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Split views are coming. From the post: "Split views: Yes, I actually had this on the alpha milestone, I’m not overly excited about this feature myself, but I

Split views are coming. From the post: "Split views: Yes, I actually had this on the alpha milestone, I’m not overly excited about this feature myself, but I know it’s a very common request, so eventually it should find its way into the application."

jdludlow 15y ago
(I'm not a desktop app developer, so maybe I'm way off base here.) There's the obvious observer problem where you have two views of the same buffer and changing the text in one automatically updates the other. Isn't that harder to tack on later than to design into the app from the beginning?
- scrod 15y ago
  Depending on how well you can map your code to the built-in Cocoa text-editing classes, this could be as easy as adding two NSLayoutManagers (each directing one NSTextContainer and NSTextView) beneath a single NSTextStorage instance. Apple even uses this configuration for one of their examples: http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/cocoa/conceptual/TextArchitecture/Concepts/CommonConfigs.html http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/cocoa/... The built-in notifications and delegate-relationships handle everything else (updates & synchronization) automatically. This is actually NeXTSTEP-level stuff that's been around for decades.
andylei 15y ago
> I’m not overly excited about this feature myself i don't understand this. how does he code only looking at one file at a time?
- durandal1 15y ago
  Maybe...drumroll... multiple windows?
  - andylei 15y ago
    don't you have to open a new project or something contrived to do that? i don't remember; it's been a while since i've used textmate.
    - durandal1 15y ago
      There's no projects in TM, if you open a folder it opens up the folder in the project drawer. From there (or from Finder) you can open up as many editing windows as you want.
- etrain 15y ago
  different strokes for different folks. i look at one buffer at a time, and switch between them. have only rarely made use of split views. helps me mentally with encapsulation/separation.
- colomon 15y ago
  How do you code looking at two files at one time? What's the point? I've been programming for nearly thirty years now. For the bulk of that time, I had an editor which allowed me to do split screens, and I used it maybe once a year. I switched to TextMate in 2008, and have never once missed having a split screen.
e1ven 15y ago
I don't get why people think this is an editor feature, and not an OS feature. When I want to view two files at the same time, I open two windows, and put them side by side. Not everything needs to be fullscreen all-the-time. Let the OS manage windows. It's better at it! Besides, having windows automatically become half-maximized is easy with the right tools, like BetterTouchTool (Do it with a gesture!), or Divvy.
- frou_dh 15y ago
  The OS isn't better at it if there is none or limited ability to manipulate the windows in a keyboard driven way. I use and love the 3rd party tool SizeUp, but SublimeText2's integrated pane management (including moving tabs between them) is far better than plain windows.
  - e1ven 15y ago
    Can you help me understand how it's better? SizeUp looks perfect for something like this. Want to view two files? Ctrl-right on one, it's now on the right side of the screen. Command-O, chose the new file, Ctrl-left on it, it's now on the left side. I'm honestly very curious what Sublime/etc offer that is better than what you can do with the OS?
    - frou_dh 15y ago
      What's the key to add a third column and have the others automatically resized? Do other windows start inheriting the project drawer if older windows are closed? Each window has multiple tabs - how do you tear off and replant them using the keyboard? Doh, now the temporary horizontal split panes like find-in-project, the python console, etc, must be attached to a specific narrow window. And so on. I like a multi window desktop and am certainly not a maximise-everything guy. But relying on the OS for everything is not optimal.
    - hesitz 15y ago
      In Vim there are many benefits from having multiple buffers open within the same Vim instance. Buffers share session data of the Vim instance they're in. This has a lot of different benefits, including automatically sharing whatever options or settings have been set (many dynamically or temporarily set), sharing of Vim registers, macros, and command history, all of which are heavily used when editing (if OS handled they would generally share a single clipboard register), Vim-controlled navigation between buffers and windows, Vim-controlled scripting between multiple buffers, Vim-controlled searches of multiple buffers, and more. Because there are so many benefits of having multiple buffers/files open within the same Vim instance it makes sense to have multiple buffers viewable at once, not to have only one viewable at a time. You lose a lot of editing power if buffers are not open in same Vim instance; it doesn't make sense to open a new file separately in different Vim instance. Moreover, many times split windows are useful to show two different views of the _same_ buffer at once.
krobertson 15y ago
The wording of "I'm not excited about it but I'll do it" has me worried. Typically those kind of things end up poorly executed/implemented. In terms of split views, its not a big issue for me, but to publicly state that is your approach has me unsure about other parts of TM2 and his practices. I don't look at it thinking "yay!"

