UltraEdit for Linux

[mieslep]

Poor Ian. He sits down 12-odd years ago (that'd be pre-1994) and decides "I want to write a decent editor that can allow me to do hex editing as well as edit normal text files."

Mainstream desktop (x86) OS at the time: Windows 3.1, OS/2 Warp, Novell Netware, even a good bit of DOS still around. Smart money would have been on Windows even then, that's what he goes with (a decision probably made easier by the large number of development environments around at the time).

Then there's the choice of development languages: C, Smalltalk, Turbo Pascal, and quite a few others that are now gathering dust within the mainstream development community. Java didn't exist until early 1996, and C++ wasn't standardized until 1998.

Linux existed but only in a *really* hacker sense...and let's not even go to Internet technologies at the time. Newsgroups were around to be sure, but the most common community interactions were at dial-up BBS (Compuserve anyone?) on private boards.

Had Ian been able to forsee the future he'd have sat down and written platform-neutral code...but my guess is that this was a utility that has evolved over time with a lot of user requests for features (not to mention things he wanted to do with the tool himself).

I frankly think he made the right choice: add/enhance features for the broadest target (Windows).

Rather than trying to "port" to Linux or OS-X (which would franky have my vote over Linux), Ian would be better-served to come up with a Java-based version of UE. Who knows what the next 5 years will bring...BeOS could come back! Plus, supporting "Linux" isn't exactly a simple thing do to...the best he'd manage is to come up with a 'use at your own risk' policy.

Yes, Java is the way to go. But you can imagine the engineering effort involved at going to Java, particularly in a product that has developed in such an evolutionary mode.

Depending on how messy it'd be, there might be a way for Ian to coordinate a "restricted open source" project to get a community of developers who could do a lot of the brute-force work for him. Then offer a "free" version with basic features (including a couple of 'teasers') and a "enhanced" version with the whole whack of cool features.

My $0.02...

[gjett]

This company makes the world greatest editor but they are completely out of touch with the Linux market place.

Big companies with big money are porting their product line to Linux daily. Companies like Cisco and IBM are making Linux there base operating system for their new products. There are armies of corporate programmers working with Linux now.

Case in point is Cisco's purchase of CallManager from a startup that ran on windows. Its a VOIP softswitch type of product.

Cisco ported the product to Linux to get the 4-5x performance boost by getting rid of windows and the fact that its free/less suceptible to viruses.. was also a big factor. This fits the 'appliance' model thats all the rage.

The idea that the entire Linux community is just a bunch of techie freeware guys is way out of date. Big companies are used to buying editors for software developers they pay big buck for.

Someone will fill this need and make the big bucks...

[mjcarman]

From an upgrade announcement email I just received:

We are planning many new releases, powerful productivity enhancements, and a cross-platform version of UltraEdit code-named UEX.

(emphasis mine) There just might be some light at the end of this tunnel!

[SamHasler]

I do hope UEX is a codename, it isn't an acronym (you can't pronounce it as a word, it's an initialism, you have to enunciate each letter). I don't know of another text editor that isn't pronounced as a word, and I've looked through Wikipedia's list of text editors

Ok, you could argue BBEdit but it's still has a word in it and sounds a lot nicer "Bee Bee Edit" and more like an editor than "You Ee Ecks".

[tomwitt]

Just an FYI

While it's no UltraEdit (and while I wait [impatient and petulantly] for UltraEdit for Linux), I have found a somewhat reasonable substitute.

I've been using the ActiveState Komodo4 (beta 3) IDE for awhile now (under Linux) and it's nice ... very nice (but still no UltraEdit). I see now on the ActiveState web site that there will be a Komodo4 "lite" version (available for something which approximates free) called Komodo4 Edit; All the editing goodness minus some advanced features (like source control integration ... drats!). And it's multiplatform ... including Linux.

For me anyway, I think Komodo4 Edit will serve as a stop gap until there is a natively compiled version of UltraEdit for Linux (or this new UEX project comes to fruition)

If anyone has any links to preliminary info about this UEX project, please post.

[ClickFinder]

Hey, thanks for pointing out that ActiveState Komodo 4, ahem, thing I was at risk of actually buying something from them . So, I was curious to click and try - mamma mia, pardon my Italian If that's not the worst space and CPU waster in this part of the universe -- it's all written in scripting language(s) -- Google probably has better piece in a web page. 80 MB anyone ?

