[HN Gopher] Scintilla is a free source code editing component wi...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Scintilla is a free source code editing component with a permissive
       license
        
       Author : mariuz
       Score  : 70 points
       Date   : 2023-02-19 13:52 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.scintilla.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.scintilla.org)
        
       | StevePerkins wrote:
       | I would love for there to be a Mac equivalent of Notepad++ (i.e.
       | Scintilla). I miss that editor every day. The Mac world has many
       | advantages, but in terms of text editors all your options are
       | either:
       | 
       | 1. Electron-based, and take forever to launch (even if they are
       | "fast for an Electron app").
       | 
       | 2. Little to no plugin ecosystem whatever. No Vim mode, etc (yes
       | there's Vim itself, but that's not a great choice for a GUI
       | window editor).
       | 
       | 3. Commercial, and costs nearly as much as a full-blown IDE.
       | 
       | Notepad++ was (is) pretty much perfect. Sadly, its default look-
       | and-feel is "light mode" and "Courier New", rather than dark mode
       | and Menlo/Consolas, so I don't think it even exists for the newer
       | crowd.
        
         | mdp2021 wrote:
         | The Scintilla library works on MacOS and the SciTE
         | implementation is available
         | 
         | https://www.scintilla.org/SciTE-OSX.html
        
         | thinkingemote wrote:
         | Take a look at Geany https://www.geany.org/ which uses
         | scintilla under the hood and is blisteringly fast and
         | lightweight and plugin friendly as well as FOSS.
        
           | mixmastamyk wrote:
           | I use it on Mac and happy with it. Very few integration
           | issues for a nonnative app. I usually hide the message window
           | and apply my custom dark theme.
        
           | 2devnull wrote:
           | I don't understand why geany isn't more popular.
        
             | Octoth0rpe wrote:
             | IMO on macos, geany feels more alien than electron-based
             | editors (vscode, etc). I think this is because it sort of
             | falls into an uncanny valley of UI where it's _almost_
             | native looking, but noticeably different; whereas electron-
             | based editors don't even try and so are less jarring.
             | 
             | Geany is definitely my fav editor on linux though.
        
         | 2devnull wrote:
         | > Sadly, its default look-and-feel is "light mode" and "Courier
         | New", rather than dark mode and Menlo/Consolas
         | 
         | That is precisely why I like it as a secondary editor. That and
         | because scintilla based editors (there are many besides
         | notepad++ which are cross platform) are really good at handling
         | large text files like cSv and the like.
        
         | CharlesW wrote:
         | > _1. Electron-based, and take forever to launch (even if they
         | are "fast for an Electron app")._
         | 
         | FWIW, I just tried this with VSCode and I was looking at
         | previously-only files 1.5s later. I believe new
         | installs/updates take a bit longer. Maybe this has gotten
         | better since the last time you tried it?
         | 
         | A rollup of interesting Mac text editor options: BBEdit (core
         | functionality free), CodeEdit (open source), CotEditor (open
         | source), Geany (open source, hat tip to _thinkingemote_ ),
         | Nova, Sublime Text, TextMate, UltraEdit. Wikipedia has a full
         | list at
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:MacOS_text_editors.
        
         | madduci wrote:
         | What about Sublime Text? It's always been fast and have lots of
         | plugins
        
         | jacekm wrote:
         | Try Lite XL: https://lite-xl.com/
        
         | indymike wrote:
         | The answer used to be TextWrangler. I'm not sure how BBEdit 14
         | is.
        
           | thibautg wrote:
           | I really like Notepad++ on Windows but BBEdit Free Mode does
           | the job for me on macOS.
        
         | Khaine wrote:
         | Have you tried CotEditor?
        
         | jray wrote:
         | CotEditor Tincta textmate
        
       | lycos wrote:
       | Now there's a name I haven't heard much in the last decades.
       | Before I switched from Windows to MacOS I used their demo editor
       | SciTE as my text editor of choice and was very happy with it.
        
         | mdp2021 wrote:
         | > _a name I haven 't heard much_
         | 
         | Probably you never had to develop specialized text editors -
         | the Scintilla library is very precious.
        
       | tguvot wrote:
       | Relatively unknown Eric Python IDE using scintilla as editor
       | component https://eric-ide.python-projects.org/
        
       | zeroonetwothree wrote:
       | I love SciTE. Have been using it for 20+ years as my lightweight
       | editor of choice on Windows.
        
       | PBondurant wrote:
       | For those who weren't aware, scintilla forms the basis of the
       | popular Notepad++ Windows text editor.
        
         | anta40 wrote:
         | Whenever I work on Windows machines, Notepad++ is a must to
         | have.
         | 
         | But usually, SciTE is more than sufficient:
         | https://www.scintilla.org/SciTE.html
         | 
         | and also works fine on Linux.
        
