| Author |
Message |
|
| makingme |
 Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 6:37 am |
 |
|
Registered User
Joined: 03 Jan 2007
Posts: 270
Location: Minneapolis, MN
|
I just recently downloaded the latest release of inType (0.3.1). I must say its a polished editor at its very core. It feels good interface wise. E always seems on the verge of clunky but I am still deeply in love with E.
However, I think there is a lot to be learned and possibly gleened into features for E. I'm a stickler about font aliasing and inType's is just better, for non-aliased fonts to like ProFont.
If you've used inType, what things in it can E gain from? |
|
|
| Back to top |
   
|
| Dirhael |
| Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 8:25 am |
|
|
Registered User
Joined: 26 May 2007
Posts: 53
Location: Norway
|
As I posted on another forum, I find that InType is not much more than a pretty face. It has no stand-out features at all besides being pretty by using more "web 2.0" colours in the interface. The bundle system in severely limited compared to Textmate & E, it has no project management, the tabs are just strange (can't right-click them, can't middle-click to close, can't double-click the tab bar to create new document and the active document is not indicated well enough to be usable) etc..
So to your question about what E can learn from it? Honestly, I don't see anything InType does that E doesn't already do better. Don't know about the font thing though, as I've never had a problem with it in E when using my prefered fonts so it's hard for me to judge. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| enkei |
| Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 8:34 am |
|
|
|
Registered User
Joined: 23 May 2007
Posts: 123
|
Installed it, try to close a tab with CTRL+W, then deinstalled it 
Honestly, I have to agree with Dirhael, I didn't see any feature that could get me away from e. (And without wanting to be rude, it looks like a cheap copy of e / textmate to me  ) |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| borland |
| Posted: Sun Aug 12, 2007 9:09 pm |
|
|
|
Registered User
Joined: 20 Nov 2006
Posts: 410
|
The only thing I found I liked about inType was that the interface just felt more solid and polished.
This is _entirely_ cosmetic, but it does make a difference. If you showed a screenshot of both editors to something, I'd bet they'd pick intype every time.
The things I noticed were as follows. They should be easily tweaked to make E just a little bit more "professional" looking.
* The E menu bar is a bit squashed. If it was made maybe 3px taller and the spacing between File/Edit/View etc increased about 2px, then it would look better. Observe the dimensions of the firefox menu bar for example.
* When mousing over or clicking any menu in most windows apps, they get shaded blue in the background to indicate they're hilighted. E instead uses a depressed-3d-button look. 3D buttons are "so last decade", it would help a lot if E switched to the normal blue-hilight rather than 3d-rounded-button
* On vista, the E menu bar (file menu etc) is blue-shaded. Intype's one is just flat grey. I know that the "right" thing to do on vista is to have the shaded menu, but I think the flat grey really does look better. If the spacing and hilighting above gets fixed though, then I think it might be ok to leave the shaded background alone.
* Intype doesn't use your programming font to show line numbers in the gutter. It instead uses the normal windows font and greys it out slightly. IMHO this looks a lot nicer as it makes the line numbers look less cluttered
* When mousing over things in the statusbar in intype, it uses the blue hilight to indicate that. E doesn't at all. E should also hilight on mouseover as this makes those items much more discoverable for clicking on. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| kingding |
| Posted: Sun Aug 12, 2007 9:59 pm |
|
|
|
Registered User
Joined: 11 May 2007
Posts: 40
Location: .de
|
borland wrote: * The E menu bar is a bit squashed. If it was made maybe 3px taller and the spacing between File/Edit/View etc increased about 2px, then it would look better. Observe the dimensions of the firefox menu bar for example.
I'm actually running a user style in Firefox that vertically squeezes the menu bar.
Quote: * Intype doesn't use your programming font to show line numbers in the gutter.
First of all, E can learn from Intype's status bar, which is a lot more capable, aesthetically and feature-wise. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| makingme |
| Posted: Mon Aug 13, 2007 12:58 am |
|
|
|
Registered User
Joined: 03 Jan 2007
Posts: 270
Location: Minneapolis, MN
|
I agree that the biggest appeal of inType is deeply rooted in the cosmetic. However, after using it I found a wealth of things cosmetic and techinical that E could gleen.
