Emacs vs. TextMate (not trying to start an editor war)

Emacs vs. TextMate (not trying to start an editor war)

[Cezar Halmagean]

Hello,

  I have been using emacs for the past 5 years or so and I've recently
  stumbled upon TextMate. I love the way TextMate handles *web modes*
  like integration of html + javascript + css in the same file and
  I've always had a problem doing that in emacs.

  I wonder what's the problem, why has an editor like TextMate gone so
  far in just a few years and Emacs is still not there yet.

Regards,
Cezar

Re: Emacs vs. TextMate (not trying to start an editor war)

[Bastien]

Hi Cezar,

Cezar Halmagean <cezar@mixandgo.com> writes:

>   I wonder what's the problem, why has an editor like TextMate gone so
>   far in just a few years and Emacs is still not there yet.

Maybe that's because it's generally easier to betray Emacs rather than
trying to improve it?  You know, people get older, and people from the
Emacs Church are way too soft and tolerant nowadays.

Seriously, I believe 1) that the audience of the two softwares might not
really be the same and that 2) ideas/patches are welcome.

-- 
Bastien

Re: Emacs vs. TextMate (not trying to start an editor war)

[Lennart Borgman (gmail)]

Cezar Halmagean wrote:
> Hello,
> 
>   I have been using emacs for the past 5 years or so and I've recently
>   stumbled upon TextMate. I love the way TextMate handles *web modes*
>   like integration of html + javascript + css in the same file and
>   I've always had a problem doing that in emacs.
> 
>   I wonder what's the problem, why has an editor like TextMate gone so
>   far in just a few years and Emacs is still not there yet.


Maybe the problem is that you did not try nXhtml with Emacs? ;-)

   http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/NxhtmlMode

I think that can do what you want. Could you please try and let me know 
how it works for you? Is there anything TextMate does that you miss in 
nXhtml+Emacs? Do you have any other suggestion for improvement?

Re: Emacs vs. TextMate (not trying to start an editor war)

[Charles philip Chan]

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Cezar Halmagean <cezar@mixandgo.com> writes:

>   I have been using emacs for the past 5 years or so and I've recently
>   stumbled upon TextMate. I love the way TextMate handles *web modes*
>   like integration of html + javascript + css in the same file and
>   I've always had a problem doing that in emacs.

You mean like this:

http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/emacs-en/NxhtmlMode#toc1

?

Charles

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Re: Emacs vs. TextMate (not trying to start an editor war)

[Xah]

You might try html-helper-mode. I don't think it'll beat any major
editor that does html, but it somewhat helps because by default it
does syntax coloring various langs that are used together with html.

I think fact that emacs doesn't by default support today's practical
need for html coding (often mixed with javascript, css, php, asp, jsp
codes), is a major problem with emacs. Web dev is probably the largest
segment in the programing industry. Adding injury to the wound is that
a good percentage of web developers, possibly majority, are entry
level programers who codes html/css/php. These people, when they took
a look at emacs, they laugh, and rightfully so. (emacs's obscure
interface, keystrokes, terminologies, made it worse)

(of course emacs fans will tell you about several elisp code on the
web there that does multi modes... but the sheer fact to shop around,
install, get them to work is a pain and rather not trivial.
for those interested, see http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/MultipleModes
)

I think to have emacs work with today's web dev needs out of the box
is one of the most important need for emacs.
(see http://xahlee.org/emacs/modernization_of_elisp.html )

Even for working with pure static html pages, emacs's default html
mode is quite lacking.
The default html mode in emacs 22 (released in 2007), is at a level of
~1998's commercial html editors. (of course emacs has redeeming
qualities, i.e. its elisp system and all, that keeps us still sticking
with emacs)

Web development is my primary area of expertise. I have to work with
html mixed with css, javascript, php, perl a lot. Fortunately, lacking
proper syntax coloring isn't much problem. (after all, 99.99% web
pages out there are so badly formed)

One trick i do when i need proper syntax coloring, is just to switch
to that lang's mode. For example, if i'm working in a php segment, i
just switch to php mode. You can assign single-press keys to switch to
different modes.

