Introduction
One and a half years ago I switched to the Sublime editor as my favourite code editor (or IDE). For Python I used to use mainly IntelliJ but always thought that it feels too sluggish, slow and consumes rather massive memory. Also, I don’t like its default key bindings (I know, everything can be set up here, too. But still…)
Furthermore, as I am a heavy gretl user, I came across Sublime as it’s relatively easy to write your own package for adding syntax support for a new language. My Sublime package named Hansl-Gretl-Language is the result of this experiment.
I have to say that I also like Microsoft’s open-source vscode software. It’s support for Julia and Python is great, and many useful packages exist for it, too.
But this brief blog is supposed to list a few Sublime packages which I really recommend, and don’t want to miss for daily work.
My recommendations
SideBarEnhancements
An absolute must-have is the “SideBarEnhancements” package.
It enhances the functionality of the sidebar. It makes creating, copying, deleting and finding files and folders much easier. It’s like adding functionalities of a good file explorer.
Terminus
A proper IDE needs – of course – access to a terminal. In connection with the z-shell nothing will stop you! I always have a separate pane with multiple terminals open to boost productivity. Terminus offers all you need.
BracketHighlighter
When coding you have to deal with many nested brackets such [], (), {}, “”, ‘’, , and even custom brackets. One easily gets lost with many brackets.
This package has a single task it properly fulfils: Alerting you if some bracket is not properly opened or closed. You definitely need this.
Origami
I love to work using multiple panes, and I really think a well-structured/ -orchestrated editor is fundamental to coding productivity. Apart from the side bar, my setting usually is:
| 2
1 | -
| 3
Hence, pane 1 occupies the left-hand half while panes 2 and 3 a vertically stacked.
Pandoc
I frequently work with markdown files which I need to convert into html or pdf files. Pandoc is a plugin that uses actual “Pandoc” to convert text from one markup format into another using just a few key strokes.
Pretty JSON
If you work with rather lengthy and nested json files, this package is for you. Just by a single key-stroke it re-formats a json file into a nice readable structure.
Rainbow csv
If you have to deal with csv files, this simple tool is pretty cool and useful. It colourizes each column of a csv file by a different colour to make it much more readable to you. I really love this package.
TodoReview
You might be also one of those people who add to-dos etc. to your code to highlight sections which need some additional refactoring or so. I frequently make use of #TODO and #FIXME flags.
If you have a large project with multiple files, one easily gets lost reminding or finding all the respective flags. The TodoReview package is your friend. It scans your whole project for #TODO, #FIXME or user-defined keywords, and spits out a nice summary in which file and at which line you find the respective flag. I find this really useful.
That’s it for the moment.