Tutorial Text Editor Setup for Reading/Writing/Modding/Editing Ren'Py

bas

retired
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Everybody has their own way of doing this, so here's mine. Would love anyone else to share their preferred setup as well.

Screenshot

2018-05-23 21_38_46- (Medium).png

Download Atom:
I use the text editor Atom. It's freeware and you can install Atom from here:

Out of the box, Atom is pretty rad, but with a few small customizations, you can optimize it for Ren'Py.

Install Ren'Py Language & Minimap Plugins:

The Ren'Py language plugin adds rules to color-code various features of Ren'Py code, and helpers when writing code.

The mini-map plugin is great for long files because you get a tiny preview in the far right of your screen and can quickly scroll to different areas of the rpy file.

After installing Atom, open Atom, goto file->settings->Install and seach for language-renpy and minimap and install them both. Open any rpy file and you'll see awesomeness.

You can click and hold in the minimap on the right to speed scroll.

Make Spellcheck Work:
This one is worth the price of admission by itself; integrated spellchecker.

To get spellcheck so it will work with the ren'py plugin - settings->packages-> type "spell" in the search box, click settings button on spell-check and add "source.renpy" in the Grammars box at the end.
 

the66

beware, the germans are cumming
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maybe i'm too old school, but i'm still using notepad++
unfortunately, there is no ren'py language support, so the built-in python support has to be enough
but you're right, atom is probably the future (although sometimes i have problems with the auto indentation feature there :()
 

bas

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maybe i'm too old school, but i'm still using notepad++
unfortunately, there is no ren'py language support, so the built-in python support has to be enough
but you're right, atom is probably the future (although sometimes i have problems with the auto indentation feature there :()
Yeah, it's always a pain with elif statements, but personally I can live with that for all the other stuff that works right :)
 
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anne O'nymous

I'm not grumpy, I'm just coded that way.
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Well, personally I prefer editPlus. It's not free but you can have the version 4.3 if you search here or there. Atom without the "github rulez the world" feeling.
This said, it's clearly a pure personal taste thing. As long as they have a customizable highlighting and auto-completion, and can react to the notion of block to hide/show them, mostly all editors are equal. It's the ergonomics which make the difference between one and another.
 

kondensator

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Jun 3, 2017
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maybe i'm too old school, but i'm still using notepad++
unfortunately, there is no ren'py language support, so the built-in python support has to be enough
but you're right, atom is probably the future (although sometimes i have problems with the auto indentation feature there :()
I am also using notepad++, its almost always sufficient ^^
 
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f95zoneuser463

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Aug 14, 2017
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Everybody defends his favorite text-editor with his life! :D
So here is what I 'claim' is the best:
The Atom editor looks very similar to Sublime ... I don't know what is going on here.
Sublime.png
  • syntax highlighting for Ren'Py works out of the box
  • minimap out of the box (not in screenshot)
  • under active development
  • tabs
  • view can be split into multiple parts without having multiple windows
  • spellcheck (F6)
  • can be used for free forever, only pops a nag screen sometimes when saving files
  • never crashed for me, using it for almost a year now
  • color themes, very important for night owls like me: a dark theme!, I use "Monokai"
The only thing that should be changed for Ren'Py is the use of spaces instead of tabs by default.
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Ooooobviously Sublime is the best!;)
 

FlipTopBin

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Dec 5, 2017
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I am trying to find an editor which will sensibly spell check my strings. Atom seems to be the best of the options given by renpy but it tries to spell check anything with an underscore in it (which all my image files have). Anybody know how to turn this off? Or even better, just get it to check words inside quotes?
 

tomcom

New Member
May 20, 2017
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maybe i'm too old school, but i'm still using notepad++
unfortunately, there is no ren'py language support, so the built-in python support has to be enough
but you're right, atom is probably the future (although sometimes i have problems with the auto indentation feature there :()
Might be a bit late but if anyone is still interested using Notepad++ for Ren'Py, do this: Download the attachment, extract it and copy the two .xml files into your %appdata% (AppData\Roaming\Notepad++) folder, then open Notepad++ go to Language and select RenPy.
For detailed info about this mod\plugin, read the creators (Psieye) post here:

View attachment Ren'Py.7z
 

Synamon

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Aug 21, 2017
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So where would I find the actual dialogues , I want to be able to edit what the characters say ? In let's say Summertime saga ?