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pranavss11

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 29, 2007
360
0
San Jose
Hello. I am learning programming in School. (Java) and I find it tedious to boot into windows everytime I have to program. I was wondering, is Xcode as efficient as Textpad for java?

Information is appreciated.

Thank You.
 

HiRez

macrumors 603
Jan 6, 2004
6,265
2,630
Western US
Also check out TextWrangler, it is free and quite a powerful plain text processor with code highlighting. It's a good app for coding many languages with if you don't need a full IDE (I use it for editing some C, Python, and HTML). It gets the job done and is simple yet powerful, but it is a plain text processor, do not mistake it for an IDE of any kind.

Xcode works just "OK" for Java, although admittedly I have not been doing much Java dev for quite a few years. But, Xcode is definitely targeted to C-based development and specifically Objective-C and Cocoa. So it works but may not be the best choice, I would personally just stay away from Xcode for Java development. Apple's support for Java is pretty sketchy as well, and if anything is diminishing more and more each year.

You might look at something like Eclipse or NetBeans if you need a Java IDE. A lot of people also like IntelliJ IDEA, but it is not free.
 

HiRez

macrumors 603
Jan 6, 2004
6,265
2,630
Western US
TextWrangler dosen't indent. mmMmm
Huh? In what way do you mean?

Auto-Indent
When this option is selected, pressing the Return key in new windows automatically inserts spaces or tabs to indent the new line to the same level as the previous line. To temporarily invert the sense of the Auto Indent option while typing, hold down the Option key as you press the Return key.

Shift Left / Shift Right
These commands indent or outdent the selected text by one tab stop. If there is no selection, this command works on the current line. Hold down the Shift key while choosing these commands, to have TextWrangler indent or outdent the text by one space instead of one tab stop.

TextWrangler also entabs and detabs on the fly as you shift text. For example, if the selected text is indented one tab stop and you apply Shift Left One Space, the tab will be converted to spaces and the text will be outdented one space. If you then apply Shift Right One Space, the spaces will be converted back to a single tab.

Soft Wrapping with Indentation
You can control how TextWrangler indents soft wrapped text by means of the Soft Wrapped Line Indentation option in the Editing: General preference panel. Choose Flush Left to have all lines of each paragraph below the first wrap flush to the left margin of the window. Choose First Line to have all subsequent lines of a paragraph wrap to the same indent level as its first line. Choose Reverse to have all subsequent lines of each paragraph wrap indented one level deeper than its first line.
 
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