Brent,

I know about The Journal, although I don't use it myself, I occasionally follow the blog of the author, who is an independent developer too (at http://joeindie.com/index.html). For some reason I can't fully explain, maybe it's the personal and sincere touch, I always find his posts interesting.

I have considered other ViEmus in the past, but unfortunately I can't really implement them. The effort to implement integration of my vi/vim emulation core with a new host app is huge (it took me 4 full-time months to implement ViEmu/Word&Outlook 1.0, plus all the enhancements it has required after that), and the actual potential audience is not very large. Vi/vim editing is a niche market, and this influences the economy of it all.

Thanks in any case for the suggestion, in case this balance changes in the future, and because I'm always happy to hear of what ViEmu / vi /vim users would like to see and use, as it can help with my strategic decisions.

Thanks and best regards,

  -- Jon

Not that I know of. There is a stock RichEdit control included with Windows, which many dialogs and apps use, but only if they are very basic. Other apps use a great variety of controls and components, based on different technologies (native COM, .NET, even Delphi!).

Furthermore, good integration requires quite a bit of intimate knowledge of not only the edit control, but also of the app. ":w", ":e" or even simple things like 'u' can become enormously complex if they are to be done well.

Nowadays, and after the Word & Outlook experience, I believe the only worthwhile investment is in widely popular IDEs. The demand is just not that big for other apps -- what could be more extended than Word and Outlook? And still, if I went back, I wouldn't have done the Word version. I'll maintain it, but it's just not worth the huge effort given the number of sales.

Of course, the cause might be that I'm making some other mistake, such as undermarketing or having a too steep price, but things are the same for the VS version too, and that one sells much better.

Sorry about the negativity, I wish things were different!

  -- Jon