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Zas Editor

• evaneykelen 5y ago
  Excited to see yet again a code editor being launched. Going to give it a spin. Tiny nitpick, there’s a typo in the FAQs: …is avaialble for…
  • jll29 5y ago
    Another typo (section Documentation Explorer): dependancies -> dependencies
• coldtea 5y ago
  This looks promising. Downloaded it to try, was dissapointed to find no/little support for Python. It does work for Go and Rust though. If this can get a good plugin ecosystem, it would fly.
  • Annili 5y ago
    Sorry to hear that. At the moment only Go and Rust are supported. We are currently working on plugins. What did you think about the Rust & Go support? Would you use it for Python if we add support?
    • ziftface 5y ago
      I'm wondering why no support for LSP and DAP? Is it missing feature you guys need?
      • Annili 5y ago
        We are using LSP under the hood, but you can't add more language servers yourself. AS for DAP, a debugger would be a huge feature to implement, we wanted to get it right before releasing it.
        • ziftface 5y ago
          Interesting! Do you have any plans to open support for LSPs? I do see the appeal to having a totally curated list of LSPs you don't have to worry about, but if someone buys into this editor, it might be nice to be able to extend it with new language support in the future so you don't have to switch editors for different languages.
        • anecd0te 5y ago
    • smsx 5y ago
      I would certainly be very interested in it if there was Python support (and VIM keybindings!).
    • stjohnswarts 5y ago
      Python support seems like a no-brainer "next language to support" to me :) . I mean if you are going to support additional languages that is.
    • drcongo 5y ago
      I would almost certainly buy it if it had Python support. I code in SublimeText all day, and sometimes want another project open in something I can command+tab to, so I've got several secondary editors, none of which I particularly like. I despise VSCode because it feels like Windows XP, Nova has some quirks that I just can't get past, TextMate is currently my preferred secondary, but it's so far behind everything else. I really like the look of the minimap on Zas, very clever.
  • memco 5y ago
    Have you looked at code runner: https://coderunnerapp.com/ https://coderunnerapp.com/? It has some Python support but not on the level of VSCode or PyCharm IMO.
    • coldtea 5y ago
      Yeah, I've used it for a decade or more to run snippets. But I don't consider it an editor - more of a scratchpad, nor that it has any particular Python support to write home about.
• Annili 5y ago
  Hi everyone! I'm the lead developer of Zas Editor. I wanted to share some details about the editor you might be interested in. The text-storage data structure, syntax highlighting and search features are written in Rust, and the UI is written in Swift since we wanted to create a native macOS experience. The Swift and Rust code talk to each other using C FFI, and no, that doesn’t take away the safety features of both languages. We’re using the Rope data structure for text representation, and the tree-sitter parser for syntax highlighting and some smart features like file outline, local renaming and symbol search. All other language features are powered by LSP servers (rust-analzyer and gopls). I’d be happy to answer any questions under this comment or anywhere else in this thread.
  • andrem 5y ago
    The payment process is a little tricky - it doesn't ask you for an email address and displays the license on the resulting page. If I don't record the license key manually I will need to get in touch with you to try and recover it. It would be better to get it emailed or get some prompt to record it etc.
  • thamer 5y ago
    This looks like a great start! There's one thing I couldn't find from this page, which I'm sure many developers would ask about: is there a Vim plugin, or Vim mode? And if not, are you planning to add one?
    • Annili 5y ago
      Hi, thanks for the tip, I will add that to the FAQ. There is no VIM key binding at the moment. We are planning to add one; we know how many developers (including us) would want that.
      • cutler 5y ago
        To compete with VS Code and GoLand/CLion this is essential.
  • wanderr 5y ago
• jibbers 5y ago
  This looks banging! Amazing work so far. I found a typo on your /faq page: > Of course! You can try the for 1 week.
  • Annili 5y ago
    Thank you! Fixed it
• atarian 5y ago
  Looks great. One thing I recommend is defining a smaller width for the content on the landing page so it doesn't take up the whole screen. Otherwise, it takes a lot of effort to read left-to-right.
  • Annili 5y ago
    Thank you for the feedback! We are on it. Just quick question, are you on a desktop?
    • atarian 5y ago
      Yes, desktop with 30" monitor.
• Annili 5y ago
  @dang our post was marked as [dup]. The title is too ambiguous. Can we update it to 'Zas Editor: Capable, Fast and Native CodeEditor Designed for Reading and Writing'.
  • pvg 5y ago
    Looks like two submissions were merged, if you want to reach the mods email them, though, summoning dang is not reliable. On the other hand the current simple title is a lot better than the old florid one that reads too much like an ad so you're probably fine as is.
  • deleted 5y ago
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  • gbraad 5y ago
    "Zas Editor: mac-only editor for Reading and Writing"
• deleted 5y ago
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• zhaihuailou 5y ago
  I've been looking for such an editor. Native UI experience. Hopefully the fish console will be added. golang debug. Plugin functionality.
• sawaali 5y ago
  There has been a resurgence of native editors these days (Helix, Nova, …). Every time I rush to check if there are vim keybindings. It's a dealbreaker otherwise!
  • Annili 5y ago
    I believe Nova added support for vim keybindings recently. We're going to add vim keybindings soon. In fact, we're starting to regret not implementing the functionality for this release!
