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Ask HN: Why can’t all text inputs act like code editors?

3 points by sbr464 ↗ HN
Am I the only one that tries to move lines, wrap parenthesis or use multiple cursors in web apps/forms out of habit? I feel like the world is missing out. From a UI:UX perspective would you appreciate if an app offered a setting to enable editor mode on all inputs?

1 comment

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db48x
Sure, if there were a magic wand we could wave then it'd be great. Instead someone has to spend years implementing these features. Implementing a good editor is surprisingly hard work; it could easily take a team of developers multiple years to write a new one. To make it an excellent editor would take years longer.

Instead we have addons like Edit with Emacs (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/edit-with-ema...). At once point there was an addon that swapped Firefox's normal editor for a GTK widget that wrapped all of emacs, but it was a bit janky and I haven't used it in a decade or more. I'm not even sure it would still work.