Bill Baxter wrote:
> Don wrote:
> 
>>> I use JEdit a lot.  It's Java-based, but it code-highlights for D and the indentation isn't that bad.  It could be better, but it's free, works, and it's certainly smaller than the Eclipse footprint (much less the Eclipse+Descent footprint!)
>>
>> Does it lex correctly?
>> Graying out nested comments is the #1 thing I want in a text editor. I'm appalled that so few of the editors advertised as being for D can actually satisfy such a trivial requirement.
> 
> I reckon most D modes that exist were created by making minor tweaks
> to existing C++ modes, and C++ doesn't have nested comments so the
> infrastructure isn't there.  It was one of the harder things to figure
> out how to get working with the emacs D mode.

I can well believe that. It'd be trivial for a text editor programmer, though.
It's just my opinion that any C++ or Java editor works reasonably well for D, without any modification. A different keyword list doesn't help much.
You only get an improvement once you have support for nested comments and D strings.

So we have levels of support:
1. C++/Java editor
2. D lexing support (nested comments, strings)
3. Code completion.
4. Full-blown IDE with various fancy stuff (AFAIK only Descent has reached level 4).

Would be nice to get the major editors at least to level 2.

On Mon, 21 Jul 2008 17:37:05 +0200, Don wrote:

> I'm pretty frustrated by this Wiki page:
> 
> nhttp://prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?EditorSupport
> 
> It gives some pretty misleading information. Almost all of the listed
> editors do not support D in any meaningful sense -- most can't even lex
> D correctly.
> Personally I'm not that interested in highlighting of keywords. But a
> fundamental requirement is that nested /+ +/ comments and `wysiwg
> quotes` are handled correctly.
> 
> * CodeBlocks can't lex D.
> * SciTE doesn't include D in their list of supported languages, despite
> what the D wiki says.
> * Descent works, but it's attached to Eclipse. * The recently-released
> UNA also seems to be Java-based bloatware. * Sublime Text would be
> perfect, but is not free.
> 
> Someone, please tell me there's an editor (not IDE) which can lex D!
> (And let's stop advertising the ones which can't!)

I'll agree that the lack of proper handling of D specific features is a little annoying, but it looks as though that the editors you know of that do support it you just don't want. I use Vim myself, I haven't had any issues.

On Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:36:28 +0000, Jesse Phillips wrote:

> On Mon, 21 Jul 2008 17:37:05 +0200, Don wrote:
> 
>> I'm pretty frustrated by this Wiki page:
>> 
>> nhttp://prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?EditorSupport
>> 
>> It gives some pretty misleading information. Almost all of the listed
>> editors do not support D in any meaningful sense -- most can't even lex
>> D correctly.
>> Personally I'm not that interested in highlighting of keywords. But a
>> fundamental requirement is that nested /+ +/ comments and `wysiwg
>> quotes` are handled correctly.
>> 
>> * CodeBlocks can't lex D.
>> * SciTE doesn't include D in their list of supported languages, despite
>> what the D wiki says.
>> * Descent works, but it's attached to Eclipse. * The recently-released
>> UNA also seems to be Java-based bloatware. * Sublime Text would be
>> perfect, but is not free.
>> 
>> Someone, please tell me there's an editor (not IDE) which can lex D!
>> (And let's stop advertising the ones which can't!)
> 
> I'll agree that the lack of proper handling of D specific features is a little annoying, but it looks as though that the editors you know of that do support it you just don't want. I use Vim myself, I haven't had any issues.

I'd actually like to change the direction for Don's question based of off what I pointed out.

What should be the feature set that an editor must support to be considered as a D supporting editor. We have

Nested Comments
Wysiwyg strings

from Don

Keyword Highlighting

Do we need indentation correctness as pointed out by Frank?

Should we be hard on IDE's that give features for other languages but not D even though D could make use of it? I don't know how that would fair for Descent since it is an Eclipse plugin.

I suppose the main question is what should be taken off of the list of D supporting editors?