  • bobbylarrybobby 5y ago
    It's especially interesting because thanks to Neovim, implementing vim mode should be more or less trivial -- Neovim has a server mode where you send it keystrokes and it sends you back buffer edits and/or UI to display. And since it's real vim you get to keep all your vim config, plugins etc in your IDE. I'm surprised I haven't seen it really take off yet.
    • conradev 5y ago
      At that point it’s just a UI for Vim, and wouldn’t have the rope data structure, live variable editing, LSP integration, etc Unless, of course, you have it configured in Vim
    • mikedc 5y ago
      If the VSCode Neovim extension is anything to go by, this does result in a considerably improved UX versus the usual Vim-key approximation. In addition to your Vim config, it plays surprisingly nicely with all other VSCode editor features, so you can basically work both ways at once.
  • divan 5y ago
    I've tried Helix few days ago and was more than impressed – almost everything you want from code editor is there out of the box, and transition from neovim was super fast. The only thing the holds me from switching completely is lack of Copilot. But yes, there seem to be a momentum of rethinking editors and frustration with popularity of a slow and heavy editors.
• smitty1e 5y ago
  All of the chrome and tailfin is fine, but if it doesn't work well headless over ssh and emulate vi, then I'm not the audience.
• _zzaw 5y ago
  This looks really good. I was a major fan of Coda, but I’ve been disappointed with Nova, so I’m looking for something else. The fact that this isn’t saddled with subscription pricing is a huge plus. I don’t even consider software I can’t own; $24.99 as a one-time payment with a year of updates is more than fair.
  • deaddodo 5y ago
    This is one of the reasons I like JetBrains subscription service. Even if you stop paying, you get a fallback license that updates every year (I believe); so you have perpetual access to their product, even if slightly out of date.
    • _zzaw 5y ago
      What if JetBrains goes out of business?
      • function_seven 5y ago
        Best case scenario, all users get a license to the current version. Worst case scenario, they get a license to whatever version was released a year prior.
      • jchw 5y ago
        For any software that has anything resembling DRM, which is a vast majority of software, once the company goes out of business, there’s no way to activate it. (Unless they address the conundrum before taking down the activation servers, of course.) This isn’t really a downside of the licensing scheme itself, though. If it was DRM free and on the honor system, it would not have this drawback. Of course, it’s currently unclear if a software development tool can remain relevant for many years after it is effectively unmaintained, so maybe this isn’t that interesting of a question.
        • qw 5y ago
          Jetbrains support offline activation, using a key. I don't know if it has an expiration date, but it could be a solution.
• mikl 5y ago
  For those wondering, Zas only supports Rust and Google Go for now.
• bufferoverflow 5y ago
  I don't see myself switching from VSCode any time soon. The plug in system is just too amazing, too vast. I understand how hard it would be to create something competitive.
• lykr0n 5y ago
  Man. I would buy this in a heartbeat if it was on linux. Good luck! It looks like an amazing product.
• djur 5y ago
  This looks pretty great, but I'm through paying for commercial programming tools that aren't portable to everything I might be developing on. Right now I'm developing on a Mac for work, but in a year that might be different, and the time and money I put into this editor will be wasted.
  • donatj 5y ago
    The time isn’t wasted if you got good code out of it, and it’s $25. That’s like two trips to McDonalds these days. I paid more than that for the concessions at the movie I saw tonight.
• hbbio 5y ago
  Looks slick and well built. I would really like to try. However, there is no info about the team, company, etc. Even social accounts are brand new. To install a closed source binary with no provenance info is a bit harsh, the only way I could test would be on an offline spare Mac. Is any data collected? Given that it started out as a fork of xi-editor, I think you should consider switching to an open source + subscription business model: You may get a much larger userbase (as again you seem to have built a great product), you'd gain trust even if you prefer to remain anons, and you can bundle additional services (e.g. sync the configuration between multiple devices through iCloud can be a paid subscription-only service, additional themes, binding of Apple latest kits etc.). With tiny bits of added value, many would be able to pay $20/y for convenience and you may end up with more revenue. Also, you may use the App Store to charge for the subscription, it is easier for many of us with payment info already in.
  • hajhatten 5y ago
    They seem to be dodging the telemetry questions on HN. No open source and completely anonymous developers behind it. Not having a clear decision made about how their DRM is supposed to work, and ask people to delete their posts regarding it... Huge red flags here.
    • Annili 5y ago
      No data is collected other than the serial number of your Mac for making sure you can only use your license on one computer, which we realized was a bad idea, and made changes. We’re going to add a privacy policy in the website. We haven’t already done that because we didn’t really expect this much attention within hours of releasing. We were expecting few downloads and more technical feedback.
      • hajhatten 5y ago
        Understandable, let us know when it's up!
      • sodality2 5y ago
• andai 5y ago
  Automatic renaming is amazing. Such slight reductions in friction make a big difference. I can already tell I would be much more likely to refactor often with such a feature. Unfortunately, I don't have a Mac at the moment. Are there any other editors with such a feature, or is it unique to Zas?
  • Annili 5y ago
    Zas Editor developer here. As far as I know, it’s a feature unique to Zas Editor. > I can already tell I would be much more likely to refactor often with such a feature. I’ve been working on Zas Editor in Zas editor for a while now, and can confirm the difference it makes
    • seanw444 5y ago
      Dogfooding your editor! Nice.
• georgia_peach 5y ago
  Meanwhile, Rob Pike uses Acme and hates syntax highlighting. As comfortable as I am with Vim, he's probably right. An editor that makes it easy to write more code can be counterproductive when the actual goal is to write less of it.