A lot of folks are mentioning the interface. E is just clunky looking, no doubts about it. It has plenty reason to be. It was literally hobby software that brough rebirth for the windows text editor/programming scene.
inType was built to be light. Then again inType has about 1/4 of the features that E has. Although I believe E is also making good steps forward in the area of speed and stability.
More than anything I'd like to focus a little more on interface as this will decide its uptake in the future. Great features suck when they're buried in a sucky interface. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| mgutz |
| Posted: Mon Aug 13, 2007 9:14 am |
|
|
|
Registered User
Joined: 07 Aug 2007
Posts: 1
|
enkei wrote: Installed it, try to close a tab with CTRL+W, then deinstalled it
Honestly, I have to agree with Dirhael, I didn't see any feature that could get me away from e. (And without wanting to be rude, it looks like a cheap copy of e / textmate to me
Funny, this is my biggest peeve with e. Ctrl+F4 is close in Windows, last I checked I'm not on a Mac. Intype a cheap copy of textmate? And how is E different?
E's biggest draw is the Textmate bundles. The editor itself is nothing spectacular. How do you replace in selections? How do you find in files and get results you can click on to take you to the source file? How do you print? How do you remap the keys? How do you record quick macros? Where are the bookmarks? I guess if you've never used these features you will probably argue they are uncessary.
I don't mean to knock e but with all the hype I've read about it, I had to try it and it's been somewhat disappointing.The SQL bundle is horrible. E constantly moves my statements whenever I add parentheses, create a table and define a column as varchar(50) and watch e do its magic. the dark themes are nice, reminds me of my turbo pascal days.
inType seems much snappier than e but it also suffers from not having the basic features of most editors for windows. at least inType doesn't move my SQL statements around when i code. inType should reconsider their stance on TextMate bundles. it doesn't look too difficult to do since e just uses cygwin which does all the work. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| enkei |
| Posted: Mon Aug 13, 2007 9:58 am |
|
|
|
Registered User
Joined: 23 May 2007
Posts: 123
|
I have to admit that my first comment perhaps was a little bit too rude.
But I still don't understand why inType would be better than e in any way. There is no theme preview or theme editor. There is no bundle editor, no projects, no symbols, no undo history. I use all of these things very often and that are just the big points. A lot of other things like closing buttons on a tab, Goto file (winner!) and other useful functions are also missing. Although inType may look a little bit more polished, I prefer the interface of e in my daily work. inType uses to much space in my opinion. What I liked in inType was the nice status bar at the bottom (shows current encoding and line break format).
I agree that the bundles from e are not that good, but then again I think Alexander will continue to improve the support for textmate bundles in the future. e has gone down a long road since version 0.1, perhaps inType will improve the same way, but with Alexanders strong contribution to this project I don't think it will overtake e that soon.
About the keys: I have some Emacs and Mac background so I prefer CTRL/ALT shortcuts much over function key shortcuts. My fingers can stay on the main area of the keyboards rather than having to search for the right F-Key. But than again, I know these things are rather individual, so as e supports both, I guess that's the best for both of us  |
Last edited by enkei on Mon Aug 13, 2007 12:51 pm; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
| charlesroper |
| Posted: Mon Aug 13, 2007 12:29 pm |
|
|
Registered User
Joined: 06 Mar 2007
Posts: 1208
Location: UK
|
[quote="mgutz"]
Funny, this is my biggest peeve with e. Ctrl+F4 is close in Windows, last I checked I'm not on a Mac.[/quote="mgutz"]
As shortcuts go, Ctrl-W feels more standard to me than Ctrl-F4. It's easier to use and seems to be used in more apps (I don't use any of the MS dev tools, which I know use Ctrl-F4).
[quote="mgutz"]Intype a cheap copy of textmate? And how is E different?
E's biggest draw is the Textmate bundles. The editor itself is nothing spectacular.[/quote="mgutz"]
What is spectacular about e is not what it is now, but the rate at which it progresses. Alexander embodies the release early, release often philosophy with his rapid, exciting rate of development. It's this that makes e feel so vibrant. Plus the Textmate bundles are a HUGE draw; they are what make Textmate so special and also what make e stand out.
