Interview with SubEthaEdit Developer

WaxPoetic writes "There is a fun interview with the developers of SubEthaEdit, the only collaborative editor for Mac OS X. Topics covered include Apple slowing developing, BEEP, why they kept a free version, being a German Mac user, hopes for the Tiger release, and their hatred of metal interfaces."

The joys of collaborative editting

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't it be great to edit the same document, live, in realtime, together with everyone in your group?

No. Fuck, it would be chaos.

Re:The joys of collaborative editting

[Skibbering]

I dunno.. Wouldn't mind seeing a /. thread done live with SEE! That would be so ..BEOWULF CLUSTER?All your text are belong to us!I FOR ONE, WELCOME OUR NEW TEXT EDITING OVERLORDS!I totally pwn SubEthaEdit!IT SUX!it rox!COOL...

Really good program

[Llywelyn]

While I don't use the networking capabilities of SubethaEdit, it has largely replaced BBEdit for me as my "editor of choice" for programming. Sleek, lightweight, and efficient (not to mention free for noncommercial use), it has a lot going for it.

I did have to write a python script that would work like bbedit's command line tool (with a few of the same options, such as -c), but once that was taken care of I started using it as my primary text editor.

Re:Really good program

[daeley]

I did have to write a python script that would work like bbedit's command line tool (with a few of the same options, such as -c), but once that was taken care of I started using it as my primary text editor.

A shortcut for that if you don't mind simple capabilities would be to add an alias to your .bash_profile, a la:

alias see='open -a SubEthaEdit'

Then you can open/edit a file thusly:

see foo.html

which will open the file in SubEthaEdit for editing.

Re:Really good program

[Llywelyn]

I tried this, but it didn't quite do it for me--it wouldn't let me open a file that didn't already exist (something I do all of the time), for example

I was also very used to the syntax of BBEdit's command line tool, so I wanted to type "subetha -c filename.m"

An alias is a good solution, but wasn't quite enough.

Re:Really good program

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh-

They have a shell script listed in the FAQ on their site:
See if this [codingmonkeys.de] does it.

Re:Really good program

[Llywelyn]

Yeah, it is new with 2.0 :-)

Re:Really good program

[javax]

try this one in your ~/.bashrc:

subetha() {
if ! test -f ${1}; then
touch ${1};
fi;
open -a SubEthaEdit ${1}
}

this will work with files that not yet exist.

Re:Really good program

[Goo.cc]

"I did have to write a python script that would work like bbedit's command line tool"

I e-mailed the creators of SubEthaEdit about this, as I would like to use it was an editor for Mutt, and they told me that a command line tool for SubEthaEdit is in the works.

Re:Really good program

[Llywelyn]

Evidently they just released one last month.

http://www.codingmonkeys.de/subethaedit/goodies/ se e.zip

subethaedit style editors

[OmniVector]

For those who don't know, SubEthaEdit is a fantastic text editor for the mac. It's main benefit is the ability to do live text edit collaboration with many other users, and the ability to find these users with rendezvous (zero-setup networking). The program has a great niche in things like notetaking. I and my group members for a particular human interface class studied it in greater detail [otierney.net].

Re:subethaedit style editors

[thulsey]

I would LOVE to try this collaboration thing everyone raves about, but can't get rendezvous to work.

I don't get it.... Rendezvous seems to work for EVERYONE else that tries it... Yet my Macs at home, though they can talk to each other, are all on the same little subnet, etc.

Til this works I can't give good feedback as to how useful something is.

Guess I should just shut up, eh?

Re:subethaedit style editors

[Mononoke]

I would LOVE to try this collaboration thing everyone raves about, but can't get rendezvous to work.

Have you got port 5353 open everywhere? If you've got any firewall (including Apple's) running, it might not be.

"Well Known" TCP and UDP Ports Used By Apple Software Products. [apple.com]

Five days earlier

[mattkime]

http://macslash.org/article.pl?sid=04/06/09/133823 4&mode=thread&threshold=-1 [macslash.org]

Re:Pfft

[Llywelyn]

I don't know why I am bothering to respond to an AC...

Vim is not *nearly* as elegant, integrated, nor as clean as subethaedit is.

First of all, Vim is still based on vi and requires that you know a variety of interesting things on the keyboard before you can effectively use it (what happens when I hit "d" depends on the mode--when I hit "d" in subethaedit I see a "d").