  • pkulak 5y ago
    Good editors help me write less code faster.
  • pjmlp 5y ago
    He is stuck in the past. I am coding since 1986 and definitely don't share his opinion.
• nbittich 5y ago
• sl3232323 5y ago
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• nurettin 5y ago
  I'm pretty sure there is a huge group of jetbrains customers who like tight, fast executables and would switch to this editor if it had a working auto import and type checking/autocomplete feature for Python. At least an attempt at autocomplete for js would be a bonus.
  • cjohnson318 5y ago
    I mainly work in Python and Vue, so that would be huge for me. I use VSCode, but it weirdly forgets how to tab-shift things over, and/or forgets how backspace works. (I just close/reopen and it's fine again.)
• hajhatten 5y ago
  Been wanting something like this for a while now to switch from vscode. Considering not even terminals are safe from phoning home telemetry. You guys are charging for this, how much telemetry is the app sending home? Wish you guys all the luck.
  • ranguna 5y ago
    You should try vscodium, it's vscode minus all the Microsoft bs
    • hajhatten 5y ago
      It's a shame vscodium isn't being talked about more. However, would really love something native as I run so many windows of different projects at once in a regular day.
  • rwalle 5y ago
    Telemetry can be very easily turned off. It would take less time for you to Google "how to turn off VSCode telemetry" and finish it than writing this comment. This is ridiculous.
    • bogwog 5y ago
      That's assuming you know that your editor is collecting your data and sending it to someone else. And since VS Code is a Microsoft product, they'll probably turn the telemetry back on after an update, only allow you to disable a subset of data collection, or simply ignore your preferences and send it anyways.
• agambrahma 5y ago
  Nice, would use this if I hadn't settled for SublimeText in this niche (fast editing or large files, things worth doing outside of JetBrains)
• armchairhacker 5y ago
  I’m assuming it only works for os11 or os12? You should put that in the FAQ, i still have an old mac that can’t upgrade
  • smcleod 5y ago
    OS 10.15 goes out of support in October anyway
• isaacimagine 5y ago
  From the domain name I confused this with the Zed editor[0] for a second. Despite both being editors written in Rust with zed* domain names, they are different. Really interested in both projects though. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29566960 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29566960
  • cutler 5y ago
    The soon to be sanctioned Zed editor.
    • saagarjha 5y ago
      Why would it be sanctioned?
      • cutler 5y ago
        Too Russian since the Kremlin co-opted the last letter of the alphabet.
• blipmusic 5y ago
  EDIT: The website now states: > Can I use one license on two computers? > Yes. What great turn of events, thank you for reconsidering! You have my money. :) ——- Old post (now incorrect): > Can I use one license on two computers? > No. It sucks, but that is the only way to prevent abuse. The editor looks great, but this sucks to the extent that this won't work for me at all, unfortunately. Parallels' old-school licensing theme meant I'm dropping them as well. This is not about the value of the product or the price itself, $25 seems more than fair if this meets my needs, regardless of open-source alternatives. I, and I suspect many others, develop on multiple computers, sometimes on a single day. If you worry about "enterprise abuse", perhaps consider a commercial license. Or add a higher priced tier that is per user, not per device. I think (i.e I don't actually know) there's a reason editors such as Sublime Text have per-user licenses (to be fair its price tag is also four times that of Zas Editor). Are people actually abusing per-user, "honor" licenses that much nowadays? And here I'm thinking about difficult-to-verify customers who are willing to pay in the first place.
  • Annili 5y ago
    We realized how big of a mistake that was. We updated the server and the website. It is now possible to use one license on multiple computers. edit: We would appreciate if you could mention that your comment in case someones reads your's without reading this one.
    • LeoNatan25 5y ago
      This just shows how important first impression is, and how difficult it is to rebuild trust after that. Asking people to delete their comments/reviews is not a good approach.
      • seanw444 5y ago
        You can't expect everyone to have perfect judgement on the first go. They admitted a mistake openly, and they're simply asking for that to be reflected in a top comment. Otherwise what's the point of admitting a mistake if few people notice it's been amended?
• JodieBenitez 5y ago
  Good balance of speed (which is definitely an underrated feature!) and intelligent code completion/features here. I like it.
• markeibes 5y ago
  Wake me up when I can write Purescript in it
• beprogrammed 5y ago
  Looks very nice, and the price point looks perfect. Of course I only use open source software, so I take this as a challenge to reimplement these features in emacs.
• surrTurr 5y ago
  Website looks sketchy, zero information on who is actually behind this project or what kinds of data are collected. Also, without proper plugin support (LSP!) I can’t see this going anywhere. Looks similar to Code Edit [1], an open source editor for macOS that’s currently in development. [1] https://github.com/CodeEditApp/CodeEdit https://github.com/CodeEditApp/CodeEdit
  • hajhatten 5y ago
    I had totally missed this project. Thanks for the link!
  • seanw444 5y ago
    Won't it, though? People use JetBrains IDEs all the time as opposed to things with tons of plugins. It sounds like that's the style they're going for, just a little lest slow and bloated, based on their website.
• vr46 5y ago
  I love a new editor. But I long ago realized that a text editor was a massive long-term investment and after two editor companies abandoned me, I switched (back) to Vim and doubled down. Had I stuck with Vim in 1992, I could have saved a lot of time. That said, today it’s Neovim, with IntelliJ kept around for its power and the fact that I often have to open client projects. And VSC for specific plugins that save time (e.g. inspecting SSL cert details b instantly.
