12 ms·

Buffereditor – Code and Text Editor for iPhone, iPad and iPad Pro

135 points by denisw 4y ago

lispm 4y ago
No Emacs commands?
kosolam 4y ago
No option to try before buy
- alin23 4y ago
  The App Store doesn't provide a native way to do trials. They have some convoluted process with a $0 in-app purchase. I'm a macOS and iOS developer myself and constantly struggling with adding trials for App Store apps in a way that's not confusing for users.
- falcolas 4y ago
  It's $5. Even if it sucks and I only ever used it once, it's $5. I spend way more than that on a book I know I'll only read once. Our sense of value is kinda skewed these days when it comes to app costs. Probably because so many folks believe that ad supported free apps should be the norm.
mrfusion 4y ago
I wrote a program on the iPhone once using Pythonista. It was a little slower to type but I found it kind of revolutionary. I started writing it on the couch while watching tv, then finished it lying in bed. It was just such a relaxed experience compared to sitting up straight at a desk and forcing myself to write. It’s hard to describe.
nafey 4y ago
Read this as "Buff Redditor" the first time
blurker 4y ago
I definitely read the title as "buff redditor"
iNic 4y ago
This is so good. Back in undergrad I had a setup with a powerful PC at home running Linux with jupyter notebook running. Then I could connect with my iPad from the university and get all the power. This makes me want to try that setup again!
rado 4y ago
I couldn't find a screenshot/video of the headline feature, “Preview on localhost”, is it just me?
osy 4y ago
Does it support searching regex expressions in all files in a directory as well as all open files?
uuyi 4y ago
I appreciate the effort that goes into these products but I find the market position weird. Case in point: by the time I add a keyboard case to my 11" iPad Pro, it weighs more than my MacBook Air does and it's not a lot smaller. I think I should just take the MacBook Air with me. That has the same CPU, storage and memory and I can run full stack on it fine. That is not to denigrate the usefulness of the iPad, which I run a big chunk of my life on, but editing text or code is one place it really doesn't add up. The killer app I find with my iPad is when you need pen input. For drawing, doing route planning in OS maps and general research and note taking it's an amazing little device.
- w4rh4wk5 4y ago
  Plus, your MacBook Air comes with a calculator.
  - AnonymousPlanet 4y ago
    FYI: You can do simple calculations in the Spotlight-like search prompt of the iPad.
  - uuyi 4y ago
    Yeah this one actually pisses me off about the iPad. The Mac calculator in RPN mode is my goto but on iOS, nope!
    - jonsen 4y ago
      I use this free and good RPN calculator app: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/42s-rpn-calculator/id301525577 https://apps.apple.com/no/app/42s-rpn-calculator/id301525577
      - uuyi 4y ago
        Yeah I've got that one (and a real 42s) :)
        4y ago
sjroot 4y ago
Another option people may want to consider is hosting a version of Code Server[1]. I do this with my iPad Pro and it has been incredibly convenient. I even have it configured so that ports can be routed to via my domain, meaning I can do web development with a local server on port 3000 and view it live at 3000.my.domain.tld. 1: https://github.com/coder/code-server https://github.com/coder/code-server
- robenkleene 4y ago
  Blink Shell also now has Code Server built-in https://docs.blink.sh/advanced/code https://docs.blink.sh/advanced/code
  - hobr 4y ago
    The VScode in Blink is editor-only, essentially what you get from https://vscode.dev https://vscode.dev. To actually compile/execute you'll need to connect it to something like Codespaces or code-server.
  - monkin 4y ago
    It’s not Code-Server, but actual VSCode with additional fixes for mobile backed in inside Blink itself. Which is extremely awesome, having this in mind you can connect to variety of services to start coding on the fly(Codespaces, Gitpod, etc.) without thinking about setting up VPS. Here’s more on that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCbhbCWA_G4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCbhbCWA_G4
  - jz10 4y ago
    Using Blink shell VSCode connected to a remote VM (for a working terminal) is quirky but absolutely amazing nonetheless
- gorbypark 4y ago
  GitHub Codespaces works decently well on an iPad as well. I had to send in my MacBook for a repair that took and week and I managed to use the iPad with a bluetooth keyboard and mouse fairly successfully. It was a web project, so that helped.
jfmc 4y ago
I do not understand why people can be happy with the artificial software barriers. I'm really happy with my Apple M1 but I'd never use it if I could not run Emacs and free software on it.
- celeritascelery 4y ago
  I feel the same. Until the iPad can run emacs it will always a “toy” device.
  - monkin 4y ago
    I’m probably from alternative universe, but I just managed to work and play with Doom Emacs on my iPad.
    - joeman1000 4y ago
      How did you do this?
      - celeritascelery 4y ago
        They are using an terminal app to ssh into another non-toy machine that is running doom Emacs. Not quite the same.
- quesera 4y ago
  Artificial software barriers are the norm, and often desirable. Cars, TVs, dishwashers, game consoles, etc etc. General purpose computers are the exception. While most people have never given it any thought at all, many of the rest of us absolutely do not want our phone to be a GPC.
  - ben-schaaf 4y ago
    Cars, dumb TVs, dishwashers, etc. aren't general purpose computer platforms. There's no market for running arbitrary software on them, nor do they contain a web-browser. Smart TVs, game consoles, phones and tablets on the other hand already are general purpose computers. It is possible for someone to run whatever they want on them, be it by jumping through all the hoops or just by hosting a website. These artificial software barriers exist purely as anti-consumer rent extraction; they don't limit the functionality of the device beyond putting a price on participation.
reeeeee 4y ago
I've been looking for a good code editor for my phone for a very long time already. This looks supernice, but I have an Android smartphone... Can anyone recommend a good IDE that runs on an Android phone?
