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Bluefish 1.0 Released

Posted by michael on from the redfish dept.

datadriven writes "Bluefish 1.0 was released this week. I've been using it for about a year and a half and find it to be about the closest thing I've found to Homesite, which I used before switching to Linux. According to the website the new version features 'A new, very extended manual, better gnome and kde integration, much improved bookmarks, many performance improvements.'"

33 comments

  1. Bluefish ports. by Ash-Fox · · Score: 1, Interesting

    It seems like some interesting software to use.

    However, I don't seem to be able to find any windows or macos ports of this software.

    --
    Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
    1. Re:Bluefish ports. by DrJonesAC2 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Here here! I would dearly love to have this running on Windows just for the sake of project management. Not that Bluefish has an extensive project management system. It still would be nice to have one environment to do all my HTML/PHP editing in.
      Being that this is a GTK app I wonder how hard it would be to make the conversion? Almost all other GTK projects that I use have windows ports so I wouldn't imagine it would be that difficult.

    2. Re:Bluefish ports. by arkanes · · Score: 1

      A port is probably pretty simple as long as you're willing to accept the terrible rape of all that is Good and Just that masquerades as GTK-Win32. A port that people will actually want to use without endangering their unborn children will need to be re-written (in a cross-platform toolkit, or directly against Windows) and would almost certainly be non-trivial.

    3. Re:Bluefish ports. by DrJonesAC2 · · Score: 1

      I have to wonder why this is? I use GIMP, GAIM and X-Chat on Windows without issue and they work exactly the same as thier Linux counterparts. Are they ported or are they completely rewritten as you suggest? (Or maybe you were implying that the Windows versions suck)
      Not trying to start a flamewar I really want to know. I have never done any development in GTK so I guess Im at a bit of a disadvantage.

    4. Re:Bluefish ports. by maskedbishounen · · Score: 2, Interesting

      A bit off-topic now, but Xchat has this lovely little quirk I noticed when I last used the Windows port.

      Minimize the main window, and leave the DCC Receive window open. This may not be required, but it will allow you to monitor the status. Have a friend send you a file, and watch it come in. While it's transferring, try to restore the main window -- you can't! It won't come up until the transfer completes.

      Mind you, it's entirely possible that it was just my screwy system, but I found it amusing to no end. :) This was using the last free version, before it went shareware, so it's likely been fixed by now.

      --
      "An infinite number of monkeys typing into GNU emacs would never make a good program."
    5. Re:Bluefish ports. by arkanes · · Score: 1

      The Windows versions suck is the gist of my rant. They suck exactly because they operate the same as thier Linux counterparts, rather than as Windows applications. A good cross platform application should act appropriately for the current platform, not stick out like a sore thumb. Note that this means a lot more than just theming (although GTK-Win32s support for Windows theming leaves a lot to be desired anyway).

    6. Re:Bluefish ports. by DrJonesAC2 · · Score: 1

      I guess this is just a matter of point of view. I don't mind that platform independant applications don't look like thier OS as long as they consistently function the same. As far as what you mean by "more than just theming" I can't begin to guess.
      Perhaps you would be interested in elaborating on this?

    7. Re:Bluefish ports. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Button order on dialogues, etc

    8. Re:Bluefish ports. by arkanes · · Score: 1
      It's a pretty big topic. There's arrangement and organization of buttons. There's stuff like platform specific dialog boxes (file choosers, for example) and associated behavior, such as whether or not a dialog should center on it's parent or on the screen. There's the behavior of common controls (should drop down boxes scroll through options on arrow key, or drop down the list?). Common hotkey accelerators (especially on the Mac).

      Making an acceptable cross platform application is non-trivial, and using something like GTK for it just tosses everything out the window. Note that PROGRAM behavior can remain the same, it's the interaction with the user which is expected to be consist. Some people don't care, of course, and that's fine, but most people care to some degree and some people (like me) care a whole lot. My major hatred is reserved for people who claim that GTK is a cross-platform toolkit because it has a Windows port. This makes Baby Jesus cry. GTK is a great toolkit if you're targeting GNOME, an adequate one if you're just targeting X-Windows (or a framebuffer, or any other environment that doesn't have a default behavior and/or widget set), and a piss poor one if you want an application that's acceptable to regular users of Windows or Mac OS. Sometimes you can pass it off to a Windows users as a "skin" and convince them it's better, but Mac users just won't find it acceptable.

    9. Re:Bluefish ports. by DrJonesAC2 · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the insight. I guess I am just used to how things function on most platforms. I work on a variety of systems (Linux,Windows,Mac) on a daily basis so I think that my perception is skewed because I can just fall into whatever environment I am in at the time.
      I can completely understand your point of view on this though. I remember (barely) the first time I used Linux, Mandrake 8.2, and it did feel weird.

    10. Re:Bluefish ports. by Ash-Fox · · Score: 1

      How the hell is this a flamebait?

      --
      Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
  2. previous releases by St.+Arbirix · · Score: 5, Funny

    for anyone who missed the previous releases, here's a list...

    v0.1 Onefish
    v0.2 Twofish
    v0.7 Redfish

    --
    Direct away from face when opening.
    1. Re:previous releases by Enrico+Pulatzo · · Score: 1

      Yours is a woefully underrated post.