One could guess why emacs doesn't have a robust mode for working with
today's html. My guess is that it's a bit hard to write such a “mixed”
mode possibly due to emacs infrastructure for modes, and of course
because there are relatively very few emacs developers, and there's
not a good tutorial on how to write a emacs mode (it involves quite a
lot elisp knowledge in several areas. I'm currently picking it up and
hope to write a tutorial soon).

  Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/

☄

On Jul 9, 11:10 pm, Cezar Halmagean <ce...@mixandgo.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
>   I have been using emacs for the past 5 years or so and I've recently
>   stumbled upon TextMate. I love the way TextMate handles *web modes*
>   like integration of html + javascript + css in the same file and
>   I've always had a problem doing that in emacs.
>
>   I wonder what's the problem, why has an editor like TextMate gone so
>   far in just a few years and Emacs is still not there yet.
>
> Regards,
> Cezar

Re: Emacs vs. TextMate (not trying to start an editor war)

[Lennart Borgman (gmail)]

Xah wrote:
> (of course emacs fans will tell you about several elisp code on the
> web there that does multi modes... but the sheer fact to shop around,
> install, get them to work is a pain and rather not trivial.
> for those interested, see http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/MultipleModes
> )

Xah, did you ever try nXhtml? In that case what where you missing? Did 
you have to "shop around"?

> I think to have emacs work with today's web dev needs out of the box
> is one of the most important need for emacs.
> (see http://xahlee.org/emacs/modernization_of_elisp.html )
> 
> Even for working with pure static html pages, emacs's default html
> mode is quite lacking.
> The default html mode in emacs 22 (released in 2007), is at a level of
> ~1998's commercial html editors. (of course emacs has redeeming
> qualities, i.e. its elisp system and all, that keeps us still sticking
> with emacs)
> 
> Web development is my primary area of expertise. I have to work with
> html mixed with css, javascript, php, perl a lot. Fortunately, lacking
> proper syntax coloring isn't much problem. (after all, 99.99% web
> pages out there are so badly formed)

Re: Emacs vs. TextMate (not trying to start an editor war)

[Xah]

I wrote:

«I think to have emacs work with today's web dev needs out of the box
is one of the most important need for emacs.
(see http://xahlee.org/emacs/modernization_of_elisp.html )
»

oops, the url should've been:

http://xahlee.org/emacs/modernization.html

 Xah

Re: Emacs vs. TextMate (not trying to start an editor war)

[Cezar Halmagean]

On Jul 10, 2008, at 1:09 AM, Lennart Borgman (gmail) wrote:

> Cezar Halmagean wrote:
>> Hello,
>>  I have been using emacs for the past 5 years or so and I've recently
>>  stumbled upon TextMate. I love the way TextMate handles *web modes*
>>  like integration of html + javascript + css in the same file and
>>  I've always had a problem doing that in emacs.
>>  I wonder what's the problem, why has an editor like TextMate gone so
>>  far in just a few years and Emacs is still not there yet.
>
>
> Maybe the problem is that you did not try nXhtml with Emacs? ;-)
>
>  http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/NxhtmlMode
>
> I think that can do what you want. Could you please try and let me  
> know how it works for you? Is there anything TextMate does that you  
> miss in nXhtml+Emacs? Do you have any other suggestion for  
> improvement?

Well I did try this mode a few times actually but I will give it  
another shot.

What I am really interested in is also rails support (rhtml or  
something).

