Howl 0.2 Released

It’s been only a short while since the first 0.1 release, yet the 0.2 release of the Howl editor comes with a lot of improvements. It’s not a revolutionary release, in that it does not contain any major changes, but instead it contains many smaller fixes, features and improvements. The release is available for download here. The full changelog between 0.1 and 0.2 is included at the bottom of this page for your convenience, but here are some highlights for the 0.2 release:

Improved buffer-grep and buffer-structure commands

The buffer-grep and buffer-structure commands were present in 0.1 already, but they have been significantly improved. First off, they did not work well with larger files in 0.1 as the implementation was very naive. Thanks to Shalabh Chaturvedi, that’s no longer the case. Both commands are now about an order of magnitude or so faster than in 0.1. Shalabh also added the nice touch of providing live previews for these commands, allowing you to quickly step through matches and see the context:

Improved Readline experience

The Readline got some love in 0.2, with lots of smaller tweaks. For one, it does not resize as aggressively as it did in 0.1, where it would grow and shrink to fit the current content. The problem with that was it made it hard on the eyes, since you continually had to refocus as you filtered a list, e.g. when opening files. Starting with 0.2, it will now only grow in height during one Readline session. The Readline now also properly handles pasted input, which allows for pasting old commands. Somewhat related, the possibility to bind partial commands to keys have been improved, making it possible to bind non-complete commands such as:

howl.bindings.push { ctrl_shift_o = 'open ~/my/often-used/dir' }

The above binding would open up the command prompt and allow you to start selecting files from ~/my/often-used/dir.

A new clipboard module

The 0.1 release used the system clipboard. Starting with the 0.2 release, Howl keeps its own clipboard, which can be fully controlled and accessed via the API. An immediate benefit of this is that there’s now a history of previous clips, that can be referenced for pasting. The new editor-paste.. command (bound to ctrl_shift_v in the default keymap) allows you paste any previous clip from the clipboard:

The new clipboard automatically synchronizes with the system clipboard, so copy/paste to and from other application still works as expected.

New bundle for CoffeeScript

Howl previously had some basic support for CoffeeScript, which was limited to incomplete syntax highlighting. 0.2 includes a new CoffeeScript bundle with comprehensive syntax highlighting, indentation support, and structure support. And it also includes support for literate CoffeeScript!

Packaged for ArchLinux

Starting with 0.2, and courtesy of Bartłomiej Piotrowski, Howl is now available as a package in the Arch User Repository (AUR). You can install it using your AUR helper of choice, or by doing a manual install from AUR. As an example, using the packer helper you can install Howl by issuing:

$ sudo packer -S howl-editor

In closing..

The above are some highlights, but below you’ll find the complete Changelog detailing all changes since the 0.1 release in case you’re interested.

That’s all for this announcement, thanks for reading!

Full Changelog since 0.1

New and improved

• Avoid having the readline grow and shrink as much, which is annoying since it requires the eyes to move up and down. Now the readline will only grow during one read() invocation, and will keep the same fixed size regardless of the amount of items in the completion list.

• Added howl.clipboard, new module for handling multiple clipboard items. A new command, editor-paste.., was added as well that allows for pasting a selected clip from the clipboard.

• Added a new configuration variable, line_padding, which allows for setting extra padding for lines (issue #14)

• Removed fuzzy matching. It was noisy, and added little value.

• Added case boundary matching (e.g. ‘cc’ now match against ‘CreditCard’ and ‘camelCase’).

• Improved buffer-grep and buffer-structure commands:

  • They are now about an order of magnitude faster for large files (issue #7)
  • They now provide live previews by automatically showing the currently selected line in the buffer with the search highlighting (issue #15)

• open command: Completing a directory with / now changes directory automatically (issue #5).

• Better structure view for Python mode (issue #12)

• Scrolling is now remembered for buffers, in addition to the position that was previously remembered.

• Command key bindings can contain partial text, enabling bindings such as open /bin, which for the example would open the readline with the open command displaying the contents of /bin.

• Added a new config variable, completion_skip_auto_within, which allows for specifying a list of styles for which the completion list should not automatically pop up.

• save-as command now prompts before overwriting an existing file.

• References to home directory are now shortened to ‘~’ in the file prompt.

• HAML: Filters are sub lexed where possible (e.g. JavaScript)

• Added proper CoffeeScript support. Includes extensive lexing, indentation and structure support. Also supports literate CoffeeScript.

• Improve code block completions when the start and end delimiters are the same. E.g. /// for CoffeeScript, or fenced code blocks for Markdown.

VI bundle

• Fix pasting of line block yanks (i.e. //)
• Fix count handling for yank
• Fix to yank current line correctly
• Support ‘<’ and ‘>’ in visual mode
• New bindings: ‘H’, ‘L’, ’M'
• Pulled in upstream Scintilla patch for bug where the cursor could end up invisible when switching from insert to command

Bugs fixed

• Completion popup now closes upon entering a non-character (issue #9)

• Brace matching of braces before the cursor are now highlighted correctly (issue #16)

• Buffer grep fixed for buffers with empty lines

• Byte code compilation no longer requires a $DISPLAY

• Overly long lines in the readline caused horizontal scrolling (issue #8)

• buffer-replace command failed to handle empty replacement strings

• Boundary matching was not working correctly in all cases

• Pasting in the readline did not update completions (issue #6)

• Lib directory not found when binary was invoked without path (issue #17)

• Readline keeps focus, avoids weird state e.g. when clicking in an editor while in the readline (issue #23).

• Ruby: Avoid over-eager lexing of regexes

• HTML mode: Don’t lex strings within HTML content

• Flickering for Gtk+-3 versions 3.9.2 or greater was alleviated. It’s still pending a fully satisfactory fix however.

Command name changes

In order to streamline the naming of commands, the below commands have been renamed:

• toggle-fullscreen -> window-toggle-fullscreen

• toggle-maximized -> window-toggle-maximized

• reflow-paragraph -> editor-reflow-paragraph

• search-forward -> buffer-search-forward

• repeat-search -> buffer-repeat-search

• replace -> buffer-replace

• replace-pattern -> buffer-replace-pattern

• reload-buffer -> buffer-reload

• force-mode -> buffer-mode

• mode-set -> set-for-mode

• buffer-set -> set-for-buffer

• new-view-above -> view-new-above

• new-view-below -> view-new-below

• new-view-left-of -> view-new-left-of

• new-view-right-of -> view-new-right-of

In addition, the following alias has been deprecated:

• fill-paragraph (alias for editor-reflow-paragraph)

The old command names are still present and working, but are deprecated and will be removed in a future release.

API changes

• howl.fs.File is now at howl.io.File. The old path is deprecated and will be removed in future releases, but still works as of now.