The following gif demonstrates folding:

If you don’t want to go the Emacs or Vim routes, try Kate. Neovim is amazing but Kate is too from what I hear. Similar support for LSPs.
You might have a look at LEO:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_(text_editor)
I used it extensively for some time to write big documentation. It is good.
But I’d guess that for most tasks, Emacs org-mode is the most powerful option.
Interesting. First time reading about it*. Were it not for you, this might have been completely off the radar. So thank you for mentioning it!
But I’d guess that for most tasks, Emacs org-mode is the most powerful option.
Yeah, it has been slowly growing on me 😜. But I would like to explore all other options before I fully commit.
Yeah, it has been slowly growing on me 😜. But I would like to explore all other options before I fully commit.
You’ve already discovered the best editor. There’s no need to explore more. ;)
What makes LEO great for consistent larger documentation is that one can write things like footnotes or a glossary in nodes which can be linked into multiple pages - much like files with multiple hard links in a file system.
Also, it can re-read exported generated files into a structured outline, which is managed under version control.
Also, good support for literate programming, which is Don Knuth’s perhaps greatest idea.
Kate,kdevelop,xed,mousepad,gnome builder.,notepad next(clone notepad++)
That’s a lot of options! Thank you.
There’s also Zed. And helix.
Amongst all the other great alts here
Also neovim is really dope! Just have to throw that there
There’s also Zed.
Noted. Thank you!
And helix.
I believe this doesn’t have folding (yet). Unfortunately.
Also neovim is really dope! Just have to throw that there
xD , Neovim is definitely pretty cool.
I use Zed as my primary editor these days. It’s just about ready for prime time!
(Source: 12 years of web and Linux hacking)
By admission of my fellow Lemmy-users, I’ve gone and tried out many text editors over the course of the past few days. Unfortunately, I didn’t like the installation options for Zed in my current distro of choice (i.e. Fedora):
- its flatpak is unverified
- not found in Fedora’s own repos
It is found within Terra’s repos. However, users report that -at least for Zed- some of the installed packages from Fedora’s own repo are replaced by Terra’s. This interaction can be prevented by giving preference for Fedora’s own packages, but it seems like a can of worms I’m not very interested to engage with at the moment. Hopefully this situation will be resolved rather sooner than later.
Anyhow, have you got the chance to work with Emacs and/or Kate over the years? If so, could you chime in and give your thoughts on how Zed fares in comparison? Please note that I’m (mostly) asking within the confines of a relatively simple text editor used to take notes with.
Honestly I never really got into using any of the terminal based editors- I like a pretty GUI, personally.
That being said I have been a KDE user for the last couple of years and actually have quite a favourable view on Kate. It’s a very competent editor with a great deal of extensibility.
The big difference between the two is their focus. Zed is written to be targeted at developers and as such has some capabilities that Kate doesn’t (afaik) like an AI assistant panel, handling multi megabyte text files with grace, and being able to directly connect to remote file systems over SSH.
If you’re not looking for those features I think you’d be very happy with Kate!
Geany(Its a lightweight GTK Based IDE)
Thank you!
Question: According to this table, Geany’s capabilities might leave some to desire when it comes to code/text folding. Is this correct? Or is the table simply outdated?
Yw and I think it’s up to date that list (i just looked at article last updater)
Thank you for confirming my suspicions. I took it for a test run and wasn’t able to replicate the above functionality either. Hopefully it’s an error on my side, but it’s very possible that I will not stick to Geany.
Did you try plugins but sure it’s fine
I have looked into plugins, but nothing I’ve found suggests to contain/offer the desired functionality.
ahh okay
Textadept!.
Sublime.
Thank you! Unfortunately, I’ve come to the understanding it’s not open source. So it’s unlikely I’ll go for it.
On windows: Notepad++. On Linux-based OS: Kate. And there’s also JetBrains Fleet, that is jetbrains answer to vscode.
