Thanks for the feedback Fritz, I'm aware of most of the issues you raise. I understand that I will need to link the iPad to my wonderful Apple Bluetooth keyboard to use a tool like BB Edit most of the time. I also know that with the current version of the iPad OS that file handling is clunky at best. However I have little doubt that "cloud" file handling will get a lot better soon, probably sometime this fall. If there is a way to make a file go from my Dropbox HTML & PHP file collection to my web server I'll be a happy camper.
90% of my laptop use is web and email. I need to use it for web work primarily when I'm on the road, for things like updating ad rotations for a new ad campaign. I'd rather use an iPad than a laptop most of the time, when I need to do heavy lifting I have a desktop system for that. I don't need anything like full BB Edit functionality for the iPad. I need keyword coloring for PHP, HTML, & CSS. I need to open, save, create and delete *.html, *.css, & *.php files. If that's all iPad BB Edit did it would be better than anything currently in the App store. Search and replace would be nice to have too, then it would be infinitely better than anything currently available for the iPad. Yup, I agree, we're talking about a v1.0 rethinking of BB Edit. If I could buy it today I would. As for the perceived shortcomings of tablet vs. mouse & keyboard, that wouldn't affect me at all. If it's marginally slower with iPad OS 3.2 or 4.1 I don't care. I'm not going to write 10,000 lines of code with it. Lastly, regarding the Barebones resource issues, think about this: OS 11. I'm willing to bet that most of the work done on today's iPad products will carry over to OS 11, ie. touch for Mac. If I were in the software business (rather than the internut business) I'd be investing most of my future R&D on the iPad OS. -K On May 22, 6:14 pm, Fritz Anderson <[email protected]> wrote: > On 20 May 2010, at 6:32 PM, Keith X wrote: > > > I've been a satisfied BBEdit customer for a very long time. My > > Powerbook blew out yesterday and I'm replacing it with an iPad. I > > *really* need BBEdit for my iPad, which will arrive in about two > > weeks. Thanks for a great product! > > Um. You used a laptop computer for the kind of text-editing task that demands > a power tool like BBEdit. You are replacing it with a device that doesn't > have a keyboard,* and has a system for storing and exporting documents that > is, to be kind, very awkward. The screen is much smaller, so examining more > than one document would be painful. You're willing to make the leap on the > faith that before you get to the other end of the leap, there will appear a > product that hasn't even been hinted at. And it will satisfactorily replace > the power tool you ran on your laptop. > > Do you see flaws in this? I never, ever say this, but if you _need_ a > keys-mouse-and-hard-drive computer, and you can't afford a $600 + KVM Mac > mini, your iPad money is better spent on a Linux, or even Windows, box. > They're cheap (to use a very precise term). > > An iPad BBEdit would require an incredible amount of rethinking (it can't be > the same product), and I would guess that most of it would have to be done > from scratch. I'm not saying that it's beyond the considerable powers of Bare > Bones;** I'd be delighted to see what they made of the iPad. If it were less > than $40, I'd buy it sight-unseen. But I would not expect it to be easy, > soon, or a complete substitute for Mac BBEdit. > > — F > > * Yes, there are hard keyboard options. My experience of the Apple Bluetooth > keyboard is that Apple's text system is sluggish with it; and of course there > are no command keys. If you need responsiveness, resign yourself to > sacrificing a third-to-half of the screen for a non-tactile screen keyboard. > Also, the experience of the talented author of iSSH is that things like arrow > and function keys work with the Apple text system, but aren't available as > events to third-party applications. That would be a huge constraint on the > developer of a text editor. > > ** Those powers don't include being two places at once. I see that BBEdit is > under active development. I wonder if a company that had been fully occupied > with a Mac product could with the same resources support the Mac product as > it does, while creating a completely-new editor for a completely-different > machine. But I'm speculating as much as anyone else is. The complete absence > of comment from Bare Bones cuts both ways. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the > "BBEdit Talk" discussion group on Google Groups. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected] > For more options, visit this group > athttp://groups.google.com/group/bbedit?hl=en > If you have a feature request or would like to report a problem, > please email "[email protected]" rather than posting to the group. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "BBEdit Talk" discussion group on Google Groups. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/bbedit?hl=en If you have a feature request or would like to report a problem, please email "[email protected]" rather than posting to the group.
