The following gif demonstrates folding:
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I have to agree with the positivism surrounding Kate. It has been the only one (together with KDevelop) out of the 5 text editors I’ve installed and tested since yesterday that actually did what I desired from it. Props to the devs! Let’s see if it can dethrone Emacs 😜.
Emacs will always be abe to do things you can’t do with other editors. It’s a text based interface toolkit that happens to also have a good text editor and IDE capability. Buuut, you need to spend a lot of time to set things up. I use it since probably more than 20 years and I still often need to look up and learn stuff. If you want a tool and not a workshop, get a simpler editor.
I think you’ve done an excellent job at capturing my initial thoughts. It basically felt as if using Emacs was bound to be overkill as my (relatively simple) use case didn’t seem to warrant its usage.
But, even if it is (possibly) overkill, I do prefer[1] how Emacs handles the folding. So, while there’s the very real possibility that I’ll not even utilize 1% of Emacs’ potential, I feel most excited and (somehow) comfort while working with it 😅.
As for setting things up, I immediately started using Emacs through Spacemacs until the input lag became very noticeable on larger files. Then, I pivoted to Doom Emacs and I’ve been enjoying it so far. Perhaps I’ll create my own config at some point in the future, But for now, Doom Emacs is all I need.
Granted, I haven’t tried out Neovim for this yet. ↩︎
There’s also Zed. And helix.
Amongst all the other great alts here
Also neovim is really dope! Just have to throw that there
There’s also Zed.
Noted. Thank you!
And helix.
I believe this doesn’t have folding (yet). Unfortunately.
Also neovim is really dope! Just have to throw that there
xD , Neovim is definitely pretty cool.
I use Zed as my primary editor these days. It’s just about ready for prime time!
(Source: 12 years of web and Linux hacking)
By admission of my fellow Lemmy-users, I’ve gone and tried out many text editors over the course of the past few days. Unfortunately, I didn’t like the installation options for Zed in my current distro of choice (i.e. Fedora):
- its flatpak is unverified
- not found in Fedora’s own repos
It is found within Terra’s repos. However, users report that -at least for Zed- some of the installed packages from Fedora’s own repo are replaced by Terra’s. This interaction can be prevented by giving preference for Fedora’s own packages, but it seems like a can of worms I’m not very interested to engage with at the moment. Hopefully this situation will be resolved rather sooner than later.
Anyhow, have you got the chance to work with Emacs and/or Kate over the years? If so, could you chime in and give your thoughts on how Zed fares in comparison? Please note that I’m (mostly) asking within the confines of a relatively simple text editor used to take notes with.
Honestly I never really got into using any of the terminal based editors- I like a pretty GUI, personally.
That being said I have been a KDE user for the last couple of years and actually have quite a favourable view on Kate. It’s a very competent editor with a great deal of extensibility.
The big difference between the two is their focus. Zed is written to be targeted at developers and as such has some capabilities that Kate doesn’t (afaik) like an AI assistant panel, handling multi megabyte text files with grace, and being able to directly connect to remote file systems over SSH.
If you’re not looking for those features I think you’d be very happy with Kate!
Kate,kdevelop,xed,mousepad,gnome builder.,notepad next(clone notepad++)
That’s a lot of options! Thank you.
Geany(Its a lightweight GTK Based IDE)
Thank you!
Question: According to this table, Geany’s capabilities might leave some to desire when it comes to code/text folding. Is this correct? Or is the table simply outdated?
Yw and I think it’s up to date that list (i just looked at article last updated)
Thank you for confirming my suspicions. I took it for a test run and wasn’t able to replicate the above functionality either. Hopefully it’s an error on my side, but it’s very possible that I will not stick to Geany.
Did you try plugins but sure it’s fine
I have looked into plugins, but nothing I’ve found suggests to contain/offer the desired functionality.
ahh okay
Aight. Anyhow, this has been a lovely conversation fam! Thanks for your contributions!
Too low on the list
On windows: Notepad++. On Linux-based OS: Kate. And there’s also JetBrains Fleet, that is jetbrains answer to vscode.
Kate is for Windows and Mac as well
Also notepad++ on wine on Linux … Not my favorite but it’s there
Yeah… but why? Kate is better in about every way. And while we’re on the topic, Kate is also available on the windows store, with a real Windows build.
