TextPad and GtkEText

["Emmanuel DELOGET" <logout free fr>]

[cc'ed to timj for the syntax highlight break: you
should have more chance than me! :)]

Hi Derek!

I just downloaded TextPad (since you said it is the
best hex/text editor you found on the market). it
is true that it's a fairly good editor. Most of
the functions I use are proposed (but it lack some
features that are really cool such as a column mode
editing in text mode which allows you to select one
ore more column of characters : this is really nice
to copy those crappy <td>...</td> I use everywhere :)

Some good points:
* I wasn't able to break the syntax highlighter
(using UltraEdit and the HTML syntax highlight,
just select a char in a tag param and its color
changes:)
* I can view the white chars (like in Word! Wow!
It's HUGE! :) and therefore correct some misc
tab/space errors in my source code
* I can configure my editor on a per document class
basis.
* and so on.

I'll probably continue to use UltraEdit (since I
really love this column mode editing) but this
one contains some good ideas too.

Concerning your text widget, it should be interesting
to provide such advanced features (if it does not
break your design of course)

* display white chars in a consistent way (all apps
which uses GtkEText would display the same symbols)

* allow a column mode editing (yes, I love it :)
This probably means that the selection code is
a bit tweaked by this feature (this is why it must
be implemented in the widget and not in the user
application)

* some of the TextPad Edit Menu features should be good
too (join lines, change case, and so on) [or at least
providing an interface to register keybings and edit
functions]

Hope these are interesting,

Emmanuel