how long before leaving TP due to lack of upgrades?

[s_reynisson]

Just to be clear here, Helios did not come up with this "poorest excuse" you heard of. I did so and I'm in no way connected to them, well, I do use their editor. Perhaps I should make that even more clear by stating that this is not even an excuse, just my theory based on very little except for what I've seen here on the forums.

Helios ... snip... who are using the poorest excuse I've ever heard for not upgrading their product (and who took a year to come up with that excuse).

Sure it does, for me. You may need a signed statement or a formal press release, I don't.

And a single "it's under development" statement does not "confirmation" make.

[vr8ce]

Just to be clear here, Helios did not come up with this "poorest excuse" you heard of. I did so and I'm in no way connected to them, well, I do use their editor. Perhaps I should make that even more clear by stating that this is not even an excuse, just my theory based on very little except for what I've seen here on the forums.

Yes, let's do be clear. Helios confirmed that excuse a couple of months ago (could have been more, time flies when you're waiting on an upgrade). Thread on here somewhere, I may try to find it later.

[talleyrand]

s_reynisson floated the theory that the next release will come with the next release of Windows. Helios has been mum.

Ultimately, TextPad does meet your needs or it does not. If it doesn't, you have the choice to find one that meets your needs. The only need I see that you have requested is the improved regular expression engine. There are plenty of editors that will provide that functionality.

Helios runs their business as they see fit, they own it, it's their decision. They are cognizant of the fact that their users want to know what is upcoming, when it's coming, how much it'll cost, if it'll make cotton candy and if it'll keep me from making logic errors. They have said they do not publish information about upcoming releases and have no plans to change that.

They are not developers in absentia, they are developers working on the next release of their product. They have confirmed TextPad has not been abandoned. They have confirmed it is being actively worked on and will be released when it is ready.

You are entitled to feel that a single statement does not mean they have confirmed it is under development but I do not comprehend why you'd feel this way. Has Helios lied about their products before? "Foo will be released 28 Thermidore. Bar (tm) will have flying fizzywidgets!!!" To my knowledge, no, they have not. They do not make bold promises on delivery dates or features only to let their users down. They plod on doing their work and present us with the fruits of their labours when it is done.

TP5 might be deployed tomorrow. It might come next year. Those that don't know, guess it'll be end of the year, early next year. If you can wait, you'll wait, if you can't, you'll find another editor. Spewing vitriol because of the great injustice of waiting for a product to be delivered that has no set delivery date seems a waste of energy.

Finally, I'll quote myself because I still feel the same way. This was in a thread about when will TP5 come out.

I sincerely hope the answer is "when it's ready." I understand people's pain and frustration with no apparent redress of issues but think about what they're developing, a text editor. For those of you who make your living writing with it, would you rather have your gracefully aging, rock stable editor or one with the latest features that would make you happy except it keeps crashing and or corrupting your livelihood? For me, I'm far happier with a good and stable product versus one that is rushed out the door just to satiate the clamoring masses.

[SteveH]

s_reynisson floated the theory that the next release will come with the next release of Windows. Helios has been mum.

Not quite. In an earlier thread Helios does appear to confirm that the release is tied in to that of Vista to some extent.

s_reynisson: Another possible factor would of course be Microsoft's Windows Longshot... er.. Longhorn. So if that's out at the start of '06, TP's next major some weeks/months before that?

Helios: Very perceptive of you talleyrand and s_reynisson. Having more or less hit the nail on the head…

My personal view is that if users find an alternative that works as well for them they should go for it. Helios have made a business decision - one that is very common in all industries (try getting advance information and release dates from Barebones Software, General Motors or any other business where there is no monopoly!) - and will have to stand by the consequences of that strategy. While I find the wait for updates as frustrating as anyone, I have not yet found an alternative that works as well or is as useable long-term.

[rstone]

Why complain about the slow pace of TextPad development? If you want a relatively inexpensive text editor that is aggressively updated then download a trial copy of UltraEdit. Ian Meade has always had the right idea: Keep adding features and they will come, not just to buy the product, but for the upgrade licenses too.

When TextPad 4.0 arrived it was neck-and-neck with UltraEdit for features (which was also at version 4.0). Now, UltraEdit 11 is available and includes:
code folding
function/procedure lists
auto completion lists for function/procedure arguments
ctag indexing and browsing

This is a product that doesn't stand still. Sure, I still keep TextPad on my desktop because I paid for a 4.0 license and it is still valid, but for programming, I am in UltraEdit everyday. When TextPad 5.0 arrives I doubt that I am upgrading.

There are only 2 kinds of businesses, the quick and the dead.

[talleyrand]

Thank you for the forum spam. I'm sure Helios will be deleting your advertisement shortly. Let's be mature people here, we do not camp your boards pointing out the shortcomings of your editor. This discussion is about the future development of Textpad.

And for what it's worth, arguing that release numbers indicate anything about the quality of the product is pathetic. Makes me think of Spinal Tap, "This one goes up to 11"

[elric]

I have not been here for a while, mainly because the email I had on this profile is no longer active (I started this thread.) Good to see the discussion.

I'm in Linux land now and abandoned TextPad as a working tool (still have it on my private laptop for minor stuff.) Reading the thread, I find it odd that Helios decided to interact with us only when people mentioned competitors and even then did not address the issues at hand.

When people tell me something would be done by DD/MM I always ask for the YYYY. So I did not get a fuzzy feeling with "we're working on v5." The whole Vista coupling is not plausible either. v4.7.3 was released on June 19, 2004... I don't think there is much to add here. The thing is, Helios made a wonderful product but is not keeping up with its users and ultimately will lose money. Maybe they don't care, but it should be very apparent from this thread.