jdludlow 15y ago

(I'm not a desktop app developer, so maybe I'm way off base here.) There's the obvious observer problem where you have two views of the same buffer and changing the text in one automatically updates the other. Isn't that harder to tack on later than to design into the app from the beginning?

scrod 15y ago
Depending on how well you can map your code to the built-in Cocoa text-editing classes, this could be as easy as adding two NSLayoutManagers (each directing one NSTextContainer and NSTextView) beneath a single NSTextStorage instance. Apple even uses this configuration for one of their examples: http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/cocoa/conceptual/TextArchitecture/Concepts/CommonConfigs.html http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/cocoa/... The built-in notifications and delegate-relationships handle everything else (updates & synchronization) automatically. This is actually NeXTSTEP-level stuff that's been around for decades.

andylei 15y ago

> I’m not overly excited about this feature myself i don't understand this. how does he code only looking at one file at a time?

durandal1 15y ago
Maybe...drumroll... multiple windows?
- andylei 15y ago
  don't you have to open a new project or something contrived to do that? i don't remember; it's been a while since i've used textmate.
  - durandal1 15y ago
    There's no projects in TM, if you open a folder it opens up the folder in the project drawer. From there (or from Finder) you can open up as many editing windows as you want.
etrain 15y ago
different strokes for different folks. i look at one buffer at a time, and switch between them. have only rarely made use of split views. helps me mentally with encapsulation/separation.
colomon 15y ago
How do you code looking at two files at one time? What's the point? I've been programming for nearly thirty years now. For the bulk of that time, I had an editor which allowed me to do split screens, and I used it maybe once a year. I switched to TextMate in 2008, and have never once missed having a split screen.

e1ven 15y ago

I don't get why people think this is an editor feature, and not an OS feature. When I want to view two files at the same time, I open two windows, and put them side by side. Not everything needs to be fullscreen all-the-time. Let the OS manage windows. It's better at it! Besides, having windows automatically become half-maximized is easy with the right tools, like BetterTouchTool (Do it with a gesture!), or Divvy.

frou_dh 15y ago
The OS isn't better at it if there is none or limited ability to manipulate the windows in a keyboard driven way. I use and love the 3rd party tool SizeUp, but SublimeText2's integrated pane management (including moving tabs between them) is far better than plain windows.
- e1ven 15y ago
  Can you help me understand how it's better? SizeUp looks perfect for something like this. Want to view two files? Ctrl-right on one, it's now on the right side of the screen. Command-O, chose the new file, Ctrl-left on it, it's now on the left side. I'm honestly very curious what Sublime/etc offer that is better than what you can do with the OS?
  - frou_dh 15y ago
    What's the key to add a third column and have the others automatically resized? Do other windows start inheriting the project drawer if older windows are closed? Each window has multiple tabs - how do you tear off and replant them using the keyboard? Doh, now the temporary horizontal split panes like find-in-project, the python console, etc, must be attached to a specific narrow window. And so on. I like a multi window desktop and am certainly not a maximise-everything guy. But relying on the OS for everything is not optimal.
  - hesitz 15y ago
    In Vim there are many benefits from having multiple buffers open within the same Vim instance. Buffers share session data of the Vim instance they're in. This has a lot of different benefits, including automatically sharing whatever options or settings have been set (many dynamically or temporarily set), sharing of Vim registers, macros, and command history, all of which are heavily used when editing (if OS handled they would generally share a single clipboard register), Vim-controlled navigation between buffers and windows, Vim-controlled scripting between multiple buffers, Vim-controlled searches of multiple buffers, and more. Because there are so many benefits of having multiple buffers/files open within the same Vim instance it makes sense to have multiple buffers viewable at once, not to have only one viewable at a time. You lose a lot of editing power if buffers are not open in same Vim instance; it doesn't make sense to open a new file separately in different Vim instance. Moreover, many times split windows are useful to show two different views of the _same_ buffer at once.

krobertson 15y ago

The wording of "I'm not excited about it but I'll do it" has me worried. Typically those kind of things end up poorly executed/implemented. In terms of split views, its not a big issue for me, but to publicly state that is your approach has me unsure about other parts of TM2 and his practices. I don't look at it thinking "yay!"