  • 8fingerlouie 5y ago
    I've certainly been down that rabbithole. Started with Vim, planned on eventually learning Emacs (still do), and then to whatever editor was "flavor of the month", including TextMate and Sublime Text. Sublime Text was great in it's day, and i still hold a license for the latest version, but it is caught in a death spiral it seems. Whenever i check if it "does X", it turns out it maybe does, but VS Code has a much better plugin than ST ever did. And so, after a couple of decades, i appear to have come full circle, and now mostly use Vim again, unless a task requires "specific tools", i.e. writing Azure Functions, which is much easier to handle in Visual Studio or VS Code.
    • jhoechtl 5y ago
      I currently settle on Emacs (again) after three years of NeoVim. LSP is so much better integrated and works for my needs out of the box. I currently don't miss treesitter, expect for semantic selections at point. But I realized I could get rid of a massive and ever changing NeoVim configuration mess. Using Emacs 29 though.
      • newlisp 5y ago
        With Evil? is it any good?
        • pimeys 5y ago
          Evil is the best vim outside of vim. Been using vim a few decades, and I do not miss anything with evil...
• square_usual 5y ago
  This looks amazing. I'm definitely the target market for this - I shelled out for Nova, and I'm always on the lookout for fast and well made macOS editors. The Rust/Go-only thing is an unfortunate dealbreaker, as much as I like Rust, I don't use it enough to justify paying a separate fee for it. But if this got more languages I'm all up.
  • Annili 5y ago
    We’re definitely going to support more languages. You can follow us on Twitter @ZasEditor to see the update announcements.
• m4xw3llx 5y ago
  I think the title would better if it is "Zas Editor, only for Mac".
  • gbraad 5y ago
    It only mentions this at the very bottom of the page. Either other platforms are considered at some point, or be clear about this. The screenshots suggest macOS use, but you can't be for sure as any program can be rendered like this on a mac.
• KuroSaru 5y ago
  Hit and a miss. Looked good till goto osx only. Never-ending those who have osx sure it be a potentially good solution. Back to vscode or sublime-text for me
• deanc 5y ago
  What's the roadmap for other language support?
• gbraad 5y ago
  You lost me at "Download for Mac. Buy for $24.99" Not that I am against paid software, but the added value is bound to a single platform. It must provide a lot of 'functionality' and specifics to make it worthy. Especially is it is just an editor with the idea to become an IDE, which will likely impact performance over time. I am merely guessing here. But since performance is a major selling point, I wonder how this will be in the future. Note: I am NOT a mac user anymore. Still use sublime for time to time, but fully moved to VScode. If I look for speed or search functionality, I would use vi again. At the moment I care more about the presentation, refactoring and navigation. The extensions of vscode make this experience for me more powerful; remote ssh, marked mindmap, markdown rendering, etc plus it can run on a remote host and be accessible from a browser. Accessibility and the same experience across platforms are key to me. Success with the editor. It does look promising! but not for me.
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• kaeruct 5y ago
  I get a horizontal scroll bar on this landing page, not sure why. I'm on Firefox if that matters...
• anecd0te 5y ago
• sam_goody 5y ago
  I have not done any research, but the paid IDE's that are used by my friends are: 1. Sublime Text 2. Jet Brains PHPStorm 3. Panic Nova A quick Google search shows about a dozen others, plus at least ten free editors. Is there any resource that allows me to compare these?
• JaggerJo 5y ago
  Wish I could use this. Add F# support and I’ll shower you in money.
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• StreamBright 5y ago
  I wish there was something like this that supported syntax highlighting and intellisense for all the tree-sitter languages and nothing more.
• iamsaitam 5y ago
  It's new code editor for mac season it seems.
• kissgyorgy 5y ago
  Quite an asshole way of phrasing "it is a subscription" with very small letters. At least it's a dark pattern.
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  • alin23 5y ago
    I have the same licensing model in Lunar (https://lunar.fyi/ https://lunar.fyi/) You buy the app as is now, and you get to keep this version of the app forever. Just like you would buy any other good. On top of that, you also get 1 year of free updates, and you get to keep using those new versions forever as well. How is this a subscription? Why should the developer work forever for you on a meager $25 payment?
    • rplnt 5y ago
      > Just like you would buy any other good. Software is not a "good". If you bought "go ide" a year+ ago and your updates ran out, you can throw it away now. > On top of that, you also get 1 year of free updates They are not free, you subscribed to them by paying the subscription. What is free is the copy of the software after your subscription ends. > How is this a subscription? It's a subscription because the product you buy is supported for one year. > Why should the developer work forever for you on a meager $25 payment? This is irrelevant to the topic at hand. FWIW, I think it's a good model, for both user and the developer, but I would not try to pretend it's not a subscription with a big bold text. Just avoid the word and all is good.
      • varnaud 5y ago
        A subscription usually imply you lose access to the software when the subscription ends, which is not the case here.
