The drawer, according to Kirk McElhearn, was a badly designed UI element. An optional display of additional information, the drawer extended out from the main window. McElhearn was not alone in despising the drawer, and it is clear that it is a UI element whose days are numbered. However, the absence of the drawer from TM2 has made clear to me just how good it was, if used appropriately. Indeed, TextMate’s drawer was IMHO one of the drawer’s finest implementations.

The project drawer allowed easy navigation through a directory of files. It has been replaced by a file browser sidebar. In some ways, the sidebar is more attractive than the drawer in that it has the same height as the main window. However, toggling the sidebar is, in my opinion, a disaster, in that it varies the size of the text window. When you show the sidebar, the application’s window remains fixed, but the text displayed within that window shrinks to accommodate it. Moreover, if you are working with a LaTeX document, or indeed any document that involves soft-wrapped long lines, then the text will shift to accommodate the presence of the sidebar. This means that a target in the text cannot be seen at a glance but must be re-identified. This is just the kind of cognitive drag that I do not want from my tools. Since the drawer extended out from the main window, the text in that window would remain fixed. That was what was so great about it.

Ironically, what I like about the drawer and despise about the sidebar was the basis of one of McElhearn’s complaints:

As I type this article in BBEdit, I have a document list in the drawer to the right of the main window. But if I close the drawer and expand the window to fill my screen, then click the drawer button, the drawer opens, but the main window doesn’t change size; I cannot see the drawer unless I resize the window. This is very bad. It is not an isolated case either: other applications have the same behavior, and still others don’t even display the drawer if the window is set to full screen. In such cases, you have to first resize the main window then display the drawer.

The passage, however, contains within it the key to our differences. Specifically, McElhearn has in mind a specific use case, one where the application’s window takes up the full screen. If the application’s window is full screen, then anything extending out from that window will be hidden from view. But not everyone uses their text editor in full screen mode. Indeed most TeXnicians prefer to have the editor on one half of the screen and the PDF output on the other.

I know, I know, with the iOSsification of Lion, full screen is in. But this was written in 2006 where the dominant Mac paradigm was multiple windows none of which were full screen. Full screen was for Windows. (I must confess to being a little puzzled by the current enthusiasm for all things full screen, I believe that there is a good productivity argument for the old Mac paradigm, but that is another post.)

Even so, the behavior of toggling the navigation sidebar is so disruptive, it would be best just to leave it open. That would be OK working on an iMac, but much less useful on a laptop where screen real estate needs to be managed.

This is not a plea for the drawer’s return. As a UI element, it has had its run. While I feel it did its job well (even if inconvenient in full screen mode), the drawer is dead. Long live the sidebar.

To install the GitHub bundle do the following:

$ sudo gem install git
$ cd ~/"Library/Application Support/TextMate/Bundles/"
$ git clone git://github.com/drnic/github-tmbundle.git "GitHub.tmbundle"
$ osascript -e 'tell app "TextMate" to reload bundles'

BBEdit now handles the (badly chosen, IMO) “txmt:” URL scheme. This allows properly formed “txmt:” URLs generated by the Ruby On Rails “FootNotes” plug-in (and some others) to open files in BBEdit and (optionally) select a requested line and column. (NB: If the system doesn’t correctly recognize BBEdit as an allowable handler for such URLs, RCDefaultApp is a good tool for adjusting the bindings.)

Typed through gritted teeth no doubt. Though you have to give Rich credit—it’s real dedication to his users to swallow his pride and adopt an emerging standard instigated by a competitor. From the TextMate manual:

The txmt URL scheme allows you to open files in TextMate via hyperlinks found for example in HTML documents (anchors). These can refer to local files which can be useful when:

Using commands with HTML output that indicate errors/warnings with the current document, or refer to other documents in your project.

If you are generating a set of web-pages from simpler (text) files you can have these link to the original text files, so that when you are inspecting the generated result (in a browser) you can quickly edit the source of each page by following the txmt:-link.

The URL scheme is txmt: and currently has one command named open. This command takes up to three arguments:

• url — the (file) URL to open (e.g. url=file://~/.bash_profile), if this is left out, the current document is targeted.
• line — the line on which the caret should be placed after opening the file (e.g. line=11).
• column — the column on which the caret should be placed after opening the file (e.g. column=3).