Jesse Phillips wrote:
> On Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:36:28 +0000, Jesse Phillips wrote:
> 
>> On Mon, 21 Jul 2008 17:37:05 +0200, Don wrote:
>>
>>> I'm pretty frustrated by this Wiki page:
>>>
>>> nhttp://prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?EditorSupport
>>>
>>> It gives some pretty misleading information. Almost all of the listed
>>> editors do not support D in any meaningful sense -- most can't even lex
>>> D correctly.
>>> Personally I'm not that interested in highlighting of keywords. But a
>>> fundamental requirement is that nested /+ +/ comments and `wysiwg
>>> quotes` are handled correctly.
>>>
>>> * CodeBlocks can't lex D.
>>> * SciTE doesn't include D in their list of supported languages, despite
>>> what the D wiki says.
>>> * Descent works, but it's attached to Eclipse. * The recently-released
>>> UNA also seems to be Java-based bloatware. * Sublime Text would be
>>> perfect, but is not free.
>>>
>>> Someone, please tell me there's an editor (not IDE) which can lex D!
>>> (And let's stop advertising the ones which can't!)
>> I'll agree that the lack of proper handling of D specific features is a
>> little annoying, but it looks as though that the editors you know of
>> that do support it you just don't want. I use Vim myself, I haven't had
>> any issues.
> 
> I'd actually like to change the direction for Don's question based of off what I pointed out.
> 
> What should be the feature set that an editor must support to be considered as a D supporting editor. We have
> 
> Nested Comments
> Wysiwyg strings
> 
> from Don
> 
> Keyword Highlighting
> 
> Do we need indentation correctness as pointed out by Frank?
> 
> Should we be hard on IDE's that give features for other languages but not D even though D could make use of it? I don't know how that would fair for Descent since it is an Eclipse plugin.
> 
> I suppose the main question is what should be taken off of the list of D supporting editors?

I think it would be enough (for now) to split the list into the different levels of support. The final (and largest) section would be:

Editors for other curly-brace languages, which are nonetheless usable with D.

Unfinished, discontinued projects shouldn't be in the list at all.

Hopefully, as editor support improves, editors will move into higher categories, and new categories will need to be added at the top <g>.

On Mon, 21 Jul 2008 17:37:05 +0200, Don wrote:

> I'm pretty frustrated by this Wiki page:
> 
> nhttp://prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?EditorSupport
> 
> It gives some pretty misleading information. Almost all of the listed
> editors do not support D in any meaningful sense -- most can't even lex
> D correctly.
> Personally I'm not that interested in highlighting of keywords. But a
> fundamental requirement is that nested /+ +/ comments and `wysiwg
> quotes` are handled correctly.
> 
> * CodeBlocks can't lex D.
> * SciTE doesn't include D in their list of supported languages, despite
> what the D wiki says.
> * Descent works, but it's attached to Eclipse. * The recently-released
> UNA also seems to be Java-based bloatware. * Sublime Text would be
> perfect, but is not free.
> 
> Someone, please tell me there's an editor (not IDE) which can lex D!
> (And let's stop advertising the ones which can't!)

I have done some clean up with added categories and removal of all completely dead projects that would be of no use. I don't have the knowledge for in-depth feature support but hopefully it enough to allow people to find the editor that suits them.

http://prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?EditorSupport

Jesse Phillips wrote:
> On Mon, 21 Jul 2008 17:37:05 +0200, Don wrote:
> 
>> I'm pretty frustrated by this Wiki page:
>>
>> nhttp://prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?EditorSupport
>>
>> It gives some pretty misleading information. Almost all of the listed
>> editors do not support D in any meaningful sense -- most can't even lex
>> D correctly.
>> Personally I'm not that interested in highlighting of keywords. But a
>> fundamental requirement is that nested /+ +/ comments and `wysiwg
>> quotes` are handled correctly.
>>
>> * CodeBlocks can't lex D.
>> * SciTE doesn't include D in their list of supported languages, despite
>> what the D wiki says.
>> * Descent works, but it's attached to Eclipse. * The recently-released
>> UNA also seems to be Java-based bloatware. * Sublime Text would be
>> perfect, but is not free.
>>
>> Someone, please tell me there's an editor (not IDE) which can lex D!
>> (And let's stop advertising the ones which can't!)
> 
> I have done some clean up with added categories and removal of all completely dead projects that would be of no use. I don't have the knowledge for in-depth feature support but hopefully it enough to allow people to find the editor that suits them.
> 
> http://prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?EditorSupport
Excellent! That helps a lot.

Jesse Phillips wrote:
> On Mon, 21 Jul 2008 17:37:05 +0200, Don wrote:
> 
>> I'm pretty frustrated by this Wiki page:
>>
>> nhttp://prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?EditorSupport
>>
>> It gives some pretty misleading information. Almost all of the listed
>> editors do not support D in any meaningful sense -- most can't even lex
>> D correctly.
>> Personally I'm not that interested in highlighting of keywords. But a
>> fundamental requirement is that nested /+ +/ comments and `wysiwg
>> quotes` are handled correctly.
>>
>> * CodeBlocks can't lex D.
>> * SciTE doesn't include D in their list of supported languages, despite
>> what the D wiki says.
>> * Descent works, but it's attached to Eclipse. * The recently-released
>> UNA also seems to be Java-based bloatware. * Sublime Text would be
>> perfect, but is not free.
>>
>> Someone, please tell me there's an editor (not IDE) which can lex D!
>> (And let's stop advertising the ones which can't!)
> 
> I have done some clean up with added categories and removal of all completely dead projects that would be of no use. I don't have the knowledge for in-depth feature support but hopefully it enough to allow people to find the editor that suits them.
> 
> http://prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?EditorSupport

Another requirement: must support unicode source files.
That eliminates SciTE, based on my tests.

