- Textastic for Mac
-
Ideas
+4
Large file support
The ability to open large files (files larger than the amount of available RAM) would be a very useful feature. Currently, Textastic seems to load the entire file into memory. This is fine until you want to view a 10 GB text file on Mac with 4 GB of RAM.
Large file support can be implemented using file memory-mapping, where only a portion of the file being viewed is loaded into memory:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory-mapped_file
Why would anyone want to view such large files? Anyone working with server log files. Run-away logs, or logs from high-volume servers can easily reach multiple gigabytes in size.
The only text editor that I know of that is able to open files larger than the available amount of memory is EditPad Pro, a Windows only editor. You can open a 10 GB text file in EditPad Pro, and it appears instantly in the editor, because only the part of the file being viewed is loaded. I miss EditPad Pro on the Mac, but I don't want to install a 20 GB Windows virtual machine just to open large files quickly on my Mac.
If Textastic supported large files, it would be a real differentiator from all the other text editors out there, and I think it would be especially useful on iOS, where the amount of available memory is relatively small. I hope that large file support will be considered for a future version of Textastic. If not, that's okay. Very few text editors have it anyway. (-:
Large file support can be implemented using file memory-mapping, where only a portion of the file being viewed is loaded into memory:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory-mapped_file
Why would anyone want to view such large files? Anyone working with server log files. Run-away logs, or logs from high-volume servers can easily reach multiple gigabytes in size.
The only text editor that I know of that is able to open files larger than the available amount of memory is EditPad Pro, a Windows only editor. You can open a 10 GB text file in EditPad Pro, and it appears instantly in the editor, because only the part of the file being viewed is loaded. I miss EditPad Pro on the Mac, but I don't want to install a 20 GB Windows virtual machine just to open large files quickly on my Mac.
If Textastic supported large files, it would be a real differentiator from all the other text editors out there, and I think it would be especially useful on iOS, where the amount of available memory is relatively small. I hope that large file support will be considered for a future version of Textastic. If not, that's okay. Very few text editors have it anyway. (-:
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