The Problem with TextPad

[John Benjamin]

Been reading through some other posts and one hit a nerve: opening large files slowly.

Sadly I was one of those people who licensed TextPad and then switched to UltraEdit for this very reason. I don't know how UltraEdit does it, but I opened a 2.85Gb file in less than 7 seconds using XP with wordwrap and proportional fonts as listed in another post. That's right, 2.85Gb, not Mb. TextPad either cannot or won't deal with this issue, and they're losing new users by the boat load.

As great as TextPad is, it seems to be falling further behind with every release. Even though freeware Crimson Editor possesses very little customizability, it is far more powerful than TextPad at present and comes with a great file/directory tree feature.

I'm just frustrated because I love TextPad's user interface - it's well-implemented, has good icons, menus aren't cluttered, preferences are easy to set and change, and it's quite flexible. But throughout the entire 4.x version, TextPad seems content to relegate itself to a mere NotePad replacement. I wish it were otherwise. Maybe Helios should sell TextPad to someone who will develop it into THE premier text editor it deserves to be.

But for the big boys with the big jobs, they'll keep playing over at the UltraEdit stadium in the meantime.

[mike]

I think this requires an answer from Helios, not from users.

[jeffy]

I think this requires an answer from Helios, not from users.

I must say that the most frustrating thing about TextPad is the lack of Helios' participationship in these forums.

On the other hand, they have made the consistently-best text editor available, are extremely accessible via email and during beta testing, and they did give us these forums.

I have faith that they are listening to us, but discussion would be so much more active and exciting if someone 'in the know", from Helios, were a consistent and active part of the discussions.

[Rondine]

Good points and these forums have answered at least a dozen specific questions or problems I've had. On top of the app itself, what sets TextPad apart from others is the strong user base participation here.

But in other forums for other things - check out bladeforum.com for example - they have someone from each company addressing questions, guiding discussions, and gauging feedback on new features, etc. It is helpful in that it refocuses the discussion with information rather than rumor or conjecture.

That said, I can say I've always received a prompt response from support the few times I've contacted them.

[bbadmin]

Our log files show that "John Benjamin", "Mike" and "Rondine" all posted their messages from the same PC, so they are either the same person, or are all working for the same company. Also, he or they have accessed this topic 1564 times from the same PC - presumably to make it look as though it's really hot. They don't have a licensed copy of TextPad either. However, in spite of all that, I'll treat the subject seriously.

Any editor that can open a 2.85GB file in 7 seconds must be simply viewing the original file, because it would take several minutes just to make a copy of it on the same drive. If all you want to do is view the file, that's great, but how long does it take to delete the first line, then undo it? More than 10 minutes, I'd guess. How long does it take to go to a given line number near the end of the file? Is drag scrolling responsive? Surely such considerations are as important as how quickly the file is opened?

All editors contain design compromises, to give the best performance in particular circumstances. Editing very large files is a minority requirement, which TextPad is not optimised for. I'd argue that the most sensible way to edit such files is with a batch editor, such as sed or awk (free from http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/) or with a Perl or Python script (free from http://www.activestate.com). However, once TextPad has opened a large file, it will be interactively responsive, because the internal data structures TextPad uses are scalable. The trade-off is the amount of time required to create those structures while opening the file.

Regarding the word wrapping issue, we've discovered that a Windows API (GetTextExtentExPoint), which TextPad calls to determine the display length of each line of text, is unacceptably slow, and will avoid using it in the next release.

Finally, we reserve the right to ban users from this forum, if they abuse it. This is the final warning to "John Benjamin", "Mike" and "Rondine".

Keith MacDonald
Helios Software Solutions

[jeffy]

Finally, we reserve the right to ban users from this forum, if they abuse it. This is the final warning to "John Benjamin", "Mike" and "Rondine".

Wow. You go, Keith.

[Eric.Mamet]

Anyway, I fail to understand why it is such a crucial requirement to edit a 2.8Gbs file!!!

What about getting chunks of it using free GNU software?...