Monday, October 31, 2011

Editra - The Text Editor Written in Python for Tiger

Open source software projects make me feel useless. Reading through their forums and blogs brings me to posts about code and requests for code, and I don't know how to write code! So I decided this would change, that I'd learn a computer language hopefully enough to where I could contribute something in the not-too-faraway future. Since the consensus is that Python is the best language to learn first, I'm gonna take a crack at that.

Now I just need a text editor.

And, no, TextEdit isn't what I'm talking about. I want a full-featured text editor that's extensible and can come with all the bells and whistles if I want them. Also, current development for Tiger would be nice.

Lo and behold, there is such a text editor, and it's called Editra. It's cross-platform and appropriately enough written in Python. It has a tabbed interface and all the basic features of a real text editor, like syntax highlighting, etc., and it also comes with a plug-in system for extending the features further. And did I mention it still supports Tiger?

For another text editor that's cross platform, you could also try the java written jEdit. And though TextWrangler and Smultron dropped Tiger development, you can still download old versions (here for TextWrangler, here for Smultron).

At this point, though, I'm going with the Python app. And if you want to test the waters in learn a computer language yourself, check out this Youtube playlist - http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEA1FEF17E1E5C0DA. A lot of great instructional videos.

2 comments:

  1. Ah, just ran into your blog. And I thought I was the only PPC enthusiast left :-D we, as the PowerPC Mac community, seriously need to get better connected. (now let me figure out how to add a links section on my blog)

    Anyway, thanks for link to the excellent Python Tutorial. Been flying through the first seven videos and happily writing my first small python programs. Thumbs up!

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  2. I've been using TextMate for programming. It's already got built-in support for a lot of languages, and others have created bundles to add support for a lot of others; I was even able to find one for MIPS Assembler (needed for an assembly course)! And it still supports Tiger, although that support will probably (finally) end, when v2.0 gets released before Christmas.

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