Gloating done, the scratch pad feature also looks interesting. So if you are still using the text editor that doesn’t suck™, you should check out the new release.

It is hosted at GitHub, so git users can get theme with git clone git://github.com/PhilGeek/clear-pond.git. Other wise, it can be downloaded here.

• New multi-tabbed interface similar to Safari. This makes switching between open files faster and more intuitive.
• Full screen editing now available. This allows you to focus just on editing your files without distraction from other applications.
• Aquamacs no longer creates backup files by default: less clutter in your files.
• Now uses standard “unified” toolbar, with improved icons, for greater ease-of-use.
• Improved LaTeX support.
• Numerous improvements in text search.
• Can check for program updates from the application menu.

The LaTeX improvements include the inclusion of AUCTeX 11.85, better error reporting and improved syntax highlighting, and improved icons. Aquamacs 1.4 can be downloaded here.

When can we expect TextMate 2 to be released? Here is what Alan Odgaard has to say in the TextMate 2 FAQ:

[…] there is no ETA, and I won’t speak about timing before I am certain I can provide an (alpha/beta) release within the next month – because really, the more I say, the more people ask, and having to answer the same questions over and over again is (for me) mentally exhausting. So put TM 2.0 up there with Duke Nukem Forever and be positively surprised the day it is released :)

The release of footage of Duke Nukem Forever has prompted the following query on irc:

ph^: allan: Now that Duke Nukem forever has released a new gameplay-video … :p

Well, no official word from Allan yet, but Peter Haza (aka ph^) shares some insights into the state of TextMate 2 development in this interesting post.

Syntax coloring is a feature of some text editors that displays different parts of the text in different colors depending upon the logical category of the text. This makes it easier to write structured texts whether these be code or markup. … Syntax coloring makes the logical structure of your document visually apparent and hence the document easier to read.

Given its cognitive utility, it would be nice to use syntax coloring with the occasional code snippets displayed here. There are a number of WordPress plugins that provide syntax coloring. The fact that I use Michel Fortin’s PHP Markdown Extra posed one important limitation. PHP Markdown Extra would interfere with those plugins that used special markup. Fortunately, some plugins, like WP-Syntax, use a variant of HTML markup that counts as valid Markdown. WP-Syntax uses the GeSHI syntax engine that supports a large number of languages. The results, out of the box, were not that attractive and modifications, while possible, were beyond my ken. WP-Syntax Colorizer is another WordPress plugin that makes such modifications easier, but after a number of tries, I was unable to come up with a color scheme that worked as well as I liked (my fault entirely, I am sure).

Part of my dissatisfaction had to do with the high quality of syntax coloring provided by my favored text editor, TextMate. I just didn’t feel comfortable settling for less. Fortunately, for me, TextMate can export your coloring theme as CSS and can export selections as HTML. These two posts, here and here, explained how to exploit these features with your WordPress blog to get TextMate themes in your code snippets. Below is an example. The theme is Twilight, and the code is the initial portion of the generated CSS.

/* Stylesheet generated from TextMate theme
 *
 * Twilight
 * 
 *
 */

/* Mostly to improve view within the TextMate HTML viewer */
body {
    margin: 0;
    padding: 0;
}

pre.textmate-source {
    margin: 0;
    padding: 0 0 0 2px;
    font-family: Consolas, DroidSansMono, Inconsolata, DejaVuSansMono, monospace;
    font-size: 10px;
    line-height: 1.3em;
    word-wrap: break-word;
    white-space: pre;
    white-space: pre-wrap;
    white-space: -moz-pre-wrap;
    white-space: -o-pre-wrap;
}

pre.textmate-source {
    color: #F8F8F8;
    background-color: #141414;
}

pre.textmate-source .linenum {
    width: 75px;
    padding: 0.1em 1em 0.2em 0;
    color: #888;
    background-color: #eee;
}

The results are not completely faithful—TextMate’s scopes, on which its themes are based, cannot be fully represented in CSS. Nonetheless, I am much happier now. Expect to see proper syntax coloring from now on.

sudo gem install git

To install GitHub.bundle:

cd ~/"Library/Application Support/TextMate/Bundles/"
git clone git://github.com/drnic/github-tmbundle.git "GitHub.tmbundle"

If TextMate is running, execute the following line:

osascript -e 'tell app "TextMate" to reload bundles'

