
Chocolat - the new editor - Void_
http://chocolatapp.com/
======
andrewflnr
Now that's a landing page. It had just enough information on the first page,
and easily led into the more detailed info in the sidebar navigation. If I was
on a Mac and was remotely interested in trying a new editor, I might well have
stuck my address in there. As it was, it still drew me in enough to poke
around. Well done.

~~~
pmr_
On the other hand the clear list of features made me realize it offers nothing
I don't already have or want.

~~~
tsycho
But that's a good thing. If you had signed up with high hopes, expecting
something else, and then the product disappointed you, then you might write a
bad review/blog post etc. potentially turning away other users who might have
liked the features[1].

So if the features don't appeal to you, it's good in the long run for the
creator to not have you as a beta user.

[1] the counter argument is that any publicity is good publicity :)

------
snprbob86
"Who doesn't like tabs?"

In text editors? Me.

I don't like thinking about which individual files are open. Any file under
the root of my project (i.e. the editor's current working directory) is fair
game for an open buffer. I treat open file as "go to class".

~~~
swah
Emacs user.

~~~
Ixiaus
Buffers are truly amazing - combined with powerful buffer naming patterns,
it's a breeze switching between buffers blindly (included with autocomplete)
and if you forget about which buffers are open it's a keystroke away to see an
overview of the buffers open...

20-25 buffers open at once? Easy!

~~~
swah
^ Ido mode user!

~~~
baddox
Ido with fuzzy searching is an absolute must. Type "mobusmai" to get to " __mo
__bile_ __us __er ___mai __ler.rb" in an instant.

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leif
With the amount of muscle memory and (deeply personalized) customization that
goes in to getting comfortable with an editor, it seems like the hardest place
to attract users, and since vim and emacs have already done everything worth
doing in an editor (except flashy buttons I guess), it seems like the hardest
place to innovate.

textmate, bbedit, kod, coda, sublime text, and now this

What is interesting about this space that makes people think they can make
something better than vim and emacs, in fact, _so much better_ that they can
overcome the inertia that comes with being a vim or emacs user? I get that you
can maybe grab a few notepad/textedit people, but you're never going to
attract serious developers.

If you are someone who pays for one of these editors, please help me
understand and explain why, unless it's "someone told me about it before I
knew any better and now I'm stuck with it for the same inertial reasons".

(ides are different, I do get that, I don't get it when it's a "swiss-army
knife" style of text editor)

~~~
cdcarter
Well, since TextMate 2 still hasn't come out yet, and this seems to appeal to
a very similar aesthetic, I could see this taking over that market. I'm
definitely very interested to try it out.

~~~
Cushman
Don't lie— we're all gonna buy TextMate 2 anyway.

~~~
frou_dh
TextMate 2 will be a free upgrade

~~~
sxtxixtxcxh
i fear that might not be the case if/when it ever comes out. i have a sinking
feeling textmate 2 will end up as a mac store only app, and there's no way to
provide free licenses to previous owners of non-mac store licenses.

~~~
frou_dh
If he is interested in putting it on the App Store, I doubt such an
established developer would sweat maintaining a parallel standard version.
Although the free upgrade promise is/was rash, I think it's too late to go
back on it.

~~~
Cushman
Probably— although I just googled 'textmate 2 free upgrade' and the top hit is
a blog post from 2006 titled "[TextMate] 2.0 Will Require Leopard".

It's possible he _might_ just be able to walk that one back a little.

------
jfb
I know I'm a graybeard, but I have yet to see a serious editor on any platform
that could get me to switch away from Emacs. The perils of 20+ years of muscle
memory and accumulated knowledge, I suppose.

~~~
jimbokun
"The perils of 20+ years of muscle memory and accumulated knowledge, I
suppose."

This cuts both ways. For people whose muscle memory is attuned to the standard
Mac or Windows shortcuts and UI conventions, Chocolat (or Textmate, or some
Windows text editor) might be more appealing.

