Code Editor by Panic

I’m not sure if Panic is still doing Coda Diet (Best app name ever) but I love this code editor. I’m a long time Coda user in the Mac (now using the brand new Nova) and Coda Diet had “saved my life” multiple times when I’m on the road with only my iPad or my iPhone. Coda Diet isn’t perfect but it is awesome 😊

Importing files from iCloud Drive is currently open. Really, Coda should interface with the new Files app, making that option unnecessary.

Love this company as a whole, I think they make fantastic applications for developers. Code Editor for iOS is no different, featuring that classic Panic polish, and an extremely intuitive interface that does not come at the expense of power and flexibility. Docking one star because of the current limitation on importing / mounting iCloud Drive. Hoping that feature can come to Code Editor sooner rather than later, and that I don’t have to wait until the eventual Nova for iOS drop. Though i will probably buy that day one :)

As of November 4, 2020, this app cannot handle files stored locally on an iPad. If you need to work with local files, buy Textastic for $10 instead of spending $25 on this app. Am looking forward to the day when Panic addresses this ridiculous shortcoming so my $25 won’t have been wasted.

As a WHM of a VPS, this tool gave me absolute control over my server. I can transfer files and jump right over to SSH.

After trying a number of development workflows on iPad, its clear that the folks at Panic fundamentally understand design. This editor enables me to do work in a fully-remote way that I’ve been unable to achieve with other editors (excluding tty editors, which I’m sick of). Clearly Code Editor hasn’t kept up with every new feature of iPadOS, but the promise of iPadOS Nova is on the horizon. And right now there still isn’t a better option for remote development (or even DevOps, which is what I’m using it for!)

The editor itself if great, but.... There is clearly some plan here with the file tools that I do not understand. Being able to sync credentials is cool but there are a number of services that do not work on the iPhone version. There is no obvious way to sync local updates with a a remote server / file store. I think that the file handling tools block access to the Apple Files app. Which now does a very good job of allowing access to nearly every sort of cloud based storage.

I truly don’t know how this isn’t a bigger issue for some. I bought this assuming that it had support for Git built in, and was shocked to find out it isn’t. Def seems like it hasn’t gotten a lot of love, but not really practical for my development purposes.

Panic Code Editor is a really great all-in-one app with SSH/SFTP and pretty good text editing with syntax highlighting. But in this age of the Magic Keyboard and trackpad support on iPadOS, it would be great for Panic to support the trackpad properly so that text selection isn’t finicky and other UI elements adjust. It’s barely usable as a text editor with the Magic Keyboard. Also, it would be great to have more streamlined Files app integration, like possibly allowing us to direct the “local” section of the file browser in the app to iCloud Drive or another folder in the Files app (similar to Transmit) ... not sure if the Files APIs allow that? Probably a more plausible solution would be to add an app-specific iCloud Drive or On My iPad directory that points to the local directory on Code Editor, so that we can transfer files there from the Files app, without having to manically transfer files one at a time. In general, I’m not a big fan of having to upload our files to an intermediate location before using them with the app, so any type of streamlined integration with the Files app/iCloud Drive/other services will be much appreciated. Also it would be great to be able to edit code that is located in the Files app directly without uploading to an intermediate location (like we currently can with remote servers). A few other grievances I have: - I would love to be able to open multiple instances of Code Editor in iPadOS multitasking. We can do Split View and Slide Over right now, but it would nice to be able to have many Code Editor “windows” open at a time. - Decompressing zip files that contain custom fonts (.ttf, .otf) has always given me an error (“Could not expand archive, an unknown error occurred.”), even though it appears to do the decompression just fine. - Please add native C++ syntax highlighting. Currently I have to use a workaround that involves directing .cpp and .cc files to use C syntax highlighting by default. Not as ideal as straight up C++ syntax highlighting. I know C++ is probably not a priority for web devs but some of us use this app for other projects! - Terminal sometimes has scaling issues where the text gets cut off. Usually occurs after using the app in Split View or Slide Over. - It would be nice to be able to browse and manage the “local” files without starting a remote session. - The Sites view is a big waste of space. Enlarging the icons does not preserve the custom icons we selected for each remote server, rather *every* icon is the same big white globe. This makes it hard to distinguish between different sites. It would be great if we can customize this or if it scales the icon we selected for the compact view. Additionally, list view looks like its more suited for an iPhone-sized screen, rather than an iPad. - In general, it would be great if more attention is paid to iPadOS and making the UI a bit more tailored to iPad (sidebars, pointer animations, redesigning Sites view, etc). - I think it might be time for the UI and overall look and feel to have some conformity with the HIGs and other modern Apple apps. It’s great to have some creativity from Panic but I wouldn’t cry if the design looked more like your generic SwiftUI app. But genuinely a great app and a superb utility for developers that like to add an iPad or iPhone to their workflow. Thanks!

TLDR; DON’T BUY THIS if you want to develop on iPad in 2020! With the advent of Catalina, the removal of iTunes, and the creation of the files app on iOS, the landscape of how files are managed has completely changed. Gone are the days of importing files through iTunes and “syncing” with a Mac. Thankfully, everyone has moved on... except the team behind this code editor. If you want to use this in any meaningful way, you probably want to connect to some other system. If you are a professional, it is likely you are familiar with PEM files and keys. However, Code Editor was designed with the paradigm that you should download your keys to a Mac, then import them through iTunes. This no longer works through the Catalina replacement in the finder. The problem is that Code Editor was designed to be TOO USER FRIENDLY! Instead of letting you browse for your key files, it makes assumptions about how iTunes used to import files. If those assumptions are not met, which they no longer can be, then you can’t import keys. Therefore you can’t work. But worst of all, when I contacted support, the tech simply replied, “Code Editor does not support the new iOS file system”. There are no plans to fix this. No apology. The money and time spent on this app is wasted for me, and anyone with business requirements to use keys to connect to their remote servers.