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editor recommendations?
I'm looking for an editor to use for Python programming, as well as related incidentals such as markdown files, restructured text, etc.

I'm currently using vim, and the primary reason I've stuck with it for so long is because I can get truly black screens with it. By which I mean that I have a colorful window title bar, a light-grey menu bar, and then a light-grey frame around the text-editing window (aka the only window), and a nice, black-background editing area.

When I have occasionally tried other editors, they either don't support a black background, or the black background is only for the text-editing portion which leaves large portions of screen real-estate with a bright background, which is hard on my eyes.

So, what's the state-of-the-art with regards to editors supporting dark color themes?

TIA.

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Re: editor recommendations? [ In reply to ]
On 2021-02-26 at 06:51:02 -0800,
Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> wrote:

> [...] vim [...] truly black screens with it. By which I mean that I
> have a colorful window title bar, a light-grey menu bar, and then a
> light-grey frame around the text-editing window (aka the only window),
> and a nice, black-background editing area.

That's what my emacs looks like, minus the light-grey frame (the window
manager's frame and border are enough for me). Emacs has themes now,
but my setup is very old; all I did was set the "base" text background
and foreground colors and set a flag that says "I have a dark background
rather than a light one."

Did you have a Python question? ;-)
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Re: editor recommendations? [ In reply to ]
On Fri, 26 Feb 2021, 2QdxY4RzWzUUiLuE@potatochowder.com wrote:

> That's what my emacs looks like, minus the light-grey frame (the window
> manager's frame and border are enough for me). Emacs has themes now, but
> my setup is very old; all I did was set the "base" text background and
> foreground colors and set a flag that says "I have a dark background
> rather than a light one."

Emacs: +1. I've been using it for more than two decades. It will provide
syntax coloring (on the black background) for Python as well as other
languages and file types.

> Did you have a Python question? ;-)

Perhaps he didn't but he should know that by opening a shell within emacs he
can run his python code there.

Long ago someone wrote that Emacs is an operating system that includes the
kitchen sink. A friend of mine working for Sharp Electronics did all his
work in Emacs, including email and web browsing (back when a text-based
browser was sufficient.)

Rich
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Re: editor recommendations? [ In reply to ]
On Fri, Feb 26, 2021 at 6:51 AM Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> wrote:

> I'm looking for an editor to use for Python programming, as well as
> related incidentals such as markdown files, restructured text, etc.
>
> I'm currently using vim, and the primary reason I've stuck with it for so
> long is because I can get truly black screens with it. By which I mean
> that I have a colorful window title bar, a light-grey menu bar, and then a
> light-grey frame around the text-editing window (aka the only window), and
> a nice, black-background editing area.
>
> When I have occasionally tried other editors, they either don't support a
> black background, or the black background is only for the text-editing
> portion which leaves large portions of screen real-estate with a bright
> background, which is hard on my eyes.
>
> So, what's the state-of-the-art with regards to editors supporting dark
> color themes?
>
I like vim :)

I have it all set up with plugins automatically at
https://stromberg.dnsalias.org/svn/vimrc/trunk/

Just cd'ing to that directory and typing "make" gives me vim with
syntastic, MRU, jedi, etcetera - on Debian based Linuxes and CentOS-like
Linuxes as well.
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Re: editor recommendations? [ In reply to ]
On Fri, Feb 26, 2021 at 5:24 PM Rich Shepard <rshepard@appl-ecosys.com>
wrote:

> Perhaps he didn't but he should know that by opening a shell within emacs
> he
> can run his python code there.
>

:term in vim

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Re: editor recommendations? [ In reply to ]
On 2021-02-26 14:51, Ethan Furman wrote:
> I'm looking for an editor to use for Python programming, as well as related incidentals such as markdown files, restructured text, etc.
>
> I'm currently using vim, and the primary reason I've stuck with it for so long is because I can get truly black screens with it. By which I mean that I have a colorful window title bar, a light-grey menu bar, and then a light-grey frame around the text-editing window (aka the only window), and a nice, black-background editing area.
>
> When I have occasionally tried other editors, they either don't support a black background, or the black background is only for the text-editing portion which leaves large portions of screen real-estate with a bright background, which is hard on my eyes.
>
> So, what's the state-of-the-art with regards to editors supporting dark color themes?
>
Have you looked at Visual Studio Code?
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Re: editor recommendations? [ In reply to ]
On 2/26/21 7:51 AM, Ethan Furman wrote:
> I'm looking for an editor to use for Python programming, as well as
> related incidentals such as markdown files, restructured text, etc.
>
> I'm currently using vim, and the primary reason I've stuck with it for
> so long is because I can get truly black screens with it.  By which I
> mean that I have a colorful window title bar, a light-grey menu bar, and
> then a light-grey frame around the text-editing window (aka the only
> window), and a nice, black-background editing area.
>
> When I have occasionally tried other editors, they either don't support
> a black background, or the black background is only for the text-editing
> portion which leaves large portions of screen real-estate with a bright
> background, which is hard on my eyes.
>
> So, what's the state-of-the-art with regards to editors supporting dark
> color themes?