- mynameismon 4y ago
  Termux is your best friend. It is basically a fully featured Linux shell on your Android phone.
  - reeeeee 4y ago
    I have termux to execute commands such as git, builds etc. But outside of vi, are there really IDEs for termux?
- pjmlp 4y ago
  Depends of what you're after, Pydroid 3, C# Shell and AIDE are okish.
- jpindar 4y ago
  I like DroidEdit.
yosito 4y ago
The marketing website totally sold me on it, but as soon as I opened the App Store and saw that it's only 3.9 stars I decided I don't really want to pay for it. The only reason I bother to start using apps under 4.1 stars is if I have no choice. 3.9 stars hints that there is a major problem with the app that the developers haven't addressed. Meanwhile, the similar app Textastic has 4.8 stars.
- yokoprime 4y ago
  Not sure if this is satire or not
- jonsen 4y ago
  On the Norwegian store it's got 4.3 stars.
- tobyhinloopen 4y ago
  In other words, you only support apps that bothered to pay for good reviews
- k8sToGo 4y ago
  Would it not be better to just read the low score reviews instead and decide then if those apply to you?
- alin23 4y ago
  My 4.8 star rcmd app (https://lowtechguys.com/rcmd https://lowtechguys.com/rcmd) had 1 stars on the Germany store for a long time, because one guy gave a 1-star "App is terrible. It isn't working." review. I responded as soon as I noticed the review (App Store doesn't notify me for some reason) and the reviewer never responded back. The issue was most likely on his side, because some keyboards send the wrong Command event (Left instead of Right) Screenshot (it has 4.3 stars now in Germany, thankfully because of other 5 star reviews): https://cln.sh/mmWPd8 https://cln.sh/mmWPd8 Just trying to say that you shouldn't put too much price on the reviews. A lot of the most vocal reviewers are those that don't understand what the app should do and give it 1-3 stars because they think they were robbed when the app doesn't do what they expected. They don't even know that they can ask for a refund within 14-days of the purchase and nothing is lost.
rwalle 4y ago
> Easily develop software, view code or take notes on the go "Develop software", which means writing code without the ability to run them, or the ability to compile multiple files as a "project", like all the other code editors on iOS? I stopped paying attention to these apps because of how App artificially limit what apps can do. Writing Java offline? Good, but you can compile one class at a time, and the possibility of importing another user package is thrown out of the window. This makes it only useful for absolute beginners. There are alternative approaches, e.g. using a web browser, online compilation (which is not too different from web browser) and using a terminal that happens to support JDK. I saw developers literally say "Don't write reviews to complain, we have to follow the rules" Which is sad because these devices as expensive as $1k are very powerful and have all the necessary APIs to make that work, it is only the app store rules that prevent the device from becoming a "real" computer
- rwalle 4y ago
  *Apple
- ramraj07 4y ago
  Used to be on android and it wasn’t that much better either. I love the GitHub app, and with good CICD I have made many PRs from my phone itself and let the GitHub actions tell me if I did something wrong (though creating PRs I need to open the website). If I can get a really good code editor integrated with GitHub I can totally see myself working half my day from the phone.
  - naikrovek 4y ago
    I don't think it's meant to work from a mobile device (iPad with keyboard and mouse is probably very acceptable) but pushing the period key on your keyboard while viewing a GitHub.com repo will give you a fully client-side vscode editor in the browser.
  - spicybright 4y ago
    That's a bit surprising actually. The play store kinda sucks but I generally can find more flexible apps on there than iOS store. I see a lot of people run an SSH client to a server in order to edit and run code. Is that an option for you?
emrah 4y ago
On Mac/iOS, Notes is hard to beat honestly. No I can't code in it, but I don't want to code on my phone and on my laptop I have other tools to code in, sorry..
- falcolas 4y ago
  I will agree that Notes is pretty awesome. But, and it's a big but, it's not at all portable across OS. This bit me recently as I had to switch to a PC for recording, and the sudden loss of access to all my notes was a bigger blow than I'd expected. I took that as a sign, and take notes with synced text and markdown files now.
  - msh 4y ago
    All your notes are available on icloud.com
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- emrah 4y ago
  No idea why this got voted down. The app in question is for Apple ecosystem, it's not cross-platform. In the Apple ecosystem, yeah, Notes is simple, capable and hard to beat
alexnewman 4y ago
I've been using vsts via a webpage using codespaces on my ipad combined with copilot. It's pretty amazing.
nafey 4y ago
Read this as Buff Redditor. Did a double take.
vmoore 4y ago
Maybe I could code on an iPad Pro, but definitely not an iPhone. The thought of coding on a phone is terrifying, unless you're one of those people who is super good at manipulating text on a phone. I'm not one of those people.
- 1123581321 4y ago
  Different preferences. Some people are in situations where they only have a phone and want to be able to do something. The app shouldn’t be restricted to iPad only due to lack of imagination. My friend wrote two(!) novels on his lunch breaks using an iPhone and a Bluetooth keyboard.
- jnovek 4y ago
  I’ve written short scripts on my phone using Pyto (https://pyto.app/ https://pyto.app/). It’s a bit of a hassle but if you just need to write ~15 lines or modify some copypasta it’s not too bad. The Pyto GUI feels sympathetic to phone users.
- favadi 4y ago
  I even struggle with typing short SMS messages. I can't imagine writing anything useful with a touchscreen keyboard.
itsdwit 4y ago
FR10 4y ago
Looks great, just a comment on the marketing screenshots. There seems to be an awful lot of "wasted" space in the editors. Maybe at least consider showing code that is a bit wider ? ~80 chars? (maybe HTML Code?) I feel like horizontal space is way more important on a 9.7" screen than on a 24" monitor.