I will let you knwo how this worked out


Cezar

Re: Emacs vs. TextMate (not trying to start an editor war)

[Lennart Borgman (gmail)]

Cezar Halmagean wrote:
> 
> On Jul 10, 2008, at 1:09 AM, Lennart Borgman (gmail) wrote:
> 
>> Cezar Halmagean wrote:
>>> Hello,
>>>  I have been using emacs for the past 5 years or so and I've recently
>>>  stumbled upon TextMate. I love the way TextMate handles *web modes*
>>>  like integration of html + javascript + css in the same file and
>>>  I've always had a problem doing that in emacs.
>>>  I wonder what's the problem, why has an editor like TextMate gone so
>>>  far in just a few years and Emacs is still not there yet.
>>
>>
>> Maybe the problem is that you did not try nXhtml with Emacs? ;-)
>>
>>  http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/NxhtmlMode
>>
>> I think that can do what you want. Could you please try and let me 
>> know how it works for you? Is there anything TextMate does that you 
>> miss in nXhtml+Emacs? Do you have any other suggestion for improvement?
> 
> Well I did try this mode a few times actually but I will give it another 
> shot.
> 
> What I am really interested in is also rails support (rhtml or something).
> 
> I will let you knwo how this worked out


I am not sure how it works with rails at the moment, but I hope that we 
will have time to look into it soon.

However, please use the latest beta since there is a correction to the 
indentation support for eRuby.

Re: Emacs vs. TextMate (not trying to start an editor war)

[Cezar Halmagean]

>
>
> I am not sure how it works with rails at the moment, but I hope that  
> we will have time to look into it soon.
>
> However, please use the latest beta since there is a correction to  
> the indentation support for eRuby.

I am trying it right now, but I am using Aquamacs which is emacs 22.  
I've read on the website that it's not working with Emacs 22.

Re: Emacs vs. TextMate (not trying to start an editor war)

[Cezar Halmagean]

>
> I am not sure how it works with rails at the moment, but I hope that  
> we will have time to look into it soon.
>
> However, please use the latest beta since there is a correction to  
> the indentation support for eRuby.

Lennart,

   Here is a screenshot http://mixandgo.com/screen-capture.png of how  
the syntax highlighting is not right.

Cezar

Re: Emacs vs. TextMate (not trying to start an editor war)

[Cezar Halmagean]

On 2008-07-10 01:58:28 -0700, Xah <xahlee@gmail.com> said:

> I wrote:
> 
> «I think to have emacs work with today's web dev needs out of the box
> is one of the most important need for emacs.
> (see http://xahlee.org/emacs/modernization_of_elisp.html )
> »
> 
> oops, the url should've been:
> 
> http://xahlee.org/emacs/modernization.html
> 
>  Xah

I totally agree. I have not yet read your article (I will do it right 
now). My worry is that elisp is not good enough or maybe to hard for 
that kind of work, I hope I am wrong.

Also I don't mind if support for web dev is not ready out of the box, I 
can deal with configuring it but I want it to be stable, featurefull 
and not look like it's from 1980.

Cezar

Re: Emacs vs. TextMate (not trying to start an editor war)

[Joel J. Adamson]

Cezar Halmagean <cezar@mixandgo.com> writes:

> Hello,
>
>   I have been using emacs for the past 5 years or so and I've recently
>   stumbled upon TextMate. I love the way TextMate handles *web modes*
>   like integration of html + javascript + css in the same file and
>   I've always had a problem doing that in emacs.
>
>   I wonder what's the problem, why has an editor like TextMate gone so
>   far in just a few years and Emacs is still not there yet.

Still not where?  Still not the best text editor, no wait, the best
piece of software ever created?

Oh wait, nevermind...

You probably just haven't tried the right add-ons yet, or written them
yourself ;)  You have the freedom to do both.
Joel

-- 
Joel J. Adamson
(303) 880-3109
Public key: http://pgp.mit.edu
http://www.unc.edu/~adamsonj
http://trashbird1240.blogspot.com

Re: Emacs vs. TextMate (not trying to start an editor war)

[Joel J. Adamson]

Cezar Halmagean <cezar@mixandgo.com> writes:

> On 2008-07-10 01:58:28 -0700, Xah <xahlee@gmail.com> said:
>
>> I wrote:
>>
>> «I think to have emacs work with today's web dev needs out of the box
>> is one of the most important need for emacs.
>> (see http://xahlee.org/emacs/modernization_of_elisp.html )
>> »
>>
>> oops, the url should've been:
>>
>> http://xahlee.org/emacs/modernization.html
>>
>>  Xah
>
> I totally agree. I have not yet read your article (I will do it right
> now). My worry is that elisp is not good enough or maybe to hard for
> that kind of work, I hope I am wrong.