Second, it is very much not a Cocoa application. Services do not work, it has a nonstandard highlight for a MacOS X program (Carbon or Cocoa).

It neither looks nor feels like a native MacOS X app. Little things, such as the command-keys being listed in the menus, just aren't there. Example: I quit using command-q and Vim gives me an ugly dialogue that reads "Save changes to 'Untitled'?" with the options Yes, No, and Cancel (in that order, yes default). The escape button does nothing.

With SubethaEdit when I close a window I get a standard MacOS X close dialogue, showing the app's icon and saying "Do you want to save the changes you made in the document 'Untitled'? Your changes will be lost if you don't save them" with the options Don't Save, Cancel, and Save, in that order with Save as the default. The escape button cancels.

A thousand little things like that really add up.

The way preferences are handled, color syntax modes, an actual toolbar, indicators as to where the cursor is and basic information about the encoding of the file at my fingertips, the ability to highlight a block of code and indent it all or comment it all, showing line numbers or invisible characters, change how lines are terminated...

The list of differences--both functional and cosmetic, big and small--that make SubethaEdit a better choice than Vim for most Mac developers is enormous.

Re:Pfft

[Genady]

While I agree with most of your points, as a Mac user who has taken the time (and blood and sweat) to lean vi keyboard shortcuts I must say I would LOVE some cocoa app that allowed me to use them. Esc-$ is now a muscle memory thing for me, and Apple-LARROW just doesn't feel right.

I do use SEE because gvim on OS X is such crap, but I'd really like to see vi key bindings in a native cocoa text editor.

Re:Pfft

[commodoresloat]

(what happens when I hit "d" depends on the mode--when I hit "d" in subethaedit I see a "d").

But that's the beauty of vi -- the joy of the unexpected lurking in every keystroke.

Re:Pfft

[TheRaven64]

I use Vim a lot (it's included with OS X, after all), but when I go into a meeting I can fire up SEE, create a document, see everyone on the local network and invite them to join in editing it collaboratively (no locking required). Perhaps you could tell me how I do this with Vim?

Re:Pfft

[Anonymous Coward]

:help clientserver

Enhanced Carbon Emacs

[edmz]

I recently switched to Mac OS X and gave bbedit a try (I also tried the top rated editors from Macupdate).

I ended up forcing myself to finally learn to use emacs. It has been worth it.

http://www.inf.unibz.it/~franconi/mac-emacs/

Thought I mention it even though SubEthaEdit is pretty handy too.

Re:Enhanced Carbon Emacs

[mjc_w]

I like emacs also, and have been using it for over fifteen years (I run cygwin on Winspire).

One reason is that my scripting language of choice is gawk (contact my analyst for the sordid details), and emacs supports it. If SEE supported it, I might try it - heck, from the comments, I might try it anyway.

Re:Enhanced Carbon Emacs

[Anonymous Coward]

SEE's syntax highlighting system is user extensible [codingmonkeys.de], you can add gawk support yourself pretty easily.

for different operating systems...

[1isp_hax0r]

From the FAQ:

Any chance of a *nix or Windows version?
We love developing macintosh applications with Cocoa and are determined to improve SubEthaEdit on that platform. We currently have neither resources nor experience to port our products to other platforms.

While I use a mac, most of my development is using unix editors like emacs or vim. As a unix developer you do not have to wait for these guys to port to *nix. You already have this functionality!
Just install screen [gnu.org]. First user starts screen with an editor inside. Make a new screen console and change the permission of the personal screen socket. Let other users log in and hook into your screen using

screen -x

Done! Oh, for chat, use irc :) Or communicate via comments like real geeks do!

Re:for different operating systems...

[IAmATuringMachine!]

Objective-C is a language, and is available on a variety of platforms. Their usage of Objective-C has almost nothing at all to do with portability of the application. Porting to Carbon would not yield much in the way of advantages in portability, and would be a step back in the richness of the APIs.

Re:for different operating systems...

[Durin_Deathless]

That means everyone shares an insertion point, which isn't how SEE works. Everyone has a distinct insertion point.

Re:for different operating systems...

[martingunnarsson]

Yes, and SubEthaEdit isn't a communication tool, it's a text editor with multi-user support. Grandparent has got it all wrong!

Re:for different operating systems...

[MoneyT]

The rest of us will wait, as it consumes less time and energy that could be better spent elsewhere.

More options... SubEthaEdit isn't the only one.

[ShallowThroat]

there is also iStorm" [mathgamehouse.com], which uses rendezvous and can do more than just text/code. it's worth a look if you are in the market for that kinda thing.