135 points by denisw 4y ago

lispm 4y ago

No Emacs commands?

kosolam 4y ago

No option to try before buy

alin23 4y ago
The App Store doesn't provide a native way to do trials. They have some convoluted process with a $0 in-app purchase. I'm a macOS and iOS developer myself and constantly struggling with adding trials for App Store apps in a way that's not confusing for users.
falcolas 4y ago
It's $5. Even if it sucks and I only ever used it once, it's $5. I spend way more than that on a book I know I'll only read once. Our sense of value is kinda skewed these days when it comes to app costs. Probably because so many folks believe that ad supported free apps should be the norm.

mrfusion 4y ago

I wrote a program on the iPhone once using Pythonista. It was a little slower to type but I found it kind of revolutionary. I started writing it on the couch while watching tv, then finished it lying in bed. It was just such a relaxed experience compared to sitting up straight at a desk and forcing myself to write. It’s hard to describe.

nafey 4y ago

Read this as "Buff Redditor" the first time

blurker 4y ago

I definitely read the title as "buff redditor"

iNic 4y ago

This is so good. Back in undergrad I had a setup with a powerful PC at home running Linux with jupyter notebook running. Then I could connect with my iPad from the university and get all the power. This makes me want to try that setup again!

rado 4y ago

I couldn't find a screenshot/video of the headline feature, “Preview on localhost”, is it just me?

osy 4y ago

Does it support searching regex expressions in all files in a directory as well as all open files?

uuyi 4y ago

I appreciate the effort that goes into these products but I find the market position weird. Case in point: by the time I add a keyboard case to my 11" iPad Pro, it weighs more than my MacBook Air does and it's not a lot smaller. I think I should just take the MacBook Air with me. That has the same CPU, storage and memory and I can run full stack on it fine. That is not to denigrate the usefulness of the iPad, which I run a big chunk of my life on, but editing text or code is one place it really doesn't add up. The killer app I find with my iPad is when you need pen input. For drawing, doing route planning in OS maps and general research and note taking it's an amazing little device.

