TextWrangler/BBEdit - language module for .fea file syntax coloring

Kent Lew

I have the featurefile.plist that comes with the AFDKO installed in my TextWrangler > Language Modules. The version I have is designated 1.000 and dates from 2007.

This is better than nothing, but still leaves a bit to be desired.

Does anyone know of any modified .plist that will also color class names and functional punctuation like ; {} and [] ?

George Thomas

This may help: http://typophile.com/node/16577

Mark Simonson mentions in the thread that he has done it and at one time had the file posted but the link is broken now.

Mark Simonson

I guess it got lost in the shuffle with my new site design. Here's a new link:

http://www.marksimonson.com/assets/content/site/otfeature_module.plist.zip

It's pretty rudimentary, so I don't know if it will do all you want.

Kent Lew

Thanks, Mark. Yours catches a little more than the Adobe one. Unfortunately, it doesn’t distinguish different types of markup. (Might also have to do with different levels of implementation between BBEdit [paid] and TextWrangler [free], which I use.)

However, looking at your .plist code might give me some ideas. If I get ambitious and decide to modify it, I’ll let you know.

Meanwhile, I’ve decided instead to build out a separate feature editor window for Robofont and try that, instead of editing in an external application. Basically, I just can’t stand the Features sheet obscuring my font while writing features.

Rainer Erich Scheichelbauer

I'm using a customized TextMate bundle for that. Am I the only one using TM here?

Mark Simonson

I use TextMate for some things and BBEdit for others.

Paul van der Laan

TextMate is my favourite code editor, expecially for Python. Textwrangler comes second, mostly when I need to do complex find/replace stuff through regular expressions. Still have copies of BBEdit and SubEthaEdit too that I use irregularly.

Mark Simonson

I use BBEdit for processing text in various ways, also for editing ttx files, and TextMate for writing and editing .fea files and Python.

There are little things that bug me about TextMate that keep me from using it exclusively, like the un-Mac-like way text editing works in it.

For example, if you click somewhere in the middle of a document and drag straight down past the end of the document, the normal Mac behavior is to select everything from that point to the end of the document. Text fields on Macs have worked this way since the very beginning (I've been using them that long). But in TextMate, the selection stops short of the end of the document at whatever point in the last line of the document corresponds to the x coordinate of your mouse cursor, so you also have to drag to the right. It just bugs me.

But it also can do some really cool things that BBEdit can't. What can you do.

Rainer Erich Scheichelbauer

Clicking and dragging in a text editor?! Cmd-Shift-downarrow is your friend.

There is one thing I use TextWrangler for: the ‘Process Lines Containing …’ function. At least I haven’t figured out how to do that in TextMate yet.

BTW, sorry for turning this thread totally off-topic. :-)

George Thomas

Not off-topic at all; every bit of information is useful to someone.

Mark Simonson

Clicking and dragging in a text editor?! Cmd-Shift-downarrow is your friend.

Yeah, I know. Old habits. I used Macs before they even had arrow keys. (And get off the lawn, you kids!) At least they implemented the keyboard behavior correctly, and I do use that a lot, too.

Kent Lew

I don’t know TextMate. I use TextWrangler for a lot of print pre-production stuff when consulting. The GREP, Sort, and Process Duplicates functions are especially excellent and I find it easy to script.

I appreciate that it’s free-as-in-beer, so I can just have a client download it, then hand them my Applescripts, and save them hours (if not days) of work.