
Textastic - Syntax Highlighting - FTP, SFTP, Dropbox - for iPad - tambourine_man
http://www.textasticapp.com/
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Derbasti
It is a fairly awesome text editor, great syntax highlighting, great snippets
and navigation features.

What makes it less than ideal for me is lack of Dropbox syncing: You can
download and upload stuff alright, but you always have to explicitly do so. It
does not download changes automatically and it does not push them
automatically, either. Basically, it treats Dropbox like FTP. If it was not
for that, I would use it every day.

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fcoury
Wow, it gets better... From the manual: "Textastic allows you to add your own
custom syntax definitions and themes. You can add TextMate-compatible
.tmbundle packages and .tmTheme files. You can also add custom file templates
that appear in the file creation screen."

[http://www.textasticapp.com/v4/manual/lessons/How_can_I_add_...](http://www.textasticapp.com/v4/manual/lessons/How_can_I_add_my_own_syntax_definitions__themes_and_templates.html)

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oacgnol
Obligatory question: does it have support for vi-like bindings? Also, what
about wireless keyboards?

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christiangenco
This. The day I can get vi bindings made for a touch screen with Dropbox
syncing is the day I sell my laptop and buy an iPad.

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wbrendel
First, this looks like a nicely done app.

Serious question though: Who is doing serious development work on their iPad?
Is this for the PHP developer on the go who needs to make a quick edit to a
file on their remote server while riding in a taxi, or are people expected to
use this app to do real* work?

* This bears repeating: This is a serious question, and I'm not trying to sound dismissive or judgmental. If you do serious development work on your iPad, I'd love to hear more about your workflow.

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donny
IMHO ….

Disclaimer: I'm doing something similar <http://worqshop.com>. The difference
is the angle. It's not just a text editor with file transfer (FTP, Dropbox,
etc.). I'm doing an IDE for the iPad. With GitHub support (and soon, Heroku
deployment).

At the moment, iPad is not very good as a development environment, since Apple
doesn't allow you to compile / run code on the iPad directly. You need backend
support (e.g. cloud) that allows you to edit / compile / run code on the iPad.

But an iPad with multi touch interface and a bluetooth keyboard opens up a lot
of interesting possibilities as an IDE. For example, the multi touch interface
allows you to choose colour graphically (see
<http://twolivesleft.com/Codea/Screen-Colors.png> ). Rather than experimenting
with different values of RGB, you can just tap it.

I'm still building Worqshop. Thus, I'm not using the iPad as a development
tool. I still need Xcode and my Mac :) At the moment, I'm using Worqshop to
edit some HTML/CSS on GitHub, building HTML5 apps with Worqshop + GitHub +
StackMob….. And soon, with Heroku deployment support, I can write Ruby /
Python apps on my iPad and deploy it to Heroku.

Footnote 1: I still think the bluetooth keyboard is necessary for fast typing.
I can't type very fast with the on screen keyboard

Footnote 2: I still prefer to code using text rather than using graphical
items (i.e <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_programming_language> ).
Simply because text is a very compact representation of the semantics of code.
As an example, to represent the semantic of "if / then / else" you only need a
few lines of code. But with visual programming language, you need a bunch of
nodes with graphs, etc. (see
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ktechlab_FlowCode.png> )

~~~
mark_l_watson
I usually use my own git repos on my own servers. Is this possible with your
product?

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iusable
This is the best iOS app out there. I have been using it for almost a year and
I can't imagine owning an iPad without it.

This may sound like an ad for the app, but I have nothing to do with Alex (the
creator) or his company. This app is just that good.

The kicker is that Alex is actually working on his own git library for the
app, so in the next month or so expect to be able to have native git
capabilities right from your iPad. Cannot wait!

~~~
michaelmior
I think lack of VCS support is the one thing really holding me back. Editing
code is mostly useless to me without an easy way to version it. Really
interested to see how Git will be supported.

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dhalexander
wow, it's almost like typing on a real computer.

