
Ymacs -- An Emacs-like editor for the Web - macco
http://www.ymacs.org/demo/
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JoelMcCracken
I tried integrating this into an app I am working on, but it was just too
tightly integrated within its custom UI library.

This app is truly awesome, but it is just impossible to integrate with
anything. Someday I might try to fork it -- lord knows I already know enough
about its internals.

(edit: sorry about the double post. I wiped the screen of my iphone
immediately after hitting submit -- guess this is what happened.

Also, it would be awesome if someone made this into a bookmarklet)

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Raphael
Ah, so Ymacs stays true to its roots in being stuck with its own stack.

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JoelMcCracken
Hah, I wouldn't say you're wrong.

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mronge
Now what I'd really like is the reverse: Webkit in an emacs buffer. That would
totally rock I'd never have to leave emacs.

I wonder how hard it would be to hack something up like that?

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bostonvaulter2
Maybe you could hack uzbl into emacs

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rcfox
That's called ezbl. <https://github.com/haxney/ezbl>

(I don't know if that's the best link; it was just the first that came up.)

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wavesplash
I'd love for this to work universally but it looks like capturing CTRL-N
(line-down) is a wontfix in chrome :( Should we lobby and open a new bug?

<http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=33056>

~~~
snissn
works fine for me in chrome stable branch on ubuntu 32bit edit-- no i'm in
6.0.472.14 dev

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wavesplash
I'm testing on Chrome 9.0.570.0 dev on win7 right now. CTRL-N causes a new
window to open.

Curious if this is platform specific.

Can you switch to dev and let me know what results you get? If different than
a new bug is warranted.

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mtklein
Works fine on the same version on Mac. Of course, ctrl-n _normally_ goes down
a line on a Mac.

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shimon
Dear god,

If you could combine this with a Google-docs-like collaborative editing
feature, I could once again enjoy a life free of word processors, where the
true meaning of Meta-Shift-^ could become known to the masses.

That would rock. Just sayin'.

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drblast
I felt the same way and started making my own editor:

<http://vianedit.appspot.com>

Unfortunately I had to make it use vi key-bindings since the emacs ones were
incompatible with most browser defaults. But it's extensible like emacs,
through Javascript.

Someday I'll have time to finish it.

~~~
tam7t
I see that you and I think alike... <http://editmole.com> (also on appspot).

I'm lazy so I went with the "notepad" style editor.

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roadnottaken
Cool, but Ctrl-N (move down) doesn't work (it opens a new page).

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jcsalterego
Maybe it depends on which browser you're using, but in Safari 5, when the main
textbox/input box has focus, C-n works for me, as well as ESC for Meta. You
may want to try giving it focus first?

~~~
roadnottaken
Strangely (ironically) Ctrl-N works fine in Safari (on Windows), but Ctrl-P
brings up the "Print" dialog. In Chrome Ctrl-P works fine, but Ctrl-N brings
up the "New Window" dialog.

Both work fine in Firefox.

Who said that one of the best things about developing web-apps is that the
apps are cross-platform?

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sjs
Hopefully it's equally broken in different ways on various browsers on OS X
and Linux. ;-)

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jeffmiller
GitHub should integrate this into their site for editing files.

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rguzman
More generally, this should be bundled into a js plugin like disqus or
uservoice. I'd guess it would make sense on a lot of sites.

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rtp
This should be implemented as a bookmarklet, or more preferably a userscript.

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jrockway
Incidentally, Emacs 24 removes the dashes from the modeline, so using Ymacs is
almost a bit nostalgic!

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sdp
Odd, I'm using "GNU Emacs 24.0.50.1 (x86_64-apple-darwin10.2.0, NS apple-
appkit-1038.25) of 2010-03-27 on gallifrey.local" and it still has the dashes
on the modeline.

~~~
jrockway
If you are going to use a prerelease Emacs, you should update it more
frequently than every 7 months! (This particular change is from about two
weeks ago.)

~~~
sdp
In my defense: it's a very stable prerelease copy.

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jasonjei
The problem is I need an emacs/vim/TextMate style editor for the iPad usable
in the airplane. I really wish TextMate would become available on iOS.

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sukuriant
And really, do you want to be pressing multiple keys at the same time like you
would for emacs hot keys on an iPad? I'm not an avid user, but those motions
seem incredibly unnatural.

C-X, C-S to save? and that's just the beginning.

vim suffers similarly, though probably not to the same extent. An editor that
takes advantage of the iPad's touch screen would be superior, imo

~~~
jasonjei
Not necessarily an emacs editor. I love the GUI of TextMate, but a lot of what
makes TextMate usable is its bundles, which definitely won't be allowed by
Apple.

