Kate edit area spacing from containing border

[xennex81]

Hi, I'm just wondering.

Just checking out Kate -- it has been MANY years since I last had KDE running on my system(s). In recent years I have only sporadically used Ubuntu (Unity) and I am wishing to get a Debian server up and running ASAP.

So Kate seems to be an awesome editor with excellent features. But the one thing that immediately turns me off, is the spacing between the text or edit area, and the surrounding border.

That spacing is pretty much nonexistent. It helps to show line numbers, not that the spacing increases, but the distance between the blueish border line (and the text area) does because the line number area doesn't have a high contrast border with the text... just grey on white. The blueish line doesn't seem all that bad, maybe a little too much, but it does need some space to the text to not give some kind of claustrophobic feeling.

I've become kinda claustrophobic after having been confined to small spaces a few times .


But it doesn't seem to be possible to increase the distance at the top (for instance, most importantly) of the text to the blueish border line, at the first line.

Unless you add a white line at top, but that won't help when you're scrolling through larger files ;-).

Anyone know if this indeed not configurable? Seems to be the first thing anyone would want. At least, seems to be that way for me ;-).

Regards, X.

[Tom_ZeCat]

Hi, I'm just wondering.

Just checking out Kate -- it has been MANY years since I last had KDE running on my system(s). In recent years I have only sporadically used Ubuntu (Unity) and I am wishing to get a Debian server up and running ASAP.

So Kate seems to be an awesome editor with excellent features. But the one thing that immediately turns me off, is the spacing between the text or edit area, and the surrounding border.

That spacing is pretty much nonexistent. It helps to show line numbers, not that the spacing increases, but the distance between the blueish border line (and the text area) does because the line number area doesn't have a high contrast border with the text... just grey on white. The blueish line doesn't seem all that bad, maybe a little too much, but it does need some space to the text to not give some kind of claustrophobic feeling.

I've become kinda claustrophobic after having been confined to small spaces a few times .


But it doesn't seem to be possible to increase the distance at the top (for instance, most importantly) of the text to the blueish border line, at the first line.

Unless you add a white line at top, but that won't help when you're scrolling through larger files ;-).

Anyone know if this indeed not configurable? Seems to be the first thing anyone would want. At least, seems to be that way for me ;-).

Regards, X.

Try these settings changes:

Settings ==> Configure Kate ==> Appearance ==> Borders
uncheck: show folding markers

Settings menu:
uncheck status bar
Settings menu:
uncheck toolbar

Does that make it more to your liking?

Also: If for any reason Kate isn't quite for you, Gedit, despite being Gnome, works perfectly under Kubuntu, and probably any KDE distro. I prefer it because it allows me to open several docs at once in the same tabbed interface.

[claydoh]

Kate sure does have tabs, though depending on the version you may have to find and turn it on.

[Tom_ZeCat]

Kate sure does have tabs, though depending on the version you may have to find and turn it on.

Thanks for the tip. I just found and turned on Kate's tabs.

[woodsmoke]

I use it regularly to parse posts on Blackboard, of course the thousands of churls that type stuff on an original FOSS program........speak ChEEENESE vwerry politicallly incorrect of my post... chaaayyy teee anyeeone?

[xennex81]

It's not about it being to my liking or not, it is about it being ..a mental disturbance or not ;-).

I haven't checked it yet but I think I will do an install of plasma4 straight away in a few hours. Gedit is actually much worse from what I remember it from Ubuntu Unity recent version.

In the sense that.... ugly programs often cause my ability to work with optimal concentration to become less. It really bugs me, the things I need to do often become impossible without the right tools...

But I mean, Kate looks AWESOME. Most of KDE looks awesome in my view, compared to several ...euhm... maybe 10 years ago. And I think it looks better than Unity at this point.

That said, I don't really understand the activity thing, widgets are nice but usually a bit redundant or unnecessary. What is left is the start menu that doesn't respond to the Windows/Super key, and nothing else seems to respond to it either. That start menu is also not very elegantly spaced, much like Kate.

If I ever find myself in the position to do a bit of coding around it, I may try to find a way to adjust it and just to show others if they like it as well.....

Might be a little relaxing thing for me currently....

[Tom_ZeCat]

It's not about it being to my liking or not, it is about it being ..a mental disturbance or not ;-).

I haven't checked it yet but I think I will do an install of plasma4 straight away in a few hours. Gedit is actually much worse from what I remember it from Ubuntu Unity recent version.

In the sense that.... ugly programs often cause my ability to work with optimal concentration to become less. It really bugs me, the things I need to do often become impossible without the right tools...

But I mean, Kate looks AWESOME. Most of KDE looks awesome in my view, compared to several ...euhm... maybe 10 years ago. And I think it looks better than Unity at this point.

That said, I don't really understand the activity thing, widgets are nice but usually a bit redundant or unnecessary. What is left is the start menu that doesn't respond to the Windows/Super key, and nothing else seems to respond to it either. That start menu is also not very elegantly spaced, much like Kate.