TextMate and GitHub: Show the current file in GitHub from Dr Nic on Vimeo.

require 'time'
lines = `git log --pretty=format:%ai`
times = lines.map { |l| Time.parse l }

dots = []
0.upto(7) { |wday|
  0.upto(23) { |hour|
    dots << [hour, wday, times.find_all { |t| t.hour == hour && t.wday == wday }.size]
  }
}

max = dots.map { |h,w,c| c }.max

puts "http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chs=800x300&chds=-1,24,-1,7,0,#{max}&chf=bg,s,efefef&chd=t:#{dots.transpose.map { |c| c.join(",") }.join("|")}&chxt=x,y&chm=o,333333,1,1.0,25.0&chxl=0:||12am|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|10|11|12pm|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|10|11||1:||Sun|Mon|Tue|Wed|Thr|Fri|Sat|&cht=s"

Save this in a file called gitlog.rb. The script generates a URL that calls the Google Chart API. Assuming that gitlog.rb is in ~/bin (put it wherever you like), open the Bundle Editor and create the following TextMate command:

URL=`ruby ~/bin/gitlog.rb`

echo "<meta http-equiv='Refresh' content='0;
    URL=$URL'>"

with the following settings:

• Save: Nothing
• Input: None
• Output: Show as HTML
• Activation: Key Equivalent ⌃⇧G

Calling the command produces the following chart that plots the number of commits you made per hour to your Git repository:

It’s our preference to use a text editor, like HomeSite, TextPad or TextMate, to “hand code” everything, rather than to use a wysiwyg (what you see is what you get) HTML and CSS authoring program, like Dreamweaver. We just find it yields better and faster results.

This update fixes a vulnerability that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer’s memory with malicious code. For more information about this update, see the Microsoft Knowledge Base article (KB949357).

Further information about this update can be found here.

Update: The Borg are watching.

Continuing our ongoing text editor roundup for OS X, I am pleased to report that SubEthaEdit 3.1 has just been released. The world’s best collaboration text engine just got better. SubEthaEdit now supports:

• Automatic port mapping making communication over the internet easier—no manual configuration required
• Inviting your iChat buddies
• Friendcasting—the ability to connect to a friend’s friend.

To get a better sense of this see, the Coding Monkeys screencast. It is a pretty major feature upgrade for a point one release. SubEthaEdit 3.1 also includes an improved LaTeX mode.

Changes is out of beta with a 1.0 release. Changes allows you to compare diretories and files and is Leopard only taking advantage of Core Animation and Quick Look. Offering editor support for BBEdit, TextWrangler, TextMate, and Xcode and version control integration for Subversion, CVS, Perforce, Mercurial, Git, Bazaar, and Darcs, Changes is shaping up to be a powerful alternative to FileMerge. Changes also has a number of advanced features such as a command line utility, a plug-in architecture, and F-Script support. A cool hybrid app. Ian Baird of Skorpiostech has been hard at work and was very responsive during the beta phase. (He addressed in a day a serious performance issue that arose in comparing text files with long lines that I reported.) So if you try Changes and like what you see, show him some love and buy a license.

1. the message URI
2. the message id wrapped in angle brackets

Message URLs can take any of the following syntactic forms:

message:%3cmessage_id%3e 
message://%3cmessage_id%3e 
message:<message_id> 
message://<message_id>

Both Liyanage and Gruber provide applescripts for retrieving the message id of a given email saving the message URL to the pasteboard. Gruber’s applescript is as follows:

tell application "Mail"
    set _sel to get selection
    set _links to {}
    repeat with _msg in _sel
        set _messageURL to "message://%3c" & _msg's message id & "%3e"
        set end of _links to _messageURL
    end repeat
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to return
    set the clipboard to (_links as string)
end tell

When saved in

~/Library/Scripts/Applications/Mail/

it will appear in the script menu when Mail.app is in focus. Just select the target mail and run the script and the mail URL will be in your pasteboard ready to paste into your textfile. And if you are a keyboard fanatic who eschews the mouse wherever possible, you can use Quicksilver to run the applescript. If your text file is in markdown format, simply enclose the message URL in angle brackets.

Having the ability to link to pertinent emails really increases the usefulness of plain text notes. More so if your text editor will launch the URL for you. In TextMate, simply move the cursor over the URL and hit ⌅. Another small step in harnessing the power of plain text.