All I would like is a reasonably good text editor with a project drawer and
syntax highlighting. Preferably something that can integrate with git.

Maybe I am dreaming. I love just being able to read code, not necessarily type
it on the iPad, since I do review existing open source projects (such as
picking open gems and learning about them) or review source code changes from
git.

MBA is nice, but you still need to pull the seat tray down. The iPad lets me
read code like a magazine. And it fits on the elliptical for working out.

So yes, call me foolish for wanting to do this on the iPad, but I just love
its form factor!

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grandalf
I really wish this were rolled into github.

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charlief
Next, web-based vim please!

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w1ntermute
<http://gpl.internetconnection.net/vi/>

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charlief
Many keys appear to be trapped in the browser making it impossible to use on
Mac Safari. It would be cool if someone worked on a fully-fledged environment,
worked out all the issues, and somehow integrated it with an existing
infrastructure like Amazon S3 or packaged and distributed a client with a
sandbox server side.

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mishoo
I switched to Git actually for my newer projects. Expect Ymacs at
<http://github.com/mishoo> sometime next weekend.

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makuro
It would be nice if the code could end up in github. Also, more importantly, I
need to disable that cursor blinking (peripheral blinky things make me feel
like dying).

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thecombjelly
I worked on this (my own version) for awhile and I got the basics working
pretty quickly, but I just wasn't happy writing in JS, I really wanted it to
be written in Lisp, but I couldn't find a JS version of Lisp that was good
enough, and I didn't have the time to make one myself.

I'm glad to see this and I'm sure I'll enjoy using it. It would be nice to
have the ability to create accounts and store in the cloud so I can access my
code from anywhere.

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pinchyfingers
This is something I've wanted to make, I'll be reading through the source to
work on my Javascript knowledge. Now I need a Chrome plugin to make every text
entry box work like this (Edit With Emacs didn't do it for me last time I
tried, I habitually type C-x s and that was closing my buffer and returning to
the browser).

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jfm3
You can rebind keys to do different things in Emacs, and make Edit With Emacs
behave any way you want.

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alcoholiday
Super Dee Duper!

I cracked myself up when trying C-M-q using the Command (clover) key on my
mac, which of course was seen as CMD-Q by the browser, which for you non OS X
folks means QUIT.

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phmongeau
I tried it wondering if it would quit the browser, but it didn't. (I'm using
Firefox)

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boyter
First thing I tired as well using Chrome. A little disappointing but you cant
have it all.

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agentultra
Aw, FF + Vimperator = no go. lol

Neat app. I'm a total emacs nut.

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bradly
Control+z will enter Vimperator pass-through mode and the site will work. Just
hit escape to exit pass-through.

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jjs
But escape is Meta! :{

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bradly
You can map escape to something else in Vimperator.

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jjs
Give me ^[ or give me :q!

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Wilduck
Funny that this doesn't work even a little bit with Conkeror (Web browser with
emacs keybindings). Pretty sweet otherwise.

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docgnome
To be fair, that's more a Conkeror problem than a ymacs problem. We're sort of
trying to bang the square peg of the web into the round hole of keyboard based
control. It often leads to gross hacks like all the page modes we have, which
are equivalent to Major modes that you could only use on one or maybe two
files in emacs.

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arnemart
My first thought was "Whymacs?" but this is actually pretty cool. Shame I've
never gotten around to learning emacs.

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sbt
Great initiative. Get Ctrl-C Ctrl-E to work and I'll be even more happy :)

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dorkitude
this is polished! salesforce should use this for the Apex platform.

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rspraetz
Totally agreed. This would be great for Apex or any other place where you want
a web based portal to your cloud based code.

Very cool!

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trezor
It doesn't work too well on non-US keyboards. For instance I can't type @
(Alt-gr/Right-alt 2), $ (Alt-gr 4) or any of the following: {[]} (alt-gr 7-0).
Welcome to Norwegian keyboard layout btw.

I'm guessing it _might_ the browser blocking what it assumes is control keys,
but it might also be the app not looking for those specific modifier-key
combinations.

Looking at the wikipedia-page for keyboard layouts, it seems Norway is not
alone when it comes to requiring modifier-keys to be able to type standard
"programming" characters:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout#Norwegian>

If these things can't be done in browser, I'm guessing all those awesome,
envisioned browser & cloud IDEs wont be that big a hit outside english-
speaking countries.

~~~
zeugma
It's the same for French AZERTY keyboards. If you are programming, just remap
you keyboard to normal QWERTY, that way easier then.