Re:More options... SubEthaEdit isn't the only one.

[HaloZero]

Chief difference: SubEthaEdit is free.

Further testimony

[nicky_d]

I'd like to add my voice to the praise for SEE we've already seen. I've only tinkered with the collaborative editing on my home network (and it's very impressive), but without that feature SEE would still be my editor of choice, and I've been through the expansive .emacs and minimal vi mastery stages.

Just this morning I noticed that when editing a CSS file, SEE will not only give you a drop-down box of all your symbols / definitions, but also place an icon next to them identifying them as ID definitions, class definitions, and so on.

It's small, clean and extremely funcional - it feels pristine to use. I'd absolutely recommend trying it out, whether the collaborative features interest you or not.

Sounds familiar

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Wasn't the HitchHikers Guide to the Galaxy updated via the SubEtha-SenseONet?

Re:Sounds familiar

[ioErr]

Frequently Asked Questions: What about the name?

The name has been chosen to honor one of the greatest visionaries of computer supported collaborative writing, Douglas Adams, author of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", one of the funniest and greatest books on earth. In his books he envisioned a travel guide for aliens, which was updated by multiple editors collaborating over the "SubEthaNet". To quote him:

The Guide was compiled by researchers roaming round the galaxy, beaming their copy in, which

Re:Sounds familiar

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

"a collaborative guide, one that was written and kept up to date by the people who used it, in real time, might be a neat idea. "

And now we have it. It's called Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]!

Mac user outside of the USA

[Anonymous Coward]

Funniest part of the interview:

I think Apple Germany should invest more in marketing [...] placing a few TV ads would be a good start.

Hehe.

Re:Mac user outside of the USA

[Lars T.]

I hope you are German and lough out of despair. The last TV commercials from Apple in Germany were IIRC for the first white iBooks - maybe even flavoured iMacs. Hell, I've seen more Compaq Proliant commercials on German TV than Apple adds ever.

Re:Mac user outside of the USA

[Lars T.]

You see, that's because most Spammers are Nazis. Those mails all came from the Sober.H worm - it's all a Windows problem actually.

Easy port number!

[nacturation]

From the FAQ [codingmonkeys.de]:

• Did the port number change?
  
  Yes. Version 1.x used port 30729. Version 2.0 introduced a new, more efficient network protocol and therefore changed the port number to port 6942, easily remberable by "Six times nine is fourtytwo".

Um... is it just me, or is memorizing a port number using an incorrect math calculation *not* intuitive?

6x9=42

[mbaudis]

If 42 is the answer to the question of life, the Universe and everything [wikipedia.org](wikipedia.org), the equation probably is correct and easily to memorize. You may need a larger computer, though...

So much for Germans not being funny.

Re:6x9=42

[nacturation]

Ah, missed that -- I shall forgo wearing my geek hat for the day and meditate on whales and petunias.

Re:6x9=42

[Crash Culligan]

If 42 is the answer to the question of life, the Universe and everything(wikipedia.org), the equation probably is correct and easily to memorize. You may need a larger computer, though...

The math also works if you work in base 13.

Which, by the way, means that the folks who created this buggy 'universe' thing most likely counted on 13 digits. Which 13, like everything else, is left as an exercise for the reader.

Re:Easy port number!

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps, for those of us less Douglas Adams aware, 69 is 4 2 would be a more memorable ;-) However, if you see nine dolphins [ebaumsworld.com], maybe working on your Douglas Adams lore would be more appropriate.

The ONLY collobaritve editor?

[AusG4]

Before anyone jumps to suggest that Hydra pre-dated this as the first collaborative text editor, I should point out that Hydra became SubEthaEdit, so they are in fact one in the same. Hydra is a better name, but I digress.

Re:The ONLY collobaritve editor?

[momerath2003]

Hydra is a better name, but I digress.

Sorry, but Hitchhiker's Guide allusions trump Greek mythological allusions any day of the week. :P

I'm all for metal interfaces...

[nazzdeq]

..and quite frankly, don't see why people bitch about that. Apps with the metallic look much better than the other apps. Apple is about design, looks and usability. Metal looks good. Just like the G5. You want irritating? Try those fuckin' pop up windows like in Photoshop. That's irratating.

Re:Apple makes me boo-hoo

[gwoodrow]

Someone please moderate my previous comment down - I somehow managed to post it to the wrong story!