~~~
tincholio
That sounds pretty limited to copy/cut/paste and opening and saving. If you're
doing heavy editing, and more so if you're using the editor for programming,
you won't find that much use for standard shortcuts.

For Emacs, there's also Aquamacs and CUA mode, which use the "native"
shortcuts as you'd expect.

------
voyou
It seems to me that if you're producing a new product in as crowded a field as
text editors, it's not very persuasive to, as these guys do, list a bunch of
features, particularly if these are features that are common to most other
text editors. The website needs a hook: what does this text editor do, that my
current text editor doesn't? What's the high concept, the couple of sentence
explanation of what makes this text editor special?

~~~
meatmanek
This was exactly my thought. What exactly does this app have that Sublime Text
2 doesn't have?

------
mrmaddog
When will somebody produce a text editor built for remote editing of text
files? The vast majority of programmers that I know do all of their work on a
remote build-server, and thus are relegated to using emacs, vim or some
extremely ungainly combination of TextMate+FtpServer/Remote Filesystem Mount.

Could some intrepid developer create an app that would allow me to easily a)
open and edit remote files b) open arbitrary terminal windows that are already
ssh-ed into my build server so I can grep/find/make/whatever else I have to
do. This would be the killer editor for me and most people I know, and it
pains me every time I see a new editor that doesn't do this.

~~~
rednaught
I'm not sure how well "relegated" is going to go over here since Vim and Emacs
are considered by many the best editors.

If you're on a Gnome-flavored Linux, then many "lesser" editors can use GVFS
to remotely work on files.

~~~
mrmaddog
Don't get me wrong, I have grown to love emacs. I use it all day, every day,
and a good portion of my hippocampus is dedicated to storing away emacs
keyboard shortcuts. But why can't I have what is good about emacs (a ton of
buffers, unlimited bash shells, keyboard based) in a native text editor? I'm
content with emacs now, but why do engineers have to spend so much time
wrestling with an editor like emacs before being able to use it properly?

~~~
rednaught
Did you see this discussion a few months ago on an interesting idea for a
modern GUI terminal? I don't know if there has been any further development
but that definitely has thought provoking ideas.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2559734>

------
gillygize
No one has mentioned it yet, but the authors are also the ones who have
created the Ingredients documentation viewer:
(<http://fileability.net/ingredients/>). If there is integration between
Chocolat and Ingredients, it could be a compelling text editor for people like
me, who do iOS development.

------
simplify
Anyone who thinks this is cool should check out Sublime Text 2. It has all
these features and much more (json config files? oh yes).

Also, it's cross-platform; learn once, use everywhere.

~~~
bentlegen
> json config files? oh yes

I find JSON makes for awful config files. For the sole reason that they can't
be commented.

~~~
sparky
Sublime Text 2's config files have JSON-like syntax, but allow C (/* */) and
C++ (//) style comments.

------
wladimir
It would be nice if you added "for MacOSX" to the title next time, would save
me a click in vain.

------
chrishenn
A actively developed and quality casual editor for mac would be great.

Textmate is still awesome, but it's getting stale on the innovation side. I
can't say I've given Vico a try, but it isn't free ($40). And Kod looked great
too, but it's stuck on version 0.0.3.

Then again these aren't completely valid complaints. Vim is as great as ever,
even though you aren't seeing any shiny big and innovative releases.

Perhaps Chocolat will be worth the £30 price the developers plan. But I don't
think I could move away from vi style navigation.

~~~
Cushman
Vico is a good contender for TextMate 2, but it's still pretty buggy for
something he charges money for.

Chocolat looks more like a contender for TextMate 1 to me... less Vim
bindings? I'll probably skip it.

~~~
tedkalaw
I purchased Vico and haven't regretted it yet. I'll be pleased when the Lion
bugs get sorted out.

