[Pythonmac-SIG] Re[2]: BBEdit questions

[Maarten L. Hekkelman]

Hello Russell,

>>I'm in the process of evaluating BBEdit as a Python editor...
>>
>>I would like to change the default colors being used for syntax
>>coloring but can't find the dialog. Does that have to be changed
>>manually in a file on disk and if so where?

> I don't know of any way to do this.

Use Pepper :-)

>>Worse, it doesn't know that the tabs expanded to four spaces, so
>>when you have to backspace, so you have to backspace once for each
>>space. That is sort of annoying, any workarounds besides always
>>using tabs instead of spaces?

This works like expected in Pepper.

> - The main tool for commenting and uncommenting code TOGGLES the
> state based on the first line in your selection. This can be
> unpleasant when you are trying to temporarily comment out a block of
> code that starts with comments. I wrote a pair of scripts
> <ftp://ftp.astro.washington.edu/pub/users/owen/Comment%20Lines.sit>
> so I could be explicit about what I'm trying to accomplish
> ("explicit is better than implicit").

Pepper should do this better.

> - Pepper has some very nice features, but is behind BBEdit in some
> important areas, including being able to run scripts. I own it, and
> really hope a major update of Pepper materializes someday.

You can run scripts from within Pepper using the extensions menu. I
don't know Python but in Perl you have an eval command that evaluates
a script and puts the output into a variable. Next you can print out
the content of this variable to the environmental variable
$PEPPER_NEW_WINDOW and a new window will be opened by Pepper
containing the output of the selected script lines.

> BBEdit isn't perfect, but it is what I use at present. It has
> powerful find/replace (including excellent multi-file find/replace),
> handles files with different line endings (indispensable in the
> schizoid MacOS X world of Mac/unix line endings), handles huge file,
> and is robust. I also find it pleasant to use, with a nice balance
> of power and simplicity.

Too bad you don't use Pepper. Please have a look at the new version
and tell me why it is you prefer BBEdit so I can improve Pepper.

-- 
Best regards,
 Maarten                            mailto:maarten@hekkelman.com