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Damm I like textpad. But... version 4.7.3 is very old.

And sorry to say but I'm currently waiting for PHP designer 2006

Because textpad don't updates his products!!!!!!

Fascinating, I didn't realize it was so antiquated.

So does TP not meet your needs or is it simply that a new version has not been released since 4.7.3 and thus it's old? How would you improve it? What enhancements are needed as this is an enhancement thread?

Well,
I found a new editor: PHP designer 2006 http://www.mpsoftware.dk/
But there are some things that Textpad is better in.

And 1 year no news from them, updates or announchments... nothing.

I'd like to see some new features like:
Project management
Todo list
new interface something like PHP designer 2006
PHP Syntax list, autocompletion

I hope thay integrated this and I'm happy

I'm still using TP because Search/replace function is perfect
blok select method
ctrl horizontally scrolling
Macro's
And lots of other things

But I hope that you understand me. If there is no software updates or announchments i'll search for something new....

TextPad is great, but it's not designed to be an IDE, which is what PHP designer sounds like. I use Eclipse for java editing, it's designed for that. But TextPad can't be beat for almost everything else, it's so fast, lightweight, I can have 20 files open in selector; search is fantastic; very flexible document classes; etc. And I know there's lots of features i haven't even used yet! (I just learned ctl+shift+g=goto file!)

talleyrand wrote:Fascinating, I didn't realize it was so antiquated.

So does TP not meet your needs or is it simply that a new version has not been released since 4.7.3 and thus it's old? How would you improve it? What enhancements are needed as this is an enhancement thread?

You're right... RP is the best editor... but I read a year ago or more that was in develop TextPad 5, with full UNICODE support (not as now that, if you open a doc with univoce character like greek, you can edit this and save without problem, but you see a lot of '?????').
I don't find any other lack in TP... really... if I work in ASCII...

Hi

Our company is evaluating some text-editors. Even if Textpad is somethig we have liked very much, it is a bit worring that it has not come with any updates. Not that there is something vital we are missing, but it makes us beleive the project is dead and the software is not supported any more.

I hope that is not the case.

Regards,
Armaz

We have already stated in the General section of the Forum, that TextPad 5 really is being developed, and I can also reassure licensed users that current version remains fully supported.

As a long time user of Textpad I also routinely come back here checking for news about my favorite text editor. One the one hand I miss some of the features I have seen in other applications but on the other hand I enjoy using a somehow limited but finely crafted, stable, speedy and homogeneous application.

Over the years some of the competitive products have kept on to wildly integrate so many user wishes that they have became bloated and shapeless.

Hi,

though I used and still prefer to use TextPad, the plain silence from Helios is a bit vexing. The occasional "Yup, we're still here, still developing..." just is not the kind of user support I expect from a software company.
Did they ever hear about "Release early, release often"? Apparently not.

We users have raised your voices time and time again. And there a some quite important improvement suggestions from users. There even was one especially active user, jeffy, who analysed the poll results and compiled a list of the most wanted improvements. Unfortunately he wasn't able to continue his great contributions. Anyway, THANKS Jeffy!
Now the last list I found is over there:
http://www.textpad.info/forum/viewtopic ... g&start=75
It's a bit dated (Sept. 28. 2004), but, well (or rather: quite no so well), the latest TextPad version is even older (June 19 2004). That's about ... two years of ... nothing.

These are the top 16 (must be a power of two ) things from that list:

1. Editable Macros
2. Expand/Collapse blocks of text
3. Additional attributes for syntax hig...
4. Export/Import Textpad settings
5. Show matching brackets
6. Treeview in the document selector
7. Auto-Complete
8. binary file improvements
9. Unicode Conformance
10. Find and Replace - Grand Unification...
11. Syntax Files - Dynamic Keywords
12. Add support for Perl5/JavaScript reg...
13. arger fields for Search/Replace
14. Syntax highlight for embedded languages
15. Dockable Command Results and Search ...
16. Method List for Current File

See, we - the users - even did a bit of prioritising of what features are the most important to us as a group of users.

And Helios couldn't even implement a few of these? In two years time? That's a bit more than slightly dissapointing. (You do get the tiny little bit of irony and bitterness in that, do you?)

Meanwhile I'm unfortunately forced to use, um, the other editor, in the company I work at. And the rest of time I start to switch over to a proper IDE for development stuff: RadRails, excellent for that kind of work, really. (http://www.radrails.org/) That thing already won a prize - and it's not even One-Dot-Oh.
And I'm still looking for something as crossplatform as RadRails, but for now I'd really appreciate a new version of TextPad.

