Thanks for a great app! I have some questions regarding regular expressions, though:

- Which regular expression engine does Textastic use?
- Where can I find the syntax spec?
- What is the right syntax for including captures in the replacement text?
- Can I use case modifiers like \U \L \u in the replacement text?

TIA for the answer which I hope end up in the FAQ/manual! (Is there a FAQ distinct from the manual?

It seems the tab width currently tops out at 8, but this is insufficient for certain programming languages. Assembly languages in particular can have instructions of more than 7 characters. That means the instruction arguments will no longer line up in a column making the code difficult to read. I use a tab width of 12 in those cases, though ideally, it would be possible to enter any width within reason

This is driving me crazy.
On my IPad Air, I edit files on a server using the document picker and Transmit (sftp connection). So far so good.
I have a second iPad where the same workflow doesn't work: I select the "Open.." Menu, then Transmit as file provider, the connection is established, I can browse the files on my server but when I want to open one (whatever the extension) I get the message "The plug-in returned an error. Could not connect to server xxx." Please note that the server detail are the same on both iPads as they are synced with Panic sync service.
Beyond the fact that an identical workflow works on the iPad Air (same versions of everything), the crazy part is that:
1. If I use a different file provider, e.g. Working Copy, it works
2. If I use a different text editor, e.g. Koder, it works.
3. If I offer the file to Textastic from Transmit, it works.

Of course I have tried to reboot the iPad, uninstall/install both apps, with no effect.
I also tried the same workflow on the iPhone: it doesn't work as well.

Has anyone any idea of what is going on? I found no info search for this problem on the web.

It'd be nice to have syntax highlighting for Makefile, but more important, if soft tabs are enabled Textastic should disable them if a Makefile is being edited (Makefiles must use tabs for indentation). Sublime Text does this and it's a life saver.

I have a large text file (consisting of HTML and JavaScript) which was created with Windows Notepad using Unicode UTF-8 encoding, and then uploaded to my Web server. Textastic downloads it (via FTP), resulting in a file on my iPad of the exact same size as the original. Textastic reports it correctly as having Unicode (UTF-8) Encoding, Windows (CRLF) Line Endings, and HTML Syntax Definition.

However, once I force Textastic to save the file (by modifying one character, for example), the resulting file is three bytes shorter than the original. Visual inspection of the befoure-and-after files (in Notepad) reveals no differences (same number of lines, with an apparent carriage return / line feed after the last line.

Why? What three bytes are being removed from the file?

Suggestion: modifiable themes. Or if you don’t want to bother with that, I have a suggested theme. Why? On my laptop, my editor is BBEdit, and my suggestion will reflect what I’m using there. The goal is to make things easier to find while editing, while remaining somewhat subtle, less garish. The theme I’m using in Textastic is “Mac Classic”, which comes close to my needs. Here’s a description of my ideal theme, for just HTML and CSS. Colors approximate, shown as HTML web-safe names.
HTML:
Text, code punctuation, failed code—black;
tag names (e.g., “<a” of “<a href.…”)—mediumblue (#0000cd)
tag value names (e.g., “href" of “<a href=”)—darkblue (#00008b)
quoted tag values (e.g., “120” of “<img height='120'”)—green (#008000)
unquoted tag values (e.g., “120” of “<img height=120”)—purple (#800080)
entity names (e.g., “&”)—maroon (#800000)
comments (e.g., “<!--…-->”)—darkgray (#a9a9a9)
text and comments—font-weight:normal; else—font-weight:bold;
CSS:
element name (e.g., “p” of “p{color:black}”)—mediumblue (#0000cd)
element value name (e.g., “color” of “p{color:black}”)—darkblue (#00008b)
quoted element value (e.g. “Helvetica Neue” of “p{font-family:'Helvetica Neue'…})—green (#008000)
unquoted element element value (e.g.,“black” of “p{color:black}”)—purple (#800080)
special values (e.g.,“#000” of p{color:#000}”)—maroon (#800000)
comments (e.g., “/*…*/”)—darkgray (#a9a9a9)
failed code (e.g.,“p color: black”)—black
comments—font-weight:normal; else—font-weight:bold

So that if a file has been changed elsewhere than Textastic App, automatically downloads the files modified (you can change that in the settings as well)