SN-EDIT v0.2 released

Initial version (v0.1)

It was more than one year ago at the beginning of 2019 when I’ve released the first version of sn-edit (v0.1).

The focus in the first version was to create a single binary app, that would allow you to use it with any editor and sync changes to the instance. This was more like a Proof of Concept.

After the intial release, as you can see this was not developed further. The initial version was very simple and worked with two tables, making that work with other settings would be not ideal and would take a lot more time. That is why I decided I would build it from scratch.

Motivation

You may say, that there are already a lot of other existing software of this kind out there, why build an another one? I will tell you, this one is different.

The motivation was to create a single binary, that would work on all the major platforms and would provide the same experience for all of them. Let the OS be MacOS, a Linux based one or Windows. The cli app works the same on all of them.

Existing projects are either made as a node module that you need to clone the repo of and install countless npm packages to make it work. Or you need to install a browser extension to leverage their full capacity. Also dependencies of npm packages might be removed, changed, broken or simply deprecated throughout the years. Many issues can come up later on and these projects need higher maintenance.

This cli app is compiled once and works the same, let it be year 2020 or 2025 and later. No external dependencies needed, no installing of packages required. You just install sn-edit with homebrew (MacOS, Linux) or simply download the exe and put it to your path (Windows) and you are ready to go.

The new generation (v0.2+)

While deciding to write sn-edit from scratch I also re-evaluated my approach. Instead of building one app with automatic syncing, I’ve built one that can be used by commands and flags as a CLI app.

The commands and flags are documented and this way it makes it easy for anyone to build an extension that would interact with sn-edit. Instead of making one extension for one editor (for example Visual Studio Code) the app allows you to make extensions for any editor/IDE out there.

This is what makes the app unique between all the other approaches. I also created a reference implementation of it for Visual Studio Code, since I am more familiar with Javascript than Java or other languages. The reference implementation is ready for use but also needs a lot of improvements. Keep the feedback coming and if any of you would like to maintain it, then please just let me know.

I would love to see plugins made for the IntelliJ product family too, so anyone knowledgeable enough with Java/Kotlin who want’s to take the challenge, then feel free!

Setup

For setup instructions follow the links at the end of the article. First you would need to install sn-edit by following the instructions in the Getting Started guide. Please check the steps for your OS.

To check if you were successfull in setting up sn-edit, you can always run for example the sn-edit --version command which should output you the version information if everything is working correctly.

After you did setup sn-edit, you will need to get a configuration file.

This configuration file can be generated at the official Config generator we’ve made. Please fill out all the details carefully. For most of the parameters there are also references to the Docs. Please read all of these in detail, otherwise you might end up with a bad configuration. After you are done, Download the configuration file.

You will likely work in some folder, based on the Root Directory you’ve set in the configuration file. Please create a folder called _config in that path and put the downloaded configuration file there. The config file has to be named .sn-edit.yaml per default (Note the dot in front).

After everything is set, you are now start developing.

Final notes

For setup instructions for the extension, please refer to the steps on the extension’s page. All feedback is welcome and appreciated.

Read more about sn-edit on the following links:

• Docs

• Config generator

• Github Organization