Folding editor
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A folding editor is a text editor that supports text folding or code folding. These allow the user to hide and reveal blocks of text – typically this is done to allow the user to better see the overall structure of a document or program.
The Macintosh computer historically had a number of source code editors that 'folded' portions of code via 'disclosure triangles'. The UserLand Software product Frontier was a popular scripting environment that had this capability.
Syntax-based or semantics-based folding is now a component of many commercial software development environments.
[edit] History
The first folding editor was probably STET, an editor written for the VM/CMS operating system in 1977 by Mike Cowlishaw. STET is a text editor (for documentation, programs, etc.) which folds files on the basis of blocks of lines; any block of lines can be folded and replaced by a name line (which in turn can be part of a block which itself can then be folded).
Folding editors appeared in the original occam IDE, called Inmos Transputer Development System.
[edit] Editors with folding capability
Many text editors provide folding capability. Among them are:
- EditPad Pro
- Emacs
- GridinSoft Notepad
- jEdit
- Kate
- Kwrite
- Notepad++
- RJ Text Editor (Screenshot)
- SciTE
- TextMate
- Vim
- Visual Studio
- XEDIT
- Zeus for Windows IDE
[edit] External links
- What is a folding editor? by the author of the
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editor. - Description of the folding editor used in occam.