Ya I agree with this
Thank you!
I tested Notepad Next, which seems to be Notepad++’ cross-platform alternative. However, I wasn’t able to get the folding functionality on a Markdown file. Am I doing something wrong?
I’ve tried Kate since yesterday, it has been one of the better ones for now.
JetBrains Fleet seems like a cool project. But I’ll probably wait until it’s open sourced. Thanks anyways!
If you don’t want to go the Emacs or Vim routes, try Kate. Neovim is amazing but Kate is too from what I hear. Similar support for LSPs.
Sublime.
Thank you! Unfortunately, I’ve come to the understanding it’s not open source. So it’s unlikely I’ll go for it.
I remember something called lapce too
Edit 0: https://github.com/lapce/lapce
ED IS THE STANDARD EDITOR
If you’re not trolling, then I’d like to offer my apologies for assuming you were.
Perhaps I shouldn’t feed the trolls, but I couldn’t resist: does
edeven support the functionality demonstrated in the gif above? I’m asking this from a genuine position of ignorance.Honestly: Yeah, i was trolling (kind of), but:
I DO like to code via ED because the design and workflow of ED (or even better: Sam) makes folding unnecessary because you only put on the screen what is needed right at that moment. Want to see two functions 1000 lines apart? No problem, just print them right below each other on the screen.
Interesting insights. Much appreciated!
I DO like to code via ED because the design and workflow of ED (or even better: Sam) makes folding unnecessary because you only put on the screen what is needed right at that moment. Want to see two functions 1000 lines apart? No problem, just print them right below each other on the screen.
Hmm…, I suppose this is a workflow I’d have to try out for myself before drawing any conclusions. Though, I got some questions:
- Why
ed? Isn’t any other TUI/CLI text editor fit for the job? Apologies if I sound obtuse/obnoxious*. I’m probably just very ignorant of howedfares compared to the others. - Is there any currently maintained version of Sam? A quick search suggests that everyone packaged/grabbed it from this github repo. But, unfortunately, that one has been archived since earlier this year. I suppose I could look into the many forks it has, but I’d rather be picky 😅. Got any pointers for me?
Why ed? Well, it keeps my brain from rotting 😀 just half joking… i have noticed that whenever i use a somewhat more “user friendly” software my mind starts to wander off more easily and instead of being more focussed on the programming task i shortly after find myself doing… $THING instead of being productive. So, being the only jack-of-all-trades-computer-guy in a small-ish company i tend to chose the tools that work for me, even if they are a bit… anachronistic.
I think the best maintained version of Sam would be the one included in 9front (if you want some truely special experience) or if you want to stay (somewhat) in the realm of the sane you can use plan9port which also brings in many nice tools out of the Plan9 ecosystem.
Aight. This conversation has been much appreciated, thanks fam!
Perhaps I might have to give
eda go at some point if I find myself hacking more with elisp rather than outputting actual productive work. But, at least for now, this is (thankfully) not really a concern for mine 😜.As for Sam, I should either install a different OS (i.e. 9front) for the truely special experience. Or…, build it (myself) with plan9port. Did I get that right?
Well regarding plan9port, it is really, really easy to acquire… just clone the Github repo (https://github.com/9fans/plan9port), run ./INSTALL and everything else sorts itself out ;-)
Hehe, you read right through me 😂. Thanks fam for the heads up!
Anyhow, I’ve learned so much from you and I really appreciate that. Again, wholeheartedly, thank you!
Wish ya a good one 😉!
- Why
SublimeText?
Looks cool. Thanks!
Uhmm…, did I understand correctly that it’s not open source?
Not op but no it’s not.
Thank you for the clarification!
While I didn’t mention it explicitly in the post, I do intend to stick to open source.
Sublime Text is not open-source but it has a sane price and a WinRAR-style trial. I use it because it feels a lot snappier than other editors/IDEs I’ve tried when browsing large files.
On the one hand, it’s a shame that it’s not open-source, but on the other hand, developers have to make a living from something.
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If I said I knew exactly what I was talking about, I’d be lying. But it’s generally accepted that funding of open-source is not in an ideal state.
On the one hand, it’s a shame that it’s not open-source, but on the other hand, developers have to make a living from something.