Too hard?  

> Also I don't mind if support for web dev is not ready out of the box,
> I can deal with configuring it but I want it to be stable, featurefull
> and not look like it's from 1980.

My Emacs looks like it's from 1987, because I want it to, but I can also
make it look like whatever I want.  Stable?  Featureful?  Are we using
the same piece of software?  Emacs is commonly held up as an example of
too many features.

If what it looks like is really important to you, then you ARE using the
wrong software; or go get Aquamacs...

Joel

-- 
Joel J. Adamson
(303) 880-3109
Public key: http://pgp.mit.edu
http://www.unc.edu/~adamsonj
http://trashbird1240.blogspot.com

Re: Emacs vs. TextMate (not trying to start an editor war)

[Cezar Halmagean]

On 2008-07-10 12:47:11 -0700, adamsonj@email.unc.edu (Joel J. Adamson) said:

> Cezar Halmagean <cezar@mixandgo.com> writes:
> 
>> Hello,
>> 
>> I have been using emacs for the past 5 years or so and I've recently
>> stumbled upon TextMate. I love the way TextMate handles *web modes*
>> like integration of html + javascript + css in the same file and
>> I've always had a problem doing that in emacs.
>> 
>> I wonder what's the problem, why has an editor like TextMate gone so
>> far in just a few years and Emacs is still not there yet.
> 
> Still not where?  Still not the best text editor, no wait, the best
> piece of software ever created?
> 
> Oh wait, nevermind...
> 
> You probably just haven't tried the right add-ons yet, or written them
> yourself ;)  You have the freedom to do both.
> Joel

Dude, are you high or sumthin ? I know what Emacs is and that you can 
write your own OS from scratch if you want. You seem to be missing the 
point though.

Cezar

Re: Emacs vs. TextMate (not trying to start an editor war)

[Joel J. Adamson]

Cezar Halmagean <cezar@mixandgo.com> writes:

> On 2008-07-10 12:47:11 -0700, adamsonj@email.unc.edu (Joel J. Adamson) said:
>
>> Cezar Halmagean <cezar@mixandgo.com> writes:
>>
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I have been using emacs for the past 5 years or so and I've recently
>>> stumbled upon TextMate. I love the way TextMate handles *web modes*
>>> like integration of html + javascript + css in the same file and
>>> I've always had a problem doing that in emacs.
>>>
>>> I wonder what's the problem, why has an editor like TextMate gone so
>>> far in just a few years and Emacs is still not there yet.
>>
>> Still not where?  Still not the best text editor, no wait, the best
>> piece of software ever created?
>>
>> Oh wait, nevermind...
>>
>> You probably just haven't tried the right add-ons yet, or written them
>> yourself ;)  You have the freedom to do both.
>> Joel
>
> Dude, are you high or sumthin ?

Nope, I just love hearing people criticize Emacs for not being "modern"
or saying what you said.  In my opinion it's the rest of the software
world that is totally backwards.

I've found that whatever feature I want, I just have to look hard enough
and it's already been done.  The amount of Emacs Lisp coding I've done
is therefore pretty small, and quite specialized in use.

Joel
-- 
Joel J. Adamson
(303) 880-3109
Public key: http://pgp.mit.edu
http://www.unc.edu/~adamsonj
http://trashbird1240.blogspot.com

Re: Emacs vs. TextMate (not trying to start an editor war)

[Cezar Halmagean]

On 2008-07-10 13:05:27 -0700, adamsonj@email.unc.edu (Joel J. Adamson) said:
> 
> Nope, I just love hearing people criticize Emacs for not being "modern"
> or saying what you said.  In my opinion it's the rest of the software
> world that is totally backwards.
> 
> I've found that whatever feature I want, I just have to look hard enough
> and it's already been done.  The amount of Emacs Lisp coding I've done
> is therefore pretty small, and quite specialized in use.
> 
> Joel

Well, maybe you haven't been looking for a mode that *works* for web 
development, as that's what we were talking about in this thread. There 
are editors like TextMate which is only a few years onld and can handle 
that much better than Emacs can do it now.

