20 ms·

A new Light Table experience

374 points by falava 14y ago

Raphael_Amiard 14y ago
It is absolutely gorgeous, but it is also looking a lot more like a traditional text editor from what i can gather. I'll download and play with it a bit anyway, to see what i get from it.
- ibdknox 14y ago
  It is, but that's because we have to have a solid editing experience for the "simple" stuff before we can do the more interesting things. What good is it to have these awesome function oriented editors when you can't even modify a file efficiently? :) We use tabs as a simple way of wrapping up a context. In the future they will include all sorts of neat things - and they aren't limited in any way. If we want, we can drop an infinite canvas into one, or a codex (a document made of many parts of different files). So yes, right now we wanted something beautiful and efficient to use while live coding, but as I said in my bit about 0.4.0, the really interesting semantic-oriented stuff (functions and the like) is what's next!
  - mej10 14y ago
    Has anyone started work on an Emacs Lisp to ClojureScript compiler? :) Speaking of which, are Emacs keybindings coming any time soon?
    - lennel 14y ago
      and ParEdit
      - straws 14y ago
        Seconded. If you're going to have any success in converting people who write Clojure code away from Emacs, you're going to need to copy its good parts. Nice redesign though.
        martinced 14y ago
        "If you're going to have any success in converting people who write Clojure code away from Emacs" I'd say it would already be great if they could bring newcomers to Clojure: people who are rebutted because of Emacs. As to me I'd need, at least: ace-jump-mode, paredit, the powerful macro system and the ability to create my own rules for highlighting / overlaying text as easily as from Emacs. Short of that I'll keep using Emacs. Now what I think: it's probably easier to add LT's "instarepl" to Emacs than to add one million lines of elisp code to LT so... I fully expect someone to hack a "Clojure instarepl" Emacs mode one of these days.
    - alexkehayias 14y ago
      +1 for Emacs keybindings
      - centro 14y ago
        (+ 1 1)
        nordsieck 14y ago
        (partial (+ 1))
    - willismichael 14y ago
      https://github.com/hraberg/deuce https://github.com/hraberg/deuce
  - jasonjackson 14y ago
    I for one am glad you're nailing the editor part first. Because if this is ever to replace my usage of emacs, you have to at least get that part right. This hasn't yet replaced my emacs, but i'm more optimistic now. Some editing features missing are paredit, viewing source code of a clojure core function. (Alt-. in emacs.) When you eval something and it never terminates, you need a way to kill that thread. For IDE like features, #1 on my list is refactoring clojure code quickly, e.g. renaming symbols. As someone who's anal about prioritizing time, I don't ever customize the themes, etc, I just want killer useful features that save me time and "just work".
    - puredanger 14y ago
      Even getting all of paredit is not essential imo - I'd settle for just slurp and barf support.
  - deangiberson 14y ago
    +1 for strong editing features. All the fancy stuff came after Emacs became an OS for editing text. Nail that, the rest follows.
fdb 14y ago
There's something weird going on when using the trackpad on OS X. My trackpad is set to "natural scrolling", but if I scroll really fast the editor seems to scroll in the other direction.
- ibdknox 14y ago
  I think that might be a bug in CodeMirror[1], does it happen consistently? I'll see what I can track down. [1]: http://codemirror.net/ http://codemirror.net/
  - fdb 14y ago
    Changing the trackpad direction doesn't have any effect, still the same issue.
    - ibdknox 14y ago
      10.8? and all you're doing is scrolling quickly? If you close the app and bring it back up, it still does it? EDIT: tracking in this issue: https://github.com/Kodowa/Light-Table-Playground/issues/271 https://github.com/Kodowa/Light-Table-Playground/issues/271
      - fdb 14y ago
        After restarting, I can't reproduce it anymore. Maybe it was a caching issue with the previous version of Light Table I had. Thanks very much for Light Table! I'm loving it.
amckenna 14y ago
I know python support is planned, but will it be integrated alpha/beta or will we have to wait until after the 1.0 release?
- ibdknox 14y ago
  It'll definitely be before 1.0, but I'm not exactly sure when. Right now it's still just me on the code side, so it depends a bit on how hiring goes.
  - learningram 14y ago
    How many people are working on this project ?
    - ibdknox 14y ago
      Currently 2: Robert and I. I code, Robert makes sure I'm just coding.
dpick 14y ago
Stack Size Exceeded when trying to open a ~3500 line clojure app :(.
- ibdknox 14y ago
  a ~3500 line file? What do you mean by open? Could you put up an issue [1] with a bit more information so we can track it down? [1]: https://github.com/Kodowa/Light-Table-Playground/issues https://github.com/Kodowa/Light-Table-Playground/issues
  - dpick 14y ago
    It's a project with a bunch of files, totals around 3500 lines. I'll post an issue.
shuma 14y ago
Which languages does it support?
- ibdknox 14y ago
  It's a general editor and can open most things out there, however the eval stuff is limited to Clojure, ClojureScript, JavaScript, and CSS.
  - pnathan 14y ago
    Out of curiosity - I haven't followed this project in technical detail - are you using SWANK or your own backend work? I would be interested in experimenting with it for Common Lisp, you see. :)
    - pchristensen 14y ago
      I believe it uses nrepl, not SWANK. (I wrote about the difference here: http://pchristensen.com/blog/articles/clojure-development-ecosystem/#nrepl http://pchristensen.com/blog/articles/clojure-development-ec... )
      - ibdknox 14y ago
        it actually uses neither, and doesn't rely on any specific implementation. You could fairly easily wrap a swank client to make it work, or an nrepl one (which is something we'll probably get to soon). One of the nice things about the way we architected it is that there are very few assumptions when it comes to "clients" and that will allow a ton of freedom in using established stuff when it exists.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
  - Avestan 14y ago
    I follow LT project since I saw it on kickstarter and it looks great so far. And I cannot wait for promised full Python support to be implemented.
pixelbath 14y ago
This is a very pretty editor. That said, I have no freaking idea what I'm supposed to do. I've been messing around with it for around 15 minutes now, and I still don't understand it. I added a PHP website folder and got no code hinting or anything else beyond "here is the match for your parenthesis" for either PHP or Javascript. This also resulted in my "navigate" tab being filled with SVN meta-files. I am quite confused. Looking around on the site and some of the comments here, it appears you're using Clojure. Does this IDE only support Clojure?
- ibdknox 14y ago
  Think of LT as something more akin to an editor in spirit - you won't see watch windows and all the craziness you often see in "big" IDE's. In that regard, you use it like you use any editor. If you're working with Clojure, ClojureScript, or Javascript code, however, you can evaluate a block inline by pressing Cmd-Enter (or Ctrl-Enter). Now that we have an experience we plan to stick with more documentation and getting started content will be coming in the next few days. :) EDIT: I didn't think about SVN, we do filter out Git, but this should just be customizable. Added an issue for it [1]. [1]: https://github.com/Kodowa/Light-Table-Playground/issues/266 https://github.com/Kodowa/Light-Table-Playground/issues/266