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• forrestthewoods 5y ago
  > Zas Editor was specifically developed for macOS. Cries in Windows :(
• hit8run 5y ago
  Hey. I'm an Editor/IDE aficionado. This could be the start of a really nice macOS native editor. Panics Nova is nice but it is lacking good Go support. However there are many things to get right. These things are needed in order to get competitive imho: - Plugin API - Plugin Marketplace - Proper LSP (you seem to have that already) - DAP Support (you stated you are working on it. Good!) - Out of the box support for go-templates, css, js and html. You already have a very good foundation from what I see! Keep it up. I'll buy I license just to see where this is going :)
  • cormacrelf 5y ago
    On the plugin API, meh. I've spent a lot of time making Vim work for me over the years, adding all sort of plugins etc. Would that time have been better spent using something that was complete & worked already? The answer is technically no, because I've used more than two languages in that time, more like 25 different dev environments I needed my editor to cater to. If you're only using one language, this is great. Everyone has better things to do than the meta-work of making a dev environment. For most people the dev environment is noise that gets them no closer to actually achieving something. Not having a plugin API means it's impossible to waste your time on that. If this is a yearly subscription, and you can request features / improvements, then you should think of it as "I've got a guy (girl/etc) in Canada who handles my dev environment for me".
  • sverhagen 5y ago
    Praise to all IDEs (or any app really) that manages to bring a good offering across platforms, instead of just tailoring to macOS (or Windows for that matter). But I'll sit here and take my downvotes now :-)
  • interactivecode 5y ago
    You're already familiar with https://www.chimehq.com/ https://www.chimehq.com/ a native go specific editor?
    • hit8run 5y ago
      Of course ;) bought a license but it lacks important features for me.
• rplnt 5y ago
  > Native. Fast. Lightweight. Comparison is missing editors that would compete with this. VS Code is huge and slow, but somehow people use it and love the extensibility and broad support. Goland is just a beast that does so much more it's not even in the same league. What would make sense in the comparison chart is something like ST3.
  • Dave3of5 5y ago
    Fast and slow are relative. VSCode opens within about 2 seconds on my machine which for me is fast. For some users they want it to open even faster than that so something like vim makes sense. Visual studio 2019 on the other hand takes about a minute to a large project and with resharper even longer.
    • madeofpalk 5y ago
      I am surprised at just how slow Visual Studio proper is compared to VS Code, at things like typing and updating linting/compiler warnings.
  • speedgoose 5y ago
    VSCode opens in 1s on my machine (macbook pro m1). Good enough for me.
    • laurent123456 5y ago
      And once it's started (in my case it's always running), switching files is instantaneous.
    • otikik 5y ago
      Fast does not mean only "fast to open", though. When I think about a fast editor I think about opening a 2GB log file and looking for some text, or editing a multi-megabyte Markdown file with syntax highlighting on without any slowdown (something my NeoVim currently struggles with).
      • 5y ago
• kelsolaar 5y ago
  “It can to generate symbols for projects” —> “It can generate symbols for projects”
• KrishnaShripad 5y ago
  Does this have Vim key bindings? Can't find it anywhere on the landing page. I am very reluctant to give up my Neovim + Kitty setup. Most editors I have used consume a lot of RAM and end up becoming slow on big projects (especially when used in conjunction with LSPs). Operations aren't as smooth as I would like them to be. I have used Vim bindings with VSCode and even though it is manageable it still has a lot of quirks and performance issues that put me off. Eventually moved to Neovim and have never looked back. But if I get a better experience with Zas Editor (no compromise on performance though) I would definitely switch.
  • Annili 5y ago
    We’re currently working on VIM key bindings. If you’re interested, you can follow us on twitter @ZasEditor
• Shadonototra 5y ago
  Very nice, i love the redesigned minimap, it actually is now a useful feature, nice
• albertzeyer 5y ago
  I wonder if it really still make sense to develop an editor as a commercial product. This is probably a massive effort, and the revenue is maybe not so large. There is IntelliJ and Visual Studio. IntelliJ is successful, yes, but they have a long history, and the editor is really good. Visual Studio is maybe also successful but I'm not sure how profitable it really was or is. But otherwise? Sublime Text and others were maybe successful at some point but not sure how profitable they really were. If you count the amount of development which went into it vs the revenue. For me as a user, I'm extremely hesitant to use any non-open source editor. An editor is a long-term investment. I would not touch this Zas editor unless maybe in 5 to 10 years when it is widely used by many people or when it has become open source but otherwise not. Yes, it looks nice from a first glance but that is by far not enough. My personal only exception is IntelliJ because it is so good. PyCharm specifically, although I have used other IntelliJ products in the past, starting with the original Java editor, 15 years ago or so, which was heavily praised by some friends. But otherwise, I want to be able to extend the editor easily, also its core itself. I want to be able to support it when the original developer stopped working on it. Or port it to other systems the developer does not care about. Or do some changes the developer disagrees with. Etc. I want to be sure that it is in principle possible to run this in the next 10-20 years. Or not only me. The nice thing with open source is that many people think likewise, and then there will also be others doing such effort, like supporting it on recent systems, adding features, fixing bugs, etc. So then it is a community effort.
  • jamil7 5y ago
    Yeah, people in this thread are praising the one time purchase but I'm almost seeing it as a red flag - how do we know a niche product like this will stick around without recurring revenue? I don't know if that's paid major upgrades or similar. Edit: As a sibling comment pointed out it does actually do paid upgrades after a year so ignore my comment.
    • febeling 5y ago
      Permanent license with one year of upgrades is - for serious users - a yearly subscription. With a price tag of $25 that sounds quite reasonable and also viable.
• samrocksc 5y ago
  I love that pricing plan.
• Annili 5y ago
  Zas Editor developer here. I think it’s important to address a problem a few people have mentioned so far: no data is collected other than your Mac’s serial number, which used to be used for finding how many computers a license is used on (we no longer do that) We’re going to add a privacy policy in the website. We haven’t already done that because we didn’t really expect this much attention within hours of releasing. Honestly, we were expecting few downloads and more technical feedback.
