I'm currently a user of the last freeware version of TSW's WebCoder. I've been recently introduced to PSPad and I'm impressed. It could well become my editor of choice. Some very, very excellent features! :-))
I would like to suggest some things, and for features if someone knows how to do what I'm trying to do but am unable to figure out, I'd love to have a suggestion. First of all - the forums. - My opinion is that any software product needs a good community self-help aid. A good forum system is the easiest way to set that up and a good forum system is based on good categorization and searches. With that in place, a good product is easily supported via the users helping one another. The current forum category break down is woefully lacking. A simple addition of sub-categories would make this forum SO MUCH MORE USEFUL. :-)) Project settings: - There needs to be a good way to refresh the contents of the whole file and of individual folders. Creating a project via pointing to a directory is great, but if I do a "save as..." then the new file needs to be automatically added to the project (and the old NOT deleted...as is currently done). Additionally, there can be duplicate entries in the project listing for the same file...which I find amazing. No reason for that. So, basically the point is that the project listing has to have a way to easily stay in sync with the underlying physical directory structure. I'd even say to have that automatic, but I'm sure there are times when one would want the flexibility to have the project structure NOT be 100% like the directory structure. So, simply some tools to allow easy syncing would be great (with file-type masks...e.g. pick up all the PHP files, etc.) FTP: - I've noticed in the forums that FTP functionality is fairly recent PSPad. I think this is probably my biggest issue with PSPad right now and what keeps me staying with WebCoder. I believe that an FTP client that is a part of an editing/developing evironment needs to work a bit different than a stand-alone FTP client. They have different goals. If I want a stand-alone FTP client, I use FileZilla and I'm happy to do so. I find it meets all my needs. BUT while working on a web project, my biggest need is that the FTP tool stay in sync with the project structure (sound familiar). So, if I am editing a file locally, I need to be able to say "upload to FTP" and have it first connect to THE PROJECT'S FTP SITE (yes, the project needs to be able to have an association with an FTP site) if it is not connected already and then store the file IN THE CORRESPONDING DIRECTORY ON THE FTP SITE. This is the crucial element of an FTP client that is integrated with a development environment. Few development tools do this but I can't imagine living without that feature now. So, if I had 3 files that I just modified in my web structure and they are all in different directories and they are the only tabs that I have open, I should be able to say "upload open files to ftp" and have them all placed correctly. I should be able to tag a number of files and/or directories in my project hierarchy create an FTP queue to upload or download, etc. So the differentiator between a stand-alone FTP client and an FTP client integrated in a development environment, is the close tie to the project structure. Again, thank you for an excellent software product! -- <http://forum.pspad.com/read.php?2,36983,36983> PSPad freeware editor http://www.pspad.com
