are much better than any other *nix offering, but...

s_reynisson · Post by **s_reynisson** » Tue Apr 20, 2004 8:15 pm

First off, vote here. Second, take a look at TP's help file under "How to Transfer Preferences between PC's". Third, in the HOW-TO's you can find this. Hmm, some more here, some possibly outdated, take care you try them out. HTH

dwelch wrote:<snip> And another thing, is there a utility for saving your textpad preferences so you can move them from one machine to another, I hate having to go in and set up each machine separately (and I clearly dont like the defaults). <snap>

BenjiSmith · Post by **BenjiSmith** » Wed Apr 21, 2004 6:18 pm

s_reynisson wrote:First off, vote here. Second, take a look at TP's help file under "How to Transfer Preferences between PC's". Third, in the HOW-TO's you can find this. Hmm, some more here, some possibly outdated, take care you try them out. HTH
dwelch wrote:<snip> And another thing, is there a utility for saving your textpad preferences so you can move them from one machine to another, I hate having to go in and set up each machine separately (and I clearly dont like the defaults). <snap>

Um, did you accidentally reply to the wrong thread?

Community