  • chubs 5y ago
    It looks fantastic! I don't really have much to add besides: Congrats! I hope you succeed! Great work!
  • oneeyedpigeon 5y ago
    FYI typo on your faq page: "hunderds"
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • jxub 5y ago
      And "dependancies" on the landing page.
  • jatins 5y ago
    At least from the website this looks really nice and brings with it some fresh ideas -- kudos on the ship! Tangential: Are you the only developer on this? How long did it take from first line of code to current state? This sees like a monumental effort, so curious.
    • Annili 5y ago
      I’m not the only developer, but I’ve %90 of the work. Hopefully, we can get more support and expand > How long did it take from first line of code to current state? It started out as a part-time side project and after a while I started working full time on it. So, I’m not sure I can give an accurate answer to your question. The first commit was made in August 2020
• hsn915 5y ago
  Looks promising. Price is very reasonable. Now trying it out. Unless I find a major issue I'm very likely to buy it. Is there any chance of supporting other languages? I'm asking because I'm one of the (probably few?) people who would be happy if Odin was added to the list of supported languages. (It should be easy to parse, even has library support for parsing and extracting docs).
• bestest 5y ago
  Yet Another Editor with no option to use vertical tabs. Bummer!
• dsincl12 5y ago
  Looks like a good start. I need VIM-mode to be able to use it as a daily driver. The ordering of files and directories is a bit chaotic compared to VSCode. I get a "Go is not installed" popup every time I click a .go file which is weird since it's installed and available for the terminal opened in the editor. I would love more language support as well, Elixir would've been awesome.
  • donatj 5y ago
    I'm getting the same "Go is not installed" error. I can't find anywhere in the UI to configure the path to Go - it's most certainly installed.
• _s_a_m_ 5y ago
  Ehem, Windows, anyone?
• ki_ 5y ago
  "Zas Editor has search and navigation features VSCode does not have" Im sure vscode has more options than Zas. Personally i need: move last open tab to left, vi-mode and sequence keybindings with context. Other than that i need my settings/extensions to be synced across devices. Does Zas have these? I'd check it myself, but it's mac only and im on Linux. There is no info if this will change or not. FAQ should give more info. Other than that, i dont like editors that are language specific. I dont want to use a different editor for each language. It says it supports go & rust. But what if you are making a http server that serves some basic HTML files? It would be kinda annoying if it didnt support html/css/js indenting or syntax errors. I would agree that vscode is kinda slow. Although it's fast enough for me. It seems faster than a couple of years ago. Still, i dont like my apps being written in electron. It's a waste of memory, CPU and electricity. So that's a win for Zas if they dont use electron.. What are they using? Would be nice to know. I like the bussiness model. But it just cannot compete with vscode. I think could have. And it would have been the smart choice.
• boundlessdreamz 5y ago
  This looks great. Please consider adding support for Ruby. I know some of the smart features will not be possible/difficult in Ruby but if you can add some smarts around Rails support, you might attract a decent chunk of developers. Also almost all Rails development happens on Mac. Edit: The trial should ideally be 1 month. It takes a while to put the editor through its paces. Also support for running a command outside the editor (for example auto-formatting / linting) is essential
  • deagle50 5y ago
    Better yet, the trial should only count down when the app is being used. It will be long expired before the features we are waiting for before purchasing get implemented.
• gampleman 5y ago
  As a an aside: I wonder if we are hitting a local maximum in terms of programming languages/ecosystems. These days if you want to experiment with some truly novel programming concept (see for instance Unison, Dark, Luna), you have to compete with truly excellent IDEs, Git, excellent code hosting like GitHub, large open source package ecosystems, high quality linters and auto formatters, and other niceties. So if your language/ecosystem can't take advantage of those things (for instance not being traditionally text based), you have a huge cost before you can meaningfully demonstrate any superiority. To do that you probably need dozens of people working for several years, and I don't think the economics are there for it.
• gampleman 5y ago
  The symbol minimal is really cool! Is there a similar plugin for VSCode?
• chimbosonic 5y ago
  Nice product just a FYI your website doesn't render well on UltraWide screens.
  • defluct 5y ago
    Not saying that the website shouldn't support it, but do you really need to fullscreen your browser with an ultra wide monitor?
• AlphaGeekZulu 5y ago
  The editor looks really nice! And the price tag is absolutely fine for what it promises. But, with 30 years experience in software development, I won't even look into primary development tools that are not cross platform. I am mainly on Linux, often on Windows (usually because clients force me) and sometimes on Mac (for iOS development and cross platform testing). I want the same toolset no matter the hardware or OS.
  • capableweb 5y ago
    > I am mainly on Linux, often on Windows (usually because clients force me) and sometimes on Mac (for iOS development and cross platform testing). I want the same toolset no matter the hardware or OS. Just came to the comments to say exactly the same. If I can't use a tool I'm supposed to use daily, on the three main platforms me (and others) are stuck with, then I can't justify to use it at all, unless it's forced on me (hello xcode et al).
• danpalmer 5y ago
  There's an interesting potential future here where Apple acquire/acqui-hire the team behind this. As much as I'm keen to see software like this, making an editor work as a business is hard, and Zas has a long road ahead of it. However Apple could really use something like this. Xcode is big and bloated, with a ton of support for features that are no longer the future of Apple's platforms (Storyboards, Objective-C, SVN integration...). A clean start with a modern codebase designed for languages fairly similar to Swift, plus the shift towards Swift Package Manager for managing builds (rather than xcodebuild), could be great improvement.
