Four Island

No, I'm not parodying a song that I don't like, I'm actually asking if anyone remembers Xidet. If not, let me remind you. Xidet is a text editor. A text editor that is so freaking customizable that it isn't really a text editor anymore. Xidet is basically just a window with a textbox in it but it revolves around the concept of plug-ins so much that you can do pretty much anything with it by writing a plugin. To quote the odd little conversation that the voices in my head just had:

Voice 1: Hey, what's Xidet? Voice 2: What do you want it to be?

Voices in Starla's Head

Yes, I'm that zen. Anyway, Xidet was originally conceived due to my extreme frustration at NetBeans, the IDE I was using at the time to develop Tetrgi. While NetBeans and I have since made up, recently, I've just been very annoyed with the existing text editors. Especially now that I'm starting some Ruby on Rails projects, I really just want a text editor that is simple yet extremely productive. As in, I've already got all of the keyboard shortcuts memorized and it knows exactly how I like to format my code (so many text editors disregard my strange formatting style! :P) and I can deploy projects from within the editor and such. How is this possible? Well, my revised idea for Xidet is:

1. We start with a window with an empty text area in it. Yep. That's Xidet.
2. Then we bring some plugins in. Xidet will come with a default set of plugins that add things like File and Edit menus and the ability to save your document. These plugins will be installed and enabled first-run, but they can be removed if you want as they are plugins (though why on earth you would want to do that is beyond me).
3. Bring in the big stuff. More plugins can be written like a syntax highlighting framework, followed by plugins depending on that plugin that contain the rules for highlighting certain languages. And the thing will be that not only can you choose which of the huge matrix of plugins you wish to install, but they will all be totally customizable from Xidet. You can choose which colors the syntax highlighters use or select from a series of pre-defined sets. You can choose which keyboard shortcuts do what and how to auto-format your code. Anything's possible if you only beliiiiiieve! :P

Yes, 'tis awesome. I know what you're thinking, though. "It's the classic Hatkirby shift of interest! She always comes up with some project that's better or more important than the one she's currently doing!" Well.... yes. :P But this time I'm serious. The productivity that Xidet will provide will make it much easier to work on The TGS Website (which is my "current" project :P). I promise! I'm just very excited about this new idea because it would help enormously.

I would also like to know if there's anyone out there that knows Java or Ruby that would like to work on this project with me. It would be insanely cool to be able to collaborate with someone using version control and Redmine. It'd be like:

Voice 1: Okay, there's a bug in the plugin dispatch method. I'm going to write a ticket about it and assign it to you. Voice 2: Great. I'll work on that tonight. * later * Voice 2: I've completed the change and marked it complete! Voice 1: That's awesome, but your recent commit conflicted with mine! Voice 2: Oh well, I guess it's time to merge our changes!

Voices In Starla's Head

Yeah, maybe I should stop sharing what goes on in my head. :P