Also notepad++ on wine on Linux … Not my favorite but it’s there
Yeah… but why? Kate is better in about every way. And while we’re on the topic, Kate is also available on the windows store, with a real Windows build.
Thank you!
I tested Notepad Next, which seems to be Notepad++’ cross-platform alternative. However, I wasn’t able to get the folding functionality on a Markdown file. Am I doing something wrong?
I’ve tried Kate since yesterday, it has been one of the better ones for now.
JetBrains Fleet seems like a cool project. But I’ll probably wait until it’s open sourced. Thanks anyways!
Kate is for Windows and Mac as well
SublimeText?
Looks cool. Thanks!
Uhmm…, did I understand correctly that it’s not open source?
Not op but no it’s not.
Thank you for the clarification!
While I didn’t mention it explicitly in the post, I do intend to stick to open source.
Sublime Text is not open-source but it has a sane price and a WinRAR-style trial. I use it because it feels a lot snappier than other editors/IDEs I’ve tried when browsing large files.
On the one hand, it’s a shame that it’s not open-source, but on the other hand, developers have to make a living from something.
I use it because it feels a lot snappier than other editors/IDEs I’ve tried when browsing large files.
Snappiness is definitely something I appreciate. So, if it blows everything else out of the water in this respect, that I might have to concede. Thank you for mentioning this particular aspect of it!
On the one hand, it’s a shame that it’s not open-source, but on the other hand, developers have to make a living from something.
I wholeheartedly agree. But, I prefer the capability to donate to the open-source software developers that I love to support.
I wholeheartedly agree. But, I prefer the capability to donate to the open-source software developers that I love to support.
Right indeed, not sure why it was implied that open source software couldn’t be a financially viable option for developers too.
Couldn’t agree more.
Btw, I would like to take this chance to thank you and @winety@lemmy.zip for the civil, respectful, engaging and informative conversation you were having elsewhere!
It’s definitely not faster than vim, fwiw.
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If I said I knew exactly what I was talking about, I’d be lying. But it’s generally accepted that funding of open-source is not in an ideal state.
On the one hand, it’s a shame that it’s not open-source, but on the other hand, developers have to make a living from something.
I’m pretty sure most people here, at least I hope, who use open source and free software directly money donate to developers. I know of plenty of developers who do get paid writing open source through such donations or via funding, e.g. NLNet or grants. Maybe I’m misunderstanding your statement, are you saying Sublime Text isn’t open source because they believe those ways are not appropriate for them?
I wrote a whole comment in which I mused about the reason why Sublime Text isn’t open-source. However, a brief search found one developer’s answer: They just don’t think that typical FOSS funding is sustainable for their particular project.
FWIW I’m donating every month to CodeMirror author, donates to Vim, etc. I’m not saying they are wrong, nor right, solely that implying (but maybe I misunderstood the comment) that somehow open-source and getting paid are antagonist is IMHO damaging to FLOSS broadly.
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I have to agree with the positivism surrounding Kate. It has been the only one (together with KDevelop) out of the 5 text editors I’ve installed and tested since yesterday that actually did what I desired from it. Props to the devs! Let’s see if it can dethrone Emacs 😜.
Emacs will always be abe to do things you can’t do with other editors. It’s a text based interface toolkit that happens to also have a good text editor and IDE capability. Buuut, you need to spend a lot of time to set things up. I use it since probably more than 20 years and I still often need to look up and learn stuff. If you want a tool and not a workshop, get a simpler editor.
I think you’ve done an excellent job at capturing my initial thoughts. It basically felt as if using Emacs was bound to be overkill as my (relatively simple) use case didn’t seem to warrant its usage.
But, even if it is (possibly) overkill, I do prefer[1] how Emacs handles the folding. So, while there’s the very real possibility that I’ll not even utilize 1% of Emacs’ potential, I feel most excited and (somehow) comfort while working with it 😅.