I've also wanted to love Textmate but can't give up my vim commands.

~~~
Cushman
Yeah, I love Vico. I'm not coming from a vim background, so the progressive
enhancement approach really works for me. It'll be nice when it stops crashing
on Lion, but hey, I haven't lost any work yet :P

The only thing I really miss from TextMate is transparent backgrounds...
hopefully that's coming in the future.

~~~
msutherl
Just curious – why do you use Vico instead of MacVim?

~~~
Cushman
Eh, I'm not committed to vim as an experience. I still like TextMate's rather
point-and-click editing style, and Vico does that compellingly where MacVim...
doesn't.

------
stephth
_@chocolatapp: @iDuuck We support anything that TextMate does, through
tmbundles. Though for technical reasons we can't support some commands or
macros_

<https://twitter.com/#!/chocolatapp/status/98131646351544320>

------
high5ths
I keep looking for a Mac text editor that supports Lion auto-save...

------
vedang
A guided tour of Emacs: <http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/tour/>

Why would I want another editor?

------
fedd
i sometimes need to use the split window to show me 2 or 3 code chunks that
are sequential, so that they scroll together.

i mean, not 3 different, distant parts of a document, but like one longer part
of a document, where a core function with several recursions and nested loops
is defined, in many lines, and i want to see them all.

usually i print them out and then inspect.

is there any editor to do this? maybe chocolat will?..

~~~
mechanical_fish
Emacs. You're looking for follow-mode:

[http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html%5Fnode/emacs/F...](http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html%5Fnode/emacs/Follow-
Mode.html)

The ability to edit the same file (or, in emacs terms, "buffer") in two or
more windows is a killer feature.

------
seldo
This seems like a reasonable editor, but doesn't list any features that would
motivate me to switch away from Netbeans for my PHP work.

------
Luyt
I'd like Chocolat the be open source, so that it's easy to tailor to specific
needs, and gets debugged rapidly.

------
jackwagon
What differentiates this from Textmate? It so far looks like a clone, which
I'm sure is just superficial.

~~~
martingordon
It's actively being developed, for one.

~~~
jackwagon
Textmate works great for any. What features are Textmate users waiting for? Is
this with Chocolat is going to deliver?

------
tony_landis
No vim mode support?

~~~
olsonjeffery
This is the programmer/IDE-dweeb's version of "well yeah.. but does it run
Linux?" Only half joking; the parent's comment is exactly what I thought after
searching through the feature list.

It's funny how, when forced to work outside of vim, the first thing I (and at
least one other person, it would seem) do is try to make the environment as
vim-like as possible (with usually-mixed-to-unsatisfactory results).

Eclipse and Visual Studio are the only IDEs I can think of that, outside of
The True Vim, support the "vim-like" editing paragidm with any robustness
(viemu on VS2008 ($), vsvim on VS2010(free-as-in-beer).. I forget the name of
Eclipse's premiere VS plugin.. but I know it's in the gallery.. there's also
the "embed a vim window in Eclipse" thing, but I found it somewhat ackward).
MonoDevelop has a core-support vim plugin, as well, but it's not-quite-there,
yet (as of 2.6).

Anyone else have any preferred "not-vim-but-vim-like" editors, when forced to
work outside of The Better IDE? (And I don't want to hear that viper-mode
shit, either. It's a False Vim and you know it.. like the snake that tempted
Adam and Eve into Sin!).

~~~
strangetimes
Whoa! Thanks for the heads-up on VsVim. I'll be installing that tomorrow.

[http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/59ca71b3-a4a3-...](http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/59ca71b3-a4a3-46ca-8fe1-0e90e3f79329)

~~~
bmj
I use VsVim on a daily basis, and really like it, but I've also found that it
can bog down the IDE a bit at times (especially if you've left VS running but
are doing other things for awhile). It's not a deal-breaker for me, though.

------
reaganing
Looks very nice from the screenshots.

I've been trying out a number of text editors since installing Lion and
haven't found one I liked as much as TextMate, but want to as I expect
TextMate 2 to never come out and for 1.5 to stop working with some future
version of OS X.

------
dcope
Beautiful landing page, beautiful product. This looks to be an awesome editor.
Can't wait.