Again, I am not sure why this is happening but the truth is, I need to 
write code (for web) easier not go learn another language to figure out 
if I can create a mode to help me write code, cause that takes time 
which I don't have right now.

Cezar

Re: Emacs vs. TextMate (not trying to start an editor war)

[Lennart Borgman (gmail)]

Cezar Halmagean wrote:
>>
>> I am not sure how it works with rails at the moment, but I hope that 
>> we will have time to look into it soon.
>>
>> However, please use the latest beta since there is a correction to the 
>> indentation support for eRuby.
> 
> Lennart,
> 
>   Here is a screenshot http://mixandgo.com/screen-capture.png of how the 
> syntax highlighting is not right.
> 
> Cezar

I do not know what is happening here. I just tested with an Emacs very 
close to the released version of Emacs 22 and I see no problem.

Is there any error messages in the *Messages* buffer?

Could you please try starting from

   emacs -Q

and then do

   M-x load-library
   YOUR-PATH-TO/nxml/autostart.el

and then open the file again?

Re: Emacs vs. TextMate (not trying to start an editor war)

[Miles Bader]

Cezar Halmagean <cezar@mixandgo.com> writes:
> Well, maybe you haven't been looking for a mode that *works* for web
> development, as that's what we were talking about in this thread. There
> are editors like TextMate which is only a few years onld and can handle
> that much better than Emacs can do it now.
>
> Again, I am not sure why this is happening but the truth is, I need to
> write code (for web) easier not go learn another language to figure out
> if I can create a mode to help me write code, cause that takes time
> which I don't have right now.

AIUI, textmate's internal engine was written specifically to support this
kind of nested mode well, so it's not surprising that it does so.  Emacs
does not have this sort of special support.

So if you compare them in that specific case, textmate looks pretty
good.  However it's far from clear that textmate would fare as well in a
more general comparison.

-Miles

-- 
If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten.  [George Carlin]

Re: Emacs vs. TextMate (not trying to start an editor war)

[Cezar Halmagean]

Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org> writes:

> AIUI, textmate's internal engine was written specifically to support this
> kind of nested mode well, so it's not surprising that it does so.  Emacs
> does not have this sort of special support.
>
> So if you compare them in that specific case, textmate looks pretty
> good.  However it's far from clear that textmate would fare as well in a
> more general comparison.
>
> -Miles

This is what I keep hearing about Emacs, how it would take a complete
rewrite to support that. Is that true ? Or what is the *thing* missing
in Emacs that makes it so hard to make it a top web dev IDE/editor.

Cezar

Re: Emacs vs. TextMate (not trying to start an editor war)

[Miles Bader]

Cezar Halmagean <cezar@mixandgo.com> writes:
> This is what I keep hearing about Emacs, how it would take a complete
> rewrite to support that. Is that true ? Or what is the *thing* missing
> in Emacs that makes it so hard to make it a top web dev IDE/editor.

You can do anything you want, it's just a matter of code.... :-)

The problem, as I understand it, is that typical Emacs major modes use a
lot of buffer-local variables etc, and make various assumptions about
having "control" of the whole buffer.

Many Emacs primitive mechanisms actually _can_ be made to work on
sub-regions of the buffer (e.g., syntax tables, keymaps, etc., are
traditionally buffer-local, but can also be defined using
text-properties).  One could write a mode which is very careful to
respect such region boundaries, and uses region-local mechanisms instead
of buffer-local ones, but it would likely be a fair amount of work, and
mean you probably can't re-use existing code very easily.

What is really desirable, I think, is some way of transparently fooling
"whole buffer" modes into thinking they have control of a whole buffer,
when in fact, they just have control of part of one.  I think it's
probably possible to do this (perhaps using an extension of the indirect
buffer mechanism?) but afaik nobody has really looked at the problem
closely.