  - antihero 14y ago
    .pyc files also seem to be showing up. I've opened a python file, typed 1 + 1 and hit Ctrl+Enter and it doesn't seem to do anything.
    - ibdknox 14y ago
      eval is only for Clojure, ClojureScript, Javascript, and CSS right now
      - dbaupp 14y ago
        Evaling CSS? What is computed?
octix 14y ago
Has anyone started using LT? Is it productive? Should java devs even bother with this? Thank you.
- ibdknox 14y ago
  It's not going to be more useful to a Java developer than Eclipse is currently, but that's because we're going after a very different end goal. FWIW, all our work is done in LT and it is far more efficient than I used to be with Vim.
  - josh-j 14y ago
    Is there a screencast where I can see you being more efficient in LT than Vim?
- kybernetyk 14y ago
  I (clojure hobbyist) play around with it regularly but IMHO it's not really ready for prime time yet.
deleted 14y ago
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mytrile 14y ago
Everytime I update LT the syntax highlighting is reducing by the number of colors used. I expect the color theme in the final to be grayscale. Appart from that, awesome job guys.
arrakeen 14y ago
any reason in particular that this doesn't support osx10.6?
companyhen 14y ago
I'm a web designer (PSD -> WordPress) and I started learning programming around the time Light Table was funded on KickStarter. It's been nice to see the project grow with my programming skills. Although I still don't feel like a decent programmer, it's nice to see what my small $15 investment has helped create. :)
podperson 14y ago
What going back over the old demo and looking at this post did was remind me of how nice jsfiddle is when it isn't insanely slow, which then led me to wonder how hard it would be to create something like jsfiddle that lived on top of github would be, or something like jsfiddle that lived inside my favorite editor, or just in a static html page on my desktop.
- eric_bullington 14y ago
  If you get frustrated with jsfiddle, try out http://cssdeck.com/labs http://cssdeck.com/labs It's nominally oriented toward CSS and all the CSS preprocessors, but it handles JS just fine (and CoffeeScript, too!). I like its layout a lot more than jsfiddle -- it's more aesthetically appealing to me. It also features the ability to do codecasts. I can't recall if jsfiddle has that, but it's a nice feature for demonstrating code to someone.
  - podperson 14y ago
    Looks good (loads fast) and I like the coffeescript support.
- WickyNilliams 14y ago
  I used to be a huge proponent of JSFiddle but it's got so slow and temperamental recently that I've started moving over to codepen.io. It gives instant results (every change is evaluated in real time), supports LESS and SASS on the CSS side, and CoffeeScript on the scripting side. And it's got a nicer UI, giving more space to the output pane and allowing quick switching/expanding of the code panes
karlokeeffe 14y ago
I get the error: "LightTable.app" is damaged and can't be opened. I'm running OSX 10.8.2. Anyone else having the same problem? Are there any dependancies I need to have installed before running the app?
- elomarns 14y ago
  I'm getting the same error.
- ibdknox 14y ago
  This is OSX's gatekeeper going crazy because our codesign included the icns file (which then got compressed and no longer verifies). I'm uploading a new package right now. As a workaround you can go to security in system settings, set it to allow anything to run, open LightTable.app, close it and then re-enable the old gatekeeper setting. LT will open fine thereafter. Or you can just redownload in about 2 minutes.
  - karlokeeffe 14y ago
    Great, that's fixed it for me.
- arikrak 14y ago
  i get this when i visit the mac download link: <Error> <Code>AccessDenied</Code> <Message>Access Denied</Message> ... Update: OK, it works now.
eaxbin 14y ago
I'm getting Access Denied when trying to download the OS X version. Other versions are working fine.
- ibdknox 14y ago
  fixed, sorry about that.
  - eaxbin 14y ago
    Cool, thanks.
ollysb 14y ago
I'd absolutely love to see ruby in Light Table, how are plans looking for this? If there was a kickstarter for adding ruby I'd pony up in a flash. I realise manpower is probably going to be the main issue though...
- lrem 14y ago
  Python is first. It was already paid for in the kickstarter...
  - relic 14y ago
    Back of the line Ruby!
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- ibdthor 14y ago
  Manpower is an issue, but we've gotten a lot of requests for Ruby in the future. When and where Ruby support will come is still unknown, but do know that we hear you! :)
  - pmr_ 14y ago
    I think this would be the right place to bring this up: Is language support backed in or can everyone write a plug-in for his language? Implementing highlighting, completion and repl for all the different languages users could want seems like an enormous task. At the same time this is where Emacs shines: supporting a new language rudimentary is easy to do, adding more advanced support isn't too hard either. Will users be able to define new language modes?
andreyf 14y ago
Noooo! So many wasted pixels at the top! Why!? It was so much better before! Aside from that: neat! :)
- manaskarekar 14y ago
  Toggle Fullscreen should fix that.
Meai 14y ago
You should add mousewheel scrolling of tabs, I'd like that. Also a white theme, because black themes look sort of sketchy at work.
- ibdknox 14y ago
  in the command bar, type "skin" and press enter. You can change it to a light skin. :) You can also change the editor theme, by using the "change editor theme" command.
- lucian1900 14y ago
  > black themes look sort of sketchy at work Could you explain that?
  - ibdknox 14y ago
    I'm curious as well, since most of the programmers I've met prefers a dark theme. :)
    - seanmcdirmid 14y ago
      It depends on the monitor. Some cheaper displays don't have the contrast to make light on dark work; also color bleeding... Given a non-IPS display, my older eyes prefer dark on light, even if I think light on dark looks better. Also, light on dark is almost impossible to project for demos and presentations! But I'm sure grandparent is just referring to the fact that light table looks different enough from the workplace norm to make it standout and his activities more known (but even visual studio has a dark mode these days).
manaskarekar 14y ago
Apart from the other obvious praises, I just want to thank you for making something so beautiful with Clojure as a first class citizen.
- huhsamovar 14y ago
  I have completely the opposite opinion. Clojure is not as widely used as some other languages. Python springs to mind; I know it was part of the Kickstarter pledge. Support for compiled languages would be nice, although I realise this is difficult.
  - manaskarekar 14y ago
    That is exactly why this makes me so happy. :) There are already tons of good tools for Python.
  - miloshadzic 14y ago
    There's already an awesome editor that has Python as a first class citizen, Sublime Text 2.
auggierose 14y ago
Does anyone know what Light Table is programmed in? It seems to be cross platform, how does it achieve that? I assume some kind of mix between Clojure and using browser technology as a UI, but does anyone know specifics?
- swannodette 14y ago
  node-webkit - http://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit http://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit
- ibdknox 14y ago
  Check out my previous post: http://www.chris-granger.com/2013/01/24/the-ide-as-data/ http://www.chris-granger.com/2013/01/24/the-ide-as-data/
- joshuacc 14y ago
  In addition to node-webkit, I believe the app code itself is written in ClojureScript (a compile-to-js dialect of Clojure.)
  - fstephany 14y ago