w4rh4wk5 4y ago
Plus, your MacBook Air comes with a calculator.
- AnonymousPlanet 4y ago
  FYI: You can do simple calculations in the Spotlight-like search prompt of the iPad.
- uuyi 4y ago
  Yeah this one actually pisses me off about the iPad. The Mac calculator in RPN mode is my goto but on iOS, nope!
  - jonsen 4y ago
    I use this free and good RPN calculator app: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/42s-rpn-calculator/id301525577 https://apps.apple.com/no/app/42s-rpn-calculator/id301525577
    - uuyi 4y ago
      Yeah I've got that one (and a real 42s) :)
      - 4y ago

sjroot 4y ago

Another option people may want to consider is hosting a version of Code Server[1]. I do this with my iPad Pro and it has been incredibly convenient. I even have it configured so that ports can be routed to via my domain, meaning I can do web development with a local server on port 3000 and view it live at 3000.my.domain.tld. 1: https://github.com/coder/code-server https://github.com/coder/code-server

robenkleene 4y ago
Blink Shell also now has Code Server built-in https://docs.blink.sh/advanced/code https://docs.blink.sh/advanced/code
- hobr 4y ago
  The VScode in Blink is editor-only, essentially what you get from https://vscode.dev https://vscode.dev. To actually compile/execute you'll need to connect it to something like Codespaces or code-server.
- monkin 4y ago
  It’s not Code-Server, but actual VSCode with additional fixes for mobile backed in inside Blink itself. Which is extremely awesome, having this in mind you can connect to variety of services to start coding on the fly(Codespaces, Gitpod, etc.) without thinking about setting up VPS. Here’s more on that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCbhbCWA_G4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCbhbCWA_G4
- jz10 4y ago
  Using Blink shell VSCode connected to a remote VM (for a working terminal) is quirky but absolutely amazing nonetheless
gorbypark 4y ago
GitHub Codespaces works decently well on an iPad as well. I had to send in my MacBook for a repair that took and week and I managed to use the iPad with a bluetooth keyboard and mouse fairly successfully. It was a web project, so that helped.

jfmc 4y ago

I do not understand why people can be happy with the artificial software barriers. I'm really happy with my Apple M1 but I'd never use it if I could not run Emacs and free software on it.

celeritascelery 4y ago
I feel the same. Until the iPad can run emacs it will always a “toy” device.
- monkin 4y ago
  I’m probably from alternative universe, but I just managed to work and play with Doom Emacs on my iPad.
  - joeman1000 4y ago
    How did you do this?
    - celeritascelery 4y ago
      They are using an terminal app to ssh into another non-toy machine that is running doom Emacs. Not quite the same.
quesera 4y ago
Artificial software barriers are the norm, and often desirable. Cars, TVs, dishwashers, game consoles, etc etc. General purpose computers are the exception. While most people have never given it any thought at all, many of the rest of us absolutely do not want our phone to be a GPC.
- ben-schaaf 4y ago
  Cars, dumb TVs, dishwashers, etc. aren't general purpose computer platforms. There's no market for running arbitrary software on them, nor do they contain a web-browser. Smart TVs, game consoles, phones and tablets on the other hand already are general purpose computers. It is possible for someone to run whatever they want on them, be it by jumping through all the hoops or just by hosting a website. These artificial software barriers exist purely as anti-consumer rent extraction; they don't limit the functionality of the device beyond putting a price on participation.

reeeeee 4y ago

I've been looking for a good code editor for my phone for a very long time already. This looks supernice, but I have an Android smartphone... Can anyone recommend a good IDE that runs on an Android phone?

mynameismon 4y ago
Termux is your best friend. It is basically a fully featured Linux shell on your Android phone.
- reeeeee 4y ago
  I have termux to execute commands such as git, builds etc. But outside of vi, are there really IDEs for termux?
pjmlp 4y ago
Depends of what you're after, Pydroid 3, C# Shell and AIDE are okish.
jpindar 4y ago
I like DroidEdit.

yosito 4y ago

The marketing website totally sold me on it, but as soon as I opened the App Store and saw that it's only 3.9 stars I decided I don't really want to pay for it. The only reason I bother to start using apps under 4.1 stars is if I have no choice. 3.9 stars hints that there is a major problem with the app that the developers haven't addressed. Meanwhile, the similar app Textastic has 4.8 stars.

