What is Lime?

I love the Sublime Text editor. I have created several plugins to make it even better. One thing that scares me though is that it is not open sourced and the pace of nightly releases have recently been anything but nightly, even now that version 3 is out in Beta.

There was a period of about 6 months after the Sublime Text 2 "stable" version was released where pretty much nothing at all was communicated to the users about what to expect in the future, nor was there much support offered in the forums. People including myself were wondering if the product was dead and I personally wondered what would happen to all the bugs, crashes and annoyances that still existed in ST2. This lack of communication is a dealbreaker to me and I decided that I will not spend any more money on that product because of it.

As none of the other text editors I've tried come close to the love I had for Sublime Text, I decided I had to create my own.

The frontend(s) are not ready to replace your favourite editor, but the backend itself I believe isn't too far away.

Why create a clone?

Because I like the architecture of the extensibilities in the original editor.

Goals

• ☑ 100% Open source
• ☑ Compatible with Textmate color schemes (which is what ST is using)
• ☑ Compatible with Textmate syntax definitions (which again is what ST is using)
• ☐ Compatible with Textmate snippets
• ☑ Compatible with Sublime Text’s python plugin API. I’ll probably never implement this 100%, only the api bits I need for the plugins I use.
• ☑ Compatible with Sublime Text’s keybindings and settings (think most of it is working)
• ☐ Compatible with Sublime Text snippets
• ☐ Sublime Text’s Goto anything panel
• ☑ Multiple cursors
• ☑ Regression tests (Programming in Go makes it trivial and even fun to write them ;))
• ☐ Support for plugging in a custom parser for more advanced syntax highlighting.
• ☐ Terminal UI (Maybe I’ll work on a simple non-terminal UI at some point)
• ☐ Cross platform (It appears to be compiling and running on OSX and Linux last I tried, but needs further validation.)

Why can't I open up an issue?

Because I'm just a single person and I don't want to offer up my spare time doing support or dealing with feature requests that I don't care about myself. If you want a feature implemented or a bug fixed, fork it and implement it yourself and submit a pull request when you're happy with the implementation.

Isn't that exactly what you were complaining about earlier?

Sadly I have to add this section as people keep asking, and the answer is "not at all". If you really are wondering, perhaps that's a sign you need to educate yourself regarding the concepts of Free Software and Open Source.

I cannot fix issues in the original software due to it's closed nature and I'm thus dependant on the author of it acknowledging the existence of the issue and then have a dialogue with him until it is solved. When the author does not respond at all, this model breaks down and there is nothing at all I can do.

In contrast, as this project is 100% Open Source no one depends on me to fix anything and everyone can change exactly every single line of code that makes it up without my personal involvement.

Will you please open up the issues list? It'll make cooperation easier.

Well, why don't you fork it and open up the list in your fork? Why isn't any excuse you can think of to not do that valid for me also?

Just because I kicked this off doesn't mean I'd like to be the spider in the web managing it. I have after all not written much code for it since April 2013. If you'd like to ask if anyone else is working on something before you dig in, feel free to summon me via @quarnster, or you could just grab my email address from a commit via git log --author=quarnster -1.

Wait, you want people to summon you via @quarnster or email you? Isn't that the same as being the spider in the web and having an issues list?

Not even close. In my experience people actually doing any work and submitting pull requests fixing things can be counted using the fingers on one hand. There aren't enough fingers and toes to count the people who demand support, fixes and help, and like a zombie apocalypse the count just keeps growing.

If this project grows into a couple of collaborators willing to deal with the zombie apocalypse that's a different matter, but as long as I'm alone I'll be sitting in my tree fort with a shotgun.

Feel free to have an issues list open in your own fork or to host a support forum. Let me know and I'll put a link to it here.

Build instructions

Install required components

• Go 1.1
  • Follow the build instructions at tip.golang.org
• Python3
  • Python 3 must be compiled without sigaltstack enabled.
  • sudo apt-get install python3-dev # On Linux
  • brew install python3 # On Mac
• Oniguruma
  • sudo apt-get install libonig-dev # On Linux
  • brew install oniguruma # On Mac
• qt5 (Optional)
  • Follow the instructions at go-qt5

Download the needed repositories

go get code.google.com/p/log4go github.com/quarnster/parser github.com/quarnster/completion github.com/howeyc/fsnotify
git clone --recursive git@github.com:quarnster/lime.git $GOPATH/src/lime

Modify cgo.go settings

open $GOPATH/src/lime/3rdparty/libs/gopy/lib/cgo.go

Example of cgo.go settings on my Mac

package py

// #cgo CFLAGS: -I/usr/local/Cellar/python3/3.3.1/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/Current/include/python3.3m -I/usr/local/Cellar/python3/3.3.1/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/Current/include/python3.3m
// #cgo LDFLAGS: -L/usr/local/Cellar/python3/3.3.1/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/Current/lib/python3.3/config-3.3m -ldl -framework CoreFoundation -lpython3.3
// #cgo pkg-config: /usr/local/Cellar/libffi/3.0.13/lib/pkgconfig/libffi.pc
import "C"

Compile completion

cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/quarnster/completion/build
make

Compile lime

cd $GOPATH/src/lime/build
go run build.go

Done!

To use termbox frontend

cd ../frontend/termbox
go run main.go

To use qt5 frontend

cd ../frontend/qt5
go run main.go

License

The license of the project is the 2-clause BSD license:

Copyright (c) 2013 Fredrik Ehnbom
All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this
   list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice,
   this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation
   and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND
ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE
DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR
ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES
(INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES;
LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND
ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT
(INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS
SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.