[quote="mgutz"]How do you replace in selections? How do you find in files and get results you can click on to take you to the source file? How do you print? How do you remap the keys? How do you record quick macros? Where are the bookmarks? I guess if you've never used these features you will probably argue they are unnecessary.[/quote="mgutz"]
Many of these features are surely being added by Alexander in coming releases. The beauty of the Textmate bundle system is that many, many features can be added yourself relatively easily. That is the beauty of e. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| Dirhael |
| Posted: Mon Aug 13, 2007 12:58 pm |
|
|
|
Registered User
Joined: 26 May 2007
Posts: 53
Location: Norway
|
[quote="charlesroper"][quote="mgutz"]
Funny, this is my biggest peeve with e. Ctrl+F4 is close in Windows, last I checked I'm not on a Mac.[/quote="mgutz"]
As shortcuts go, Ctrl-W feels more standard to me than Ctrl-F4. It's easier to use and seems to be used in more apps (I don't use any of the MS dev tools, which I know use Ctrl-F4).
[quote="mgutz"]Intype a cheap copy of textmate? And how is E different?
E's biggest draw is the Textmate bundles. The editor itself is nothing spectacular.[/quote="mgutz"]
What is spectacular about e is not what it is now, but the rate at which it progresses. Alexander embodies the release early, release often philosophy with his rapid, exciting rate of development. It's this that makes e feel so vibrant. Plus the Textmate bundles are a HUGE draw; they are what make Textmate so special and also what make e stand out.
mgutz wrote: How do you replace in selections? How do you find in files and get results you can click on to take you to the source file? How do you print? How do you remap the keys? How do you record quick macros? Where are the bookmarks? I guess if you've never used these features you will probably argue they are unnecessary.[/quote="mgutz"]
Many of these features are surely being added by Alexander in coming releases. The beauty of the Textmate bundle system is that many, many features can be added yourself relatively easily. That is the beauty of e.
Also, don't forget the fantastic undo/revision system in E. It's by far the best thing I've ever seen in a text editor! Another stand-out thing is the fact that it is one of the few editors with a word-wrap feature that's actually useful, and the block/multi select feature is a work of wonders.
Yes, E doesn't have everything but it's progressing rapidly and the standout features really are just that. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| charlesroper |
| Posted: Mon Aug 13, 2007 1:41 pm |
|
|
|
Registered User
Joined: 06 Mar 2007
Posts: 1208
Location: UK
|
makingme wrote: E is just clunky looking, no doubts about it.
I think it's probably worth trying to define what makes e look clunky as borland has done. For me there are a few issues (and I agree with what borland has already said, especially in regards to Vista):
The close icons on the tabs and panels are inconsistent.
There are no icons used in the status bar or in the menus.
The header of the project pane does not align with the tab bar when docked.
The new folder and new file icons in the project pane look like they're from different icons sets (the 'flashes' are different).
The indent guides disappear when there's a wrap.
I think in terms of what InType does better, I would say it does word wrapping superbly - it indents wrapped lines and adds a really nice wrap guide. It looks (and works) really well, making it much easier to read wrapped lines, sort of like an enhanced smart wrap. Also, wrapped lines are indicated in the gutter by dots; a nice touch that works well.
InType also uses icons in the bundles menu to great effect. It's a nice polish that adds utility too.
Finally, when you hover over elements in the status bar, they highlight nicely. This kind of interactive feedback adds a real sense of polish and, dare I say it, Web 2.0-ish-ness.
The tabs also look a bit sharper in InType, but I actually think e's are more functional, being slightly bigger and offering greater contrast when highlighted. For me, e's tab icons looks a bit too big; compare them carefully with Firefox's default tab icons and you'll see FF's are better proportioned.
If I could afford it (and I've no idea if Alexander can or not) I would definitely get a custom set of really high quality icons designed (by the IconFactory or IconBuffet) and hire an interface designer to do some polishing. There's not a great deal to be done, to be honest. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| charlesroper |
| Posted: Mon Aug 13, 2007 2:58 pm |
|
|
|
Registered User
Joined: 06 Mar 2007
Posts: 1208
Location: UK
|
The default light-blue of the gutter doesn't do e any favours either. I think it should be a more neutral grey, or it could even do with picking up the default chrome colour of the rest of the UI (as the rest of e's UI does). The option to explicitly set the gutter colour would of course remain.
I'd also vote for making the line numbers slightly smaller and fully redefinable, so you could choose what font you wanted. But definitely a point size or two smaller. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
