Built-text editor

Is there a built in text editor in Opus.? I had an issue with mime-types in firefox. So I was about to edit mime-types.rdf (xml)..Can I do this within Opus?

Try the Source Code Viewer plugin if your machine is 32-bit.

I have x64

Ah, in that case there isn't a text editor plugin yet.

Hehe am i reading too far in to this? :stuck_out_tongue:

I will express my interest in this also, it's the one thing (for me) that would make Opus beyond perfect. I have to deal with minified/poorly formatted js, css, html, php file types for hours on end every day. So i'm constantly having to launch the files in a text editor just to read them with syntax highlighting or to edit just a few characters.

I mentioned this in another thread, but even if the editor is a license addon (like SFTP/USB) i will be the first in line for it.

I don't understand the need for something like this. External editors open up instantly, and most close on ESC. How would having one built into Opus be an improvement?

Imagine this, you have a folder with 100 MP3's and all their file names are:

0001.mp3
0002.mp3

And so on, and you have no idea what's what. Would you prefer to preview them inline, or launch each file one by one in an external music player to be able to decipher what each contains?

Same with a folder with 100 images, would you prefer to open each image in an external program just to add a dot to the 100 pictures or do it inline in a lister in a couple of clicks?

If you spend 8 hours a day looking at +1,000 line files that look like this, i'm sure you will agree even syntax highlighting would be a godsend:

Having a text editor in Opus would save me switching between Opus and Notepad++ at least a few thousand times a day. I waste so much time launching a file in an editor just to see if it contains certain info only to find it doesn't and close it again then repeat with the next file.

I don't see the need to resize, rotate, adjust gamma, convert, edit quality of images and all the other image options right in Opus when you could launch Photoshop and do it. That's only because i don't use them near enough to really appreciate the functionality but i'm sure it's a lifesaver to the people who do.

I agree, it's very handy having a text editor you can click on and off, as part of the same window you do everything else in, and open files in by just selecting them.

Making a text-editor plugin (one without the issues of the SCV plugin) is on my list of things to do if someone else doesn't do it first. Long list though. :slight_smile:

Thanks for the explanation, sweetfunny.

I never really use the preview pane in Opus, since I always have a single dual-pane lister open. But I can now see how having at least code highlighting could be useful in your situation...

As for Opus' image tools, I use the convert command to batch-resize pics almost daily!

Oh excellent! Consider yourself my bestest online friend if that happens! :stuck_out_tongue:

Even if it does a simple edit, save, line numbering and syntax highlighting it will be hugely beneficial. I wish i could "beat you to making it" but unfortunately i don't know my .dll's from my .sys's.

[quote="newguy"]Thanks for the explanation, sweetfunny.

I never really use the preview pane in Opus, since I always have a single dual-pane lister open. But I can now see how having at least code highlighting could be useful in your situation... [/quote]

No problems, and yeppers when you spend a ton of time working with certain filetypes you really appreciate the ability to view, edit and manipulate them in the fastest and simplest way possible. Switching in and out of a third party app so much is nowhere near as efficient as viewing/editing them inline in Opus.

I really like Leo's NFO Viewer Plugin it does a similar thing, allows you to view a properly formatted NFO without needing to launch a text editor and i only view a handful of NFO's a week.. So a text viewer for other filetypes will be super useful.

With how you have Opus configured, with no preview pane then something like this wouldn't have much purpose. I have Opus like this: i42.tinypic.com/30u8pbb.png

I can up/down arrow to highlight files, preview (and eventually edit) in the right pane. My setup is nothing flash design wise, just functional.

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Well Leo.... I was just about to post in off-topic about this very issue! And it might be time I contribute something to the community of - and I swear this is true - the 1 app I have used the longest! LOL

I've spent the past year evaluating, tweaking, and hacking - everything from Notepad++ to Atom to Sublime, Visual Code (yeah I know) and Komodo Edit. And have gotten so frustrated that I decided it's time to either "nut up or shut up". Because it seems that these apps are trying to be everything to everyone, and doing poorly. Notepad++ is great, built on the Scintilla open-source editor, but is so fugly I can't stand using it and (surprise) I can't tolerate it's lack of appearance customizing. The others all want to be IDEs, but I have an IDE and write/compile/run/debug my code there just fine. All I need is a simplistic (ie; easy to use) editor that can do text files + basic syntax coloring for html/etc - no IDE.

I was posting to ask if GPS had ever considered it when I found this post - and then thought - hmmm, I know NOTHING about plug-in development for DO! But I already have a kickass dotnet wrapper for Scintilla that does all the heavy lifting and I'm perfectly comfortable writing c# (or any other lang really) - so maybe this would be a good project for me to take on!

So there it is - 9 years after this post LOL Please tell me if something has already been developed between back then and now! If not, then I guess it's time for me to read up on how to build a DO plug-in! LOL

There was this more recently, but there hasn't been any progress on it in a while as far as I know:

Definitely I will check that out. Now the embarrassing question... is it appropriate to have a "viewer" allow editing/saving? And is it even possible? (I admit I've never looked into DO plug-ins very thoroughly)

It's unusual but would make sense and be useful for a text editor plugin.

My initial thought is to use this Scintilla dotnet wrapper and build a very simple and easy to use editor, text but with syntax functions, and offer it is both a plugin for DO but also to anyone who wants it externally - as long as I can figure out how to make it appear on the context menu in DO -ONLY- (in other words, this would be free for DO folks only). That way they could use it as a viewer pane or an external window as they wish. Same code, mostly, I think.

And I have such a hatred for the text editors out there. If I roll my own it could use the same style/colors as DO. Hmmm......

A couple of things to be aware of:

  • Scintilla is built into Opus (although we don't actually use it for anything yet), so if your plugin is in-process it probably won't be able to bundle another copy of Scintilla as the two will conflict (but it may be able to use the built-in one, depending on how the C# wrapper works).

  • The plugin API is C, and most example code is in C++ (there are also some Delphi plugins), so you'd need to do extra work to implement a C# plugin. You may also run into complications by hosting .Net inside our process (although I gather this is less of an issue with newer versions of .Net, so that may not be a problem, assuming you're using them).

An out-of-process plugin may be worth considering, although cross-process messaging can bring its own issues.

Good points both - I just happened to read in the plugins forum about the "Source Code Viewer/Editor" and I'm still not sure what it does! I've seen posts that say it's only a viewer, but it's listed as viewer/editor as well! LOL But it doesn't look very current and I suspect the fellow may have retired the project.

And I was about to post asking why DO included Scintilla! LOL
I was surprised to find out just how many editors out there use it!

I'm currently using dotnet 4.7.2 and as far as I know I should be able to specify a specific version of my resources. Then again, I'm no expert! But I think I'll give it a try - once I figure out whether the existing plugin 1: does viewing only and/or 2: if it's still active. If yes, and no, then I'll step up and see what I can do. About darn time I contribute!

Only and viewer was developed, it works quite well and is current. You will note the post I created to summarise the latest version and themes only says viewer. The other post is about developing the plugin, the original poster was interested in created an editor. The source was never provided so no updates are possible. Its be best there is at the moment, and actually is pretty good.

The source code viewer plugin used to support editing. It is however broken now.