    Yep, mostly ClojureScript and a bit of Javascript for boot and setup.
deleted 14y ago
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- deleted 14y ago
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paulhodge 14y ago
I love these updates, the tool is looking more awesome every day. I'm wondering if there's a roadmap for Light Table's release, specifically if there's a point where the code will be available? I have a programming language in progress and I'm interested in potentially hacking LT to support the language. It seems like it would be a good fit.
scottjad 14y ago
How are you highlighting the matching characters in the fuzzy search results? http://www.chris-granger.com/images/030/navigate.png http://www.chris-granger.com/images/030/navigate.png It looks like the same method I'm using in emacs/ido, which is to turn "la/clj" into "(l).*?(a).*?(/).*?(c).*?(l).*?(j).*?" I've found this technique gives inferior results to whatever SublimeText is doing. For example, in your hits with "langs", such as "lt/objs/langs/js.cljs" I think "lt/objs/langs/js.cljs" is more intuitive than the result you give of "lt/objs/langs/js.cljs". (Sorry for the hard to read italics) For another example, on a search of "completions" I think your technique will highlight "hacks-completions" as "hacks-completions" instead of "hacks-completions". Does anyone know if there's an easy way to modify the regex (not LightTable) and get the user-friendly results of Sublime Text?
- ibdknox 14y ago
  it's not currently configurable, but I agree that the highlighting should be more like that. Filed an issue to track it: https://github.com/Kodowa/Light-Table-Playground/issues/277 https://github.com/Kodowa/Light-Table-Playground/issues/277
- jules 14y ago
  Turn slashes into .*?(/).*? and leave the rest alone? If you don't want to treat slashes specially and want to allow "ab" to match "aqqqb" then I don't think you can do it without creating a giant regex. You can go for a modified longest common subsequence algorithm. Edit: here's how you can do it: // gives one point for each letter matched // plus an extra point if the next letter is also a match let rec scorematch = function | true::true::r -> 2 + scorematch (true::r) | true::r -> 1 + scorematch r | false::r -> scorematch r | [] -> 0 // find the match with best score let rec search xs ys = match (xs,ys) with | (x::xr, y::yr) -> let matches = [false::search xr ys; false::search xs yr] let matches = if x=y then (true::search xr yr)::matches else matches matches |> List.maxBy scorematch | _,ys -> List.map (fun _ -> false) ys let underline xs ys = search (List.ofSeq xs) (List.ofSeq ys) |> List.map (fun b -> if b then "-" else " ") |> String.Concat for x in ["foobarbaz"; "foobaXrbaz"; "foobXaXrbaz"; "foobXaXrbazr"] do Console.WriteLine x Console.WriteLine (underline "bar" x) For search term "bar" this outputs: foobarbaz --- foobaXrbaz -- - foobXaXrbaz - - - foobXaXrbazr -- - You'll want to memoize this or apply dynamic programming.
abecedarius 14y ago
So how do you see these inline results? I'm told cmd-enter or cmd-shift-enter will evaluate code; on Windows 7, for me, none of ctrl-enter, alt-enter, or windows-enter seem to do anything. ctrl-shift-enter in a .js file creates a checkmark next to my first line, 2+3; (though not the lines I'd written after it). Trying to create a .clj or .cljs file, by 'Create a new file' and then 'Save file', it remains as 'untitled', and ctrl-shift-enter doesn't seem to do anything. Anyone else on Windows at the moment with tips? (The 'bindings' command lists things like Cmd Enter; since it lists Ctrl for other keybindings, I'm guessing that's meant to mean Alt.)
- alepper 14y ago
  Looks like Ctrl+Enter and Ctrl+Shift+Enter start to work after saving the file with a recognised extension. You'll have to use the mouse, as pressing Enter cancels, despite the 'Save' button being highlighted as if it were the default. Unfortunately, even just (defn id [x] x) gets me "java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to resolve symbol: defn".
  - DigitalJack 14y ago
    Take a look here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5300653 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5300653
Macsenour 14y ago
As a game dev guy, I'm looking at the two new Open game platforms, Ouya and GameStick, and thinking that LT might be a great way to get kids into coding. Getting kids to code games is so much easier than any other project, even if the game is extremely simple. Anyone care to comment?
- shawndumas 14y ago
  Have you messed around with ImpactJS? I'd love to see some LT and ImpactJS lov'n.
cheald 14y ago
I've tried to add a workspace directory from a Samba mount, and it's been stuck for about 10 minutes now.
pjbrunet 14y ago
I downloaded Linux 64 and it doesn't work in Debian. No readme either?
- pjbrunet 14y ago
  Just tried Linux32 download and it seems to be working :-)
edoloughlin 14y ago
Currently downloading at 9-10KB/s. Anyone seeding a torrent?
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
zenbowman 14y ago
Beautiful stuff
almost_usual 14y ago
Awesome, really nice to have such great Clojure support
ttty 14y ago
how to open those cells like they do in the video?
sudowork 14y ago
Small bug I found: When I change the editor theme to something other than `default`, the next time I start up the editor, the theme isn't loaded. Instead, I just get some light grey text on a dark grey background. UX Annoyance: When clicking on an exception, there's no visual indication that it's been clicked on. I found that Shift+Tabbing brings you back to the editor pane (other than using the mouse). A couple more things that could just be me being stupid. When I try to eval using Ctrl+Shift+Enter, nothing happens. Instead, I have to eval each line one-by-one. I tried creating a new key binding, but couldn't figure out how to delimit my keys to allow modifiers. I also can't figure out how to pop up documentation or data flow as demo'd in the original light table (this is my first time using any version of light table). I tried `(doc <foo>)`, but it just evaluates to `nil`. Anyways, hope these comments might be useful in terms of my user experience as a first time user.
- ibdknox 14y ago
  Created an issue for the first [1] Not sure about the ctrl+shift+enter not working, I'll see if I can come up with a repro. Keys are delimited with -, so Ctrl-Shift-Enter For (doc ..) take a look at the bottom console, click the little arrow which should be blue when there's new content in there. All prints go to that console. Thanks for the report! :) [1]: https://github.com/Kodowa/Light-Table-Playground/issues/281 https://github.com/Kodowa/Light-Table-Playground/issues/281
  - sudowork 14y ago
    Thanks for the fast response! I'm really hopeful for the future of Light Table, and I appreciate the work you've put it.
  - ttty 14y ago
    the little arrow is white on a grey button. If I click it opens up something grey that it's empty. I cannot write or anything it's just a grey box.. :s
- ttty 14y ago
  me too. win 7 64bit
billyvg 14y ago
How do I go into vim mode?
- billyvg 14y ago
  Nevermind, there's a "Toggle vim mode" command
pjbrunet 14y ago
Would be nice if font size changed by control+scrolling mouse wheel, most code editors do that. I can't imagine really needing (or wanting) to evaluate things in realtime (like the videos demonstrate) unless I was writing cryptic, mind-numbing algorithms all day every day. I like the idea in one of your videos, every function can have its own little window, but I wouldn't want that to create new files for me automatically in the background and it would have to be more useful than a straightforward "split window" editor function, which is already something I rarely use. The colors are cool but not as cool as my hacked Crunchbang+Geany colors. Maybe one day Light Table will be like a more graphical, user-friendly Emacs? I don't know. The videos are really eye-catching but realistically I can't imagine why I'd use Light Table. I realize there's already a lot of interest in this, but I would like to see more videos showing how this is actually more useful than Gedit or whatever.