I’m pretty sure most people here, at least I hope, who use open source and free software directly money donate to developers. I know of plenty of developers who do get paid writing open source through such donations or via funding, e.g. NLNet or grants. Maybe I’m misunderstanding your statement, are you saying Sublime Text isn’t open source because they believe those ways are not appropriate for them?
I wrote a whole comment in which I mused about the reason why Sublime Text isn’t open-source. However, a brief search found one developer’s answer: They just don’t think that typical FOSS funding is sustainable for their particular project.
FWIW I’m donating every month to CodeMirror author, donates to Vim, etc. I’m not saying they are wrong, nor right, solely that implying (but maybe I misunderstood the comment) that somehow open-source and getting paid are antagonist is IMHO damaging to FLOSS broadly.
I use it because it feels a lot snappier than other editors/IDEs I’ve tried when browsing large files.
Snappiness is definitely something I appreciate. So, if it blows everything else out of the water in this respect, that I might have to concede. Thank you for mentioning this particular aspect of it!
On the one hand, it’s a shame that it’s not open-source, but on the other hand, developers have to make a living from something.
I wholeheartedly agree. But, I prefer the capability to donate to the open-source software developers that I love to support.
I wholeheartedly agree. But, I prefer the capability to donate to the open-source software developers that I love to support.
Right indeed, not sure why it was implied that open source software couldn’t be a financially viable option for developers too.
Couldn’t agree more.
Btw, I would like to take this chance to thank you and @[email protected] for the civil, respectful, engaging and informative conversation you were having elsewhere!
It’s definitely not faster than vim, fwiw.
Thank you for this crucial piece of information! Much appreciated!
As such, Sublime Text has (kinda) lost all of its relevancy for me.
UPDATE: For posterity’s sake, I’d like to reflect on the last couple of days.
First of all, I’d like to thank everyone that has contributed to the discussion! Were it not for your recommendations/suggestions/endorsements, then I might not have found a valid alternative.
Secondly, I’ve taken every single recommendation pretty seriously. As such, I’ve either installed them to see for myself if I was able to reproduce the functionality found in the gif found above. Or, didn’t install them to begin with due to the suggested installation methods not passing through my (rather) strict policy on software. Regardless, in the end, I’ve only found two pieces of software that satisfied the bill: Kate and KDevelop.
KDevelop is pretty cool, but is more of an IDE rather than a text editor. As such, I’ve landed on Kate.
But, perhaps more than anything, I’ve come to really appreciate Emacs (and Neovim). And, perhaps more than ever, I feel ready to take them on 💪. Wish me luck 😊.
You might have a look at LEO:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_(text_editor)
I used it extensively for some time to write big documentation. It is good.
But I’d guess that for most tasks, Emacs org-mode is the most powerful option.
Interesting. First time reading about it*. Were it not for you, this might have been completely off the radar. So thank you for mentioning it!
But I’d guess that for most tasks, Emacs org-mode is the most powerful option.
Yeah, it has been slowly growing on me 😜. But I would like to explore all other options before I fully commit.
Yeah, it has been slowly growing on me 😜. But I would like to explore all other options before I fully commit.
You’ve already discovered the best editor. There’s no need to explore more. ;)
What makes LEO great for consistent larger documentation is that one can write things like footnotes or a glossary in nodes which can be linked into multiple pages - much like files with multiple hard links in a file system.
Also, it can re-read exported generated files into a structured outline, which is managed under version control.
Also, good support for literate programming, which is Don Knuth’s perhaps greatest idea.
LEO definitely looks like a cool project. It has made me curious and I would like to try it out. Thanks (again)!
However, before I do, I would like to verify if folding[1] a section/heading in Markdown -as demonstrated in the gif- is possible with LEO. Could you please confirm this for me?
Also, good support for literate programming, which is Don Knuth’s perhaps greatest idea.
Very interesting concept. I believe I stumbled upon this video about a week ago. Together with two other videos, It has been at the very top of “Watch Later”-list since. But I haven’t gotten around to watch it yet 😅. I believe the topics are related. Am I right? Regardless, I’ll definitely take a deeper look into literate programming. Thank you for mentioning it!
Also known as collapse/expand ↩︎
There’s got to be a Micro plug-in for this.
