E Text Editor

E Text Editor is a text editor for Microsoft Windows. Its notable features include a personal revision control system; branched, multi-level, graphical undo; and the ability to run TextMate bundles through the use of Cygwin.

A Linux version is planned.^[1]

TextMate Bundle Support

A prominent element of the promotion and marketing of E is its ability to run many TextMate bundles directly from the MacroMates CVS repository. Because most bundle commands rely on Unix commands not typically available on Windows, E uses the Cygwin toolset. Bundle commands can therefore use Bash, Unix command line tools, or scripting languages like Ruby or Python. As of v1.1.121 beta, E bundle commands can be set to use the native Windows environment. This allows bundle commands access to non-Cygwin interpreters.

A key limitation is the use by many bundles of Mac OS specific commands or applications. These bundles often need porting ranging from minor changes to significant rewriting. Bundles which require Windows-specific changes can be saved in the bundle editor as Windows Cygwin or Windows native. Because bundle commands use the same plist XML format as TextMate, these Windows-specific changes are put in their own sections. This, in theory, allows the E community to contribute back changes to the central MacroMates repository.

Some bundles are included with E's base distributions. Additional bundle ports are available under the MIT License from the E Bundles Project.^[2]

E also supports text editing via FTP in the form of a plug-in called Remote Projects.^[3]

Open source spinoffs

E has also spawned an open source project called wxCocoaDialog.^[4] wxCocoaDialog is a Windows port of the Mac OS X CocoaDialog application. wxCocoaDialog provides a set of common GUI controls such as text input, progress bars, yes/no confirmations and more from within a command-line application.

wxCocoaDialog requires no knowledge of the underlying WxWidgets graphics toolkit. Many bundle commands in e and TextMate use (wx)CocoaDialog controls.

Source Release

On March 24, 2009 Alexander Stigsen, the creator of E Text Editor, released^[5] the source code of the software under a non-open source license he calls the "Open Company License". The license contains the normal clauses of a BSD-style license with an additional clause requiring that any derivatives must also include the licensing code which requires users to pay Stigsen for the software. Stigsen also indicated that while the Windows version would continue to be pay software, the Linux version would be licensed for free.

Discontinuation

The project was abandoned in 2011.

See also

• Comparison of text editors
• List of text editors

References