DigitalTurk 14y ago
It just so happens that I started playing with Clojure yesterday! I didn't quite manage to get anything to work in LT, however. E.g. if I do Cmd+Enter on a definition, I get this: clojure.lang.Compiler$CompilerException: java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to resolve symbol: defn in this context, compiling:… If I click 'Make current editor and instarepl' I get errors like this: clojure.lang.Compiler$CompilerException: java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to resolve symbol: subs in this context, compiling:(NO_SOURCE_PATH:9) It's all rather confusing. Maybe there's a manual somewhere I should read, but I couldn't find it.
- ibdknox 14y ago
  All files in Clojure require a namespace form at the top: (ns foo.bar) Since you don't have one, clojure.core isn't available and it freaks out. I'll look into setting the default namespace of file so that it's a little nicer for newcomers :)
  - DigitalTurk 14y ago
    oh. Thanks. It's not a problem when using 'clj' from the command line. Here are some other issues I ran into (FWIW): - println works, but print doesn't. - I was expecting cmd+A and then cmd+enter to evaluate everything. - Why are there (seemingly) no shortcuts for the command bar? - Activating 'Make current editor and instarepl' twice in a row, clears all the text in the editor… that's weird - The text cursor got confused at some point But I guess it's an alpha version. :)
baby 14y ago
More than 300k raised? Isn't that way too much? How much is a developer getting paid in the valley?
btipling 14y ago
You gotta be kidding on the sideways text as an important part of the UI. Also adding the vim integration is a waste of time as long as you don't have buffers, registers, ranges and can't parse my .vimrc nor use my modules you might as well not do it.
- ghallo 14y ago
  >You gotta be kidding on the sideways text as an important part of the UI. Agreed. I closed the tab as soon as I saw that.
- benaiah 14y ago
  > You gotta be kidding on the sideways text as an important part of the UI. I don't think he ever actually says it is. Also, "... if your preference is for something else, you have complete freedom when writing your own skin."
- jhchabran 14y ago
  Well parsing the vimrc might be too much as it would require a full compatibility layer and I highly doubt it'll ever happen. Using vanilla lighttable config wouldn't bother me, even if I have to rewrite most of it. It's a different editor after all. But yeah, all the "vim" layers around are basically just the bindings, in normal and insert mode which just half of vim. If we can't change buffers with :b, :A or anything, it's just painful as a vim user. Same goes for what you listed. I have great respect for the guys at code mirror, it's just that I view it as just a quick hack to add vim bindings that a real vim like solution. If LightTable advertises about being vim friendly, there should be an implementation that keeps the vim workflow, not just small bindings. As a vim user, I'll just skip the "vim" mode if it's done like that (and sadly I'll stick to Vim even if I really crave for a modern "vim" with a decent scripting language). Is there any plan to address that in the future ?
marizmelo 14y ago
Small drag and drop problem.... On OSX I can drag the divisor for files/texteditor OVER the option of tabs (left options)... if I drop the editor there I cannot resize the view anymore and have to restart the program.
glesperance 14y ago
What is the project direction in relation to complex JS apps? i.e.: How do you guys expect the instarepl idea to be used in apps made of serveral node.js modules/libs or several files meant to be loaded together via RequireJS ?
bbq 14y ago
This looks great! It's getting more and more usable. It would be nice if, when a computation is running in the instarepl, the computation indicator would display inline e.g. with the previous result - perhaps graying the result out? How would I go about implementing this myself? Or is LightTable reflection not yet publicly available?
pjmlp 14y ago
Eventually the editors of Smalltalk and Lisp environments of the early days will be rediscovered by youth generations it seems.
- centro 14y ago
  Well don't keep it a secret. Where should we look?
  - pjmlp 14y ago
    Use your favorite search engine and you will be enlightened.
null_pointer 14y ago
I've been playing with this editor, except it seems Syntax Highlighting doesn't work (Linux x64). Which is kind of a killing point for me. Does anybody know of a forum / mailing list I can get on to figure out configuration and such? I have heard so much about this IDE, but it kills me that it doesn't seem to be working properly. EDIT: Restarting twice seemed to fix the problem.
programnature 14y ago
Congrats, the improvements are quality. Would love to switch to light table, but I need paredit. Can't switch without paredit.
Sandman 14y ago
Every time a new version of LT playground gets released I feel like a kid in a candy store, looking for all the cool new stuff Chris and the rest of the team put in :). Awesome work, and it just keeps getting better. To be honest, since there weren't any updates in a while, I started having doubts about whether they'll be able to deliver, but I'm glad to see that the project is alive and well. Judging by the comments I see that there's a lot of people who haven't yet heard of Light Table, which surprised me a bit because posts about LT frequently hit the front page of HN. If you're one of those people, you should take a look at their kickstarter page: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/306316578/light-table http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/306316578/light-table Finally, while there's a lot of people bemoaning the fact that some more popular languages (than Clojure) aren't supported out of the box, I, for one, am glad that somebody's developing such an awesome tool with Clojure in mind.
- nilkn 14y ago
  The current version of LT seems very different from what I see on that Kickstarter page. I'm going to have to join the people who simply don't understand how to use this. It doesn't help that it seems heavily biased towards Clojure and I have no interesting Clojure codebases to play around with.
devy 14y ago
How do I open a new client like what Chris demo'd in the video to eval JavaScript & CSS?
rsamvit 14y ago
Beautiful Editor. I'd switch to it completely if it supported a more complete vim emulation -- for now I use it as a repl
truncate 14y ago
It still depends upon on libudev.so.0. Hence can't use it on ArchLinux (unless I fool it by linking it with latest so). :(
agentultra 14y ago
Nice work. Seems to me like it's becoming emacs (which is a good thing, you should poach more ideas from it).
tapichu 14y ago
great, happy to see the vim mode!
sc0rb 14y ago
I can't wait for this to support Java so I can at least have some beautiful tools to get me through the soul sucking days of Spring development :-)
dimitris99 14y ago
Looks really nice. I want to use it. I also like vim. BUT could do with some more documentation.
fnordfnordfnord 14y ago
If you're going to make it vi-like, please put some effort into introducing the modal-concept, and lots of help for new users. There are reasons that many people avoid vi. You may not think that you need to make it a teaching tool, but everything else about lighttable makes it well-suited as a teaching tool.
- ibdknox 14y ago
  You have to toggle Vim mode - then it is modal.