    2. Re:previous releases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Future planned releases:

      blackfish
      bluefish (again!)
      oldfish
      newfish

    3. Re:previous releases by St.+Arbirix · · Score: 1

      I owe it to the fact that there is so little to really say about this article and there are so few posts. Hence, a mod war. With 5 mod points used my post went from "Score:2" to "Score:2, Funny"

      Slashdot can be weird like that. I hope to one day see a post with a "Score:5, Underrated" What an interesting post it would have to be.

      --
      Direct away from face when opening.
  3. No Windows support by Yuioup · · Score: 2, Funny

    I'm sorry, but with no Windows support you're not going to get anywhere.

    Come back when you're finished. .. and make it snappy!!

    Y

    1. Re:No Windows support by override11 · · Score: 1

      run along you Microsoft drone.. shoo shoo

      --
      No I didnt spell check this post...
    2. Re:No Windows support by ratsg · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Its not a game, this is something that you can get work done with.

  4. Looks nice by JPyObjC+Dude · · Score: 1

    I have been keeping an eye on this project for a while and it's looking very nice. A cygwin port would be all that I need to keep me happy. I've been looking for a MDI based editor that will work on OSX and win32 for some time. But since my iBook died, I've been just scripting in Ultra-Edit.

    From the screenies, they have come a long way.

    Great work!

    1. Re:Looks nice by Octos · · Score: 1

      Try jEdit. http://jedit.org

      I thought I wouldn't be able to find something I liked after using HomeSite since it practically came out, but jEdit is heaven and it works on all the platforms I use.

      --

      "I am not a number! I am a free man!"-- The Prisoner

    2. Re:Looks nice by JPyObjC+Dude · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately OSX does not render heavy swing based apps very well unless you have a decent video card to leverage Quartz Extreme. I found that jEdit on my older iBook (500mhz) as with other swing apps was too slow. If I had a faster mac, I'd use jEdit for sure. jEdit is probably better than BBEdit and Ultra-edit in many ways.

      KDE's Kate and KDevelop ran very fast on all boxes that I've tried but you have to install the massive KDE framework to get these.

  5. So.... by Lendrick · · Score: 1

    What, exactly, is Bluefish?

    1. Re:So.... by MarkGriz · · Score: 2, Informative
      What, exactly, is Bluefish?

      Oddly, they don't bother to tell you what it is on either the main page or under Features.

      A little digging here reveals:
      Bluefish is a powerful editor for experienced web designers and programmers based on the GTK2 GUI interface. Bluefish supports many programming and markup languages, but focuses on editing dynamic and interactive websites.
      --
      Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
    2. Re:So.... by Quikah · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually it says "Web Development Studio" in the upper right corner of the homepage. But I agree, they don't do a good job of marketing their product.

      --
      Q.
  6. Bluefish EXE? by brunes69 · · Score: 1

    Bluefish looks really nice - just the ticket for a Windows user I was recently going to introduce to web development. I was wondering if anyone has managed to build it to a .EXE? Is this possible?

    1. Re:Bluefish EXE? by stromthurman · · Score: 1

      It appears to be based on GTK 2, which has been ported to windows, so at least, in theory, it is possible. Whether or not it will be ported will remain to be seen.

      --
      I have discovered a truly remarkable sig which this margin is too small to contain.
  7. Mozilla/Gecko support... by kosmosik · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I know this is just HTML (and some others...) editor but IMHO it would be great to have embeded Gecko view on the code output from Bluefish (maybe as tab) inside... This just begs to embed Gecko into it (like mozilla-bonobo? it lives?). Or maybe make something that Bluefish can control Firefox window. F.e. when you switch focus from Bluefish to Firefox the page automagically redraws...

    1. Re:Mozilla/Gecko support... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hmmm, I know Quanta+ has a KHTML preview, which is a great feature. I'd like to see a comparison of Quanta+ and Bluefish, actually. I rarely work with HTML, so I haven't had the motivation to contrast them myself. Any links?

  8. Wonderful! by L.Bob.Rife · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm a web developer and unlike seemingly every other poster thus far, I use linux. I'm excited about this news.

    I last used Bluefish about a year ago, and I absolutely loved it, but... it crashed, often.

    I've been using Quanta and have grown to like it, but my environment is Gnome, so Quanta is something of an ungainly beast with all those kde parts loading on top of gnome.

    I'm compiling Bluefish now, and can't wait to test it out.

    1. Re:Wonderful! by bcarl314 · · Score: 1

      I too use linux (Mandrake 1) as my primary development environment and have been using bluefish almost exclusively on my local box (when I ssh, I use vi). It is a fantastic editor for linux, but I must admit that I think textpad is better, but it only runs on Windows.

      I'd like to see a textpad port to linux!

    2. Re:Wonderful! by bcarl314 · · Score: 1

      Sorry, that should be Mandrake 10! :D

  9. Running on a Mac by LizardKing · · Score: 1

    Well, according to the description of the following image on the screenshots page it runs on MacOS X:

    Bluefish running on a Mac, in french.

  10. How I miss Bluefish by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I miss using Bluefish. I always found it a very comfortable editor, not as feature filled as Quanta but much nicer.
    I haven't been able to find a replacement on windows.