WAIT, if I’m reading this right, it’s had code folding since last year: https://github.com/zyedidia/micro/pull/2942
I’m gonna try this right nowThanks a lot for putting in the work! Uhmm…, how has testing been? Were you able to pull this off with Markdown?
I got distracted. At first glance, it seems that PR was for the groundworks, I haven’t been able to figure out how to actually do it. I’ll try again in a bit.
Ah xD, no problem fam! Please keep us updated :P .
Look at Helix and Zed.
Zed is the goat
Thanks for the recommendations! Helix doesn’t seem to offer this functionality (yet). Unfortunately…
As for Zed, it does seem to be capable of reproducing the functionality found in the gif (or at least to some extent). However, installing it on my distro isn’t pretty. Therefore, I wish to install it at some point, but I’ll wait it out for now.
Others have given you many options, but I would like to know why Nvim or Emacs are not good options for you?
No no, don’t get me wrong. I think both Emacs and Neovim are excellent. And this little endeavor/search/pursuit has (perhaps more than anything) solidified (and gave context as to) why they’re in their own league.
Like, I’ve tried about a dozen of text editors in last couple of days. And with most[1] of them I’ve failed to reproduce the functionality demonstrated in the gif.
Heck, I’ve only been able to confirm that Kate and KDevelop at least do what has been advertised (by others). ↩︎
If you had started with that people would have told you that nothing comes even close. The closest things you will find are Atom (archived), Sublime (closed source) and Helix (still very new and no plugin support, but something to keep an eye on).
Speaking of obsidian, the reason why it took me forever to start using Silverbullet is that Emacs has org-mode which does most of what Silverbullet/Obsidian do out of the box, plus some other stuff that they don’t do (e.g. excel like tables).
But I wanted something I could edit remotely through my phone and web interfaces are better than using text editors over ssh connections. Also I have migrated from Emacs to Nvim, the reasons are purely ergonomical (pinky fatigue is a real issue) but after switching I found a jump in the way to think about an editor. Emacs is great, don’t get me wrong, and if you decide to learn Emacs I can assure you it will be the best editor you’ve used, but it still edits things at a character level, while there are concepts for matching brackets or quotes changing the text inside quotes in Emacs is very character oriented, I.e. go to start of quote, start marking, move to matching quote, delete, whereas in vim is sort of a higher level language where you say Change Inside Next Quote using
cin", and expanded with some plugins you can even dosrnq'to Surround Replace Next Quote with ’ (which will change the quotations on the next text from whatever to '). And that’s a lot closer to the way I think so it skips a mental step (plus it’s a lot less keystrokes and no Ctrl for my pinky).But those are the reasons why I switched, many people use Emacs for decades without ergonomic issues, whichever of the two you decide to learn you’ll understand why they’re the staple editors for most people who actually choose an editor.
Thank you for the raving endorsement and otherwise very informative reply!
Also I have migrated from Emacs to Nvim, the reasons are purely ergonomical (pinky fatigue is a real issue) but after switching I found a jump in the way to think about an editor. Emacs is great, don’t get me wrong, and if you decide to learn Emacs I can assure you it will be the best editor you’ve used, but it still edits things at a character level, while there are concepts for matching brackets or quotes changing the text inside quotes in Emacs is very character oriented, I.e. go to start of quote, start marking, move to matching quote, delete, whereas in vim is sort of a higher level language where you say Change Inside Next Quote using
cin", and expanded with some plugins you can even dosrnq'to Surround Replace Next Quote with ’ (which will change the quotations on the next text from whatever to '). And that’s a lot closer to the way I think so it skips a mental step (plus it’s a lot less keystrokes and no Ctrl for my pinky).Hmm…, interesting. I’m still pretty new to evil-mode, but doesn’t that bridge the gap here? Btw, I don’t know why, but I wasn’t able to see for myself how
cin"worked within Vim*.Yes, evil-mode would have bridged the gap, however I didn’t go emacs -> vim in one step, I left emacs back in 2017 because of pinky strain, and other ergonomic issues that made me switch keyboard layout as well (which made me lose lots of agility on emacs) and started using Pycharm for python dev, VSCode for other languages (including Markdown for note taking) and nano for system file edition. I tried some of the other suggestions here like atom, sublime, Kate, etc, but they never became my everything tool like emacs used to be. Very recently I discovered Helix, and I gave it a try and loved it, however the lack of plugin support made me have reservations on diving in. But the interaction mode is very close to vim, so I decided to give vim another go and went through a few tutorials on how to set Nvim up while refreshing muscle memory for vim movements and learning new stuff and it’s slowly becoming the everything tool that emacs once was for me.
