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Sublime Text 2 - code folding text editor
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Posted by jaslar
Jan 8, 2015 at 03:46 AM
Wow! I just installed the plaintask pacage and I have to say: so Sublime Text is a highly customizable writing environment; it has multi-tabs, endless new plugins and add-in packages; terrific search and multi-file management; code folding; tasks…. How come I’m just finding out about this now?
OK, it doesn’t integrate with a calendar (unless there’s a plugin for that!) and it doesn’t mind map, but…. I may have to live in this a while longer. The tasks package also, I see, reads various task files (including taskpaper), supports tags and date translation, subtasks. Wow.
Posted by Paul Korm
Jan 8, 2015 at 10:57 AM
Sublime Text is a plain text environment. On OS X, if you have Marked 2—a tool for rendering and exporting markdown documents—then you can install the Marked Bonus Pack. Among other things, this works with Sublime Text so that when working with a markdown document the Sublime build command (command-B) will open that document in Marked. With Sublime and Marked displayed side-by-side you have a rich edit/render/export environment that beats any markdown editor I’ve used.
(Except Ulysses III, of course ;-) )
Posted by CRC
Jan 9, 2015 at 04:10 PM
For those looking for a text editor that has markdown support to include folding and previewing, you might want to look at Brackets (http://brackets.io/). The price is right (open source - Free), it has a very large number of plugins (extensions) and seems to have a tremendous number of capabilities and options.
Beware, though, if you go to that site to download Brackets, you may want to avoid the regular download button and click the “Download Brackets without Extract” link below it if you don’t want extra stuff.
Once you have Brackets you will have to go to the Extension manager to download the “Code Folding” and “Markdown Preview” extensions. Of course there are plenty of others.
I’d be interested in what others think of Brackets.
Posted by jaslar
Jan 9, 2015 at 06:09 PM
There’s lots to like here.
- It’s free. I like open source.
- Its implementation of extensions is far easier to wrap your head around than Sublime Text’s. Brackets feels less complex generally (thanks to your suggestion to download it without Extract options, which I appreciate). I just had to click on extension manager, type the words I wanted, and click to install. The new functions immediately appeared in the program—no close and restart (which was necessary in Sublime Text).
- It was easier to fiddle with display settings (hide line numbers, expand the font size): menu options rather than preference files.
- It has, like all good code editors, I imagine, lots of great search options, including the ability to search across several active files.
- It was easy to grab the writer enhancements I was looking for: word count (although it becomes a menu option rather than a live update), markdown preview, and spell check (although this one is a little hinky - turning it on led to some unpredictable suggestions as I typed, and turning it off required “clearing markers”).
- Its implementation of code folding is much better than Sublime Text’s. Brackets’ folding automatically follows heading structure: anything subordinate to the current level is automatically tagged with the little tilty-arrow icon, which works just as you’d hope. On the other hand, code folding isn’t quite outlining. If you fold text, then try to move it folded, you’re only moving that line; you have to be careful about correctly selecting to the beginning of the next section. And there are some little display glitches with code folding in Brackets: sometimes the tilty-arrow gets stuck in one direction (even though it still works) or disappears altogether (although clicking in that area still toggles the display).
- The markdown extension is ... mixed. Markdown generally isn’t as accommodating as the Sublime Text implementation: in Brackets, you have to manually insert hypens and numbers in lists, for instance. The extension gives a resizable preview window at the bottom of the screen, which is handy. But you wouldn’t want to leave it running all the time while writing - the updates make the whole editing screen flicker. But it’s not hard to toggle on and off.
- Brackets has no navigation by structure - jump to a particular heading or show only headings at a certain level.
What I was after was a clean, markdown editor with preview and code folding. Brackets will certainly do all that, and it was much easier to set up than Sublime Text. Both of them are cross-platform (on the desktop, anyhow). And I think Brackets looks a little better, too. On the whole, a pretty interesting offering. Thanks for calling my attention to it.
Posted by tightbeam
Jan 9, 2015 at 06:39 PM
Jaslar - another option for you:
Both Brackets and Atom are “clones” of Sublime Text. I think there are one or two others, but Brackets and Atom are the major players. For me, they’re inferior to the original (and not just in features: Sublime is much faster, especially when dealing with large text files). What keeps Brackets, et. al. on my radar is active development. Sublime Text hasn’t had a major update in a long, long time, and its developer hasn’t offered much in the way of explanation (or anything else). Sublime support, even for licensees, is very spotty. It’s hard to recommend paying $70 *now* for a Sublime license, given these issues.