Has any thought been given to including a text editor (so developers don't have to install a separate code editor) as an option to the LibreOffice Suite?

[fman_29]

Hello. I was wondering if any thought had been given to including a text editor like Atom either as one of the default programs or as an option to LibreOffice Suite? That would give developers and programmers a venue to produce and edit their code without having to install yet another program.

I know that will be a major undertaking but I know I, for one, would be very appreciative of the effort.

Updated: I was actually thinking more along the lines of being able to save code rather than a focus on highlighting. And, yes, I am familiar with other text editors like VIM, Atom, et al was just curious if it could be included here to preclude the need to download, install, and run yet another program.

Again, Just a thought.

Thanks,
fman_29

[Ratslinger]

Can’t see this ever being done. Plenty of editors already available usually included with OS. For years coding Python/Basic for LO to me this was never a concern.

[ajlittoz]

Could you explain what kindof use case you have in mind? Writer goal is to heavily format text in proportional fonts while text editors used fixed-width fonts with no “embellishments” (bold, italics, size variations, …) at all. I know some text editors offer syntax highlighting but this is not saved in the file and must be recomputed at reload.

When the need arises, I copy’n’paste from the text editor into a paragraph styled Source Text. Personally, I don’t use an isolated text editor but an IDE (integrated development environment) which is enriched with many tools (configuration, source management, resource control, debugging, etc.).

[Ratslinger]

@ajlittoz,

From what I see this is directed more toward code highlighting (coloring) for keywords etc. Such is already in editors such as Pluma or Kate.

[mikekaganski]

It would be an insane waste of manpower.

Each of us working on LibreOffice code knows very well what a good code editor is; each has own favorite editor/IDE - vim; emacs; VSCode; Eclipse; Visual Studio; KDevelop; … - we know that it’s not just about writing text; it’s about code highlighting/completion/syntax check/working with other project files (e.g., correctly parsing includes)/integration with other tools (like git, or gdb, or …) etc - for multitude of programming languages. And trying to come with something in that line wouldn’t have anything in LibreOffice codebase suitable for the task: e.g., Writer code can’t be used as a basis for it, targeting rich formatting and pagination, and not easily converted to that kind of task. Even when we use Web View in Writer, we fake the “infinite” text flow with just a huge 10-meters long page.

That is out of scope for The Document Foundation, targeting documents.

[ajlittoz]

@mikekaganski: I fully back your point of view. Primary goal of LO is rich text layout. Code inserted in a document will be commented or is used as an illustration for an argument. In principle, it is a short excerpt and manually mimicking text editor syntax highlighting is not that hard with the help of carefully chosen character styles.

[mariosv]

Maybe the extension Code highighter, can help.