Editra + Ren'Py
Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2012 12:02 pm
For those of you who don't know, Editra is an open source text editor, written in Python and using the wxWidgets toolkit and the C++-based Scintilla editing component (the same one used by SciTE).
It was one of the editors I considered back in 2008, as a replacement for SciTE - before I eventually settled on jEdit. The reason for the original decision was largely based on the size of the Ren'Py download. jEdit was a relatively small download, and in 2008 Java was installed on most new computers.
It's 2012, and times have changed. Java is now owned by Oracle, and has some not-so-fun licensing bits. The formerly large size of Editra seems less important now that faster internet connections, and incremental updating of Ren'Py. (Which will be improved in a future Ren'Py release.)
For the last week, I decided to revisit my decision, and see what Editra/Ren'Py integration looks like today. So I've spent the last week taking my old code and bringing it up to date, and this is the result:
I've managed to add support for Ren'Py specific syntax highlighting and indenting. Editra with Ren'Py will flag indentation errors, and can optionally flag spelling errors. (You'll need to enable this, and pick your language, in the Preferences.)
I'm leaving on a trip for a couple of days, but I decided to post what I have before I go. So you can download the first release of Editra with Ren'Py from:
http://www.renpy.org/dl/editra/
There isn't any launcher integration, yet - you'll have to take care of opening files by hand. Launcher integration is coming soon, but isn't quite ready yet. The linux versions requires that you have wxpython 2.8 or later and setuptools installed, the Windows and Mac versions are standalone. Editra opens a couple of local-only sockets for remote-control purposes - please let me know if you see a firewall warning because of this.
I'd really like people's feedback on this. My current plan is to eventually distribute Editra alongside Ren'Py, replacing jEdit as the default text editor we ship. So I'd like people to bang on this and make suggestions for how to improve it. If it breaks, please let me know.
Finally, let me point out that all credit for Editra goes to Cody Precord. He's been working on Editra - one of the best cross-platform small editors - for over 7 years now. All I did was to write a plugin for Editra that supports the Ren'Py syntax, using the plugin API he put together.
It was one of the editors I considered back in 2008, as a replacement for SciTE - before I eventually settled on jEdit. The reason for the original decision was largely based on the size of the Ren'Py download. jEdit was a relatively small download, and in 2008 Java was installed on most new computers.
It's 2012, and times have changed. Java is now owned by Oracle, and has some not-so-fun licensing bits. The formerly large size of Editra seems less important now that faster internet connections, and incremental updating of Ren'Py. (Which will be improved in a future Ren'Py release.)
For the last week, I decided to revisit my decision, and see what Editra/Ren'Py integration looks like today. So I've spent the last week taking my old code and bringing it up to date, and this is the result:
I've managed to add support for Ren'Py specific syntax highlighting and indenting. Editra with Ren'Py will flag indentation errors, and can optionally flag spelling errors. (You'll need to enable this, and pick your language, in the Preferences.)
I'm leaving on a trip for a couple of days, but I decided to post what I have before I go. So you can download the first release of Editra with Ren'Py from:
http://www.renpy.org/dl/editra/
There isn't any launcher integration, yet - you'll have to take care of opening files by hand. Launcher integration is coming soon, but isn't quite ready yet. The linux versions requires that you have wxpython 2.8 or later and setuptools installed, the Windows and Mac versions are standalone. Editra opens a couple of local-only sockets for remote-control purposes - please let me know if you see a firewall warning because of this.
I'd really like people's feedback on this. My current plan is to eventually distribute Editra alongside Ren'Py, replacing jEdit as the default text editor we ship. So I'd like people to bang on this and make suggestions for how to improve it. If it breaks, please let me know.
Finally, let me point out that all credit for Editra goes to Cody Precord. He's been working on Editra - one of the best cross-platform small editors - for over 7 years now. All I did was to write a plugin for Editra that supports the Ren'Py syntax, using the plugin API he put together.