A WhiteBox

The Quest

I started my quarterly habit of looking for a new text editor/IDE a few days ago. So far, I tried almost every editor and IDE I could find for windows, but this time I was really in the mood for finding a Windows text editor that I can stick with more than for an full blown IDE.

I am no mac owner/user. But I was always fonded with Textmate, despite the fact that I only used it once at a friend's. In one of my previous hunts for a windows equivalent, I found e-texteditor. Promising, yet kludgey. At least that's how it was when I downloaded the trial beta back then (Yes, they even charged for betas). I personally hated it for 3 main reasons. First it didn't work well for what you would expect from a beta release, second it was very slow and third it needed cygwin to actually be usable.

To cut to the chase, few hours ago, I stumbled upon a new editor, Intype. Just like Textmate and e-texteditor, it's neither free nor opensource. However, the speed and stability for an alpha release, is really stunning.

The Experience

Intype is not a Textmate replica, nor it attempts to support Textmate expansions out-of-the-box, despite the fact that it actually seem to act like a Windows version of the popular Mac editor. I think this statement from the Intype FAQ page says it all:

We hope Intype will provide Windows users with the same (or even better) comfort and workflow as TextMate does for Mac users.

I am sold. Looking at the features list of Intype's upcoming release (0.3.5) codename Newcastle, does give me the confidence to state that it's a very, very promising editor. The latest stable release is 0.3.1.547, and can be downloaded from here. However, if you are willing to have a look at some of features projected for the next release, version 0.3.5, you will need to download to their latest, yet not very recent, unstable build, 0.3.1.734. To do that, you will need to follow the link from this page. Please be warned that the latter is deemed "unstable" for a reason, so don't judge on the stability and the incomplete functionality of that build just yet, wait for 0.3.5 or download the stable build.

What's In So Far

Intype's main window

I Don't want to write an actual review just yet. I'd rather wait for the release of Intype 0.3.5. However, I'd like to highlight what I found cool so far after installing build 734.

Like many editors, there is the "project" explorer; a simple folder view where you can browse and manage your project files. Other than opening the file by double clicking it, there are no other actions available for files/directories in the explorer Common actions are scheduled to be added in version 0.3.5.

In addition to code styles (themes) that are written in a special, understandable format called the Jasmine format and shipped with the editor, Texmate themes can be easily converted to Intype themes using a python script written by Mario Parris.

Intype's early implementation of the bundle editor

Intype has bundles too, the most common are shipped with it but additional ones can be downloaded from the Extended Bundle List. Last but not least, build 743 comes with a primitive bundle editor with several unimplemented functionalities. But according to the 0.3.5 features list, it's going to be pretty cool.

The Conclusion

All in all, Intype is a must check piece of software for developers on Windows who are looking for a lightning fast, powerful and clean editor. Maye something not to adapt yet, but do try read the features list to have an idea of what to expect from the Intype's next stable alpha release, if you decide to give it a shot.