         | vitorsr wrote:
         | The Qt port of Scintilla is also used by a number of projects
         | as a lightweight editor component:                 $
         | lsb_release -d && apt rdepends libqscintilla2-qt5-15
         | Description:    Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS       libqscintilla2-qt5-15
         | Reverse Depends:         Depends: libqscintilla2-qt5-dev (<<
         | 2.11.6+dfsg+1~)         Depends: sqlitebrowser (>= 2.11.2)
         | Depends: sonic-pi (>= 2.11.2)         Depends: qgis-providers
         | (>= 2.11.2)         Depends: python3-qgis (>= 2.11.2)
         | Depends: python3-pyqt5.qsci (>= 2.11.2)         Depends:
         | openscad (>= 2.11.2)         Depends: octave (>= 2.11.2)
         | Suggests: libqscintilla2-qt5-l10n         Depends:
         | libqscintilla2-qt5-dev (>= 2.11.6+dfsg)         Depends: juffed
         | (>= 2.11.2)         Depends: libqscintilla2-qt5-designer (>=
         | 2.11.2)         Depends: libqgis-gui3.22.4 (>= 2.11.2)
         | Depends: libqgis-app3.22.4 (>= 2.11.2)
        
           | hesdeadjim wrote:
           | It feels like an eternity ago, but an editor I wrote in Qt
           | for a game did exactly this so you could write Lua inline on
           | objects.
        
           | Narishma wrote:
           | Doesn't Qt already have an editor component?
        
         | signaru wrote:
         | and Notepad++ itself sometimes gets bundled with other
         | software.
        
       | delvinj wrote:
       | SciTE has been my notepad replacement for twenty years. I love
       | its speed, simplicity, and lua scripting. I only wish there were
       | an easier way to add syntax highlighting for new languages.
        
       | jpe90 wrote:
       | There's a related project that's really cool called scintillua
       | that lets you use lpeg lexers for scintilla. It supports over 120
       | languages and it's super easy to add new ones.
       | 
       | https://github.com/orbitalquark/scintillua
       | 
       | You can also use it as a standalone lua library. I packaged it up
       | to make a faster (but much less feature full) alternative to bat.
       | 
       | https://github.com/jpe90/clp
        
       | zozbot234 wrote:
       | Notepad++ or SciTE have no support for LSP, tree-sitter parsers
       | or the new debug adapter protocol, which are table-stakes
       | requirements for serious development nowadays. So you're pretty
       | much limited to quick and dirty editing of single-file scripts or
       | configs. Meanwhile both Neovim and emacs are getting support for
       | this stuff.
        
         | kalekold wrote:
         | Please stop mentioning neovim as if it's a defacto replacement
         | for vim. The original vim is very much alive and much more
         | popular than neovim.
         | 
         | Neovim is a cash grab by developers who forked the repo and
         | demanded patreon payments etc. with wild claims that it will
         | replace vim. Neovim doesn't support vim's development it only
         | takes from it. It never pushes anything back upstream and most
         | importantly, never contributes to Bram's charity, ICCF Holland.
        
           | kelnos wrote:
           | > _demanded patreon payments etc._
           | 
           | I've been using neovim for years and have never heard of
           | this, and have never paid them anything. I'm not saying
           | you're incorrect that they've asked ("demanded" feels a bit
           | strong?) for patreon payments or other forms of compensation,
           | but a) that is their prerogative, and b) as a user, I haven't
           | felt pressured into contributing at all.
           | 
           | > _Neovim doesn 't support vim's development it only takes
           | from it. It never pushes anything back upstream_
           | 
           | I suspect at this point they've diverged enough that doing so
           | would be infeasible.
           | 
           | And yes, by definition, a fork "takes" from the original
           | parent project. Neovim is not obligated (legally or morally)
           | to contribute back to vim. That's the -- brilliant -- nature
           | of open source & permissive licensing.
           | 
           | > _... and most importantly, never contributes to Bram 's
           | charity, ICCF Holland._
           | 
           | Why is this a requirement? I'd been using vim for at least a
           | decade prior to switching to neovim, and never donated. I
           | think charitable donations are a very personal thing; people
           | can donate to whatever causes they feel like, and pressuring
           | someone to donate to a charity just because it's linked to a
           | piece of software they use (or have forked from) sounds
           | awfully similar in tone to your "demanded patreon payments"
           | rant above.
           | 
           | > _Please stop mentioning neovim as if it 's a defacto
           | replacement for vim._
           | 
           | I don't think the GP was trying to do that. They merely
           | pointed out that neovim (and emacs) has built-in support for
           | LSP (etc.), which I believe vim does not? So vim isn't really
           | relevant to the point being made.
           | 
           | I think perhaps you should step back a little and ask
           | yourself why this topic seems to be so emotionally charged
           | for you. It's just a text editor; let people use and promote
           | whatever editor they like.
        
         | stonogo wrote:
         | You might be in a bubble. Only about a quarter of the
         | developers I work with know of or care about LSP or the debug
         | adapter protocol, and about half of those who do regard them as
         | Microsoft-specific. Tree-sitter is just a personal preference,
         | there are plenty of alternate solutions that work just as well.
        
       | bdeshi wrote:
       | reminds me about Akelpad which was my preference over
       | notepad++/scintilla editors. It feels similar to Scintilla but
       | uses an allegedly more performant editing component called
       | AkelEdit. It has lots of interesting plugins and easily editable
       | GUI. it was fun to tinker with.
       | 
       | https://akelpad.sourceforge.net/en/index.php
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2023-02-19 23:01 UTC)