Community

It's april..

I wish for a utf-8 compatiblity. Unfortunately I have to deal with ultraedit( can't stand) and notepad++ (I miss shortcuts/regex textpad offers...

Here's hoping

fingers crossed! I too would pay for an upgrade if necessary for unicode compatiblity!

bbadmin wrote:The next release of TexPad is scheduled for March.

Didn't say which year.
So only another 11 months to go then

[quote="bbadmin"]The next release of TexPad is scheduled for March.[/quote]

Is it too much to ask for an updated delivery estimate for the next release of Textpad, given that the previous estimate was missed?

Is it too much to ask for an updated delivery estimate for the next release of Textpad

Yep. Welcome to the TP world. It's a wonder we all stick around, really.

PeteTheBloke wrote:

Is it too much to ask for an updated delivery estimate for the next release of Textpad

Yep. Welcome to the TP world. It's a wonder we all stick around, really.

Once again Helios provide information that is incorrect and refuse to comment any further. Why is it so hard to do what almost any other company manage to do and provide at least some information. Since the new TP is delayed by 2 months now (actually a lot longer since they promised many new features ages ago) they could at least act professional and provide some information. Not that i'm surprised since i've seen this behavior from Helios for years now.

To bad since TP used to be a great text editor, but now they are way behind the competitors and miss even basic features that is standard for almost every other text editor. The development been slow or nonexistent for years now so they got a lot of work to catch up, but seems like they are not willing to try. Why not release a upgrade that isn't free and maybe they could have the resources they need. I'm sure many would be willing to pay if they release a "real" new version and not just a buggy version with a refreshed toolbar like version 5.x.

I switched text editor pretty long ago since waiting for Helios is like waiting for a miracle that will never happen, but i stop by a few times a year to see if that miracle actually happened.....against all odds.

-gan

Web Site has had a few changes made to it, so maybe a new version is actually coming soon.

I had an idea while I was waiting around for the next release of Textpad..

Why not make an OPEN-SOURCE Textpad replacement. Put in all the best features of Textpad, but make it open source. I wonder if there is any interest in a kickstarter fund to get this off the ground. I bet we could have a first release before the next version of Textpad arrives.

UTF-8 FTW!

neimad wrote:Why not make an OPEN-SOURCE Textpad replacement.

There are open source and otherwise freely available alternatives. I recently made the pitch for, and won, in my quest to bring TextPad into the office. Several free solutions were offered up, and I rather quickly took them apart showing features those free solutions did not have that TextPad did have.

At my last gig, they adopted UE, and their supposedly resident expert didn't know diddly. He had a narrow little scope of usage. People actually came to me, but I responded, "Sorry, I use TP, not UE. If you like, I'll show you how to do that in TP."

If something truly better came along, yeah, maybe I would make a switch. I am 13 years as TextPad junkie, and I don't see anything replacing it for me.

neimad wrote:Why not make an OPEN-SOURCE Textpad replacement.

Like Ken said, there are open source alternatives. I've tried a few including Notepad++ recently. The actual editor part (using a component called Scintilla) had some solid features I liked including code folding and autocompletion that TP currently lacks (the line spacing was really nice too) but I found the rest of the interface inflexible and clunky in spite of community contributed plug-ins for it. EditPlus, a commercial editor, had some promising features but lacked tab groups (which is a feature I use quite a bit) and still nothing compare to the ease-of-use, customization and tool-extendability of TP in spite of it's comparatively infrequent updates.

Helios may be tight-lipped but they did something right and I'm hoping they have the financial incentives - I'm not the only one who will gladly pay for an upgraded license as needed - to keep doing it even if it's in a vacuum and with fudged deadlines.

If the Scintilla editor component and the Textpad interface were combined along with many of the useful feature suggestions that many of us have contributed here then I would be most interested. But I would expect it to be a closed-source, for-profit commercial venture because I don't work for free (with a few exceptions) and I don't reasonably expect anyone else to either.

Thank you!

PeteTheBloke wrote:

Is it too much to ask for an updated delivery estimate for the next release of Textpad

Yep. Welcome to the TP world. It's a wonder we all stick around, really.

Ha ha! My sentiment exactly. About once every year I get frustrated with TP and decide I need to find a new favorite editor. I start experimenting with other editors but I lack in persistence and after a few hours I go back to TP in frustration. It seems I've just gotten so used to the slick TP interface that I can't stand other editors.

... yes.

TP6 is out.

kengrubb wrote:... yes.
TP6 is out.

So I've noticed - although I can't say I'm jumping up and down from excitement.

While the new portability feature is appreciated there are still so many elementary/basic features we are still waiting for. The OP asked if TextPad is still being developed and obviously it is. But unfortunately it's not actively developed.

Many have expressed a willingness to pay for a significant update and I agree. Dammit, I'd even go so far as to say I'd be willing to pay a yearly maintenance fee to have TextPad being actively developed.

I think you're splitting semantic hairs.

Ok. I've read the release notes for Textpad 6.0. I'm happy about the portability. But, I'm not impressed.

Honestly, that is a feature I could implement over 1 weekend. Seriously now. How long did it take?? I'm a developer and I write software, and I know that adding that feature would take a max of maybe one weekend.

THE TIME HAS COME FOR CHANGE.

I propose a Kickstarter fund to raise money for development of Textpad.

A Kickstarter fund, with a total of $5,000 or so, for specific features that the Textpad community want implemented, UTF8 for example.

Maybe the developers would have to release by a certain date in order to get the money, so we don't have to wait a year for one feature to be implemented. The community could vote for what features we want and put a price on them and maybe, just maybe, that will give incentive for the Textpad developer(s?) to implement the features we need.

What would it take for the Textpad developers to take us seriously and implement UTF-8? $5,000 USD? $10,000 USD? What?????????

I'm being completely serious here.

I don't expect any response at all from the developers about this. They are as easy to communicate with as a brick wall.

If the Textpad developers don't respond (and I fully expect them not to respond), then the Kickstarter fund could be used to implement a Textpad replacement with all the basics of Textpad, but open-source and actively developed by the community.

I also wonder what it would take to BUY the sourcecode from the developers? That could be another reason to have a Kickstarter fund. If the developers would put a price on it, maybe we could donate enough to reach that, and then make the code open-source.

Something has to change, because 6.0 is too little, too late. Or we could just wait around for 7.0, in say 4 or 5 more years, no doubt still without UTF-8 support.