All of that being said, I don’t think I would use evil-mode on Emacs, the reason is that vim is made with those motions from the ground up, whereas in emacs they will be an after-thought so it will probably not be integrated enough (or more likely will require lots of configurations).
I wasn’t able to see for myself how
cin"worked within Vim*.It’s simple, imagine you have a line of code like so:
my_var = "some string with spaces"If your cursor is almost anywhere on that line pressing
ci"will erase the contents of inside the string and place you in insert mode, i.e. the line will look line this:my_var = "|"With
|being the cursor in insert mode. There are other similar things, for exampleca"(Change Around ") will also erase the quotes, very useful for example to change a hard coded string with a variable.Sorry fam for the late response! I was writing up a draft a couple of days ago, but that one somehow disappeared. Which…, is kinda peculiar as I don’t recall the last time a draft spoofed out of existence. Regardless, it really puts me off to start a reply all over. As such, I’ve been mustering motivation since 😅. Anyhow, thank you for your patience!
Thank you for sharing your journey around the many text editors! If anything, it reminds me how life has got many surprises for us. As such, being wed to any software, regardless of how powerful it may be, may still result in a break later down the line.
Thank you also for touching on ergonomics! I haven’t mentioned it, but I do experience some RSI-related pains/aches.
Steps I've undertaken to alleviate the pains/aches. This has been put in spoilers, because I don't think it's very relevant for the subject matter.
- I use a split keyboard, and hope to switch in the upcoming months to one of the most ergonomic keyboard around.
- I have made changes to my workflow to become (mostly) keyboard-only, so little to no mouse/touchpad. Which led me to embrace and become more familiar with modal editing.
- I have dabbled into the alt keyboard layouts and intend to make the switch when the aforementioned ergonomic keyboard arrives.
- I have made many other changes to how I work in order to better align with ergonomics; laptop-stand so that it’s lifted to the appropriate height, worked on better posture, only making minimal use of my phone etc. And intend to back this up further with a height-adjustable desk.
- Employ speech to text whenever I can afford it.
Anyhow, I do have concerns on how Emacs’ default keybindings might be detrimental on someone using a regular keyboard. I believe this article makes an interesting case on this. That’s also one of the reasons why I’ve (almost) exclusively been on evil mode.
I
Btw, the trick with
ci"andca"is pretty cool! Thank you for teaching me something new! FWIW, it was reproducible within Emacs’ evil mode*.Hey, yeah, I know the feeling, every time I lose an already typed reply I completely lose motivation to rewrite it.
Yeah, my pinky strain issue is completely gone, I also used to have some more pain on my wrist which made me go through a very similar journey to you, I took many steps for it to the point where nowadays my setup is (in order of what I think has made the largest impact)
- Using i3/sway as my WM for a keyboard centric usage
- Switching to Colemak and learning touch typing properly
- Split ortholineal keyboard (crkbd)
- Trackball instead of mouse
I’ve also got a height adjustable desk and a good chair to prevent issues with my back, and my monitors use an arm to be in the right position. It was a slow process of making one change here, few months later another z etc, but this has been my setup for a few years and all of my pains in wrist, lower back, neck, etc have disappeared. I figured if I’m going to ve sitting in front of a computer typing stuff for 8h a day I need to make that as comfortable as possible to be able to do it for longer.
As for emacs with evil mode I was sure that
ci"would work, that’s basic vim functionality, what I’m less sure would work is more complex stuff for which I use plugins, e.g.<space>srq"(Surround Replace Quotes with ") to replace the next quotes for " (e.g. changingvar = 'some text'tovar = "some text"). That same plugin allows me to also do<space>srb[to Surround Replace Bracket/Braces with [ (to change the surrounding [, (, or { to [ ). Another plugin allows me to move to any part of the screen in 4 keystrokes, I presssthe two characters of where I want to move, and a third disambiguation character and the cursor moves there. Those are advanced usages that I think will be difficult to reproduce in emacs, plus plugins will not incorporate the basic ideas for movements.May I ask why emacs in evil-mode instead of Nvim?
