Sublime Forum

Upcoming sublime test version

#1

Hello, can the upcoming sublime text be like visual studio code where it is deeply integrated with the system development software and in order to add necessary and fundamental features we wont need to add them via packages and they come by default with the software? i.e, the sidebar enhancements package which seems to be a must have package? Thanks!

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#2

That already exists, it’s called Package Control but in the interest of keeping Sublime lightweight by default, requires installing by the shortcut in the menus.

Once installed, you have access to all of Sublime’s plugins.

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#3

Yeah, I am well aware of packagecontrol.io and I was suggesting that sublime text should have functionalities & features like that out of the box. I totally agree with what you say about keeping it light weight but I can vote that I am totally in favour of introducing much more features & functionalities like that. Thanks!

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#4

Every person’s needs are different and I like how sublime is stoic in this regard — install what you need.

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#5

you are very true. I was just putting out my ideas on how it can be more awesome. I am getting these ideas from other IDEs like VS Code etc

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#6

@ahmad Your question is interesting so let me try to give you a proper explanation about the whole thing. When it comes to plugin-based software like in this case SublimeText, or plugin-based software like 3dsMax, Maya, Eclipse, VisualStudio, Adobe’s, Chrome, and so other existing zillions of them… Plugins themselves and plugins configuration should be considered user-data.

What do I mean by use-data? What you’ve claimed to be “fundamental” isn’t really “fundamental”… it’s just user-data. So the fact you want to force other users to use user-data is not nice at all (not just ST, talking about any kind of plugin-based software).

For instance, you say “Side bar enhacements” is fundamental… Personally I’ve tried that plugin few months ago and to me is not fundamental at all and I use my custom plugins so if I’d found it shipped as a “builtin” in the next ST release I’d get pissed off to be forced to use it :slight_smile:

Another different matter is when it comes to “builtin” plugins… what do I mean by this? For instance, frameworks like Eclipse allow you to build tools without loading any plugin at all but if you do it this way the software wouldn’t have any value for the user so very often the developers of tools that built on top of Eclipse will provide core plugins so the software will add some value.

But in that case we’re talking about plugins provided by “core” developers and not 3rd party plugin devs (ie: sidebar enhacement is a 3rd party plugin). When it comes to “core” developers plugins… they’re just plugins we the users need to live with… even if we don’t like it :confused: . For instance, as a user, I find 3dsmax loading many builtin plugins that I won’t use very often annoying but it’s something I need to live with cos there isn’t an easy way to avoid this without breaking max in many cases, so you need to live with this fact even if that way the software has become a really heavy software

That said, what you’re asking for is already feasible to achieve with the current SublimeText, for instance, right now what I do is having my user folder as a git repository (think of it as a backup), so if I upgrade Sublime and need to install my old good packages I’ll just copy my user folder with the latest ST and everything will be restored nicely. Here’s a little template of the User\Package Control.sublime-settings file:

{
    "auto_upgrade": false,
    "bootstrapped": true,
    "ignore_vcs_packages": true,
    "in_process_packages":
    [
    ],
    "installed_packages":
    [
            package1,
            package2,
            ...,
            pacakgeN
    ],
    "repositories":
    [
    ]
}

Make sure on the packages list you put all the packages you’re interested on. By using that file the next time you restart Sublime it will install all those packages.

Hope the whole long explanation makes sense, good question in any case as your concern was a very typical use-case and I see your point there :wink:

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