Of course this is going to be opinionated.

The editors I've tried don't do dark themes well, every theme seems to
get something wrong so you're trying to squint to read something in a
color that doesn't stand out sufficiently, etc., while something else is
too electric

I've stuck with vi/vim since it was written, but...

PyCharm (I know for sure, probably others have something like this
concept) has some modes to make some of the stuff you're not actually
using less... cruddy - it has a "distraction-free mode" and a "zen
mode". Just for fun those might be sort of what you're looking for?


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Re: editor recommendations? [ In reply to ]
On 2021-02-26, Rich Shepard <rshepard@appl-ecosys.com> wrote:

> Long ago someone wrote that Emacs is an operating system that includes the
> kitchen sink. A friend of mine working for Sharp Electronics did all his
> work in Emacs, including email and web browsing (back when a text-based
> browser was sufficient.)

Yep, I worked with somebody who did that. All his command-line shell
interaction was done in emacs, as well as all his e-mail, Usenet,
file-system browsing, etc. That was back before web browsing was "a
thing", but I'm sure he found a way to do that inside emacs also.

I pretty much only use emacs for editing text...

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Re: editor recommendations? [ In reply to ]
On 26Feb2021 06:51, Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> wrote:
>I'm looking for an editor to use for Python programming, as well as related incidentals such as markdown files, restructured text, etc.
>
>I'm currently using vim, and the primary reason I've stuck with it for so long is because I can get truly black screens with it. By which I mean that I have a colorful window title bar, a light-grey menu bar, and then a light-grey frame around the text-editing window (aka the only window), and a nice, black-background editing area.
>
>When I have occasionally tried other editors, they either don't support a black background, or the black background is only for the text-editing portion which leaves large portions of screen real-estate with a bright background, which is hard on my eyes.
>
>So, what's the state-of-the-art with regards to editors supporting dark
>color themes?

I'm afraid I use vim. My colour schemes come from (a) the terminal
(often my screen is 100% terminals) and (b) the vim syntax highlighting.
And I've got an easy-on-the-eyes colouring for the vim pane separator
characters.

My fingers know vim. Some others' fingers know emacs.

So I mostly get my colours from my terminal setup, which means I have a
consistent dark theme for most of my activities: editing, shells and
email (mutt). And I have my terminal panes which don't have the keyboard
focus slightly dim themselves.

Alas, this does not recommend another editor for you.

Cheers,
Cameron Simpson <cs@cskk.id.au>
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Re: editor recommendations? [ In reply to ]
On 26/02/2021 15:51, Ethan Furman wrote:
>
> So, what's the state-of-the-art with regards to editors supporting
> dark color themes?

You’re in luck, “Dark Mode” is very much en vogue these days. Most
modern programmer's editors (meaning editors that think of themselves as
modern) are either dark by default or at least come with a fully dark theme.

I mostly use Sublime Text [€€€] myself. Visual Studio Code is pretty
similar, but a fair bit more resource-intensive thanks to being built on
Electron. They're both dark-by-default, fairly configurable and have
communities obsessed with (usually dark) colour schemes. And they both
have loads of plugins which can slow your editor down and give you smart
completion and tooltips with docstrings if you like that sort of thing.
Atom is in the same general category as VS Code.

Spacemacs sounds like it could be fun. ¯\_(?)_/¯

- Thomas


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Re: editor recommendations? [ In reply to ]
My editor of choice is Komodo IDE, which used to be commercialware but is
free now. I'm pretty sure it has dark modes, but I haven't used them. I
just thought I'd mention it because it's a good, solid IDE but I never see
anybody mention it, e.g. in lists of Python editors and such..

On Fri, Feb 26, 2021 at 9:52 AM Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> wrote:

> I'm looking for an editor to use for Python programming, as well as
> related incidentals such as markdown files, restructured text, etc.
>
> I'm currently using vim, and the primary reason I've stuck with it for so
> long is because I can get truly black screens with it. By which I mean
> that I have a colorful window title bar, a light-grey menu bar, and then a
> light-grey frame around the text-editing window (aka the only window), and
> a nice, black-background editing area.
>
> When I have occasionally tried other editors, they either don't support a
> black background, or the black background is only for the text-editing
> portion which leaves large portions of screen real-estate with a bright
> background, which is hard on my eyes.
>
> So, what's the state-of-the-art with regards to editors supporting dark
> color themes?
>
> TIA.
>
> --
> ~Ethan~
> --
> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
>
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Re: editor recommendations? [ In reply to ]
I use Sublime free for simple tasks. I like the fact it's fast and it
saves to disk immediately. You don't have even to name the file. I use
it also for taking notes. Probably not as powerful as Vim and it's
proprietary.
For development, I use PyCharm, but it's an IDE.