SublimeText is an editor that supports D lexing, and should be moved up from the bottom category.
Somehow, I can't log into that D wiki any more, or I'd do it myself.

Don Wrote:

> I'm pretty frustrated by this Wiki page:
> 
> nhttp://prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?EditorSupport
> 
> It gives some pretty misleading information. Almost all of the listed
> editors do not support D in any meaningful sense -- most can't even lex
> D correctly.
> Personally I'm not that interested in highlighting of keywords. But a
> fundamental requirement is that nested /+ +/ comments and `wysiwg
> quotes` are handled correctly.
> 
> * CodeBlocks can't lex D.
> * SciTE doesn't include D in their list of supported languages, despite
> what the D wiki says.
> * Descent works, but it's attached to Eclipse.
> * The recently-released UNA also seems to be Java-based bloatware.
> * Sublime Text would be perfect, but is not free.
> 
> Someone, please tell me there's an editor (not IDE) which can lex D!
> (And let's stop advertising the ones which can't!)
> 
> 
I use Geany.
Fine.

Jesse Phillips wrote:
> On Mon, 21 Jul 2008 17:37:05 +0200, Don wrote:
> 
>> I'm pretty frustrated by this Wiki page:
>>
>> nhttp://prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?EditorSupport
>>
>> It gives some pretty misleading information. Almost all of the listed
>> editors do not support D in any meaningful sense -- most can't even lex
>> D correctly.
>> Personally I'm not that interested in highlighting of keywords. But a
>> fundamental requirement is that nested /+ +/ comments and `wysiwg
>> quotes` are handled correctly.
>>
>> * CodeBlocks can't lex D.
>> * SciTE doesn't include D in their list of supported languages, despite
>> what the D wiki says.
>> * Descent works, but it's attached to Eclipse. * The recently-released
>> UNA also seems to be Java-based bloatware. * Sublime Text would be
>> perfect, but is not free.
>>
>> Someone, please tell me there's an editor (not IDE) which can lex D!
>> (And let's stop advertising the ones which can't!)
> 
> I have done some clean up with added categories and removal of all completely dead projects that would be of no use. I don't have the knowledge for in-depth feature support but hopefully it enough to allow people to find the editor that suits them.
> 
> http://prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?EditorSupport

Whoa. I agree the list could use some cleanup, but that new division has lots of duplicate entries. (That's annoying both to user, and also to the editor who has to update multiple entries)
I would suggest we instead put each entry into one category only. And I recommend the following categories, based on Don's sugestion:

IDEs
* Must have semantic features, or a GUI-builder, or good debugger integration.
An example of a semantic feature would be code completion (but not just completion of D keywords, which is merely syntactic).
If it is a plugin for an IDE (such as Visual Studio), but the plugin itself only has editor features, place an appropriate note, or don't put it in the IDE category, as you feel appropriate.


Editors with good support:
* Must have syntax highlighting that lexes D correctly (nested comments, the various string literals, etc.)

Other editors:
* Anything else

I've changed the wiki according to that, so take a look and see what you think. Also, I haven't checked the corrected of each entry, so change it's place if you feel it's more correct.



-- 
Bruno Medeiros - Software Developer, MSc. in CS/E graduate
http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?BrunoMedeiros#D

Don wrote:
>
> SublimeText is an editor that supports D lexing, and should be moved up
> from the bottom category.
> Somehow, I can't log into that D wiki any more, or I'd do it myself.
>

Done.

> Another requirement: must support unicode source files.

That should be taken into consideration, but I'm note sure it should be a hard requisite for category inclusion. Let's just ask that if the editor doesn't support unicode, that should be placed in the notes.

> That eliminates SciTE, based on my tests.
>

Which one?
I mean, what are the differences between SciTE, SciTE4D, and SEATDforScite?
http://prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?EditorSupport/SciTE
http://prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?EditorSupport/SciTE4D
http://prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?EditorSupport/SEATDforScite
Would someone clean that up?

-- 
Bruno Medeiros - Software Developer, MSc. in CS/E graduate
http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?BrunoMedeiros#D