My perfect project management plugin for a text editor would do the following
- Allow me to define the directory the project is contained in
- Not worry about files outside that directory; if I want them in the project I will move them into that directory
- Sync its list of files/directories with the filesystem – the two are one and the same and do not need to be managed separately
- Not require me to specify where the “project file” should be stored. I don’t care.
- Remember the files I currently have open
- Bring me immediately back to where I left off when I start the editor, unless I start it to edit a file outside of the current project, in which case no project should be opened
That can be pretty much boiled down to:
- A “project” is a directory
- Remember what I was doing
I have yet to find this elusive beast…
Posted on Monday, June 11, 2007.
10 Comments on My perfect project management plugin for a text editor would do the following
Get Textmate. Open a directory. Voila! :)
Jeremy
Tuesday 12 June
06:36 AM
Heh, I thought someone might say that ;) I don’t have a Mac though. I use Linux and I’ve not found a single decent combination of text editor and project manager. I may get a Mac for when Leopard comes out. Maybe. But I do kinda like Linux ;)
Jon
Tuesday 12 June
11:21 AM
I’ve never found a good editing environment in Linux; I used vi but hated it. Some people love emacs, but I could never get into it. I’d rather not learn another programming language just to edit text.
If you do get a Mac, you won’t regret it. I was a hardcore Windows/Linux guy until I actually used a Mac to do something useful. The productivity + pretty environment won me over. :)
Jeremy
Tuesday 12 June
03:43 PM
Me neither. Some are close. I’d probably use Gedit if it had a simple project manager – that was the reason for this post. I tried the project manager somebody wrote for Gedit and it was basically awful. However, if I had the time and inclination I could write my own, perfect project manager for Gedit. I might have to learn Python though – I’m not sure you can write Gedit plugins in Ruby ;)
That’s easy to say. Maybe I wouldn’t, but maybe I wouldn’t regret buying a PC and running Ubuntu either. I admit getting a Mac is tempting, particularly because there’s some amazing Mac software out there (I wouldn’t buy a Mac just for the OS). But there are lots of factors to take into account – cost is definitely one as I’m a student and I will definitely get more hardware for my money with a PC. Plus I do really like Linux – it has its warts but I feel especially with Ubuntu they’re getting there, and I want to support that.
Jon Leighton
Tuesday 12 June
08:08 PM
Um, by “project management” do you mean “IDE” (that’s what we old men call it, I can’t keep up with you kids and all your renaming malarky).
Zend Studio does this perfectly in Linux. It’s a java based IDE, although only intended specifically for PHP. You can associate it with different file types of course, tho it won’t help with syntax highlighting.
Everything on your list of requirements, it does.
See you at Pie tonight mate :)
Baj
Friday 15 June
12:22 PM
Nope, I didn’t mean an IDE. I’m not generally a fan of IDEs – I like to keep things simple. What I meant is that a lot of programmer’s text editors, like jEdit or Gedit or whatever, have facilities for project management either built in or through plugins, such that you can say “this group of files is a project and I want you to remember where the files are and what I was doing so I can start again quickly next time”. In my experience such plugins tend to be a bit shit.
Jon Leighton
Friday 15 June
12:29 PM
Oh, well Zend does all the project stuff. You could just stick some gaffer tape on you monitor for the bits you want to ignore and pretend it’s not an IDE
Baj
Friday 15 June
04:40 PM
I use Emacs. It’s super-awesome. It does have a deserved reputation for complexity, but with the complexity comes power. Lots of power. I don’t know of a module that does exactly what you’re looking for right now, but it should be possible for you to implement it in a couple hours, tops (1.5 hours to learn ELisp and look up the relevant APIs, half an hour to actually write it). That’s what Emacs can do.
Works on every platform you can imagine, too.
Nathan Weizenbaum
Saturday 16 June
08:28 AM
Me too. I think a project manager is NOT a IDE. It just collect file list and how to build them. But it is free to choose other editors.
david
Wednesday 25 July
03:51 AM
There is few of editors/plugins that do things right: take a look at Kate + KPMP, try PIDA which (in general) embeds GVim in IDE-like environment, or OpenKomodo, which is stripped down to advanced editor wersion of full fledged IDE.
zgoda
Monday 28 April
09:46 AM