John Cox

I wish Someone Would Make...

If I had the time and energy to do some Open Source work right now there are two Firefox extensions that I would probably make to my life a little easier.

I wish I could just have a simple text editor with syntax highlighting. I've used EditPlus for years, and would love to give it up, but it does all that I need. If I could instead do my coding in a tab with Firefox, I'd do it in a heart beat. I don't need anything fancy like Eclipse, instead I want a simple text editor with the ability to write custom syntax highlighting. That's what makes me most productive when writing code.

The second thing that I would make if I had the time or energy would be an instance messenger extension for Firefox. Again, I could just have a tab open for a conversation instead of a separate application open. Firefox leaks enough memory, I don't need another draining from my system at the same time.

The third would be a simple Windows Exploder application that I could do all my Subversion work from. I don't mind doing it in Edit Plus, but if I could have another tab open with just my development environment, life would be grand.

I love the simplicity of just running one application and being able to do multiple things with it to make me more productive. I don't have to learn the quirks of other UI's, and instead can just focus on what I already know.

That's why I switched all my mail to GMail, including my corporate mail. Easier for me to integrate in my working day than having another application running. That's why I switched FTP clients. That's why I only use BlogLines for reading blog and news entries. It allows me to spend less time on my computer, and these days, that is a wonderful thing.

I do live a sheltered life, so these items could all be written and waiting for me to install. If so, please don't hesitate to let me know...