If I go back to windows (extremely unlikely considering the Vista shenanigans) I'll look for TP again... I'll definitely be delighted to hear when it is available for Linux... if it's not too late and I have gotten used to another editor, that is.

I never thought I'll get attached to someone else's piece of code.

[kengrubb]

I guess I do not get all the fuss. TextPad is a text editor and a darned good one. It will not end hunger or poverty, it will not bring peace to the Middle East, and it will not bring about a National Sales Tax to replace the Federal Income Tax.

TextPad does many things others editors cannot do. I occasionally go looking to see if there is a better mousetrap out there, but thus far, I have not found it. I sometimes find other tools--some free and some for which I must pay--that fill in gaps and give me the capability to do other things more efficiently.

When I bought TextPad version 4 dot something or other in 1999, I paid a little under $20, I think, and that license still works for the current 4.7.3 version. Most products charge for an upgrade about every year or two. I have gotten over 6 years use out of TextPad.

Some of my coworkers use CodeWright to cut code. I looked at CodeWright about 6 years ago when I started using TextPad, but I could not see any possible benefit to me in using CodeWright to cut Unisys mainframe COBOL code. [These days I am using TextPad to cut HP NonStop, formerly Tandem, COBOL code.] I also could see no benefit to paying $300 for a CodeWright license, and some fraction thereof every couple of years for upgrades.

In summary, I would very much like to see an upgrade to TextPad--if for no other reason than I want to know TextPad is not going away. I am happy with TextPad as is, but I would like to see some issues resolved and some features added. However, I will keep using TextPad until something significantly better comes along.

[VoxEcho]

This Forum isn't the place for advertising software which is in direct competition with our own, so any such entries will be deleted.

I find it sad that the only response from helios on this thread is to warn against trolling. While I can understand their opinion, it seems to me that that shows very little regard for their customer base.

maybe that's just me.
-Echo

[Ryck]

There are things I'd love to see in TP being updated:

- more than 2 splits per window (or being able to get a New Window view of the same document). I'm finding increasing need for this one.
- an actual macro scripting language (ecmascript maybe?). I can't even get their Save Macro thing to work so I can look at what the file has.

To name two.

I've been wishing for editable macros for years. Macro scripting language would be fine but VBA would be MUCH better!

Seems to me that Helios is one person rather than a company of individuals working under the same roof. What else explains the slow response to user input for enchancements? Maybe it's time he open-source TP. Or maybe he needs serious competition from a TP clone that does all this and more.

Mr TextPad Developer, where are you???

[johnbweb]

I don't know about leaving TextPad for lack of upgrades, but I finally gave in a bought my license. That's proof that using the trial version worked for me. It took me a few months to discover that TextPad is well worth the purchase price - just for the Regular Expression support in Search and Replace.

Normally I use Sed for complex search and replace operations on text files, but TextPad makes it so easy to prototype the RegExps, particularly if I'm working on a single text file. For big batch operations, I still use Sed (or AF&R because it can save the search/replace conditions and run them as a batch).

Thanks for such a useful tool. Now, if it only worked properly with Unicode and double-byte text....

John B.

[Denyer]

There are TextPad "clones" ... I'm just finding that very few Windows text editors feature multiline regex. Currently working with NoteTab (which has seen even less development in recent years, but does most of what I want competently) and making my periodic look for an alternative... having looked at this, EditPad and UltraEdit I'm finding TextPad would probably fit the bill with a couple of minor tweaks.

for what it's worth, arguing that release numbers indicate anything about the quality of the product is pathetic.

It indicates active development, which is certainly a useful quality if an editor doesn't do exactly what you want, but would take little effort for a developer to add.

I sincerely hope the answer is "when it's ready."

Beta code is fine, as long as people accept the risks and lack of support.

[pjafrombbay]

If it 'aint broke then why switch.

I have an obsession with text editors (I know, I need to get out more!) and am constantly trying out new ones in both Windows and linux environments. For Windows work (plain text files, web pages (I support two not-for-profit web sites) and Python programming (I'm trying to learn)) I always come back to TextPad; it feels like my old slippers (sorry TextPad developers) and generally works better than any other editors. Code folding might be nice but I wouldn't ditch TextPad because it doesn't have this feature.

There is NOTHING in the Linux world as good as TextPad (in my humble opinion). The lack of a Linux TextPad and a Linux Pretty Good Solitaire (http://www.goodsol.com) are the two issues that stop me making the complete switch from Windoze to Ubuntu Linux.

Regards,
Peter

[Zelator]

I used TextPad for years, it does everything I want, and does it well, but not on Linux, so I don't use it anymore.
Now I have moved to Linux I can find nothing to equal TextPad. I use Kate with an external tool to give me a word count, but there are so many things like macros that it lacks. I would pay again for a Linux version of TextPad, so long as it had a "choose line end for OS" option.
Looking at the poll figures, the number of respondents who are going or have gone should be be ringing alarm bells, especially as the figures will be skewed by the need to register on the forum.
Another post mentioned the macros, and asked for a macro scripting langauge. I would support that, it really helps to be able to write, and edit, macros. Some decades ago I worked on ICL 1900 mainframes, and I have never found anything since to match the 1900 editor for macro scripting.

[pja]

Just a short follow-on point; if you need an editor that has lots of up-dates then why not try PSPad (http://www.pspad.com/en/), its always being up-dated. Doesn't that tell you something?

Regards,
Peter

PS: I don't mean to slag-off PSPad, but it clearly is not as stable nor as feature rich as TextPad.

PS2: Helios, please bring out a Linux version, please!