-Miles

-- 
"Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that
 you do it."  Mahatma Gandhi

Re: Emacs vs. TextMate (not trying to start an editor war)

[Tim X]

Cezar Halmagean <cezar@mixandgo.com> writes:

> On 2008-07-10 12:47:11 -0700, adamsonj@email.unc.edu (Joel J. Adamson) said:
>
>> Cezar Halmagean <cezar@mixandgo.com> writes:
>>
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I have been using emacs for the past 5 years or so and I've recently
>>> stumbled upon TextMate. I love the way TextMate handles *web modes*
>>> like integration of html + javascript + css in the same file and
>>> I've always had a problem doing that in emacs.
>>>
>>> I wonder what's the problem, why has an editor like TextMate gone so
>>> far in just a few years and Emacs is still not there yet.
>>
>> Still not where?  Still not the best text editor, no wait, the best
>> piece of software ever created?
>>
>> Oh wait, nevermind...
>>
>> You probably just haven't tried the right add-ons yet, or written them
>> yourself ;)  You have the freedom to do both.
>> Joel
>
> Dude, are you high or sumthin ? I know what Emacs is and that you can write
> your own OS from scratch if you want. You seem to be missing the point
> though.
>

The most likely reason textmate has what you want and emacs apparently
doesn't is that nobody in the emacs community has stepped up to write
what you want. Maybe the textmate community has more people willing to
step up and add what they see as missing while the emacs community has
members who would rather sit around philosophising.

-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au

Re: Emacs vs. TextMate (not trying to start an editor war)

[Cezar Halmagean]

Tim X <timx@nospam.dev.null> writes:

> The most likely reason textmate has what you want and emacs apparently
> doesn't is that nobody in the emacs community has stepped up to write
> what you want. Maybe the textmate community has more people willing to
> step up and add what they see as missing while the emacs community has
> members who would rather sit around philosophising.

Sadly thats so true.

Even so, knowing that *it is* possible gives me hope, I would try and
create such a mode in my free time but I am not sure how much work is
needed for that as I am a n00b elisper.

Maybe folks here could help me getting started. Are there any tutorials
on the subject ?

Cezar

Re: Emacs vs. TextMate (not trying to start an editor war)

[William Xu]

Tim X <timx@nospam.dev.null> writes:

> Maybe the textmate community has more people willing to
> step up and add what they see as missing while the emacs community has
> members who would rather sit around philosophising.

It's said that textmate was originally written by two people, and now
only one...  and it's also not free software...  

-- 
William

http://williamxu.net9.org

There are more old drunkards than old doctors.

Re: Emacs vs. TextMate (not trying to start an editor war)

[Charles philip Chan]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 223 bytes --]

William Xu <william.xwl@gmail.com> writes:

> It's said that textmate was originally written by two people, and now
> only one...  and it's also not free software...

Knowing NeXTstep, this is definitely possible.

Charles

[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 193 bytes --]

Re: Emacs vs. TextMate (not trying to start an editor war)

[Tom Tromey]

>>>>> "Miles" == Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org> writes:

Miles> What is really desirable, I think, is some way of transparently fooling
Miles> "whole buffer" modes into thinking they have control of a whole buffer,
Miles> when in fact, they just have control of part of one.  I think it's
Miles> probably possible to do this (perhaps using an extension of the indirect
Miles> buffer mechanism?) but afaik nobody has really looked at the problem
Miles> closely.

Have you looked at MuMaMo?  I thought it did this kind of thing.  But,
I have not looked at it and I don't know the details.

It has always been funny to me how Emacs is so awesome, but then has
some areas which seem strangely idiosyncratic and
under-powered... e.g., IMO the parsing machinery for writing a
major-mode is distinctly weird and hard to use.