If I ever find myself in the position to do a bit of coding around it, I may try to find a way to adjust it and just to show others if they like it as well.....

Might be a little relaxing thing for me currently....

There is another option, though it might sound ridiculous. There's Notepad under WINE. I use it when I know later on I might be using a Windows PC with the same files. If I create a document in Kate or Gedit and then open it in Notepad on a Windows PC, the formatting is all messed up. With Notepad/WINE, everything is in tact. That's my reason for using it. Your reason might be that Notepad has an ultra dirt simple interface with almost nothing on the screen. It's not one of those Windows apps that runs buggy under WINE. It's ultra stable. Nothing wrong with running a WINE app when it runs well. I have a few Windows apps I run regularly under WINE because they run so well.

There may be some other alternatives out there. I haven't searched because I'm generally happy with Kate, Gedit, and on rare occasions Notepad. I wonder if they've come out with a Linux version of Jarte. It's a Notepad replacer that does more. Its default setting has a bunch of crap on the screen, but it has a really good bare bones setting. ... I just googled Jarte -- no Linux version still. Bummer.

Another text program I really like is TextMaker, the word processor included in SoftMaker Office. However, it's really a full-fledged word processor. You can still remove all the toolbars for a bare-bones look, and it saves accurately in numerous formats. It's proprietary, but inexpensive. I got it on sale for $25. At one point they had a free version with less features -- not sure if they still do. I use it when I'm writing in German because it has some features for writing in that language that LibreOffice doesn't have (MS Office doesn't even have them). However, I've occasionally used it to make simple rtf files.

[xennex81]

Aye, the notepad of Windows (MS Windows) is excellent and always has been, except for the weird copy-paste behaviour for auto-wrapped lines.

You always have to unwrap the lines or it will copy linebreaks on the break points of the wraps in the window.... very disfunctional as far as I am concerned ;-).

The amount or number of times that I have been making mistakes (often to see in time, but often times too late for my message to already have been sent) is like perhaps at least 30-40 times that I've made that "mistake".

With this things it is not the mistake of the user. It is an illogical and inconsequential design choice that simply can't or cannot be learned, because it is not intuitive or logical to the human mind, or mind in general.

The whole idea of designing software, both structural and user interface style, is to comply with the demands of the human mind. Many artists in the software development field fail to grasp this essence, this theory. Many develop software that is so much lacking that I would say it doesn't exceed the 10% mark in being useful software design-wise or user-experience wise.

One of those is LibreOffice. I don't think it gets past 2% ;-).

I just wish ;-).

Notepad is just so "dirt simple" that there hasn't been a lot of room for making mistakes. On the other hand, Macintosh's "TextEdit" has been a miserable failure from my perspective. I have not once wanted to use it for something meaningful or relevant or fun or important.

An element so simple should get the most attention. It should amount to the thing that is the most well-developed thing in the entire system. It is so elementary that scarcely anyone can avoid using it, and hence, it should get the most amount of time in perfecting it. ;-----).

Buuuut... .I guess it is better than nothing and there is always a multitude or maybe even a platitude in different solutions. Everyone his own. Me my own that I cannot find often enough .

Regards,

[Tom_ZeCat]

Maybe dig through the repository or google for alternative text editing programs. I would be surprised if there weren't a bunch of them like there are so many Notepad-replacers in Windows. Given the nature of open source, it would not be too hard for someone to tinker with Kate's or Gedit's code to come up with something different, or even to write something from scratch. Or, as you say, roll up your sleeves and create something yourself.

Like you, I'm picky about certain things with my computing. I'm still irritated that the standard cursor diamond commands for moving around easily while keeping your fingers on the home row, popularized by WordStar, were junked as the standard. When I don't have those commands, I feel like I have one had tied behind my back. I've programmed as many of them as I can into LibreOffice Writer. SoftMaker Office has them built into their TextMaker application. All you have to do is turn them on. Kudos to them. That's the first time I've ever seen a major (at least in Germany they are) software developer catering to the needs of ex WordStar users. I also insist upon assigning a hotkey to my most-used applications, for example, Meta+W for LO Writer, Meta+T for TextMaker, Meta+K for Kate, Meta+G for GEdit, Ctrl+Alt+T for the Terminal (standard in Ubuntu, but not Kubuntu for some reason). If I'm on a PC without these quick and handy tools, it's frustrating.

I've never used the Mac text editor that you speak of. I've rarely worked on Macs, though that will soon change. I have plans to turn an extra netbook of mine into a Hackintosh, just for techno geeky thrills, not as a computer intended as a main work computer. I tend to be a bit of a computer cat lady.

Yep, MS Notepad does all kinds of weird, illogical crap with respect to line breaks. I only use it to throw plain text into with no need for any formatting or organized breaks. A typical text file for me might be a bunch of info on how to say things in French.

In any event, good luck in your search. If I come across anything, I'll holler.