As for setting things up, I immediately started using Emacs through Spacemacs until the input lag became very noticeable on larger files. Then, I pivoted to Doom Emacs and I’ve been enjoying it so far. Perhaps I’ll create my own config at some point in the future, But for now, Doom Emacs is all I need.
Granted, I haven’t tried out Neovim for this yet. ↩︎
I remember something called lapce too
Edit 0: https://github.com/lapce/lapce
ED IS THE STANDARD EDITOR
If you’re not trolling, then I’d like to offer my apologies for assuming you were.
Perhaps I shouldn’t feed the trolls, but I couldn’t resist: does
edeven support the functionality demonstrated in the gif above? I’m asking this from a genuine position of ignorance.Honestly: Yeah, i was trolling (kind of), but:
I DO like to code via ED because the design and workflow of ED (or even better: Sam) makes folding unnecessary because you only put on the screen what is needed right at that moment. Want to see two functions 1000 lines apart? No problem, just print them right below each other on the screen.
Interesting insights. Much appreciated!
I DO like to code via ED because the design and workflow of ED (or even better: Sam) makes folding unnecessary because you only put on the screen what is needed right at that moment. Want to see two functions 1000 lines apart? No problem, just print them right below each other on the screen.
Hmm…, I suppose this is a workflow I’d have to try out for myself before drawing any conclusions. Though, I got some questions:
- Why
ed? Isn’t any other TUI/CLI text editor fit for the job? Apologies if I sound obtuse/obnoxious*. I’m probably just very ignorant of howedfares compared to the others. - Is there any currently maintained version of Sam? A quick search suggests that everyone packaged/grabbed it from this github repo. But, unfortunately, that one has been archived since earlier this year. I suppose I could look into the many forks it has, but I’d rather be picky 😅. Got any pointers for me?
Why ed? Well, it keeps my brain from rotting 😀 just half joking… i have noticed that whenever i use a somewhat more “user friendly” software my mind starts to wander off more easily and instead of being more focussed on the programming task i shortly after find myself doing… $THING instead of being productive. So, being the only jack-of-all-trades-computer-guy in a small-ish company i tend to chose the tools that work for me, even if they are a bit… anachronistic.
I think the best maintained version of Sam would be the one included in 9front (if you want some truely special experience) or if you want to stay (somewhat) in the realm of the sane you can use plan9port which also brings in many nice tools out of the Plan9 ecosystem.
Aight. This conversation has been much appreciated, thanks fam!
Perhaps I might have to give
eda go at some point if I find myself hacking more with elisp rather than outputting actual productive work. But, at least for now, this is (thankfully) not really a concern for mine 😜.As for Sam, I should either install a different OS (i.e. 9front) for the truely special experience. Or…, build it (myself) with plan9port. Did I get that right?
- Why
Will probably get airstriked for this, but Zed is also a option.
Also, if you’re using GNOME, then try GNOME builder. And if you’re using KDE, then try KDevelop or Kate.
i’ve heard that some people love using kate because, with some plugins, it really can do all most people need. i’ve seen a dude make a video on it but would need some time to find it again if there was any interest.
tbf, i love zed and using it for big stuff and neovim for basic scripts is the perfect balance for me
There’s got to be a Micro plug-in for this.
WAIT, if I’m reading this right, it’s had code folding since last year: https://github.com/zyedidia/micro/pull/2942
I’m gonna try this right nowThanks a lot for putting in the work! Uhmm…, how has testing been? Were you able to pull this off with Markdown?
I got distracted. At first glance, it seems that PR was for the groundworks, I haven’t been able to figure out how to actually do it. I’ll try again in a bit.
Ah xD, no problem fam! Please keep us updated :P .
Look at Helix and Zed.
Zed is the goat
Thanks for the recommendations! Helix doesn’t seem to offer this functionality (yet). Unfortunately…
As for Zed, it does seem to be capable of reproducing the functionality found in the gif (or at least to some extent). However, installing it on my distro isn’t pretty. Therefore, I wish to install it at some point, but I’ll wait it out for now.









