Jar Of Eyeballs

Until now, I had been using JEdit for writing my Torque Game Builder scripts. Even though it worked pretty good, it had one major drawback: it can open only one document at a time. Since I usually had at least three source files open, there were at least three JEdit windows open. What I needed was an editor with syntax highlighting, a multi-document interface and, preferably, an easy way to browse project files. And here’s a good one, one that’s been written especially for Torque: TorqueDev.

I have opened the Gridblaster II source files to demonstrate the capabilities of Torquedev. You can import the entire game directory into a project file, so you get all source files structured the same way they are on your drive. By default, it imports only Torque files, but you can use it for any other text-baded file type as wel. I use XML files for storing configuration settings, wich I can edit directly in Torquedev. Besides the syntax highlighting, it also has collapse capabilities. It automatically collapses anything between curly brackets (very convenient for large files, JEdit didn’t have this feature), but you can also define your own collapsable regions, wich comes in very handy sometimes. As you can see in the screenshot, I have put the input functions in a separate region.

And now the bad stuff. It crashes from time to time. Adding a new source file is buggy. It generates an error message, followed by a crash. The only method that seems to work is creating a blank textfile in Windows Explorer, changing the file extension into a Torque file and importing it into the project. Not the most elegant way to do things. Debugging is something else that didn’t quite work. It relies on an external debugger, and simply selecting it as the default debugger made the program crash. I don’t know if anyone has gotten this to work in some way, but if you do, please let me know! I want real debugging features, not the improvised methods I use now.

Despite the few shortcomings, this tool will definitely replace JEdit from now on. The built-in file browser and code collapsing are a huge advantage. At the same time, it isn’t bloated with useless features and it has a very intuitive interface, making it very easy to get started with. Some other text editors I have seen are loaded with toolbars you simply never use.

I signed up with ping.fm a few hours ago. If you’re unfamiliar with it, it’s a service that allows you to send updates and messages to all possible social networking websites, such as Facebook or Twitter. For example, if you want to post a status update to both of these websites, instead of logging into both of them and sending it twice, you can do it directly from ping.fm.

The best thing, though, is that there are lots of ways to post things. Besides logging into the website, you can send them by instant messaging, sms or email. That last one is definitely the best option! Here’s my problem: I don’t have internet access at work, and for some reason I can’t log in to Twitter anymore with my mobile phone (I should really get a new one, I still own a Samsung X640). I do have email, though, and now I can post Twitter updates during the day by sending an email to ping.fm! It’s even possible to upload pictures to Flickr or write complete blog posts for Blogger or Wordpress.

The thing that kept me from using services like this until now is the fact that you have to provide them with your login and password for all services you want to use. Smells a bit fishy, but ping.fm seems to be quite well-known and popular, so I guess they are thrustworthy enough. At least now I don’t have to wait until I’m home again to post updates!