Edit: As I suspected there are a lot of them. If you go into Muon Discover and search for text editor, numerous possibilities come up, including some progs called X2, GVim, TextEdit, and others. Maybe one will serve your better.

Now I'm curious enough to try installing a few of them ....

Edit 2: You might like the one named X2. It's got a very minimal frame around it. Looks good for a bare bones text editor.

[xennex81]

Yes I've grown more demanding over the years, but also because my (textual) skills have improved.

Not that today I am very good at expressing myself, which is to say that there is a lot to be expressed, which does not involve the things I most want or think I need to do .

I find myself in a very troublesome spot, really. At the same time, I am enjoying every part of it, it seems.

I am currently checking out Linux flavours I guess because I am intending to ... well do a lot more with Unix/Linux. Not only a little modification (down the line) of a Synology NAS and its system, but also many other things. For the first time really I am intending and I have the goals and dreams of creating a lot of software, to put it simply.

And I consider myself an A-class programmer. In the sense that, given a bit of .... ' mental stability ' ;-), don't look too far into that, there is no end to that you see .

I just consider myself a person who can achieve his dreams and goals. In the end, what you do is not a function or aspect of how good you are, but how well you know what you want and how well you are willing to make the choices -- all of them -- that will achieve those goals. What separates people from each other is not really ability or intelligence... but rather willingness.

Which is often a willingness to bleed, and to lose things you previously thought were important or invaluable.

Well, so while in the past my Linux interest was more of a toy and hobby thing, today it is more in the line of having and getting usable systems that I can do the things with that I want and need (in my perception, of course) to do.

But you can see all around you that design standards have gone up, especially after "Apple". Windows 98, for example, so to say, is no longer good enough.

KDE looks amazing. It is just that amazing looks are not always enough, which is to say... some people have great visual design and beautification skills.... but still they don't understand contrast in relation to the user experience. Like, I am typing this in a live session of Vivid alpha 2. So I mean Kubuntu 15.04. They further beautified the environment but the usability, in all honesty, has gone down the drain.... quite completely.

There is much too much contrast in all the wrong places, and the places that do need it, don't have it. The "task bar" is like grey, and the text on it is grey and it is a medium-dark grey but if you glaze your eyes a bit you cannot even read it anymore. Kate, by the way, more specifically, looks much worse than in Plasma 4 (14.10).

The start menu is pretty much unusable, even more so considering the fact that by default it is partly transparent (semi-transparent) causing text (such as this webpage/Firefox) beneath it to shine through, making everything pointless to even try to distinguish or read. I like the fact that, contrary to Unity, from what I've seen Unity doesn't show the *actual* program names. This KDE start menu at least shows both an 'descriptive title' and the name itself.

But, those actual names are then also barely readable.

I just tend to spend my time on improving things. That's the fun of life, right. Improving things might be creating new tools or new programs or new ideas or new colours or whatever. It can also mean or be about improving the toolset that you are using, whether that be tools by someone else, or your own.

And with open source, sometimes the distinction between those two categories or concepts starts to blur, and you can just improve *tools* without further qualification. And it is fun. I haven't had a lot of fun though because I haven't been able to do anything worthwhile lately except trying to beat the justice system with something .

And proving myself to be a valuable addition to the world of computer software is kinda one of those ways to beat it ;p.

Although I don't like proving myself. I like doing what I do and letting the results speak for themselves. Proving things is pointless.

[xennex81]

But I never really liked KDE. I was always more of a Gnome person. The most important reason was and is Qt. I don't like it being a commercial thing, and developing for-pay things with it requires (or required) the payment of royalties in one form or another. Perhaps that is long past, I do not know. But I just stuck to Gnome when I did use it. I like Unity but it is not all that great. I was reading some time about how some Canonical dev or perhaps it was just a chief UI team developer, how he was making like 'unilateral' or single-handed design choices in a dictatorial fashion, frustrating a lot of other devs and designers and it implied that he was just doing things on 'best feeling' without any sense of understanding or rationale that would really agree with other people, or what I would call truth.

A bit like how the MusicBrainz system refuses any sense of personal 'affection' to influence the naming standards and hence the database artist and album and track title naming styles. They have just agreed on a single standard, and people are not supposed or wanted to deviate from that norm. Because it is a collaborative thing, and these styles are all personal, and you can't really, or it is hard, to have your personal corner in that database that you can call your own and design your own styles around it or within it.

Of course, in the end design goals are an individualistic, or at least subjective choice about what you want with life and with the software and what you hope to achieve in terms of user contentment or perhaps a grander outline for how you want software to behave and to be used.

And those goals, and the priorities that result from them, which can be influenced by a lot of factors such as financial concerns, political motives, ego narratives or whatever - reputation interests - those goals and those priorities in the end decide how something is going to look and behave.

And those goals and priorities are subjective, but once they are determined the road to getting there should be an objective one.

I just think currently Vivid is more of a grand experiment in beauty rather than anything you'd want to use for feeling in control about your system and having the most elegant user experience possible.