I also used in past:
gedit: slow
atom: slow
notepad++: windows only
emacs: too much for my needs
scite: too minimalist
kate: not bad at all
visual studio: resource intensive
eclipse: slow (even if I continue to use it for non-Python coding)
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Re: editor recommendations? [ In reply to ]
On Fri, Feb 26, 2021 at 11:24 AM Grant Edwards <grant.b.edwards@gmail.com>
wrote:

> On 2021-02-26, Rich Shepard <rshepard@appl-ecosys.com> wrote:
>
> > Long ago someone wrote that Emacs is an operating system that includes
> the
> > kitchen sink. A friend of mine working for Sharp Electronics did all his
> > work in Emacs, including email and web browsing (back when a text-based
> > browser was sufficient.)
>
> Yep, I worked with somebody who did that. All his command-line shell
> interaction was done in emacs, as well as all his e-mail, Usenet,
> file-system browsing, etc. That was back before web browsing was "a
> thing", but I'm sure he found a way to do that inside emacs also.
>

Of course there is a mode for that:
https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/CategoryWebBrowser


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Re: editor recommendations? [ In reply to ]
Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> wrote:
> I'm currently using vim, and the primary reason I've stuck with it for so long is because I can get truly black screens with it. By which I mean that I have a colorful window title bar, a light-grey menu bar, and then a light-grey frame around the text-editing window (aka the only window), and a nice, black-background editing area.

I use vim. It's actually extremely powerful, especially for text/code
editing. I'd recommend reading one of the many books on using vim
effectively. Also, plugins can really add a lot...

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Re: editor recommendations? [ In reply to ]
On Tue, Mar 2, 2021 at 8:00 PM Russell <rsstinnett@gmail.com> wrote:

> Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> wrote:
> > I'm currently using vim, and the primary reason I've stuck with it for
> so long is because I can get truly black screens with it. By which I mean
> that I have a colorful window title bar, a light-grey menu bar, and then a
> light-grey frame around the text-editing window (aka the only window), and
> a nice, black-background editing area.
>
> I use vim. It's actually extremely powerful, especially for text/code
> editing. I'd recommend reading one of the many books on using vim
> effectively. Also, plugins can really add a lot...
>

On the subject of learning vim: There's an excellent vi cheat sheet
available on the internet. I've put a copy of it at
https://stromberg.dnsalias.org/~strombrg/vi.ref.6

vi is of course the predecessor of vim. But that cheat sheet is still great
for learning much of vim.
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Re: editor recommendations? [ In reply to ]
On Tue, Mar 2, 2021 at 8:11 PM Dan Stromberg <drsalists@gmail.com> wrote:

>
> On Tue, Mar 2, 2021 at 8:00 PM Russell <rsstinnett@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> wrote:
>> > I'm currently using vim, and the primary reason I've stuck with it for
>> so long is because I can get truly black screens with it. By which I mean
>> that I have a colorful window title bar, a light-grey menu bar, and then a
>> light-grey frame around the text-editing window (aka the only window), and
>> a nice, black-background editing area.
>>
>> I use vim. It's actually extremely powerful, especially for text/code
>> editing. I'd recommend reading one of the many books on using vim
>> effectively. Also, plugins can really add a lot...
>>
>
> On the subject of learning vim: There's an excellent vi cheat sheet
> available on the internet. I've put a copy of it at
> https://stromberg.dnsalias.org/~strombrg/vi.ref.6
>
> vi is of course the predecessor of vim. But that cheat sheet is still
> great for learning much of vim.
>

I just ran across: http://lib.ru/MAN/viref.txt
...which is pretty much the same thing, but converted to nice HTML.
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Re: editor recommendations? [ In reply to ]
Cameron Simpson <cs@cskk.id.au> writes:

> My fingers know vim. Some others' fingers know emacs.

Emacs has also an Evil[1] mode, that mimics some vi/vim features.

