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Interview with SubEthaEdit Developer
WaxPoetic writes "There is a fun interview with the developers of SubEthaEdit, the only collaborative editor for Mac OS X. Topics covered include Apple slowing developing, BEEP, why they kept a free version, being a German Mac user, hopes for the Tiger release, and their hatred of metal interfaces."
They are just saying this to be polite, they use Cocoa which is Apple-only. They are locked into the mac whether they like it or not with OBJECTIVE-C. IF they really wanted to go to windows or unix there is GNUSTEP but it is not really alpha quality for Windows.
They would have to rewrite in C++ or Carbon to port SubEthaEdit.
I don't know why I am bothering to respond to an AC...
Vim is not *nearly* as elegant, integrated, nor as clean as subethaedit is.
First of all, Vim is still based on vi and requires that you know a variety of interesting things on the keyboard before you can effectively use it (what happens when I hit "d" depends on the mode--when I hit "d" in subethaedit I see a "d").
Second, it is very much not a Cocoa application. Services do not work, it has a nonstandard highlight for a MacOS X program (Carbon or Cocoa).
It neither looks nor feels like a native MacOS X app. Little things, such as the command-keys being listed in the menus, just aren't there. Example: I quit using command-q and Vim gives me an ugly dialogue that reads "Save changes to 'Untitled'?" with the options Yes, No, and Cancel (in that order, yes default). The escape button does nothing.
With SubethaEdit when I close a window I get a standard MacOS X close dialogue, showing the app's icon and saying "Do you want to save the changes you made in the document 'Untitled'? Your changes will be lost if you don't save them" with the options Don't Save, Cancel, and Save, in that order with Save as the default. The escape button cancels.
A thousand little things like that really add up.
The way preferences are handled, color syntax modes, an actual toolbar, indicators as to where the cursor is and basic information about the encoding of the file at my fingertips, the ability to highlight a block of code and indent it all or comment it all, showing line numbers or invisible characters, change how lines are terminated...
The list of differences--both functional and cosmetic, big and small--that make SubethaEdit a better choice than Vim for most Mac developers is enormous.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
I use Vim a lot (it's included with OS X, after all), but when I go into a meeting I can fire up SEE, create a document, see everyone on the local network and invite them to join in editing it collaboratively (no locking required). Perhaps you could tell me how I do this with Vim?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
"a collaborative guide, one that was written and kept up to date by the people who used it, in real time, might be a neat idea. "
And now we have it. It's called Wikipedia!
May the Maths Be with you!