

Ask HN: Best web text editor?  - nailer

Hi HN. Does anyone use web-based editors? Is there a good online equivalent of TextMate / Notepad++ / Redcar (with Python support, code folding, etc) that I can access from anywhere? Perhaps with git support? Anyone making such a thing?
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edanm
Out of curiosity, why would you want a web-based text editor?

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apu
If you're frequently on-the-go, without your own laptop?

If you're on a restricted machine where you can't install anything, or have
other install restrictions (hello, iPad! ;-))?

If you're on a shared computer where it wouldn't be nice to overwrite someone
else's config files?

If you're on a mobile device?

If it allowed you do stuff that would be difficult or impossible to do with a
local text editor? Like editing and testing web code live, without even
perhaps a "save" command?

[Note: I'm not the OP and I don't actually want a web-based text editor for
myself, but these are reasons that came to me in the first 2 minutes of
thinking about it.]

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slashcom
I vote ssh + (vim|emacs) for most of those situations.

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bombs
As alluded to in another comment, how about your favourite CLI editor accessed
via SSH. There are a few web-based SSH clients out there, such as Ajaxterm,
Anyterm, WebShell, GotoSSH, etc.

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interiot
These are _acceptable_ , but there's enough keystroke lag that using it for
coding gets pretty annoying. Editing files locally fixes the most important
latency issues.

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nudge
Bespin by Mozilla Labs

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kleiba
Emacs!

No, wait - vi!

No, wait - what was the question again?

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mhd
I'm actually surprised that no one created a web fronted to either of them
yet. Both of them support a multitude of interfaces anyway, so the hooks
should be there. Running Emacs as a daemon would support simultaneous GUI and
terminal editing too.

Yes, web-based VTxxx terminals would probably suffice, too, but I'd prefer a
native interface.

Someone should do a EmacsHub, where you've basically got a little VPS running
an emacs daemon, a web interface to it etc.

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mkramlich
web-based text editors feel like a solution in search of a problem, in a world
where TextMate, Notepad, vi, emacs, ad infinitum exist

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nailer
By that logic, so does Google docs.

* My projects are stored in the cloud at github. My servers are often too.

* I have to use different editors (or no editors at all) on different laptops and phones.

* Having multiple checkouts of my data seems a bit skilly when I could have one.

Appreciate there's a need where the aforementioned exist, just wondering if
there's a cloud ver.

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nirmal
Sub-question: Are there any good web text editors that support formatting and
work with Mobile Safari?

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cheald
Try <http://kodingen.com/> \- it seems to hit all your required features.

Edit: They say they support git, but I'm not seeing options for it anywhere.
Blah.

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kapitti
<https://squadedit.com/>

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jasonkester
Squad, you're killin' me. Couldn't they figure out how to handle the tab
key???

If you hit tab, it just eats it (which I guess is better than tabbing you out
of the window), but why not simply insert a tab while you're at it? (or is it
taking sides on the tabs vs. spaces debate?)

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snissn
jsbin! jsbin.com for a demo and <http://github.com/remy/jsbin> for the source

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eos_buddy
google docs?

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apgwoz
The Apps Script editor in spreadsheets seems pretty good actually. It does
"intellisense" style code completing.

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johnnytee
second Bespin

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dublinclontarf
stupid question, how to set ruby syntax highlighting on bespin?

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ideamonk
ymacs looks pretty solid.