  • b3morales 5y ago
    Xcode's source editor got a big rewrite in Swift just 4 or 5 years ago. They trumpeted about it at WWDC.
  • saagarjha 5y ago
    That effort is clearly what's backing Swift Playgrounds.
• jstummbillig 5y ago
  Cool! Curious, what is your rationale behind having a 7 day trial? The time a customers invests to dive into and get attached to your product seems like best predictor for a future sale.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• twic 5y ago
  > Zas Editor reparses your code on every keystroke without compromising performance. Having a maintained AST at all times brings many intelligent features to the editor. How does this work in the presence of syntax errors? 95% of the time you're writing code, your code is syntactically invalid, because you've started some new construct but not finished it yet, so you need syntax highlighting, code completion, etc to work sensibly in that situation. Getting that wrong is what killed RLS, IIRC.
  • iovrthoughtthis 5y ago
    you still have the previously valid tree because the parsing is incremental i suspect it's tree sitter under the hood
    • twic 5y ago
      Bold of you to assume that the previous state of my code was valid!
  • ris58h 5y ago
    They use tree-sitter https://tree-sitter.github.io/tree-sitter/ https://tree-sitter.github.io/tree-sitter/ It's ok with errors in AST and just marks such nodes as invalid. There is a long (42 minutes) but worth to watch talk about tree-sitter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1rC79DHpmY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1rC79DHpmY Or the shorter version (20 minutes) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CGzC_iss-8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CGzC_iss-8
• alexruf 5y ago
  Congratulations. Zas looks very cool, I will definitely try it out and see if it can fill the (large) gap between Visual Studio Code and a full-featured IDE like Goland or CLion for me. Can you please give an outlook in which direction you plan to go with Zas Editor in the future? Is the plan to target only a few specific programming languages, like currently Golang and Rust, or do you want to become a generic code editor like Visual Studio Code or Sublime Text and support a large number of languages and formats?
• greybox 5y ago
  Any plans to bring this editor to other platforms? As a game developer a Mac isn't an option for me
• peter_retief 5y ago
  I see only a download for mac, I am on Linux. My current setup is actually ok, use vim and sometimes vscode. 24 usd isn't that expensive but what would I get that vim doesn't do?
• deagle50 5y ago
  This would be an instant buy if it matched some Goland features/plugins: -Ideavim (.vimrc support, custom mappings to editor actions) -AceJump/EasyMotion -Color scheme customization
• samoit 5y ago
  Is there a linux version?
  • c0balt 5y ago
    If not could any of the people who have alicense test if it's compatible with darling[0]? [0]: https://www.darlinghq.org/ https://www.darlinghq.org/
• rambousek 5y ago
  I don't want more IDEs
• Lorak_ 5y ago
  Why don't you mention the fact that it is Mac-only before bottom of the page (download section)?
  • swah 5y ago
    Well, why didn't you infer that from the page design? :)
    • rwalle 5y ago
      Why should a user infer anything? This is simply bad user experience. A person who uses Windows may be confused but they can only be sure after reaching the bottom of the page. Not to mention it is not rare that a multi-platform application use Mac screenshots, including (surprisingly) VSCode, from time to time
• cdash 5y ago
  Mac only? No thanks. Support multiple platforms and then maybe it would be worth considering, even at increased price.
• farukuzun 5y ago
  Love it! Some feedback: - Showing type of the variable when you hover. Goland does it perfectly. - Being able to add mouse actions to shortcuts. A use case would be cmd+mousewheel to increase/decrease font size - Importing themes from GoLand.
• mritzmann 5y ago
  I am an Apple MacBook user. However, personally I try to use only software that is available for Windows, macOS and Linux. This allows me to switch operating systems more quickly, should I choose to do so. Don't want to make myself dependent on one manufacturer.
  • tut-urut-utut 5y ago
    Valid point. I know it's easier for the developers to support only one or two platforms, but I see full support of all major platforms as a sign of maturity. If it doesn't, it's a sign of issues either with used libraries, programming language or tools.
  • pindab0ter 5y ago
    As a counterpoint, I only exclusively work on macOS and vastly prefer native interfaces over Electron apps, which is what the majority of cross platform applications use.
  • coldtea 5y ago
    Good for you. But now it's time for Zas Editor to make its case!
• aweb 5y ago
  Wow that sounds like a really interesting editor for Golang! Only missing thing I absolutely need is the debugger+a test runner. Once those are here I think I'll buy a license!
• unwind 5y ago
  Cool! I'm not on Mac so not for me, but always inspiring to see innvoation in editing. One more typo, under "Exceptional Performance": "It can to generate symbols [...]", the "to" should not be there.
• bogwog 5y ago
  This looks really nice, especially the smart refactoring features and built in documentation search... but a Mac-only app disqualifies it for me. I need an editor that I can rely on no matter what OS I'm on. That's a bigger deal today than it was a decade ago. Having to switch my tools when I need to use a different OS is a massive productivity drain. This is clearly a very niche product, being Mac-only and targeted at Rust/Go devs. I wish you luck with it though, because the world definitely needs more people making and innovating code editors (even if they're not all for me).
