11 replies to this topic

[wwarren]

As a programmer (or a brogrammer), it’s important to have as little as possible in between you and the code you’re writing. I usually find myself with about 10 windows open if i’m working with a big project.

My standard set up for web development (at least when I’m using Windows) consists of Notepad++ for editing code, WinSCP for putting the code on the server, TortoiseSVN for version control and SQLyog for database stuff.

I don’t like having to depend on such a large number of programs and in my humble opinion, some of them (I’m looking at you Notepad++!) suffer from feature bloat. I like features, but in a code editor, I just want to be able to edit the code, save it, maybe do some find and replace stuff – nothing insane.

There must be a better way

A friend of mine who is firmly on the Apple bandwagon recently showed me a tool he started using called Coda. It combines editing code with FTP and SVN (and a ton of other stuff) and looks good doing it:

 sites-screenshot_03.jpg   199.85K   76 downloads

However, as you might be able to tell, it’s only available for Mac (and it costs MONEY!). There are also some interesting little caveats that my friend has found while using it (that are dealbreakers for me) like not being able to get SVN locks on files. Also I will never own a Mac.

Then there’s Eclipse. It’s cross-platform, well supported, enterprise standard software. It’s also ~300MB to download, written in java, and is a memory hog.

 eclipse.jpg   60.26K   50 downloads

One day recently it hit me – “Wait…I’m a brogrammer, why don’t I just write my own "Coda for Windows"/IDE/Code Editor/FTP Client/SVN Client/Database Management Tool and stop whining?”. I soon answered that question by saying:

Welcome to SimpleEd

 simpleEd.png   87.46K   88 downloads

To create SimpleEd, I just took a bunch of amazing open source components that are available online and glued them together with code and slapped a UI on the front.

Some of the features that SimpleEd has are:

• Tabbed editing
  
• Syntax highlighting, line numbers etc.
  
• Advanced find and replace
  
• Integrated support for Subversion
  
• Projects

Some of the features of the future are:

• Windows 7 jumplist support
  
• Integrated FTP support
  
• Simple database management tool
  
• Less bugs!

I really like how it’s shaping up and am excited to continue to working on it. I promise that it won’t ever cost you a penny either. It would be great to get some Beta testers involved!

Cool, how do I get it?

Before downloading, read this:

WARNING SimpleEd is extremely BETA, and is therefore riddled with bugs. 

I do not take responsibility for anything you might break while using it. 


Proceed at your own risk.

Click here to go to the download page.

Edited by wwarren, 21 September 2011 - 11:08 AM.
changed the download link

[WingedPanther]

I use jEdit and SQuirreL SQL Client for the same effect, but because they're coded in Java I get the benefit of having them work in Linux as well. jEdit does have a SQL client plugin, but I've never played with it, and tend to work on some nasty queries, anyway.

[wwarren]

jEdit hurts my eyes. I looked into it for a while but I couldn't get over the aesthetics. Same with Squirrel, although I am a fan of the Free-ness of Squirrel.

Edit: Also, I have attempted to open a giant SQL dump in jEdit in the past and it always crashed due to the JVM running out of memory.

Edited by wwarren, 21 September 2011 - 11:08 AM.

[bbqroast]

Best things I can think of is:
saved tab 'workspaces', so you actually have two tab bars. So say you had two sites you would have a 'upper' tab for each and then however many 'lower' tabs. When using Notepad++ I normally finally get everything set out how I want it only to start a new project and have to close it all.
Also FTP/SFTP support would be awesome.

[wwarren]

Thanks for the feedback

I had actually planned to change the way that projects are handled, so that you can only work on one at a time, and it would remember what files you had open for each one. I think this would result in an increase of productivity.

Look for it in the next release :)

[Sysop_fb]

Looks interesting, I use crimson editor a lot and that looks pretty similar. I really like eclipse but I have to agree it is a crazy memory hog.

I'll download it later and play around with it. Plan on supporting addons in the future? If I could find something like this and addon an integrated REPL like in eclipse then I'd be a pretty happy person.

[wwarren]

Thanks for your interest.

SimpleEd is still very young so no, no plans for addons in the NEAR future. This isn't to say that it won't exist way down the road. Maybe i could even abstract the SVN-awareness out into a plugin. Wouldn't that be great! FTP and stuff too. Now you've got me thinking :)

Please let me know what you think. Either on here or email me: willdavidwarren at gmail dot com.

Cheers

[baseball435]

Shouldnt you give the people you got the open source from some credit?

[wwarren]

Of course, and they are mentioned on the home page for SimpleEd (SimpleEd | Will Warren - I code things, therefore I am.). I will include acknowledgments in a help screen in a future release.

[WingedPanther]

You need to read the licenses carefully.
ScintillaNET
sharpsvn: Subversion Library for .Net 2.0+ -> Apache License, Version 2.0

If you are NOT distributing those licenses in the software, you cannot use the code.

[wwarren]

Right you are.

Just pushed an update (so if you have installed it already it will automatically update) which includes a few new features, a ton of bugfixes and an About dialog that contains all the necessary licences and acknowledgments.

Thanks

[WingedPanther]

Cool!