374 points by falava 14y ago

It is absolutely gorgeous, but it is also looking a lot more like a traditional text editor from what i can gather. I'll download and play with it a bit anyway, to see what i get from it.

ibdknox 14y ago
It is, but that's because we have to have a solid editing experience for the "simple" stuff before we can do the more interesting things. What good is it to have these awesome function oriented editors when you can't even modify a file efficiently? :) We use tabs as a simple way of wrapping up a context. In the future they will include all sorts of neat things - and they aren't limited in any way. If we want, we can drop an infinite canvas into one, or a codex (a document made of many parts of different files). So yes, right now we wanted something beautiful and efficient to use while live coding, but as I said in my bit about 0.4.0, the really interesting semantic-oriented stuff (functions and the like) is what's next!
- mej10 14y ago
  Has anyone started work on an Emacs Lisp to ClojureScript compiler? :) Speaking of which, are Emacs keybindings coming any time soon?
  - lennel 14y ago
    and ParEdit
    - straws 14y ago
      Seconded. If you're going to have any success in converting people who write Clojure code away from Emacs, you're going to need to copy its good parts. Nice redesign though.
      - martinced 14y ago
        "If you're going to have any success in converting people who write Clojure code away from Emacs" I'd say it would already be great if they could bring newcomers to Clojure: people who are rebutted because of Emacs. As to me I'd need, at least: ace-jump-mode, paredit, the powerful macro system and the ability to create my own rules for highlighting / overlaying text as easily as from Emacs. Short of that I'll keep using Emacs. Now what I think: it's probably easier to add LT's "instarepl" to Emacs than to add one million lines of elisp code to LT so... I fully expect someone to hack a "Clojure instarepl" Emacs mode one of these days.
  - alexkehayias 14y ago
    +1 for Emacs keybindings
    - centro 14y ago
      (+ 1 1)
      - nordsieck 14y ago
        (partial (+ 1))
  - willismichael 14y ago
    https://github.com/hraberg/deuce https://github.com/hraberg/deuce
- jasonjackson 14y ago
  I for one am glad you're nailing the editor part first. Because if this is ever to replace my usage of emacs, you have to at least get that part right. This hasn't yet replaced my emacs, but i'm more optimistic now. Some editing features missing are paredit, viewing source code of a clojure core function. (Alt-. in emacs.) When you eval something and it never terminates, you need a way to kill that thread. For IDE like features, #1 on my list is refactoring clojure code quickly, e.g. renaming symbols. As someone who's anal about prioritizing time, I don't ever customize the themes, etc, I just want killer useful features that save me time and "just work".
  - puredanger 14y ago
    Even getting all of paredit is not essential imo - I'd settle for just slurp and barf support.
- deangiberson 14y ago
  +1 for strong editing features. All the fancy stuff came after Emacs became an OS for editing text. Nail that, the rest follows.

fdb 14y ago

There's something weird going on when using the trackpad on OS X. My trackpad is set to "natural scrolling", but if I scroll really fast the editor seems to scroll in the other direction.

ibdknox 14y ago
I think that might be a bug in CodeMirror[1], does it happen consistently? I'll see what I can track down. [1]: http://codemirror.net/ http://codemirror.net/
- fdb 14y ago
  Changing the trackpad direction doesn't have any effect, still the same issue.
  - ibdknox 14y ago
    10.8? and all you're doing is scrolling quickly? If you close the app and bring it back up, it still does it? EDIT: tracking in this issue: https://github.com/Kodowa/Light-Table-Playground/issues/271 https://github.com/Kodowa/Light-Table-Playground/issues/271
    - fdb 14y ago
      After restarting, I can't reproduce it anymore. Maybe it was a caching issue with the previous version of Light Table I had. Thanks very much for Light Table! I'm loving it.

amckenna 14y ago

I know python support is planned, but will it be integrated alpha/beta or will we have to wait until after the 1.0 release?

ibdknox 14y ago
It'll definitely be before 1.0, but I'm not exactly sure when. Right now it's still just me on the code side, so it depends a bit on how hiring goes.
- learningram 14y ago
  How many people are working on this project ?
  - ibdknox 14y ago
    Currently 2: Robert and I. I code, Robert makes sure I'm just coding.

dpick 14y ago

Stack Size Exceeded when trying to open a ~3500 line clojure app :(.

ibdknox 14y ago
a ~3500 line file? What do you mean by open? Could you put up an issue [1] with a bit more information so we can track it down? [1]: https://github.com/Kodowa/Light-Table-Playground/issues https://github.com/Kodowa/Light-Table-Playground/issues
- dpick 14y ago
  It's a project with a bunch of files, totals around 3500 lines. I'll post an issue.

shuma 14y ago

Which languages does it support?

ibdknox 14y ago
It's a general editor and can open most things out there, however the eval stuff is limited to Clojure, ClojureScript, JavaScript, and CSS.
- pnathan 14y ago
  Out of curiosity - I haven't followed this project in technical detail - are you using SWANK or your own backend work? I would be interested in experimenting with it for Common Lisp, you see. :)
  - pchristensen 14y ago
    I believe it uses nrepl, not SWANK. (I wrote about the difference here: http://pchristensen.com/blog/articles/clojure-development-ecosystem/#nrepl http://pchristensen.com/blog/articles/clojure-development-ec... )
    - ibdknox 14y ago
      it actually uses neither, and doesn't rely on any specific implementation. You could fairly easily wrap a swank client to make it work, or an nrepl one (which is something we'll probably get to soon). One of the nice things about the way we architected it is that there are very few assumptions when it comes to "clients" and that will allow a ton of freedom in using established stuff when it exists.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- Avestan 14y ago
  I follow LT project since I saw it on kickstarter and it looks great so far. And I cannot wait for promised full Python support to be implemented.

pixelbath 14y ago

This is a very pretty editor. That said, I have no freaking idea what I'm supposed to do. I've been messing around with it for around 15 minutes now, and I still don't understand it. I added a PHP website folder and got no code hinting or anything else beyond "here is the match for your parenthesis" for either PHP or Javascript. This also resulted in my "navigate" tab being filled with SVN meta-files. I am quite confused. Looking around on the site and some of the comments here, it appears you're using Clojure. Does this IDE only support Clojure?