• nimar 5y ago
  Very interesting - i really enjoy that some innovation is happening in editors. This feels similar in goal to LAPCE [1] which was also on HN [2] a couple of weeks ago, except that LAPCE is OSS and available for all platforms. [1]: https://lapce.dev https://lapce.dev [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30708505 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30708505
• jules 5y ago
  I just tried the editor for Rust and it is great. I love the way errors and warnings are displayed. The navigation mode is also a brilliant idea. For larger files however, the screen real estate used by the navigation on the right hand side is not quite big enough for me. You still have to scroll a lot and hunt for what you want to find. It would be great to somehow display more things to navigate, possibly using more of the screen (especially if you're using a big external monitor), possibly with some visual of the dependencies between them (so that you're not trying to find things in a long linear list). Especially when you're browsing new code the dependencies would be very helpful to get a quicker understanding of the structure of the code, and for your own code they might also suggest ways to refactor/reorder code in the file. I'll definitely try out this editor for the next couple of days, and maybe switch from VS code. I find the comments of the people saying that they won't pay for an editor quite strange. I would gladly pay $24.99 per year for a 1% productivity improvement.
• specialist 5y ago
  Nicely done. The Super Search and Multi-Find features look very interesting.
• zorr 5y ago
  Congrats on launching, the screenshots look great. Lately I've seen a few MacOS specific apps here on HN (another one was the terminal app ) and they all look really good UI wise: the general UI, popup/search dialogs, dropdown menus for command palette, file trees etc. I would love to write apps that look and feel like this on other platforms (mainly Linux for me personally) but the toolkits don't seem to have that level of polish or even lack most of these controls/components. Gtk, Qt and Java Swing all have pretty simple controls and require a lot of customization or reinventing the same custom controls. The closest I have gotten is with JavaFX but that does not seem officially supported/maintained anymore. Are there any other toolkits that aim to have this level of polish?
• mrtesthah 5y ago
  >Native. Fast. Lightweight. Zas Editor was specifically developed for macOS. That enables it to be more performant, have a significantly lower memory usage, and have faster startup times than non-native apps. Yes, please. Give me this right now!
• paulvnickerson 5y ago
  Congrats on launching - hope things work out for you guys!
• jedisct1 5y ago
  "for Go and Rust". This is a bit limiting. Any chance to expand to other languages?
• hsn915 5y ago
  As a side note, I really like the design of this landing page. Instead of a "hero unit" with a salesy blob text in marketeese, there's a useful description of what the product is, what it does, and what value it adds to the end user, in a way that the user immediately understands. Each feature description is accompanied by a picture/animation to demonstrate it. I wish more product marketing pages followed this format, instead of the crappy soulless format of "hero unit" with marketing blob followed by three text boxes in a row with more marketing bullshit.
• Xevi 5y ago
  With web development being as prevalent as it is nowadays, is there any plan to support HTML, CSS, JS/TS? Go and Rust are often used for web backends, so it would make sense to support frontend languages as well. Especially since Rust can be compiled to WASM.
• jebronie 5y ago
  Its really fast, responsive and pretty! Some things are missing imo: - An option to disable font ligatures - CTRL+click to go to definition
• mgdev 5y ago
  So many critics here. "It's paid!" "It's not multi-platform!" "It doesn't support my language!" Dear Zas Editor creator: Good on you for creating something that solves your problems and challenges you intellectually. Good on you for putting yourself out there by making it public. Good on you and for making your efforts sustainable by charging real money for it. Good on you for taking the first step, and shipping before it's "perfect". Good on you for taking feedback graciously.
• sixstringtheory 5y ago
  A lot of this is possible in Xcode, but kudos to the team for packaging everything so nicely in this editor, and there are a few standout features I haven’t seen in other editors/IDEs: - multifind - find in all enums (declaration/structure-specific search) - the “minimap” Like another poster said, just the few niche functions alone would be a cool acquisition target for Apple. I’d love to see the best/unique parts of this make it into Xcode without having to maintain the rest of the wheels that have been reinvented here. I guess you kinda have to reinvent all those wheels as a foundation upon which to build new unique features for a text editor though…
  • atultw 5y ago
    minimap exists in Xcode but it's not quite the same. It only shows `// MARK: ` comments. Would love for Xcode to have more language support. Maybe an lsp client.
• LtdJorge 5y ago
  When I see these kind of super-polished UIs, I wonder why can't we have that in Windows? Or Linux, for that matter, but I get the why on Linux. GUIs are so much better in Mac, it's not even close. What's stopping Microsoft from getting closer?
• andrew_shay 5y ago
  This looks really impressive. I wish there was a Windows client because I would try it now.
• jan_299dwe 5y ago
  I really like what I see there. There is certainly a lot room above VS Code and Jetbrains IDEs. - Both VS Code and Jetbrains IDEs have issues handling large files - Both have only good not great usability. Jetbrains IDEs are actually very good but the huge feature set is becoming a problem even if you don't use all the stuff - Both have their problems with with code intelligence. Jetbrains IDEs are mostly flawless but esp. Webstorm lags heavily regarding the support of some JS frameworks, e.g. Svelte, Vue 3 SFC and Tailwind CSS. The support is also going downhill with Jetbrains. The price of 25$ is a no brainer. Totally fine for a good product. Mac only is very unfortunately a dealbreaker for me as Linux user.
• digitalsin 5y ago
  Really liking this editor! It's incredibly performant on Apple silicon for Go development. I'm not sure it is mature and feature-complete enough to take on Goland, but for a v1 release it looks promising.
• mistik956 5y ago
  I'm lost.