On Sep 22, 2006, at 7:15, Warren Michelsen wrote:
I very often edit files right on my server and it's nice that opening a file on my server is (or rather was) almost transparent to the user -- almost like opening the file locally. This is what made the ftp feature so nice.
What's so different about having an Interarchy (or whatever) window always open and a BBEdit FTP browser always open? Either way, you just click into it, select a file, and perform some operation. In the case of opening a file with Interarchy, that operation is Edit File in BBEdit (cmd-J); hit it and the file pops right up in BBEdit. Even opening the browser windows initially is similar, with the slight delay of launching a separate app made up for by the app offering direct access to your bookmarks without having to open a window first.
The only difference I can see is that with an FTP program, you'll have a bigger set of commands from which to choose. The usability difference is especially small on OS X where bringing one app window to the front doesn't also bring all of its other windows to the front - so clicking on an FTP program's window won't disturb your visible BBEdit files (assuming you have enough screen real estate for both; if you don't, you're going to have to shuffle windows no matter what). And with Interarchy, at least, you lose nothing in the way of scriptability, either.
I don't consider opening and saving files to be 'ancillary'.
I was referring to FTP functionality, not the opening of local files. That said, though, BBEdit's core functionality is editing and working with text; if you're strict about this, then opening local files is indeed ancillary in the sense that it's simply a necessary support feature for the core functionality (can't edit text if you can't open a text file).
In this light, FTP is most certainly ancillary in that you can very much use BBEdit as a text editor without it. It's a potentially very handy support feature, to be sure, but it's still just a support feature. But, the supporting functionality that it provides is easily replaced with a program whose core function *is* FTP, which means you get more features in those cases where you need them. This is why BB added in both the FTP features as well as the Apple event suite that enables the editing of files from external programs.
Incidentally, this functionality in BBEdit enables you to use other, non-FTP programs as well. Need to directly edit files on a tape drive? It's possible. Or perhaps you want to directly edit config files on a photocopier through some proprietary protocol? Again, it's possible. To do these things or anything else similar, all you need is an external program that provides the access functionality along with an Edit in BBedit command. Incidentally, Interarchy provides access to servers other than FTP... such as WebDAV and Amazon S3. Should BBEdit support all of this? Of course not, because this sort of thing isn't core functionality. (It wasn't too long ago that BBEdit didn't support SFTP, but the program wasn't useless because SFTP isn't core functionality. Just as it isn't useless now even though it still doesn't support FTPS.)
And I don't think that switching to another application to aid in the opening of files is particularly handy. As to whether adding 'Duplicate' or 'New File' functions to the existing ftp functions would cause code folding or spell checking to suffer, I doubt that adding these things would take more than an hour or two.
Those are just two of the small differences. What about being able to easily see several different folders on a server at once? Or being able to move files around on the server? Or what about FTP servers not supported by BBEdit (their presentation of files varies)? What about protocols other than (S)FTP, even closely related ones like FTPS?
BTW, thanks to the variety that I just mentioned exists in FTP land, adding these features isn't necessarily a job that can be done in an hour or two. It's possible, but I wouldn't be surprised if it took a whole lot more. The FTP protocol is great, but it also stinks :-).
Oh, BTW: spell checking -- a core feature?!?
It's a core feature in that it's a feature dealing directly with text editing. That it's a core feature doesn't necessarily mean it's an essential feature. The essential part of the core is basically the TeachText-like editing features. And yes, this means that I would lump most of BBEdit's features into the core-but-not-essential category - search, change case, auto-indent, code folding, soft-wrap, etc., etc.
I guess it's all relative -- depends on what one uses a lot.
I don't think so. I believe you're looking at what constitutes the set of features around which a particular user bases their workflow. For that user, such features are *their* core. But what I'm talking about are those features that are or aren't core to BBEdit as a text editor, regardless of how or whether users utilize them. Anything directly relating to text editing, whether it be the ability to type lowercase letters (once a big deal) or the ability to use PCRE expressions for searches, is core in my book. Anything else, like the ability to browse FTP servers or build groups of local files, is not core. These features may or may not be essential, but they are directly related to the core purpose of the software. (Whether they're essential goes back to the user's workflow-dependent core feature set.)
Let me state again that I think it's great that BBEdit offers (S)FTP functionality. However, when it's functionality doesn't meet your needs, I think it makes sense to look toward an external program that does meet your needs, rather than waiting around for BB to add the missing features. And thanks to the cooperation that happened between Peter Lewis and Rich Siegel years ago, most FTP clients now have an Edit in BBEdit command that for all intents and purposes integrates them with BBEdit as though they were built in.
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