ibdknox 14y ago
Think of LT as something more akin to an editor in spirit - you won't see watch windows and all the craziness you often see in "big" IDE's. In that regard, you use it like you use any editor. If you're working with Clojure, ClojureScript, or Javascript code, however, you can evaluate a block inline by pressing Cmd-Enter (or Ctrl-Enter). Now that we have an experience we plan to stick with more documentation and getting started content will be coming in the next few days. :) EDIT: I didn't think about SVN, we do filter out Git, but this should just be customizable. Added an issue for it [1]. [1]: https://github.com/Kodowa/Light-Table-Playground/issues/266 https://github.com/Kodowa/Light-Table-Playground/issues/266
- antihero 14y ago
  .pyc files also seem to be showing up. I've opened a python file, typed 1 + 1 and hit Ctrl+Enter and it doesn't seem to do anything.
  - ibdknox 14y ago
    eval is only for Clojure, ClojureScript, Javascript, and CSS right now
    - dbaupp 14y ago
      Evaling CSS? What is computed?

octix 14y ago

Has anyone started using LT? Is it productive? Should java devs even bother with this? Thank you.

ibdknox 14y ago
It's not going to be more useful to a Java developer than Eclipse is currently, but that's because we're going after a very different end goal. FWIW, all our work is done in LT and it is far more efficient than I used to be with Vim.
- josh-j 14y ago
  Is there a screencast where I can see you being more efficient in LT than Vim?
kybernetyk 14y ago
I (clojure hobbyist) play around with it regularly but IMHO it's not really ready for prime time yet.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

mytrile 14y ago

Everytime I update LT the syntax highlighting is reducing by the number of colors used. I expect the color theme in the final to be grayscale. Appart from that, awesome job guys.

arrakeen 14y ago

any reason in particular that this doesn't support osx10.6?

companyhen 14y ago

I'm a web designer (PSD -> WordPress) and I started learning programming around the time Light Table was funded on KickStarter. It's been nice to see the project grow with my programming skills. Although I still don't feel like a decent programmer, it's nice to see what my small $15 investment has helped create. :)

podperson 14y ago

What going back over the old demo and looking at this post did was remind me of how nice jsfiddle is when it isn't insanely slow, which then led me to wonder how hard it would be to create something like jsfiddle that lived on top of github would be, or something like jsfiddle that lived inside my favorite editor, or just in a static html page on my desktop.

eric_bullington 14y ago
If you get frustrated with jsfiddle, try out http://cssdeck.com/labs http://cssdeck.com/labs It's nominally oriented toward CSS and all the CSS preprocessors, but it handles JS just fine (and CoffeeScript, too!). I like its layout a lot more than jsfiddle -- it's more aesthetically appealing to me. It also features the ability to do codecasts. I can't recall if jsfiddle has that, but it's a nice feature for demonstrating code to someone.
- podperson 14y ago
  Looks good (loads fast) and I like the coffeescript support.
WickyNilliams 14y ago
I used to be a huge proponent of JSFiddle but it's got so slow and temperamental recently that I've started moving over to codepen.io. It gives instant results (every change is evaluated in real time), supports LESS and SASS on the CSS side, and CoffeeScript on the scripting side. And it's got a nicer UI, giving more space to the output pane and allowing quick switching/expanding of the code panes

karlokeeffe 14y ago

I get the error: "LightTable.app" is damaged and can't be opened. I'm running OSX 10.8.2. Anyone else having the same problem? Are there any dependancies I need to have installed before running the app?

elomarns 14y ago
I'm getting the same error.
ibdknox 14y ago
This is OSX's gatekeeper going crazy because our codesign included the icns file (which then got compressed and no longer verifies). I'm uploading a new package right now. As a workaround you can go to security in system settings, set it to allow anything to run, open LightTable.app, close it and then re-enable the old gatekeeper setting. LT will open fine thereafter. Or you can just redownload in about 2 minutes.
- karlokeeffe 14y ago
  Great, that's fixed it for me.
arikrak 14y ago
i get this when i visit the mac download link: <Error> <Code>AccessDenied</Code> <Message>Access Denied</Message> ... Update: OK, it works now.

eaxbin 14y ago

I'm getting Access Denied when trying to download the OS X version. Other versions are working fine.

ibdknox 14y ago
fixed, sorry about that.
- eaxbin 14y ago
  Cool, thanks.

ollysb 14y ago

I'd absolutely love to see ruby in Light Table, how are plans looking for this? If there was a kickstarter for adding ruby I'd pony up in a flash. I realise manpower is probably going to be the main issue though...

lrem 14y ago
Python is first. It was already paid for in the kickstarter...
- relic 14y ago
  Back of the line Ruby!
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
ibdthor 14y ago
Manpower is an issue, but we've gotten a lot of requests for Ruby in the future. When and where Ruby support will come is still unknown, but do know that we hear you! :)
- pmr_ 14y ago
  I think this would be the right place to bring this up: Is language support backed in or can everyone write a plug-in for his language? Implementing highlighting, completion and repl for all the different languages users could want seems like an enormous task. At the same time this is where Emacs shines: supporting a new language rudimentary is easy to do, adding more advanced support isn't too hard either. Will users be able to define new language modes?

andreyf 14y ago

Noooo! So many wasted pixels at the top! Why!? It was so much better before! Aside from that: neat! :)

manaskarekar 14y ago
Toggle Fullscreen should fix that.

Meai 14y ago

You should add mousewheel scrolling of tabs, I'd like that. Also a white theme, because black themes look sort of sketchy at work.

ibdknox 14y ago
in the command bar, type "skin" and press enter. You can change it to a light skin. :) You can also change the editor theme, by using the "change editor theme" command.
lucian1900 14y ago
> black themes look sort of sketchy at work Could you explain that?
- ibdknox 14y ago
  I'm curious as well, since most of the programmers I've met prefers a dark theme. :)
  - seanmcdirmid 14y ago
    It depends on the monitor. Some cheaper displays don't have the contrast to make light on dark work; also color bleeding... Given a non-IPS display, my older eyes prefer dark on light, even if I think light on dark looks better. Also, light on dark is almost impossible to project for demos and presentations! But I'm sure grandparent is just referring to the fact that light table looks different enough from the workplace norm to make it standout and his activities more known (but even visual studio has a dark mode these days).

manaskarekar 14y ago

Apart from the other obvious praises, I just want to thank you for making something so beautiful with Clojure as a first class citizen.

huhsamovar 14y ago
I have completely the opposite opinion. Clojure is not as widely used as some other languages. Python springs to mind; I know it was part of the Kickstarter pledge. Support for compiled languages would be nice, although I realise this is difficult.
- manaskarekar 14y ago
  That is exactly why this makes me so happy. :) There are already tons of good tools for Python.
- miloshadzic 14y ago
  There's already an awesome editor that has Python as a first class citizen, Sublime Text 2.

auggierose 14y ago

Does anyone know what Light Table is programmed in? It seems to be cross platform, how does it achieve that? I assume some kind of mix between Clojure and using browser technology as a UI, but does anyone know specifics?

swannodette 14y ago
node-webkit - http://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit http://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit
ibdknox 14y ago
Check out my previous post: http://www.chris-granger.com/2013/01/24/the-ide-as-data/ http://www.chris-granger.com/2013/01/24/the-ide-as-data/
joshuacc 14y ago
In addition to node-webkit, I believe the app code itself is written in ClojureScript (a compile-to-js dialect of Clojure.)
- fstephany 14y ago
  Yep, mostly ClojureScript and a bit of Javascript for boot and setup.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

deleted 14y ago
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paulhodge 14y ago

