[OT] Which IDE / Editor do you use?

[Nick Sabalausky]

On Thu, 19 Sep 2013 15:04:44 +0200
"Wyatt" <wyatt.epp at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wednesday, 18 September 2013 at 18:20:42 UTC, Nick Sabalausky 
> wrote:
> >
> > Dolphin seems to have fixed it's Vista-like goofiness with the
> > folder view's horizontal scrolling, and it really is pretty 
> > good for the most part.
> 
> Dolphin is pretty nice, though there are cases where Konqueror 
> still runs circles around it. For example, if you want a 
> horizontal split or more than one split

I do vastly prefer Konquerer's method of drag-selecting files in the
Details view (it's the same method as XP - although I did find a
registry hack to make Win7 *usually* do the same). I can at least live
with Dolphin's method, though.

> Also, I don't think 
> Dolphin has the file size view plugin, which is nice for finding 
> hidden monsters in your ~.

Ouch, I didn't notice that was missing. I would think that shouldn't be
too hard to add, though.

Konquerer tends to feel not quite as cleanly-designed as Dolphin, but I
definitely prefer Konquerer to all of the Nautilus-based ones. (The
Nautilus-based ones are usable, but at that point I'd just as soon use
the CLI for everything.)

> 
> > The terminal panel is a brilliant idea (never noticed
> > before - maybe it's new since about 4.5ish?).
> 
> Hehe, this has been around since...at least KDE 3.4 (Before 
> Dolphin was written). The shortcut is F4. :)
> 

Heh, learn something new every day :)

> > As of the latest version, Xfce seems to be about the only DE 
> > that can
> > handle my side-mounted taskbar worth a darn.
> >
> Really?  I figured Plasma would probably be able to do a decent 
> job.  :/  I guess they still haven't gotten it into shape.  Have 
> you tried the 4.11 versions?
> 

I tried Plasma 4.10 (the one that comes with Mint 15 KDE). Also tried
whatever it is that comes with the latest OpenSUSE (probably the same).
The task buttons work mostly fine, although they insist on
expanding/shrinking depending on how many windows are open. Which means
all but the first task buttons keep moving around. It's clearly a
deliberate design, but I don't like it.

However, the bigger problem is when you enlarge the side-mounted bar
enough that you can read the task labels, then some of the other
widgets on the panel grow enormous and take up a lot more vertical
real estate than they should, such as the clock (which I don't want
to get rid of or I'd never know what time it is ;) ).

And then the launcher icons (which seem to disappear after you use
them? What? A broken attempt to copy Win7's OSX-like pinning?) refuse to
sit side-by-side when the panel's side-mounted. So *each one*
takes up an entire row. And then they think "wow, I've got all this
horizontal space", so they grow bigger and take up even more vertical
real-estate. Xfce does the same by default, but as of 4.10 you can fix
it (awkwardly) by going into the panel's settings and (unintuitively)
increasing the number of *cough* "rows".

There's also a couple other things that bug me regardless of where it's
mounted:

- Plasma uses a *completely* different set of themes than kwin. AFAICT,
  you can't even make them use the same theme, you just have to find
  two that don't clash too badly. I was surprised that hasn't been
  fixed by now, but I guess it wasn't seen as an issue?

- Most of the plasma themes make the task button borders invisible
  until you hover. I'm sure that's an attempt to increase visual
  simplicity, but it just looks sloppy to me (especially when combined
  with how they auto-resize depending how many windows are open). And
  it increases the amount of visual-noise and "stuff" that happens just
  by moving the mouse pointer around (It's one of the reasons I
  dislike Win7's default configuration - just simply move the mouse and
  all sorts of shit happens and animates all around. It's all visual
  and cognitive clutter.)

I know side-mounted taskbars are kind of uncommon, and I never used to
use them (even though Windows has had very solid support for it as far
back as Win95 - and is still, unfortunately, the only DE IMO that
really gets the interface for adjusting the task panel right). But in
this age when you can't even get a monitor that isn't short-screen, I
think side-mounted taskbars are essential.

As soon as I got my laptop (the tallest screen I could find: 16:9...:/)
I compensated for the minuscule vertical space and excessive horizontal
space by moving the taskbar from the bottom to the left. Later, when I
started plugging the machine into my 4:3 external, I found that I liked
it side-mounted so much that I ended up keeping it that way even on 4:3.
Makes anything heavy on lines-of-text (web browser, word processor,
code editor, file manager) sooo much nicer.


> > Mint seems to be the best Debian for a desktop
> 
> I've been hearing good things about aptosid and Mepis lately, too.

Never heard of them. I'll take a look.