Tom

Re: Emacs vs. TextMate (not trying to start an editor war)

[Lennart Borgman (gmail)]

Tom Tromey wrote:
>>>>>> "Miles" == Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org> writes:
> 
> Miles> What is really desirable, I think, is some way of transparently fooling
> Miles> "whole buffer" modes into thinking they have control of a whole buffer,
> Miles> when in fact, they just have control of part of one.  I think it's
> Miles> probably possible to do this (perhaps using an extension of the indirect
> Miles> buffer mechanism?) but afaik nobody has really looked at the problem
> Miles> closely.
> 
> Have you looked at MuMaMo?  I thought it did this kind of thing.  But,
> I have not looked at it and I don't know the details.


MuMaMo (which is part of nXhtml) does something like that, yes.

But it does this by trying to handle buffer local variables and 
fontification carefully. Doing it this way I could make it to work with 
Emacs 22. I think somewhere in the future with some more experience with 
this we may want to rewrite some structures in Emacs to better support this.

However my impression is that such structures should hide part of the 
buffer rather than just giving one continuous part of the buffer to the 
major mode. This will make it easier to handle major modes that parses 
the buffer.

Take for example XHTML buffers versus XHTML template buffers. For an 
XHTML buffer (ie containing an .xhtml file) the whole buffer can be 
parsed by nxml-mode (or a mode derived from it). For a template language 
the situation is different. In that case only (non-consecutive) parts 
can be parsed by nxml-mode.

This situation is today handled by MuMaMo + a patch to nxml-mode.

There are of course also other details to think of.

Re: Emacs vs. TextMate (not trying to start an editor war)

[William Xu]

Cezar Halmagean <cezar@mixandgo.com> writes:

> I am trying it right now, but I am using Aquamacs which is emacs 22.  I've read
> on the website that it's not working with Emacs 22.

What you need is it simply multiple mode support? 

I tried with textmate a bit, but didn't find anything attracting at all...  

-- 
William

http://williamxu.net9.org

Re: Emacs vs. TextMate (not trying to start an editor war)

[Tim X]

Cezar Halmagean <cezar@mixandgo.com> writes:

> Tim X <timx@nospam.dev.null> writes:
>
>> The most likely reason textmate has what you want and emacs apparently
>> doesn't is that nobody in the emacs community has stepped up to write
>> what you want. Maybe the textmate community has more people willing to
>> step up and add what they see as missing while the emacs community has
>> members who would rather sit around philosophising.
>
> Sadly thats so true.
>
> Even so, knowing that *it is* possible gives me hope, I would try and
> create such a mode in my free time but I am not sure how much work is
> needed for that as I am a n00b elisper.
>
> Maybe folks here could help me getting started. Are there any tutorials
> on the subject ?
>

There are some pages on the emacs wiki site which describe the process
for creating a new mode. However, I would look closely at things like
nxhtml-mode and assist in developing that mode by adding the
functionality you want and helping to debug and fix any problems it has.

Emacs lisp is quite powerful and there is nothing about it that I can
see that wold prevent anyone from implementing whatever functionality is
required. Probably the largest hurdle is just getting to know all the
facilities that are available and working out how to best use what is
there rather than re-inventing existing facilities. Essentially, most of
the building blocks are there, but assembling them takes a bit of
research and experimentation. 

Tim


-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au

Re: Emacs vs. TextMate (not trying to start an editor war)

[Cezar Halmagean]

I am using the nxhtml-beta as of today to edit rhtml/erb (ruby/rails  
html) files in Carbon emacs (GNU Emacs 22.2.50.1 (i386-apple- 
darwin9.4.0, Carbon Version 1.6.0) of 2008-07-13) with the following  
setup:

http://feelingroot.com/rails-init.el

getting this :

http://feelingroot.com/nxhtml.png


Cezar



On Jul 10, 2008, at 9:56 AM, Cezar Halmagean wrote:

>>
>> I am not sure how it works with rails at the moment, but I hope  
>> that we will have time to look into it soon.
>>
>> However, please use the latest beta since there is a correction to  
>> the indentation support for eRuby.
>
> Lennart,
>
>  Here is a screenshot http://mixandgo.com/screen-capture.png of how  
> the syntax highlighting is not right.
>
> Cezar