On 8/21/2018 10:33 AM, cryo shock wrote:
You mentioned that before at some point, and I wouldn't argue with that, as you surely know best how to use an editor that helps you with your work. I don't know enough about Lua programming, so it's hard for me to tell whether the realtime console pane is realisable within TA. But I will ask Mitchell on TA mailing list what he thinks about it. I think it would be great if he could make a console pane possible, as I think that there is nothing worse than having to switch between programs because of the lack of features.
I must admit that I'm not looking at more advanced editing as normally one uses a small subset of what an editor provides anyway. In that sense I have no real reason to switch (apart from cross platform editing).
One month or so ago Mitchell released Textadept 10 which comes with some API changes. He wrote a Migration Guide from TA9 to 10 which can be found in the appendix of the TA online manual:
Hm, I don't look forward to that. Especially because it's kind of hard to intercept error messages (on windows) when tweaking.
https://foicica.com/textadept/manual.html#Migration.Guides
So when using the ConTeXt TA package with TA10, TA pops up with many errors and is unusable until one deletes the files again. The files work with TA v9 without a problem though. Still I'd suggest to users who want to use the package to rename the init.lua that comes with CTX and then bind it within their own init.lua with
require('context_init') -- exemplary file name
If anything goes wrong then, users simply have to comment the line with Notepad and TA should work again.
I am pretty sure that you know that already, but unexperienced readers might want to know that there is a Spell Checking module for TA which can be found under Modules in the TA wiki (it comes with only an english dictionary though):
I don't now as I don't follow discussions (I'm only on a few context related mailing lists). And we need checking for more than english (as well as our own lists) + a bit more subtle indication of issues.
True indeed. I like your config settings when it comes to highlighting etc. Also they come with a lot of keywords. That's a big plus as well. But since the settings change a lot in TA, for example tabulation width, they are pretty unfriendly to non-programmers. For example I tried to change the behaviour of TA9 to wrap lines when a CTX file is loaded. I don't remember in which file I changed the setting, but it didn't make a difference. Lines didn't wrap, so I always had to change it manually. In the same file I changed tab width, this change on the other hand worked. And there comes the next tripping stone. The CTX settings come within many files with a strict hierarchy, so that beginners will have a hard time to achieve changes. The changes are overwhelming really, but it's worth getting used to them. So please don't get me wrong. I am thankful that CTX comes with settings for TA at all. It's ofc better than nothing.
Hm, I never wrap (i.e. I have my sources wrapped already) so I can't comment on that.
I just think that Lua makes it worthwhile for users to change settings by themselves, so they know how TA works in it's core. I'd love to add, that right now I am using one skin file, one custom CTX lexer (mod of the original TA lexer), a snippets file and two init.luas of which one I only load on my tablet to add some basic functionality to it's digital keyboard (which wasn't necessary in SciTE btw.) I think it looks great so far, although it surely could use some adjustments. TAlexed.jpg
All a matter of taste I guess. I mostly ship the lexers because they are sort of a reference for how i expect files to be highlighted. Also, the same highlighting can be used in typeset form. But every user has her/his own preference and "which is the best editor debates" are not something I'm interested in.
And I really miss your snippets amongst some other small things, but the longer one tries, the further he comes with adjusting TA to his likings.
I never use snippets (assuming they are what i think they are) because i can't remember shortcuts and keying in the few commands needed for structure can (in my case) be neglected compared to keying in content
Maybe in the future you'll have on horse that you can fully rely on. I wish it'd be TA IMHO. :)
Too much a moving (upward imcompatible) target I fear. I can't risk that for workflows where authors have to 'just install and run'.
Just wanted to add my ideas to yours. Thanks for CTX, the TA settings and for reading this mail. No problem.
(Maybe you can make a list of relevant differnces between TA 9 and 10 because otherwise I need a new stack of cd's to motivate me get me through the trial and error process (due to lack of lua console output).) Hans ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | www.pragma-ade.nl | www.pragma-pod.nl -----------------------------------------------------------------