That is the price of cheap "portability" - infinite bulk and second CPU. Honest to god that thing opens 3 jar-s, choke full of .js files and keeps sucking on them all day - grabs IE's cache and history too ) and then tells you "Regular expressions only in full version" -- as in it's hard to create one more JavaScript object ))))))

See, these days I complain that UltraEdit became huge, fat etc. with at least half things I have no rational use for, so sending people to a monstrosity like that Komodo is like telling me to eat cake if I don't have bread ... till I get diabetes )

Guys, I understand that it's fashionable to walk around demanding that everything should be rewritten to Linux, just because, but seriously, unless you are willing to shell out the IBM-like buck, don't waste anyone's bandwidth and time. It's much easier, and more reasonable for you to just bring up the Wine or install Eclipse if this kind of bulk is something you accept as a normal thing, not worth mentioning.

In the mentime, let us have a small, tiny bit of code to talk to perl debugger so we can be sure that something as fat as that Komodo never enters our boxes by mistake. My jump drive says thanks

[uklance]

Put a vote in for me. Ultraedit is the only thing keeping me on windoew.

[mburian]

Another vote for me.

Two reasons for NOT eliminating Win on my business laptop: Outlook (company standard, but I can live without that) and UE (I cannot live without it).

[tomwitt]

Hey, thanks for pointing out that ActiveState Komodo 4, ahem, thing I was at risk of actually buying something from them . So, I was curious to click and try - mamma mia, pardon my Italian If that's not the worst space and CPU waster in this part of the universe -- it's all written in scripting language(s) -- Google probably has better piece in a web page. 80 MB anyone ?

C'mon ClickFinder. We're all friends here. Don't hold back. Tell us how you really feel.

Guys, I understand that it's fashionable to walk around demanding that everything should be rewritten to Linux, just because, but seriously, unless you are willing to shell out the IBM-like buck, don't waste anyone's bandwidth and time. It's much easier, and more reasonable for you to just bring up the Wine or install Eclipse if this kind of bulk is something you accept as a normal thing, not worth mentioning.

I have to disagree with you, though, about not being vocal in requesting our favorite applications be ported to Linux. I think it's healthy for software vendors to know that there exists a growing population of Linux users ready, willing and eager to spend money on their favorite proprietary applications. The same could be said for Mac OSX users.

Besides, mono cultures stink. And Windows continues to get... better. ("Can I hear you say DRM, brother!? How can I get me some o' dat swiss cheesy locked-in extended embrace?")

Yeah, UE on Wine works (kinda... partly... on good days when the wind is blowing right) but not well enough.

I've been saying it (politely); others have been saying it (politely); we would like our favorite editor, UltraEdit, ported to our preferred operating system, Linux. Little by little, I think we're being heard. IDM has in past posts indicated there might be something on the Linux horizon. This can only be a good thing for all of us.

-- Tom

[jfowlie]

I'm not even sure if I've voted for this before (probably not as I've had to register to post), but I've been waiting for a Linux version for ages.

I've finally jumped to a Linux desktop after having given up waiting for my favourite applications to migrate. Most of them, I don't really miss, but UE is most definitely needed.

I do have v11 working under Wine, but it's not quite the same.

--James

[whatchamccallum]

here's my vote for what it's worth

[aimsniff]

my vote for linux and Mac versions.

[media1mogul]

PLEASE port this to Linux.

I have been using ultraedit since it was the DOS M editor. I will gladly pay for a new license. I'm currently trying to move from XP to opensuse 10.2 but losing ultraedit is huge. At work I mostly work solaris and Linux, but I find myself tied to my windows PC doing all of my script and data analysis work via ultraedit ftp and vnc windows.

Thanks.
-Mike

[thewump]

I'm a loooooooooooong time user too, and miss UE on Linux but have been doing some WINE tasting.

I find that v12 does some strange things under wine on Ubuntu, the most problematic issue is with the file tree that I can't seem to recover from. Branches get stuck "open" without displaying content, and directories can be misinterpretted as files.

Having said that - I've just installed v10 and it seems to have much less problems. Been using it for about 3 hours without a hickup and pretty fast.

Wineserver is running at about 2% cpu and ultraedit another 2% and that's fine by me.

I fear that UEX means Ultra Edit OSX not Linux.

I'd very much like to support UE in the future with Linux versions, and if not that, I hope that at least I can purchase a v10 license to keep using this under wine with the obvious understanding that there is no support.

Strange that as far as I can tell there isn't a single linux editor out there that has the 3 things that I want:

1) good font control and syntax highlighting
2) constant file tree on the left ( makes Rails coding a dream )
3) open files as children windows - not maximized / tabbed.

It's that last one that seems to be the biggie. NOTHING that I have found does this.. it's all about tabs. I work with the editor full screen on one of two monitors.

Even the honking great Java tools that people like can't do it.. but I can't stand them anyway. They are too damn sluggish.

Keith

[thewump]

Update:

I've been running 10.10a for 3 days solid without a hitch under Wine on Ubuntu.

Very happy.

Keith