Anyway,

skaemper wrote: These are the top 16 (must be a power of two ) things from that list:

1. Editable Macros
2. Expand/Collapse blocks of text

I've been a TextPad user and advocate for ten years, and your list made me tear up! My previous editor was WordPerfect's PEdit, and the lack of an editable macro language in TextPad (WP's was brilliant) has been maddening.

I too LOVE textpad, use it daily... but... although I would kill for anything on that list of 16 items, the big ones for me are...

skaemper wrote:Hi,

list:

1. Expand/Collapse blocks of text
2. Additional attributes for syntax hig...
3. Auto-Complete
4. Syntax highlight for embedded languages

Anyway,

I want to be able to "bold" some of my keywords... I want to be able to apply sytax highlighting to my CSS, and JavaScript, embedded in an HTML document.

Auto-Complete, would bring Textpad in line with any IDE out there, for coding...

Please note, that I would be just as happy, with an SDK, that we the keen developers, could go and write "extensions" for Textpad with.

PS Any date set on the next release? Any list of features/bug fixes?
PPS I would be happy to (even if many here are not) to pay for a new full license to get the above mentioned features. Note, I'm very sincere about this... I know SW development takes time, and effort, and I want you to be paid for it. I love my TP 4.7.3, but if there was a TP 5.0 on the way, with say, multi-lang syntax highlighting, as the only new feature, I would *still* send you $40* bucks for you troubles.

* Note, I think $40 is what I originally paid, but whatever the number is, I'm interested.

Cheers,
Steve

Another daily user of TextPad here.

Like everyone else I occasionally check in on the web site and forums for any news. Its virtually guaranteed that I will find a topic speculating on the gap since the last release. Talk about the definition of a FAQ!

As mentioned elsewhere Helios does not discuss future releases, but perhaps the FAQ list should contain something along the lines of:

"TextPad 5 is currently in development, but it is our policy not to discuss future release dates or features. TextPad 4 is actively maintained and supported, as can be seen from the Helios posts in the Support Forum."

I broadly agree with the enhancement priorities outlined in Jeffy's analysis, although naturally enough with some slight order variations. Hopefully the long development of TP5 means that a good number have been implemented.

The closest I have seen Helios come to discussing TP5 is at the end of this topic

Before I start speculating wildly based on a 31 word post, let me first draw your attention to part of talleyrand's post from that topic:

TextPad 4.5 dropped 21 July 2001
TextPad 4.6 issued 3 Jan 2003

Multiyear gaps between releases is not unheard of. When all the bugs are fixed, and enhancements are being bundled into the next major release, why wouldn't there be a gap?

<WildSpeculation>
So talleyrand and s_reynisson hit the nail on the head eh? I read that to mean TP5 is a rewrite with dependencies on WinFX.
That could have meant a Vista only product, with TP4 remaining available for the NT family in the same way as TP3 remained for Win16.
But since most of WinFX is being back ported to XP, its now conceivable that TP5 will run on XP with the Vista back ports.
Obviously, if Vista is delayed, TP5 is delayed, as it makes no sense to release TP5 on a Alpha/Beta platform. Likewise the WinFX excisions (WinFS, etc) could have caused significant redesigns.
Its even possible that the new Office UI has given Helios something to think about. (Text Editing is much less visual than Word Processing, but TextPad is my Sovereign application much more than Word, and the edit menu is fairly overloaded)
Basically, I speculate that Helios have had several Release Candidates in the last 2 years, but have been unable to release them because of the Longhorn delays. If that's true, even if Helios is keeping quiet here I hope they have given MS a right rollicking.
</WildSpeculation>

I've used TextPad on NT4, Win2K and XP. Its survived a switch to a restricted account. And my muscle memory doesn't cause daily irritation as I toggle between apps. I can find another app, even if its not up to UI snuff, for the 2 hours a month that TextPad falls down. I don't give TextPad an easy time, I do install and try other editors, but I keep coming back to TextPad. Even if it never gets updated, the competition has to be significantly better on all counts to hold me.

I also use TP every day. I do not want another editor.

Only thing I have noticed lately, is cutting and pasting html entity m and ndash results in black squares...

A FRP?

That might be a limitation of the font you are using. Try a few different fonts and see whether those characters show up.

Bingo.
Courier New instead of Courier did the trick...
Thanks