~~~
rednaught
I agree that it's a great looking looking site. But I don't see many detailed
feaures. Can I ask you what you think makes this look to be an awesome editor?
I am a Vim and Komodo user so I am admitedly hard to please but it seems the
other new kid on the block, Sublime Text 2, offers more than Chocolat.

~~~
dcope
I can't speak directly on Vim since I don't use it much. I have only used it
for very quick edits and am no "Vim power user" by any measure of the
spectrum. Ever since switching to OS X, I've been using TextMate. As everyone
has been assuming, TM seems to be slowly dying. With the upgrade to Lion I've
come across many bugs and quirks with TextMate. Chocolat seems like it's going
to be something fresh and inviting for users. Coming from TextMate, I think
this will solve the need for a nice, new editor that will embrace new OS
features and actually be supported.

------
mbrzuzy
In my opinion they will have a hard time competing with Sublime Text 2 if they
make it paid. Sublime text 2 supports OS X, Windows and Linux.

I personally work on both Linux and Windows so ST2 is the one for me.

------
overshard
Oh look, another text editor. Just use TextMate if you're on Mac OS X. If you
want something cross platform use Sublime Text, and if you want to be awesome
and have a few days to customize and learn use VIM or Emacs. I use Sublime
Text on my laptops and desktops and vim on my servers. It's the only editors I
need for any operating system and any situation.

~~~
barclay
I love me some textmate, but the lack of split window editing makes me sad,
every time I start really working in it.

~~~
stephth
Indeed. I would gladly pay $50 bucks just to be able to split windows in my
textmate.

~~~
wickedchicken
Is this the reason people commenting seem legitimately excited? I'm a
Linux/vim guy; I appreciate when people make lean, straightforward 'simple'
applications but this just appears to be a Macified version of vim... since
TextMate was supposed to be Macified vim, I couldn't really see the point.

I hate to be a neckbeard on this one, but I get irritated when Mac guys
conflate 'simple' and 'graphical'. If this editor had been designed for a
niche application (subethaedit), kept track of your most-used features and
only emphasized those, or did something to simplify your overall editing
experience I would be all for it. Instead I see an editor that replaced vim's
look with a graphical one, like the palette swaps old videogames used to turn
the good guys into the bad (same with versions of NetHack that had graphical
tiles). Reminds me of that weird TermKit thing:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2559734>

I really want to break out of the terminal. It's crufty and old, but what's
more disappointing is that no contender has yet matched or even surpassed its
zen. Come on guys, build it already.

~~~
stephth
I think _zen_ is the keyword. Apps like textmate or this one or mac os/apps in
general are not simple because it's cool to be simple - they just hide the
power that's under the hood so your tired eyes and brain can focus on the task
at hand. But ultimately it's about your own _zen_ : whatever makes each one
happier and more productive, be it eclipse, netbeans, vim or textmate.

 _I really want to break out of the terminal._

Have you tried MacVim?

~~~
wickedchicken
> Have you tried MacVim?

Maybe if it's in the next Debian release

~~~
danieldk
Don't worry, it is nearly identical to vim-gtk in Debian :).

Since MacVim is a Cocoa application it integrates more nicely in OS X than
vim-gtk would.

------
mistrQ
I'm using vico right now, but this has got me super excited!

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pacifi30
Probably should implement something like screen too

------
kanja
this is like 5 great features from emacs, minus everything needed to turn it
into a comprehensive whole and macros. Great.

~~~
prtk
Yet another guy wrote Emacs!!

------
richardk
this looks so nice, i'd really like to see a gnu/linux port :)

------
upinsmoke
Looks like textmate

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dreamdu5t
Reinventing the wheel...

~~~
zachrose
It's the only way to roll.

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lpgauth
I'd love to give it a try!

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angelortega
Yet another text editor. This is exactly what the world needed.