Hey, yeah, I know the feeling, every time I lose an already typed reply I completely lose motivation to rewrite it.
Hehe, as a precaution, I wrote this up in Emacs instead 😜.
Yeah, my pinky strain issue is completely gone
Glad to hear that!
Using i3/sway as my WM for a keyboard centric usage
Curious to see this at the very top of your list. Perhaps I should make my switch to Sway rather sooner than later. Thank you for the endorsement!
learning touch typing properly
I intend to learn this with the alt keyboard layout after the more ergonomic split keyboard has arrived. Wish me good luck 😉!
Trackball instead of mouse
Hmm…, this is lower on your list. So I suppose that by effectively removing most need for a mouse, the switch to a trackball has been less impactful. Btw, perhaps related, would you happen to be aware of hints? If so, could you touch upon its relevance?
a good chair to prevent issues with my back
Curious. Is this a special ergonomic chair (or something)?
It was a slow process of making one change here, few months later another z etc
Did you advance/progress in increments because you were testing out the latest addition to the setup? And thus, only introduced a subsequent change after judging that you were not ‘done’ yet?
all of my pains in wrist, lower back, neck, etc have disappeared.
I am so glad to read this! While the journey until I am able to interact with my systems without any pain seems far away right now, success stories like yours make me so pumped to pull through.
I figured if I’m going to ve sitting in front of a computer typing stuff for 8h a day I need to make that as comfortable as possible to be able to do it for longer.
Couldn’t agree more.
e.g.
<space>srq"(Surround Replace Quotes with ") to replace the next quotes for " (e.g. changingvar = 'some text'tovar = "some text"). That same plugin allows me to also do<space>srb[to Surround Replace Bracket/Braces with [ (to change the surrounding [, (, or { to [ ).Interesting. FWIW, I did test this out and I believe that OOTB Doom Emacs does utilize the evil-surround package. However, I don’t think it’s as powerful as what you describe. Though, this could also be on me 😅.
Another plugin allows me to move to any part of the screen in 4 keystrokes, I press
sthe two characters of where I want to move, and a third disambiguation character and the cursor moves there.Hmm…, this very closely resembles what evil-snipe does. Though, unless I’m doing something wrong, the functionality is not a single
saway, but rather ag s SPCaway. At least, OOTB*.May I ask why emacs in evil-mode instead of Nvim?
Of course you can. Unfortunately, though, I don’t exactly recall my reasonings 😅. Thankfully, I did note some of my thoughts from back when I was actively trying to decide between the two. From there, I was able to gather the following:
- I would only try out Emacs or Neovim through a opinionated config.
- For Emacs, Doom had kinda won over Spacemacs based on the opinions (and experiences) of others . Though, I still wanted to try out Spacemacs to judge for myself.
- While for Neovim, LazyVim and LunarVim were the winning configs.
What follows is not based on my notes, but from what I can remember. Shortly after I came to the above conclusions, I went out and tried to install them. But, I wanted to ‘test’ them without ‘polluting’ my system. As such, I tried to install them within a distrobox. This is where Neovim came short because of this imposed limitation. I don’t 100% remember what it was, but IIRC there might have been more than 1 issue; one of which had to do with fonts. Regardless, my Neovim adventures were prematurely terminated 😅. By contrast, Emacs didn’t budge an inch under these circumstances. So I was able to test out both Doom and Spacemacs without any significant issues. Since then, I have dabbled in Emacs. But the folding mentioned in the original post is what has led me to commit more seriously than ever. So, in short, it was mostly out of practical reasons.
Btw, it’s funny, but most of what you just read about my reasonings were buried memories 😂. Like, if I had to answer it on the spot -so without thinking it over or look through my notes or dig through my memories- , I would probably have stated some arbitrary technical reason (e.g. org-mode FTW) OR its proven longevity OR I don’t know… something. But it couldn’t be further from the truth 😅. Granted, I’m still very much enjoying Emacs. But, I shouldn’t disregard/dismiss Neovim any longer. It’s time to revisit this rabbit hole 😂. I should also thank you for asking the question that brought this to my attention 😊!
