Where is the Native OSX version?

[jnylund]

Hi guys, I have been a faithful slickedit user for over 10 years now, but I moved to mac 2 years ago. My sales rep said at the time a native version was in the plans. The X11 version is unbearable to work with, I have switched to textmate for now. Please, please please get moving on the mac version, I would be glad to alpha, beta test and help in anyway.

After that.... an eclipse plugin for mac would be great, then rails support would be even better...

thanks
longtime fan
Joel

[ScottW, VP of Dev]

We do not have a planned ship date for a native Mac OS X version. I'm curious why you find the X11 version "unbearable". Though not as elegant as a native implementation, SlickEdit provides more editing power to help you write your code faster than any alternative on the Mac.

Our next release, SlickEdit 2007, includes enhancements that provide access to the native Mac fonts. Though dialogs are still X11, you should not see any differences in the fonts used. If you are on Maintenance & Support, please check out the beta of SlickEdit 2007 and let me know if you feel otherwise.

--Scott

[bralston7]

I have to agree with jnylund. Slickedit under X11 is unbearable. By unbearable, I mean unresponsive and un-mac-like. Or un-windows-like for that matter. When I installed the Mac OS trial, I used it for less then 10 minutes and then uninstalled it and went back to BBEdit in frustration. I'm sure you guys spent quite a bit of time working on the Mac port, but anything less then native just isn't going to cut it.

I use Slickedit on Windows all day long at work...it is the greatest developer tool I have at work. I'm spoiled by its greatness. If it can't use it like I use it on Windows, then I don't want it at all.

-Ben
The Boeing Company

[Phil Barila]

I'm not a mac user, so none of this is really any scrape on my neck, but it seems like maybe some of you are annoyed because it isn't native, and that's all you are going to settle for other than that I do consider macs from time to time.  It might be more helpful to the SE folks if you provided more quantitative measures.  How slow is "unresponsive"?  Type as fast as you can and watch the chars appear one after the other while you get more hateful as each char appears in slow motion?  Open a file and the buffer window doesn't "snap" instantly?  Both are definitions of "unresponsive".  I suppose some would say both are definitions of "un-mac-like", too.   
I don't have any axe to grind, but you guys doing the complaining aren't giving much in the way of quantitative measure for the SE people to work with.  As coders, we all should try to give each other at least that much.

[ScottW, VP of Dev]

We're always interested in open and honest feedback, so don't feel like you need to pull your punches. There is little we can do about being "un-mac-like" with our X11 implementation, but I am curious what you mean by "unresponsive". One of our developers uses a Mac for the majority of his work, and we just aren't seeing any problems.

What kind of Mac are you using? What language are you editing? Can you provide specific details on the operations you performed that were unresponsive? We would appreciate anything you can provide that will help us address your issues.

Thanks!

[bralston7]

@Phil "I'm not a mac user"
So go post in another thread, there's nothing to see here.

@Scott
Unresponsive = too slow. This may or may not be a SlickEdit problem. It is probably an X11/emulation problem. But it exemplifies why it needs to be native. I'm using a 933mhz G4 Quicksilver with 1.5GB RAM. Its not a brand new machine, but everything else I need to do is snappy. Thank you for taking the time to read our feedback. I will say it again, Slickedit (for Windows) is the cornerstone of all my development work, and I could not live without it.

-Ben
The Boeing Company

[Phil Barila]

@Phil "I'm not a mac user"
So go post in another thread, there's nothing to see here.

I'm not looking to start a flamewar, especially not a Mac vs [anything] one.  Did it occur to you that I might be reading this thread (and others like it) because I'm considering a mac, and want to know if one of my most vital tools is viable on it?
Having read the thread, I noticed that there is a lot of qualitative description, but much less quantitative, so I just asked for a bit more quantitative data for the SE folks to use.  Is that so bad?
I suppose the first sentence could have been interpreted as flamebait, and I do apologize for that poor choice of expression.

[Nathan]

Hey Ben (and Phil ) ,

I generally work on one of the new iMacs, but also work on a G4 iBook from time to time. I'll have to get the exact configuration later (I doubt it's the 800Mhz model), but I'm positive the iBook has less than 1.5GB of ram -- and SE runs pretty peppy on it (and I typically run debug builds to boot).

