deskthority

wheybags wrote:I have mixed feelings about neovim...
On the one hand - yes it's nasty ancient c code, on the other - can you not just do all this as part of the main vim project?

No you can't. Bram Moolenaar, vim author & maintainer since day one, said on the vim mailing list that he rather wants "improvements to vim" than a refactoring. But very few people can actually read, understand and modify the vim codebase without breaking stuff. There are also some awesome, big patches for vim that never got accepted for some reasons.
The old code has tons of preprocessor directives and the code is spread over many files with sometimes cryptic names. There is also a lot of redundancy in the old codebase (data structures & functionality wise).

I think that forking vim and working on making it more maintainable was the right only way to do this.

Maybe we should start a thread on the best cross-platform software.

Hypersphere wrote:Maybe we should start a thread on the best cross-platform software.

Cross platform as in software for all different platforms, or just another thread for linuxland and another for mactopia? etc

Last (and first) time I saw the word "Mactopia" was at Microsoft's website, I kid you not, back in 2003 when I bought Office (now supports OS EX!). Also the last time I paid them a dime…

As long as the cross-platform software has a native Windows version it is relevant to this topic. No need to split it out of the conversation.

Some software that I use and appreciate because it is cross-platform includes the following:

Adobe Acrobat
Adobe Reader
ChemAxon suite
Cytoscape
Dropbox
Filezilla
Geneious
Ghostscript
Google Chrome
Google Drive
GraphPad Prism
ImageMagick
iTunes
JMP Pro
LibreOffice
Mathematica
Matlab
Maxima (and wxMaxima)
Mendeley
MOE
MS Office
OpenEye suite
POV-Ray
PyMOL
Python
Quicktime
R
Rstudio
VirtualBox
VMware
YASARA suite

Muirium wrote:That reminds me: Dropbox!

I use Notational Velocity for notes on OS X, but as text is text and Dropbox is Dropbox: my files are completely cross platform. Also use them via Nebulous Notes on iPad. Just as important to keeping me together as email now.

I use ResophNotes on Windows to sync with SimpleNote, which is great for its plain text-ness.

VirtualBox to run Debian

xauser wrote:VirtualBox to run Debian

this is cruel

That's true. You can actually install Debian as your primary OS even on the desktop if you are ready to make some compromises! It has been done before!

xauser wrote:VirtualBox to run Debian

+1 to this

A few of the Windows apps I'd struggle to do without are:

Xara Designer Pro. ($)
Interspector - Folding Editor ($) No longer sold!
Faststone Image Viewer. (free)
ShadeBlue Indigo Terminal. ($)
Free42 - HP42S Calculator. (Free)
FileZilla. (Free)

Plus lots of programming stuff!

Livestreamer - it is available for Windows, OS X, Linux and *BSD (plus some near-esoteric operating systems).

Livestreamer is a command line utility that allows you to stream content from major streaming sites (justin.tv, twitch.tv etc.) using your favourite video player instead of a buggy, laggy, resource hungry Flash player solution. It also lets you choose stream quality even if quality options are not present in the Flash version of the stream.

Also, annoying ads are absent altogether as you get the raw stream in your player.

long shot but... is there a decent shell for windows? (not that half-joke called powershell)

I remember someone recommending Git-bash some time ago, but I never got around to trying it.

In that case, try the ConsoleZ fork (see https://github.com/cbucher/console ) together with Git Bash: http://lostechies.com/jimmybogard/2010/ ... o-console/

ConsoleZ is a recommended terminal even for plain Command prompt or powershell, at least it supports unbounded scaling (for the other features, see its github page).

that's very interesting. thanks.

My top four Microsoft Windows software
- Notepad++
- IrfanView
- PDF XChange 4 Pro
- AutoHotkey

Speaking of shells: did anybody try Clink?

It's supposed to enhance the Command prompt with bash-like abilities, but I haven't really tried it together with ConsoleZ yet as it might not be so stable.

Daniel Beardsmore wrote:

Muirium wrote:No love for WinAMP?

I still use that sometimes on another computer. I guess I'm a bit ambivalent but foobar2000 is tastefully minimalist. foobar2000 lacks a raise/hide key binding unlike Winamp, so I've used AutoHotkey for that, but instead of hiding it, the window is left on the taskbar.

Actually, you're wrong on both counts (the lack of a generic raise/hide key binding, and the inability to hide to system tray rather than taskbar)! The thing which makes Foobar2000 wonderful is its customisability, and so it's not too surprising that both those tasks can be achieved without external software or plugins of any kind.

1 - adding a generic raise/hide key binding within Foobar

• Go to File -> Preference (ctrl - P)
  Navigate to Keyboard Shortcuts
  Click on Add New; the bottom frame should activate.
  Now either scroll down until you find, or type into the "Filter list by" frame, "Activate or Hide".
  Select Activate or Hide, then click on the Key frame at the bottom left.
  Enter a suitable key combination (preferably one not used by other applications, as you'll be making this shortcut global so that it works while foobar is out of focus)
  Click on the "Global hotkey" tickbox.
  Apply, and you're done!

2 - minimising to tray instead of taskbar

• Go to File -> Preference (ctrl - P)
  Navigate to Display -> Default User Interface
  Tick the "Minimize to notification area" option.
  Apply, and you're done!

With both of those carried out, you've a version of Foobar that minimises and pops out of the system tray using a hotkey, without having to use any software other than Foobar to do it.

Hope that's of some use!

On topic - for me, the programs I always install in a new build of Windows are Foobar2000 (which has been my favourite music player since about 2001/2002); 7Zip; and Sublime Text (even nicer than Notepad++, but less portable and will nag you if you don't pay for it).

And, you know, the Office suite because, frankly, there's still no other piece of spreadsheet software which can match Excel for sheer versatility in both working on and displaying data all in a single package, even if the VBA has to be brute-forced on occasion.

Sublime text is nice but not $70 nice.

I'd agree with that. It is 'ignore the nag screen that pops up every ten saves' nice, however

They day it drops to £20 or less is the day I'll happily pay for it.

File Commander for Windows. Cannot live in Windows without it...

I'm using FreeCommander, which looks much fancier but gives some of the same functionality. Love the two panes!

I actually use volumouse quite a lot!

What email client you people use?

I'd like something slim, fast and able to handle multiple accounts. Mailbird is very nice but it doesn't have an unified inbox. Thunderbird is a hog, anchored to 1995 concept of email

i never use software email client anything
usually i use gmail with old theme it's simple & user friendly

I want to get rid of gmail, but thanks anyway

i just know ymail, gmail, outlook(never used)
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photoshop
notepad

btw what torrent client do you use? i usually use microtronrent
i have azures and interested with tixati

Opera Mail is quite nice