Bye

[jeffy]

After fifteen years--or close to it--I'm moving on to Sublime Text 3. I've written a post about it.

http://aliteralmind.wordpress.com/2014/ ... o_sublime/

I mean no disrespect, and I spend much of the post discussing what TextPad does better.

It's been a great ride.

:(

[kengrubb]

I took a look at Sublime. Looks interesting, but the intuitive [IMHO] ways of TP just weren't there. For me, Sublime just seemed too much of the Notepad++ ilk in terms of it's interface and functionality. The uphill climb looks pretty significant to get from TP to Sublime. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Version 3 still in Beta?

[jeffy]

It is a bit of a climb, but it's been less than two weeks since I started, and I'm reasonably comfortable now.

It is beta, but I've had very little problems with it. My limited impression is that it's certainly good enough for real use.

TextPad used to be rock solid. Pre version 6 I'd say. It's still solid, but it does crash every now and then.

[ben_josephs]

Does it support multiple overlapping document windows?

[kengrubb]

I had a couple of persistent problems with 7.2 and 7.3, but TP 7.4 has been rock solid for me.

[jeffy]

Does it support multiple overlapping document windows?

If you mean multiple application instances, with a separate project in each, then yes, it does.

[jeffy]

Does it support multiple overlapping document windows?

Wait a minute. I think you mean this:

https://code.tutsplus.com/courses/perfe ... it-windows

(It requires a website registration, but it's a video in a multi-video course on Sublime that I highly recommend.)

So: Overlapping? No. But I think you'll find this to be a great--and perhaps better--alternative. You can save specific window layouts so, for instance, document 1 takes up 33% of the left, and documents two and three take up the right 67%, splitting it 50/50 horizontally.

You can save these view-layouts, associate key commands to them, and then freely move documents around each of the panes. And each pane can have one or more document tabs. But most importantly, views are *not* associated to specific documents. A three-pane view (for example) can be used with *any* three documents, and they can be moved wherever you like, with the mouse, or with key commands (and there's a few plugins that help with this).

Watch the video. I'm curious what you think.

[ben_josephs]

Before I can see beyond the beginning of that tutorial I have to sign up for a "free" trial, and to do that I have to give my credit card details to a company about which I know nothing. I haven't given them my credit card details, so I haven't seen much of the tutorial.

Freely resizable and movable overlapping windows are essential to the way I work. I have hundreds of TextPad workspaces, and many of them contain dozens of document windows, which cannot be arranged in any reasonable non-overlapping way. Within each workspace I can place each document in a window with its own convenient size and position, without affecting the size or position of any other document window, and in an arrangement that is different from that of any other workspace. When I reopen a workspace each document appears exactly where I left it, reminding me what I was doing when I last worked in that workspace.

TextPad is not perfect, but for me any editor that doesn't support multiple overlapping document windows is not a competitor to TextPad.

[jeffy]

You do not have to provide your credit card. You can sign up for a "premium" account via the "14-day trial", or you can sign up for a free account. Don't click the 14-day trial button. There's another way to do it. The entire Sublime tutorial is available to free accounts.

I'd like to understand your workflow better. Is the benefit of this being able to switch between documents faster? If that happens to be it, Sublime's "Go To Anything" dialog (especially in combination with "projects" and a few plugins) makes switching between documents, open or closed, way faster than in TextPad. There's a video about in in my post.

Once you're *in* a document, TextPad is faster in some important ways, but moving between files and projects and workspaces, Sublime wins big.

[ben_josephs]

Is the benefit of this being able to switch between documents faster?

No.

Editing in a GUI application is very much a visual activity. How the documents being edited are presented is a central part of the user's experience.

I want my session to look like this:

Code: Select all

 -------------------               ----------
|                   | ------------|          |
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|                   ||            |          |
|                   | ------------|          |
|                   |----------   |          |
|                   |          |  |          |
|                   |         ----|          |
|                   |        |    |          |
|                   |---     |    |          |
|                   |   |    |     ----------
|                   |   |    |               |
 -------------------    |    |               |
      |                 |    |               |
      |                 |    |               |
       -----------------     |               |
                  |          |               |
                   ---------- ---------------

not like this:

Code: Select all

 ------------------  ------------  ----------
|                  ||            ||          |
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|                  ||            ||          |
|                  ||            ||          |
|                  | ------------ |          |
|                  | ------------ |          |
|                  ||            ||          |
|                  ||            | ----------
|                  ||            | ----------
|                  ||            ||          |
 ------------------ |            ||          |
 ------------------ |            ||          |
|                  ||            ||          |
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|                  ||            ||          |
 ------------------  ------------  ----------

[jeffy]

I've only ever had a single document displaying, so I wouldn't choose either setup, truthfully. If I had a huge 27" monitor, I might try multiple documents per window. I "only" have a 19" widescreen :)

So you just like how it looks then. It's not a functional thing. At least, as far as the difference between overlapping and neatly grid-ified.

[ben_josephs]

I've only ever had a single document displaying

It would be impossible for me to do my work with only one document being displayed at a time.

It's not a functional thing.

No, it is a functional thing in anything other than a very narrow understanding of what constitutes the functionality of an application with a graphical interface. How things are presented in such an application is a crucial part of its functionality. Consider the case of a graphical editor that has all the commands of your favourite editor but which displays just one character at a time. It differs from your editor just in its presentation, but as a graphical editor it is not functional in any useful sense.

You suggested that my way of working is not "neat". It is precisely the fact that the arrangement of my documents is not in a neat grid that makes it so effective in bringing my mind back to the state it was in when it last saw those documents.

[jeffy]

I think I understand. No disrespect intended.

[Ryck]

After fifteen years--or close to it--I'm moving on to Sublime Text 3. I've written a post about it.

http://aliteralmind.wordpress.com/2014/ ... o_sublime/

I mean no disrespect, and I spend much of the post discussing what TextPad does better.

It's been a great ride.

I agree with your points. It is basically a product that has changed very little over the years.

The only major improvements was support for operating system features beyond Windows XP. Unicode support after it was added it still rather poor. I use UltraEdit for Unicode.

I also find the developer(s) absence from their products' discussion strange and disconcerting.

The MOST ANNOYING thing is non-editable macros.

UltraEdit's script language is based on Java. UltraEdit also has a keystroke macro like TextPad's but ... GET THIS .... YOU CAN EDIT IT!!!! And it comes with a load of macro snippets one can add. And what can be done in keyboard macro can be translated to its scripting language.

I say this only to show the developer(s) of TextPad what's out there for along time.

Yes, I'm used to TextPad that when it comes to the basic stuff, TextPad is still my editor of choice even though I'm already familiar in doing the same things in UltraEdit.

My two cents.

[kengrubb]

I've used UE in the past, and it's RE Find has lied to me, more than once.