This shouldn't be an X11 issue: I've played with our 1062Mhz sparc machine over a remote X session for a while and it seemed fine. I'm not sure what you mean by it possibly being an emulation problem, but we've always distributed PPC binaries.

Could you give me a few specific scenarios that cause SE to be unresponsive on your mac? I'll try to replicate them.

Thanks!
Nathan

[dmw]

After reading some of these comments, and noting the machine specs that Ben quoted, I just had to see how "unbearable" it really was.  So I dragged out my old G4 Powerbook 1Ghz with 1.25 GB RAM, pretty close to the specs of Ben's machine.

I loaded up the latest release version 11.0.2 and opened an old project containing the sources to the open-source Xerces XML parser (2.6.0).  As I expected, some things were slow, but rather far from unbearable.

The tagging after the initial install of SlickEdit felt slow compared to more modern machines.  But it really only took 2:40 to complete, and as a (usually) one-time cost can be easily discounted.

Tagging the 1060 files in the Xerces project took roughly 55 seconds, with references turned on.

Scrolling in the window was jerky, and scrolling 1048 line file from top to bottom with the arrow key took about 35 seconds.  For comparison, the same file on my Intel iMac scrolled very smoothly, but still took the same 35 seconds (perhaps related more to key repeat rates?)

Typing in the editor seems fine.  Granted, I'm not world's fastest typist, but I experienced no delays between the time I pressed a key and its appearance on the screen.

Invoking function-argument-help while in an argument list produced the help text immediately, with the argument completion drop-down appearing 1-2 seconds later.

Invoking push-tag is nearly instantaneous.  Same for pop-bookmark.  Cutting/pasting.  Undo.  Highlight of matching blocks.  Etc.

Even the animated tool-windows open and close smoothly.

So, my experience on this low-spec'd machine was quite positive.  All major editing features work without problems, except for a bit of jerky line-scrolling.

Perhaps the code-base Ben and Joel are using are much larger than what I've done this testing on?  I'm curious as to what differences between our configurations are causing their experience to be so much different from mine.

[bralston7]

Let me clarify my feedback a little more. The X11 environment for SlickEdit issue is more unbearable then the speed issues. I could tolerate some slowness if the product looked and felt like a Windows or Macintosh application. It was like learning to use SlickEdit all over again. The thing that really bugged me was the X11 file navigation dialogs...how archaic.

So I put more weight on the X11 issues then I do the speed issues. In other words, if you told me tomorrow that SlickEdit for OS X is now twice as fast, but still ran under X11, I still would not buy it. I'm trying to be as honest as possible with my feedback, as I would expect this from any potential customer that might be thinking about using the software that I write.

-Ben
The Boeing Company

[jnylund]

Hi, sorry, didnt mean to fire and forget, I figured it would email me if my thread was updated.

I should have been more clear when I said unberable, here are some of the things I can think of (its been a while so im sure there is more)

- running under X11 subsystem makes it generally clunky, including the icon doesnt show up on dock, have to click X11, then find the app to get it to come up from icon
- cutting and pasting between X11 apps and regular apps is not the same, I alway forget to use the correct key/mouse combo and it messes up my momentum (this happens all the time). Instead of control/c or command c, its highlight and right click I think.. (differnt for oubound text vs inbound text)
- launching slick from command line, in native windows and linux world I could type vslick foo.txt and it would open the file in slick
- my X11 subsystem crashes or becomes unexpectedly unresponsive way more than my native mac os (when actively used a couple times a week vs couple times a year on the native os)
- as others said, general slowness or unresponsiveness of the ui compared to native (not as big of deal for me)
- the idea that once you have a native version you will probably also have an eclipse plugin (big deal for me)
- im just not a fan of the fonts & look at feel in X11 compared to either windows or mac look and feel (pure opinion)
- when launching from finder (associating file types) sometimes it launches completely new version of slick, somtemes it opens window (desired) within running version of slick.

im sure there are a few more, but its been a while now since I switched to textmate

thanks
Joel

[bobbyski]

I love Slickedit for windows and use it daily. I have used Slickedit on Linux at NCSU. I also use Slickedit on the Mac.