yokoprime 4y ago
Not sure if this is satire or not
jonsen 4y ago
On the Norwegian store it's got 4.3 stars.
tobyhinloopen 4y ago
In other words, you only support apps that bothered to pay for good reviews
k8sToGo 4y ago
Would it not be better to just read the low score reviews instead and decide then if those apply to you?
alin23 4y ago
My 4.8 star rcmd app (https://lowtechguys.com/rcmd https://lowtechguys.com/rcmd) had 1 stars on the Germany store for a long time, because one guy gave a 1-star "App is terrible. It isn't working." review. I responded as soon as I noticed the review (App Store doesn't notify me for some reason) and the reviewer never responded back. The issue was most likely on his side, because some keyboards send the wrong Command event (Left instead of Right) Screenshot (it has 4.3 stars now in Germany, thankfully because of other 5 star reviews): https://cln.sh/mmWPd8 https://cln.sh/mmWPd8 Just trying to say that you shouldn't put too much price on the reviews. A lot of the most vocal reviewers are those that don't understand what the app should do and give it 1-3 stars because they think they were robbed when the app doesn't do what they expected. They don't even know that they can ask for a refund within 14-days of the purchase and nothing is lost.

rwalle 4y ago

> Easily develop software, view code or take notes on the go "Develop software", which means writing code without the ability to run them, or the ability to compile multiple files as a "project", like all the other code editors on iOS? I stopped paying attention to these apps because of how App artificially limit what apps can do. Writing Java offline? Good, but you can compile one class at a time, and the possibility of importing another user package is thrown out of the window. This makes it only useful for absolute beginners. There are alternative approaches, e.g. using a web browser, online compilation (which is not too different from web browser) and using a terminal that happens to support JDK. I saw developers literally say "Don't write reviews to complain, we have to follow the rules" Which is sad because these devices as expensive as $1k are very powerful and have all the necessary APIs to make that work, it is only the app store rules that prevent the device from becoming a "real" computer

rwalle 4y ago
*Apple
ramraj07 4y ago
Used to be on android and it wasn’t that much better either. I love the GitHub app, and with good CICD I have made many PRs from my phone itself and let the GitHub actions tell me if I did something wrong (though creating PRs I need to open the website). If I can get a really good code editor integrated with GitHub I can totally see myself working half my day from the phone.
- naikrovek 4y ago
  I don't think it's meant to work from a mobile device (iPad with keyboard and mouse is probably very acceptable) but pushing the period key on your keyboard while viewing a GitHub.com repo will give you a fully client-side vscode editor in the browser.
- spicybright 4y ago
  That's a bit surprising actually. The play store kinda sucks but I generally can find more flexible apps on there than iOS store. I see a lot of people run an SSH client to a server in order to edit and run code. Is that an option for you?

emrah 4y ago

On Mac/iOS, Notes is hard to beat honestly. No I can't code in it, but I don't want to code on my phone and on my laptop I have other tools to code in, sorry..

falcolas 4y ago
I will agree that Notes is pretty awesome. But, and it's a big but, it's not at all portable across OS. This bit me recently as I had to switch to a PC for recording, and the sudden loss of access to all my notes was a bigger blow than I'd expected. I took that as a sign, and take notes with synced text and markdown files now.
- msh 4y ago
  All your notes are available on icloud.com
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
emrah 4y ago
No idea why this got voted down. The app in question is for Apple ecosystem, it's not cross-platform. In the Apple ecosystem, yeah, Notes is simple, capable and hard to beat

alexnewman 4y ago

I've been using vsts via a webpage using codespaces on my ipad combined with copilot. It's pretty amazing.

nafey 4y ago

Read this as Buff Redditor. Did a double take.

vmoore 4y ago

Maybe I could code on an iPad Pro, but definitely not an iPhone. The thought of coding on a phone is terrifying, unless you're one of those people who is super good at manipulating text on a phone. I'm not one of those people.

1123581321 4y ago
Different preferences. Some people are in situations where they only have a phone and want to be able to do something. The app shouldn’t be restricted to iPad only due to lack of imagination. My friend wrote two(!) novels on his lunch breaks using an iPhone and a Bluetooth keyboard.
jnovek 4y ago
I’ve written short scripts on my phone using Pyto (https://pyto.app/ https://pyto.app/). It’s a bit of a hassle but if you just need to write ~15 lines or modify some copypasta it’s not too bad. The Pyto GUI feels sympathetic to phone users.
favadi 4y ago
I even struggle with typing short SMS messages. I can't imagine writing anything useful with a touchscreen keyboard.

itsdwit 4y ago

FR10 4y ago

Looks great, just a comment on the marketing screenshots. There seems to be an awful lot of "wasted" space in the editors. Maybe at least consider showing code that is a bit wider ? ~80 chars? (maybe HTML Code?) I feel like horizontal space is way more important on a 9.7" screen than on a 24" monitor.