This is going to be just some random thoughts/requests/wishes....
I've been a slickedit user since 1993. Recently though I've been getting jealous of other editors. Specifically SublimeText and Visual Studio Code. I have no idea why they have such large followings compared to Slickedit. I suppose VSCode partly because it's free and partly because it's JavaScript making writing plugins accessible to more programmers. Sublime I have less of an idea. I think it uses python as its scripting language so maybe that helps? It's also only $80 per use for all platforms. Not that I personally think price should matter (I've been paying for Slickedit for 25 years!) but it could be one reason. Basically Sublime is on-your-honor shareware.
Anyway, every year or so I try to switch for various reasons (I always fail to switch so far 😉)
The biggest reason is to take advantage of some of the newer features that are becoming available for VSCode. Microsoft announced their language server standard
https://github.com/Microsoft/language-server-protocolThe idea is that an external process can do all the language processing and ANY editor can talk to that process to get language info. This makes it easier to take advantage of tools in any language to write the context help.
Has Slickedit considered supporting that?
Having tried VSCode for a while a few things I REALLY enjoyed
1. At least for JavaScript/node.js projects VSCode is project aware
In a node.js project you declare your dependencies in a package.json file. VSCode looks at that file and can tell you if you're missing dependencies. For example you might type `somelib.someFunc` and it will warn you you don't have `somelib` listed as a dependency.
2. VSCode is external lint aware
In JavaScript land it's common to use ESLint. ESLint has 100s of options and they are different for each project. There are various ways to specify the options including putting .eslintrc files in any folder. VSCode reads these and can highlight lines not matching that project's style guide. It can also auto fix individual or in bulk many of the issues
3. VSCode (vs ESLint?) is library aware.
#2 above has a huge added benefit. People like Facebook have added library specific lint rules so you'll get warnings about usage, deprecations, etc directly in VSCode on the correct lines with options to auto correct
4. They've got a built in
marketplace for pluginsI don't know if Slickedit's userbase is big enough to support a plugin market but it's arguable that the fact that it's so easy to browse and add plugins directly from the editor encourages people to write them. In fact the first time you run VSCode it shows the top recommended plugins.
Sure editors since vi and emacs have allowed customization as does slickedit (and in the past I've written a bunch) but AFAIK there has not been the community for them like there is for VSCode. I'm sure the marketplace is only part of it though.
I could list many other minor issues but those are probably the major things making me want to switch. Basically
the ability to benefit from community contributions. Any way Slickedit could become a part of that community and/or have more of one would be great.