I suggest taking a look at Doom Emacs[2], a popular so-called "Emacs
distribution", that provides an out-of-the-box great experience with a modular
configuration.

ciao, lele.
[1] https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Evil
[2] https://github.com/hlissner/doom-emacs
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way that the noonday sun does the stars. It is not just bigger and
brighter; it simply makes everything else vanish. — Neal Stephenson

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Re: editor recommendations? [ In reply to ]
Dan Stromberg <drsalists@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 2, 2021 at 8:11 PM Dan Stromberg <drsalists@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> On Tue, Mar 2, 2021 at 8:00 PM Russell <rsstinnett@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> wrote:
>>> > I'm currently using vim, and the primary reason I've stuck with it for
>>> so long is because I can get truly black screens with it. By which I mean
>>> that I have a colorful window title bar, a light-grey menu bar, and then a
>>> light-grey frame around the text-editing window (aka the only window), and
>>> a nice, black-background editing area.
>>>
>>> I use vim. It's actually extremely powerful, especially for text/code
>>> editing. I'd recommend reading one of the many books on using vim
>>> effectively. Also, plugins can really add a lot...
>>>
>>
>> On the subject of learning vim: There's an excellent vi cheat sheet
>> available on the internet. I've put a copy of it at
>> https://stromberg.dnsalias.org/~strombrg/vi.ref.6
>>
>> vi is of course the predecessor of vim. But that cheat sheet is still
>> great for learning much of vim.
>>
>
> I just ran across: http://lib.ru/MAN/viref.txt
> ...which is pretty much the same thing, but converted to nice HTML.

To that end, vim also has extensive documentation built in. Just type
:help to get started. There's a pretty good tutorial accessible from the
main help screen.

And I'll stop talking about vim in the Python group now, I promise. :)

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Re: editor recommendations? [ In reply to ]
On 03Mar2021 10:00, Lele Gaifax <lele@metapensiero.it> wrote:
>Cameron Simpson <cs@cskk.id.au> writes:
>> My fingers know vim. Some others' fingers know emacs.
>
>Emacs has also an Evil[1] mode, that mimics some vi/vim features.

Whenever I've tries emulate-vi modes they tend to lack some coner case
known to my fingers.

[... Doom Emacs recommendation - I have no opinion ...]

>-- Emacs outshines all other editing software in approximately the same
>way that the noonday sun does the stars. It is not just bigger and
>brighter; it simply makes everything else vanish. — Neal Stephenson

A novice of the temple once approached the Chief Priest with a question.

"Master, does Emacs have the Buddha nature?" the novice asked.

The Chief Priest had been in the temple for many years and could be relied
upon to know these things. He thought for several minutes before replying.

"I don't see why not. It's got bloody well everything else."

With that, the Chief Priest went to lunch. The novice suddenly achieved
enlightenment, several years later.

Commentary:

His Master is kind,
Answering his FAQ quickly,
With thought and sarcasm.

Cheers,
Cameron Simpson <cs@cskk.id.au>
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Re: editor recommendations? [ In reply to ]
Cameron Simpson <cs@cskk.id.au> wrote:
> On 03Mar2021 10:00, Lele Gaifax <lele@metapensiero.it> wrote:
> >Cameron Simpson <cs@cskk.id.au> writes:
> >> My fingers know vim. Some others' fingers know emacs.
> >
> >Emacs has also an Evil[1] mode, that mimics some vi/vim features.
>
> Whenever I've tries emulate-vi modes they tend to lack some coner case
> known to my fingers.
>
I use [x]vile, "vi like Emacs". It's vi in terms of what the keys do
(I can use vim and 'real' vi without issues) but it's built on an old
eMacs engine and so has quite a few eMacs-like abiliities. For
example it has a gnuclient type mode where it runs as a server and you
can squirt files at it to be edited.

It's available in most distributions and is actively maintained and
developed still.

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Re: editor recommendations? [ In reply to ]
Cameron Simpson <cs@cskk.id.au> wrote:

>>-- Emacs outshines all other editing software in approximately the same
>>way that the noonday sun does the stars. It is not just bigger and
>>brighter; it simply makes everything else vanish. ??? Neal Stephenson

Neal Stephenson's book Cryptonomicon was the reason I became borderline
obsesseed with Emacs 20 years ago. I've only come to my senses in about
the last 5 years when I started using vim. lol!

Admittedly, Normal Mode takes some getting used to. I remember a quote
from years ago that went something like, "Vi has two modes, edit and
beep."

>
> A novice of the temple once approached the Chief Priest with a question.
>
> "Master, does Emacs have the Buddha nature?" the novice asked.
>
> The Chief Priest had been in the temple for many years and could be relied
> upon to know these things. He thought for several minutes before replying.
>
> "I don't see why not. It's got bloody well everything else."
>
> With that, the Chief Priest went to lunch. The novice suddenly achieved
> enlightenment, several years later.
>
> Commentary:
>
> His Master is kind,
> Answering his FAQ quickly,
> With thought and sarcasm.
>
> Cheers,
> Cameron Simpson <cs@cskk.id.au>

This is awesome!

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