I love these updates, the tool is looking more awesome every day. I'm wondering if there's a roadmap for Light Table's release, specifically if there's a point where the code will be available? I have a programming language in progress and I'm interested in potentially hacking LT to support the language. It seems like it would be a good fit.

scottjad 14y ago

How are you highlighting the matching characters in the fuzzy search results? http://www.chris-granger.com/images/030/navigate.png http://www.chris-granger.com/images/030/navigate.png It looks like the same method I'm using in emacs/ido, which is to turn "la/clj" into "(l).*?(a).*?(/).*?(c).*?(l).*?(j).*?" I've found this technique gives inferior results to whatever SublimeText is doing. For example, in your hits with "langs", such as "lt/objs/langs/js.cljs" I think "lt/objs/langs/js.cljs" is more intuitive than the result you give of "lt/objs/langs/js.cljs". (Sorry for the hard to read italics) For another example, on a search of "completions" I think your technique will highlight "hacks-completions" as "hacks-completions" instead of "hacks-completions". Does anyone know if there's an easy way to modify the regex (not LightTable) and get the user-friendly results of Sublime Text?

ibdknox 14y ago
it's not currently configurable, but I agree that the highlighting should be more like that. Filed an issue to track it: https://github.com/Kodowa/Light-Table-Playground/issues/277 https://github.com/Kodowa/Light-Table-Playground/issues/277
jules 14y ago
Turn slashes into .*?(/).*? and leave the rest alone? If you don't want to treat slashes specially and want to allow "ab" to match "aqqqb" then I don't think you can do it without creating a giant regex. You can go for a modified longest common subsequence algorithm. Edit: here's how you can do it: // gives one point for each letter matched // plus an extra point if the next letter is also a match let rec scorematch = function | true::true::r -> 2 + scorematch (true::r) | true::r -> 1 + scorematch r | false::r -> scorematch r | [] -> 0 // find the match with best score let rec search xs ys = match (xs,ys) with | (x::xr, y::yr) -> let matches = [false::search xr ys; false::search xs yr] let matches = if x=y then (true::search xr yr)::matches else matches matches |> List.maxBy scorematch | _,ys -> List.map (fun _ -> false) ys let underline xs ys = search (List.ofSeq xs) (List.ofSeq ys) |> List.map (fun b -> if b then "-" else " ") |> String.Concat for x in ["foobarbaz"; "foobaXrbaz"; "foobXaXrbaz"; "foobXaXrbazr"] do Console.WriteLine x Console.WriteLine (underline "bar" x) For search term "bar" this outputs: foobarbaz --- foobaXrbaz -- - foobXaXrbaz - - - foobXaXrbazr -- - You'll want to memoize this or apply dynamic programming.

abecedarius 14y ago

So how do you see these inline results? I'm told cmd-enter or cmd-shift-enter will evaluate code; on Windows 7, for me, none of ctrl-enter, alt-enter, or windows-enter seem to do anything. ctrl-shift-enter in a .js file creates a checkmark next to my first line, 2+3; (though not the lines I'd written after it). Trying to create a .clj or .cljs file, by 'Create a new file' and then 'Save file', it remains as 'untitled', and ctrl-shift-enter doesn't seem to do anything. Anyone else on Windows at the moment with tips? (The 'bindings' command lists things like Cmd Enter; since it lists Ctrl for other keybindings, I'm guessing that's meant to mean Alt.)

alepper 14y ago
Looks like Ctrl+Enter and Ctrl+Shift+Enter start to work after saving the file with a recognised extension. You'll have to use the mouse, as pressing Enter cancels, despite the 'Save' button being highlighted as if it were the default. Unfortunately, even just (defn id [x] x) gets me "java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to resolve symbol: defn".
- DigitalJack 14y ago
  Take a look here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5300653 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5300653

Macsenour 14y ago

As a game dev guy, I'm looking at the two new Open game platforms, Ouya and GameStick, and thinking that LT might be a great way to get kids into coding. Getting kids to code games is so much easier than any other project, even if the game is extremely simple. Anyone care to comment?

shawndumas 14y ago
Have you messed around with ImpactJS? I'd love to see some LT and ImpactJS lov'n.

cheald 14y ago

I've tried to add a workspace directory from a Samba mount, and it's been stuck for about 10 minutes now.

pjbrunet 14y ago

I downloaded Linux 64 and it doesn't work in Debian. No readme either?

pjbrunet 14y ago
Just tried Linux32 download and it seems to be working :-)

edoloughlin 14y ago

Currently downloading at 9-10KB/s. Anyone seeding a torrent?

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

zenbowman 14y ago

Beautiful stuff

almost_usual 14y ago

Awesome, really nice to have such great Clojure support

ttty 14y ago

how to open those cells like they do in the video?

sudowork 14y ago

Small bug I found: When I change the editor theme to something other than `default`, the next time I start up the editor, the theme isn't loaded. Instead, I just get some light grey text on a dark grey background. UX Annoyance: When clicking on an exception, there's no visual indication that it's been clicked on. I found that Shift+Tabbing brings you back to the editor pane (other than using the mouse). A couple more things that could just be me being stupid. When I try to eval using Ctrl+Shift+Enter, nothing happens. Instead, I have to eval each line one-by-one. I tried creating a new key binding, but couldn't figure out how to delimit my keys to allow modifiers. I also can't figure out how to pop up documentation or data flow as demo'd in the original light table (this is my first time using any version of light table). I tried `(doc <foo>)`, but it just evaluates to `nil`. Anyways, hope these comments might be useful in terms of my user experience as a first time user.

ibdknox 14y ago
Created an issue for the first [1] Not sure about the ctrl+shift+enter not working, I'll see if I can come up with a repro. Keys are delimited with -, so Ctrl-Shift-Enter For (doc ..) take a look at the bottom console, click the little arrow which should be blue when there's new content in there. All prints go to that console. Thanks for the report! :) [1]: https://github.com/Kodowa/Light-Table-Playground/issues/281 https://github.com/Kodowa/Light-Table-Playground/issues/281
- sudowork 14y ago
  Thanks for the fast response! I'm really hopeful for the future of Light Table, and I appreciate the work you've put it.
- ttty 14y ago
  the little arrow is white on a grey button. If I click it opens up something grey that it's empty. I cannot write or anything it's just a grey box.. :s
ttty 14y ago
me too. win 7 64bit

billyvg 14y ago

How do I go into vim mode?

billyvg 14y ago
Nevermind, there's a "Toggle vim mode" command

pjbrunet 14y ago

Would be nice if font size changed by control+scrolling mouse wheel, most code editors do that. I can't imagine really needing (or wanting) to evaluate things in realtime (like the videos demonstrate) unless I was writing cryptic, mind-numbing algorithms all day every day. I like the idea in one of your videos, every function can have its own little window, but I wouldn't want that to create new files for me automatically in the background and it would have to be more useful than a straightforward "split window" editor function, which is already something I rarely use. The colors are cool but not as cool as my hacked Crunchbang+Geany colors. Maybe one day Light Table will be like a more graphical, user-friendly Emacs? I don't know. The videos are really eye-catching but realistically I can't imagine why I'd use Light Table. I realize there's already a lot of interest in this, but I would like to see more videos showing how this is actually more useful than Gedit or whatever.