On all three platforms Slickedit is the most feature rich editor you can use. On windows it has a very native feel and gives the best overall experience I could imagine. On both Linux and the Mac it feels somewhat clunky - I suspect because it is using X11 which always feels clunky. On Linux it is still the best feeling editor I have ever used on the platform - it is as polished as things get in that environment.

On the Mac, Slickedit feels every bit as good as Linux. However it does not feel Mac like. This has created a weird situation for me. I use XCode most of the time even though it is not even close to slicked from a feature perspective, it simply feels wrong. I often will launch slickedit and use it for a while when I need specific features. When I use XCode I am constantly complaining that it lacks the things I love about slickedit, while I am in slickedit I am constantly noting how it feels clunky compared to XCode.

I faced a similar situation when I borrowed my Brother-in-law's Volvo S60 while my 10 year old Mustang GT was in the shop. The new S60 actually outperformed my Mustang but it did not "feel" as good doing so. I know the S60's designer and I complement him on how well the Volvo handles, but it still feels like a family sedan so I looked forward to my Mustang's return. The end result is I appreciate that the superior nature of the Volvo's feature set and even prefer it when going on long trips, I would keep my Mustang if I had to pick one or the other.

As superior as Slickedit is to XCode, it will always lose out to XCode until it goes native and feels like a Mac application. As for me, I am very predisposed to liking Slickedit from years of using it on Windows and I still do not use it 100% of the time. The good news for slickedit is that they have not scratched the surface of Mac demand. Most Mac users are more turned off than me on X11 and have not even given Slickedit a chance because it is not native.

I can not wait for a Native version, but I can't give up the X11 version till then either.

Thanks,
Bobby Skinner

[beej]

i, too, am a long-time SE user that is unhappy with SE on mac.  i just grin and bear it, but i don't enjoy it.  there are actual technical problems that i've raised with support, but they haven't been addresses.  even if they were, i'd still LOVE to see a native GUI version for the same reasons already mentioned.

one thing that drive me nuts that doesn't seem all that hard to fix is the keyboard modifier key setup.  this is issue 1-AB645.  my last email on that case i think summed it up adequately:
===
i'm looking for a default set of key bindings that isn't completely overloaded all over the place.  consider this:
on windows, ctrl-p brings up the print dialog by default.  alt-p takes you to the Project menu.
on mac, command-p brings up the print dialog, but is also mapped to the Project menu.
also, because slickedit is an X application, it has to share keyboard shortcuts with the X server.  by default, the stock apple X11 window manager  uses comm-q, comm-h, comm-[1-9], etc.
===
this was reported in november, but there weren't any related changes in 2007

for quite a while, i was running the windows version of SE via parallels on my mac because i couldn't deal with the pain.  i've finally switched to the mac version, but sometimes i regret it.

re: perf issues, SE for me is often chewing up tons of cycles unnecessarily.  i've worked with the tech support guys and they've never been able to reproduce it, but that doesn't make it any less annoying to me

anyway, SE on mac just feels like a step backward.  when you live in a Unix with a nice, pretty, and snappy native UI, it's no fun to have the application that you spend the most of your time in being a klunky feeling X11 app.

i understand that the SE folks have to prioritize their development resources, so i'm not so much complaining as just noting the way things are.  one thing is that you sort of have a chicken and egg problem.  the SE folks don't get many sales for mac and so they don't perceive much demand.  mac is gaining marketshare from windows every day.  if people didn't cringe when they fired up SE on a mac (after seeing the competition), they might actually buy it

cheers,
marc

[beej]

oh... and the fonts in 2007 are even yuckier than in v11   you can no longer change the size of Default Fixed Width, which is what i was using before.  Courier is the only thing i've found that looks half-decent at the 11-pt size, but the "q" looks like a "g".  this is another place where a native aqua app would help

marc

[beej]

and just so you know i don't think it's all bad, i LOVE what you've done with list-buffers in 2007!  i no longer have to use the hack to sellist.e that let you just type the name...