6 ms·

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 stil

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?
      - ibdknox 14y ago
        "eval" in the CSS case just means injected into the context. Nothing gets computed :)
- shurcooL 14y ago
  Chris, are you planning to submit a demo for LIVE 2013?
  - ibdknox 14y ago
    rumor has it I'll be keynoting :)
    - shurcooL 14y ago
      Awesome, looking forward to that! I'm doing my best to bring my IDE demo up to speed, it's just a month left now but still so much to do... >.<
  - lsh 14y ago
    LIVE: 2013 http://liveprogramming.github.com/2013/index.html http://liveprogramming.github.com/2013/index.html ICSE 2013 http://2013.icse-conferences.org/ http://2013.icse-conferences.org/
sciurus 14y ago
You may find the Kickstarter page informative- http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/306316578/light-table http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/306316578/light-table "What languages will it support? The first two languages it will support are Javascript and Clojure, but the application will be written in such a way that adding new languages can happen through plugins."
- pixelbath 14y ago
  Ah, thank you very much for the context. I guess I've been a bit out of the HN loop.
- baby 14y ago
  well too bad it only supports those two. If I get in Clojure/Javascript before it supports others like Python or PHP I'll try it.
xauronx 14y ago
Same here. I really WANT to use this, but I added a PHP project and it doesn't seem to do anything. I can't even Ctrl+F to find something in the file. I'm looking everywhere for hotkeys to do things, but there's no documentation I can find. I was expecting some kind of awesome interface like "Ctrl-Left Arrow" to bring up the left bar, then type in your command and press enter and it does magic and hides the bar. But I guess at this point I'd take a find hot key. To the creator: I love the idea and got enthusiastic after watching the video. Keep up with the hard work! This is a huge undertaking. Edit* OK, so Ctrl+Space enters the command window. From there you can type "Key" and press enter to view the key bindings. I'm not sure why I had to go three layers deep into a google groups conversation to get that though.
- Davertron 14y ago
  I was wondering the same thing. Neither ctrl+space or cmd+space works on osx for me, maybe because I have alfred installed?
  - digitalmaster 14y ago
    doesnt do anything for me either.. and i dont have alfred installed... guess this isn't quite ready for primetime yet
    - surfaceTensi0n 14y ago
      To be fair, this is an alpha release. I wouldn't expect it to be ready for primetime quite yet.
moogleii 14y ago
The website definitely could use a little more info. I had never heard of lighttable until now. Figuring out what it was and what problems it was solving took longer than it should have, imo. I don't want to watch a video. Give me a breakdown, time is precious!
Kurtz79 14y ago
I haven't tried this version yet, but I had the same experience with the previous release. Why not spending a bit of time releasing a simple tutorial, showcasing the differences with normal editors ? Right now it's really too "metaphysic".
malandrew 14y ago
This is exactly my experience as well. It's not obvious how to get started with it and there is no tutorial that I found explaining how I would go about using it. At the very least you should record screencasts of you using LT to build LT with you talking people through what you are doing. I really want to give this a shot, but it needs to be easy to get started. Besides your feature and bug backlog, I would map out the user journey (i.e. create an experience map) for LT to discover all the pain and frustration points people may have with using LT.

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?
    - ibdknox 14y ago
      "eval" in the CSS case just means injected into the context. Nothing gets computed :)
shurcooL 14y ago
Chris, are you planning to submit a demo for LIVE 2013?
- ibdknox 14y ago
  rumor has it I'll be keynoting :)
  - shurcooL 14y ago
    Awesome, looking forward to that! I'm doing my best to bring my IDE demo up to speed, it's just a month left now but still so much to do... >.<
- lsh 14y ago
  LIVE: 2013 http://liveprogramming.github.com/2013/index.html http://liveprogramming.github.com/2013/index.html ICSE 2013 http://2013.icse-conferences.org/ http://2013.icse-conferences.org/

sciurus 14y ago

You may find the Kickstarter page informative- http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/306316578/light-table http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/306316578/light-table "What languages will it support? The first two languages it will support are Javascript and Clojure, but the application will be written in such a way that adding new languages can happen through plugins."

pixelbath 14y ago
Ah, thank you very much for the context. I guess I've been a bit out of the HN loop.
baby 14y ago
well too bad it only supports those two. If I get in Clojure/Javascript before it supports others like Python or PHP I'll try it.

xauronx 14y ago

Same here. I really WANT to use this, but I added a PHP project and it doesn't seem to do anything. I can't even Ctrl+F to find something in the file. I'm looking everywhere for hotkeys to do things, but there's no documentation I can find. I was expecting some kind of awesome interface like "Ctrl-Left Arrow" to bring up the left bar, then type in your command and press enter and it does magic and hides the bar. But I guess at this point I'd take a find hot key. To the creator: I love the idea and got enthusiastic after watching the video. Keep up with the hard work! This is a huge undertaking. Edit* OK, so Ctrl+Space enters the command window. From there you can type "Key" and press enter to view the key bindings. I'm not sure why I had to go three layers deep into a google groups conversation to get that though.

Davertron 14y ago
I was wondering the same thing. Neither ctrl+space or cmd+space works on osx for me, maybe because I have alfred installed?
- digitalmaster 14y ago
  doesnt do anything for me either.. and i dont have alfred installed... guess this isn't quite ready for primetime yet
  - surfaceTensi0n 14y ago
    To be fair, this is an alpha release. I wouldn't expect it to be ready for primetime quite yet.

moogleii 14y ago

The website definitely could use a little more info. I had never heard of lighttable until now. Figuring out what it was and what problems it was solving took longer than it should have, imo. I don't want to watch a video. Give me a breakdown, time is precious!

Kurtz79 14y ago

I haven't tried this version yet, but I had the same experience with the previous release. Why not spending a bit of time releasing a simple tutorial, showcasing the differences with normal editors ? Right now it's really too "metaphysic".

malandrew 14y ago

This is exactly my experience as well. It's not obvious how to get started with it and there is no tutorial that I found explaining how I would go about using it. At the very least you should record screencasts of you using LT to build LT with you talking people through what you are doing. I really want to give this a shot, but it needs to be easy to get started. Besides your feature and bug backlog, I would map out the user journey (i.e. create an experience map) for LT to discover all the pain and frustration points people may have with using LT.