DigitalTurk 14y ago

It just so happens that I started playing with Clojure yesterday! I didn't quite manage to get anything to work in LT, however. E.g. if I do Cmd+Enter on a definition, I get this: clojure.lang.Compiler$CompilerException: java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to resolve symbol: defn in this context, compiling:… If I click 'Make current editor and instarepl' I get errors like this: clojure.lang.Compiler$CompilerException: java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to resolve symbol: subs in this context, compiling:(NO_SOURCE_PATH:9) It's all rather confusing. Maybe there's a manual somewhere I should read, but I couldn't find it.

ibdknox 14y ago
All files in Clojure require a namespace form at the top: (ns foo.bar) Since you don't have one, clojure.core isn't available and it freaks out. I'll look into setting the default namespace of file so that it's a little nicer for newcomers :)
- DigitalTurk 14y ago
  oh. Thanks. It's not a problem when using 'clj' from the command line. Here are some other issues I ran into (FWIW): - println works, but print doesn't. - I was expecting cmd+A and then cmd+enter to evaluate everything. - Why are there (seemingly) no shortcuts for the command bar? - Activating 'Make current editor and instarepl' twice in a row, clears all the text in the editor… that's weird - The text cursor got confused at some point But I guess it's an alpha version. :)

baby 14y ago

More than 300k raised? Isn't that way too much? How much is a developer getting paid in the valley?

btipling 14y ago

You gotta be kidding on the sideways text as an important part of the UI. Also adding the vim integration is a waste of time as long as you don't have buffers, registers, ranges and can't parse my .vimrc nor use my modules you might as well not do it.

ghallo 14y ago
>You gotta be kidding on the sideways text as an important part of the UI. Agreed. I closed the tab as soon as I saw that.
benaiah 14y ago
> You gotta be kidding on the sideways text as an important part of the UI. I don't think he ever actually says it is. Also, "... if your preference is for something else, you have complete freedom when writing your own skin."
jhchabran 14y ago
Well parsing the vimrc might be too much as it would require a full compatibility layer and I highly doubt it'll ever happen. Using vanilla lighttable config wouldn't bother me, even if I have to rewrite most of it. It's a different editor after all. But yeah, all the "vim" layers around are basically just the bindings, in normal and insert mode which just half of vim. If we can't change buffers with :b, :A or anything, it's just painful as a vim user. Same goes for what you listed. I have great respect for the guys at code mirror, it's just that I view it as just a quick hack to add vim bindings that a real vim like solution. If LightTable advertises about being vim friendly, there should be an implementation that keeps the vim workflow, not just small bindings. As a vim user, I'll just skip the "vim" mode if it's done like that (and sadly I'll stick to Vim even if I really crave for a modern "vim" with a decent scripting language). Is there any plan to address that in the future ?

marizmelo 14y ago

Small drag and drop problem.... On OSX I can drag the divisor for files/texteditor OVER the option of tabs (left options)... if I drop the editor there I cannot resize the view anymore and have to restart the program.

glesperance 14y ago

What is the project direction in relation to complex JS apps? i.e.: How do you guys expect the instarepl idea to be used in apps made of serveral node.js modules/libs or several files meant to be loaded together via RequireJS ?

bbq 14y ago

This looks great! It's getting more and more usable. It would be nice if, when a computation is running in the instarepl, the computation indicator would display inline e.g. with the previous result - perhaps graying the result out? How would I go about implementing this myself? Or is LightTable reflection not yet publicly available?

pjmlp 14y ago

Eventually the editors of Smalltalk and Lisp environments of the early days will be rediscovered by youth generations it seems.

centro 14y ago
Well don't keep it a secret. Where should we look?
- pjmlp 14y ago
  Use your favorite search engine and you will be enlightened.

null_pointer 14y ago

I've been playing with this editor, except it seems Syntax Highlighting doesn't work (Linux x64). Which is kind of a killing point for me. Does anybody know of a forum / mailing list I can get on to figure out configuration and such? I have heard so much about this IDE, but it kills me that it doesn't seem to be working properly. EDIT: Restarting twice seemed to fix the problem.

programnature 14y ago

Congrats, the improvements are quality. Would love to switch to light table, but I need paredit. Can't switch without paredit.

Sandman 14y ago

Every time a new version of LT playground gets released I feel like a kid in a candy store, looking for all the cool new stuff Chris and the rest of the team put in :). Awesome work, and it just keeps getting better. To be honest, since there weren't any updates in a while, I started having doubts about whether they'll be able to deliver, but I'm glad to see that the project is alive and well. Judging by the comments I see that there's a lot of people who haven't yet heard of Light Table, which surprised me a bit because posts about LT frequently hit the front page of HN. If you're one of those people, you should take a look at their kickstarter page: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/306316578/light-table http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/306316578/light-table Finally, while there's a lot of people bemoaning the fact that some more popular languages (than Clojure) aren't supported out of the box, I, for one, am glad that somebody's developing such an awesome tool with Clojure in mind.

nilkn 14y ago
The current version of LT seems very different from what I see on that Kickstarter page. I'm going to have to join the people who simply don't understand how to use this. It doesn't help that it seems heavily biased towards Clojure and I have no interesting Clojure codebases to play around with.

devy 14y ago

How do I open a new client like what Chris demo'd in the video to eval JavaScript & CSS?

rsamvit 14y ago

Beautiful Editor. I'd switch to it completely if it supported a more complete vim emulation -- for now I use it as a repl

truncate 14y ago

It still depends upon on libudev.so.0. Hence can't use it on ArchLinux (unless I fool it by linking it with latest so). :(

agentultra 14y ago

Nice work. Seems to me like it's becoming emacs (which is a good thing, you should poach more ideas from it).

tapichu 14y ago

great, happy to see the vim mode!

sc0rb 14y ago

I can't wait for this to support Java so I can at least have some beautiful tools to get me through the soul sucking days of Spring development :-)

dimitris99 14y ago

Looks really nice. I want to use it. I also like vim. BUT could do with some more documentation.

fnordfnordfnord 14y ago

If you're going to make it vi-like, please put some effort into introducing the modal-concept, and lots of help for new users. There are reasons that many people avoid vi. You may not think that you need to make it a teaching tool, but everything else about lighttable makes it well-suited as a teaching tool.

ibdknox 14y ago
You have to toggle Vim mode - then it is modal.