AutoHotkey Community

As a non-expert programmer (and with even less knowledge of pros/cos of different editors), I'd like to see editor sub-forums for most of the popular editors used in the AHK community. This would be massively helpful for relative newbies to see their options, and would make it easier (not necessarily 'easy') for the same to understand what each editor offers. I get the point made by others that the current editor sub-forums show editors written in AHK. But if I understand correctly being written in AHK is not a formal criteria for an editor sub-forum (and if it is, perhaps it shouldn't be)?

I've just started using VS Code and am thrilled with it. But I started with Scite4ahk and then tusseled with AHK Studio for a while. All the while not really knowing what VS Code was about. But I was prompted by a recent @Joe Glines trail (thank you) for an upcoming event exploring VS Code, to roll up my sleeves and take a look at VS Code ahead of this. Couldn't be more pleased. Should have started with VS Code way back when, but it looked so daunting (and still is!).

So, obviously , I'd like to see an editor sub-forum for VS Code. But also for any other popular editors that might be used in the community. Tho I totally get the point that too many sub-forums might be a problem. But, realstically, how many commonly-used editors are there (I might regret asking this )? Perhaps an editor-usage poll would be useful?

Thanks for reading.

From the AutoHotkey user survey we did earlier this year, here is what AutoHotkey people are using:
29.5% Notepad++
23.4% SciTE4AutoHotkey
15.4% AHK Studio
8.6% Visual Studio
6.3% Notepad
4.2% Sublime
0.9% Atom
0.7% TextPad
0.7% Vim
0.7% CodeQuickTester
0.5% PSPad
0.3% Eclipse
0.3% Notepad2-mod
0.2% UltraEdit
8.4% Other - Write In

A couple questions about the survey:

Was AutoGUI (which does have a sub-forum under Editors) not one of the listed choices? If not, it would be interesting to see how much the 8.4% from "Other - Write In" was for AutoGUI.

I assume #4 on the list is actually Visual Studio Code, not Visual Studio, which I doubt anywhere near that many people are using for AHK. Is that correct?

boiler wrote: ↑

16 Mar 2021, 12:11

Was AutoGUI (which does have a sub-forum under Editors) not one of the listed choices? If not, it would be interesting to see how much the 8.4% from "Other - Write In" was for AutoGUI.

No, AutoGUI was not listed. A total of 8 people (out of 622) wrote it in

boiler wrote: ↑

16 Mar 2021, 12:11

I assume #4 on the list is actually Visual Studio Code, not Visual Studio, which I doubt anywhere near that many people are using for AHK. Is that correct?

No, that's not correct. I don't change what is listed. 23 people either wrote in VS code or Visual Studio Code.

I guess survey participants might have interpreted the choice "Visual Studio" as either Visual Studio 2019 (the IDE) or Visual Studio Code (which started as a code editor, but is becoming IDE-ish and more) or both. Microsoft uses the umbrella term "Visual Studio" for both on this entry page https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/ . Visual Studio Code is by far the most popular code editor in the world. I hope it gets a subforum here.

Joe Glines wrote: ↑ No, that's not correct. I don't change what is listed. 23 people either wrote in VS code or Visual Studio Code.

Thanks for the reply.

neogna2 wrote: ↑ I guess survey participants might have interpreted the choice "Visual Studio" as either Visual Studio 2019 (the IDE) or Visual Studio Code (which started as a code editor, but is becoming IDE-ish and more) or both. Microsoft uses the umbrella term "Visual Studio" for both on this entry page https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/ . Visual Studio Code is by far the most popular code editor in the world.

I think it's likely that almost all of them meant Visual Studio Code. I would expect that almost no one actually uses Visual Studio (the IDE) for AHK, not even people like lexikos and Helgef who likely use it when they work on the C++ source code for AHK. I would think you could pretty much add the 23 people who wrote in Visual Studio Code/VS Code to the 8.6% (53 people?) that selected Visual Studio and conclude that around 12% of the people who responded use Visual Studio Code.

How should I add my vote to add Visual Studio Code as a sub-forum, please?

neogna2 wrote: ↑ I guess survey participants might have interpreted the choice "Visual Studio" as either Visual Studio 2019 (the IDE) or Visual Studio Code (which started as a code editor, but is becoming IDE-ish and more) or both.

Unfortunately there's just no way to know.

boiler wrote: ↑ I think it's likely that almost all of them meant Visual Studio Code.

That's a bold assumption. I worked in Market research for ~20 years and have a masters degree in Market Research. You'd be amazed as to what people use things for...

Now having said that what I can say is that because so many people wrote in VS code or Visual Studio Code, there's likely at least 2 times the number that didn't write it in. (I've done studies where we measured this so I have some data to back this claim)

Please understand these are different people than we first previously mentioned because you could only choose one option either a named editor or select "other" and write something in.

That’s all I could come up with since my degrees are only a bachelor’s in engineering and an MBA.


Seriously though, it speaks to the popularity of VS Code that as a write-in, it beat out most of those that were listed explicitly.

Interesting thoughts - so if we wanted to make a case for a new sub-forum for vscode, who to ask?

VS code is really powerful!

DaveT1 wrote: ↑

13 Apr 2021, 05:03

Interesting thoughts - so if we wanted to make a case for a new sub-forum for vscode, who to ask?

I suppose the main people to ask are @joedf and @tank as I believe they drove the discussion and decision-making when the Editors sub-forum and its sub-forums were being contemplated.

Even though I use VS Code almost exclusively (except for CodeQuickTester for testing quick scripts), I think I am fine with the current arrangement where we only have dedicated sub-forums for editors that were specifically created for (and written in) AHK. There aren't so many threads in the main section of the Editors sub-forum that it makes it hard to find the VS Code-specific threads and see when new ones are posted, in my opinion. And if you're going to create one for VS Code, then it would seem only logical to create one for Notepad++ since that is used by far more AHK users so far. Perhaps there is a good case to be made for only those two other editors getting their own dedicated sub-forums.

I don't see why not.

joedf wrote: ↑

22 Apr 2021, 22:32

I don't see why not.

Thanks joedf. If we (you?) are happy to create one for VS Code, then only seems fair to do same for Notepad++. Does that fit in with how you want this section structured (I don't want to tread on any toes here)?

I know nothing about how a forum works - so, if we do make new sub-forums, can / should existing threads about those editors be moved into the new forum(s)?

I'm fairly sure that just exposing these editors in this way will help users to see the choice available and better select one for their needs.

Thanks for chipping in on this.

Okay sure, I'll add them later today or this weekend... and attempt to manually move all relevant topics accordingly.

joedf wrote: ↑

23 Apr 2021, 11:49

Okay sure, I'll add them later today or this weekend... and attempt to manually move all relevant topics accordingly.

Woa, brilliant Thank you so much . (would really like to offer to help, but have no clue what I'm doing )

New Sections are done. Moving this topic to Forum Issues.

@joedf The new sub forums are great, but they aren’t showing up at the top level under 'Editors'.

Cheers

@TAC109 Good eye! Thanks, updated.

@joedf Thanks for fixing. I noticed another problem: 'Adventure IDE' doesn’t seem to link to anything.

Cheers