Ceci est une ancienne révision du document !
Pedram Pourang, who goes by the nickname Tsu Jan, is the developer of FeatherPad, a new Qt-based text editor for Linux. FeatherPad has been the default text editor for Lubuntu since it moved to the LXQt desktop with Lubuntu 18.10. Full Circle: How did you come by your nickname “Tsu Jan”? Tsu Jan: Quite casually. It wasn't related to programming at all. My old interest in Taoism and Zen Buddhism should have played an unconscious role. Users of my programs talked about “Tsu Jan's” works, so I didn't change it but included my real name in READMEs. I don't have a good recent photo… I guess my users imagine me with that pair of glasses and red hat in my avatar; I like that ;) FC: Where are you from? TJ: I'm Iranian.
Pedram Pourang, surnommé Tsu Jan, est le développeur de FeatherPad, un nouveau éditeur de Texte basé sur Qt, pour Linux. FeatherPad est l'éditeur de texte par défaut dans Lubuntu depuis qu'il a migré au bureau LXQt avec Lubuntu 18.10.
Full Circle : D'où vient votre surnom « Tsu Jan » ?
Tsu Jan : Tout simplement et sans aucun rapport à la programmation. Mon vieil intérêt pour le Taoisme et le Bouddhisme Zen devrait avoir joué un rôle inconscient. Les utilisateurs de mes programmes parlaient des œuvres de « Tsu Jan » ; aussi, je ne l'ai pas changé, mais ai mis mon vrai nom dans les README.
Je n'ai pas une bonne photo récente… Je pense que les utilisateurs m'imaginent avec les lunettes et le chapeau rouge de mon avatar ; J'aime cette idée ;)
FC : D'où êtes-vous ?
TJ : Je suis Iranien.
FC: What is your first language and other languages spoken? TJ: Native language: Persian. 2nd lang.: English. Other languages: German and French, but mostly for reading, not speaking. Favorite language: Esperanto. FC: Where did you learn to code? TJ: By myself. FC: What do you do for a living these days? TJ: Teaching mathematics and physics to high school and college students. Sometimes, translating from English or German too.
FC: How did you become interested in free software?
TJ: By using Linux. Who can use Linux and fail to see the high quality of open-source.
FC: Which Linux distro do you use for working?
TJ: Manjaro (for the past three years). Previously, Debian (for about eight years). Before it, Ubuntu (two years). Before it, Fedora (one year). I also tried OpenSUSE and liked it.
FC: What led you to start FeatherPad?
TJ: Each of the existing text editors had a problem I couldn't tolerate. Feature rich editors were too heavy, and sometimes lacked features of elementary editors. These things are partly about habits and tastes, I know. I had my preferences.
Anyhow, I made the first version of FeatherPad in GTK+-2.0 (the latest at that time). I wanted to share it after fixing its bugs and adding features to it, but GTK+-3.0 came out and I updated the code instead. Shortly after that, I tried Qt and found it much more flexible. Hence, rewriting it into C++ and Qt before sharing it.
FC: Who are your main collaborators on the project?
TJ: FeatherPad is developed by me. Users kindly help me by reporting issues, asking for features, sharing their great ideas and, sometimes, making good patches – especially for non-Linux OSes. Surely FeatherPad wouldn't be what it is without its users.
FC: FeatherPad is under rapid development these days, what can we expect in the future; any new features, such as spell-checking?
TJ: Yes. Recently I added regex search to it. I might add color customization later – for syntax highlighting. Have no plan for a spell-checker (don't want more dependencies), but who knows… (Note: Tsu Jan decided to incorporate spellchecking into FeatherPad in May 2019, using Hunspell. It should be included in the next public release, and that version included by default with Lubuntu 19.10, due out on 17 October 2019).
FC: What are your ultimate goals for FeatherPad?
TJ: When you reach an ultimate goal, by definition, you'll do nothing more. Developing a program like FeatherPad has no end. I'll continue making it better whenever I have time.
FC: What are your plans for the future?
TJ: Syntax color customization. It's a challenge because FeatherPad doesn't use any external library for syntax highlighting but does the job in its code, relying on specific colors. Users want color customization, but the code isn't ready for it yet. So, I'll have to make the needed changes at some point – but very carefully. It'll take time, especially if I find more desirable features to add ;)
Also, virtual desktop awareness and tab DND under Wayland. Unfortunately, it isn't possible yet, but I follow the rapid development of KWin's Wayland. KDE developers are doing a great job. If Wayland virtual desktop awareness starts to work with KWindowSystem, I'll use it. Many users mistake KWindowSystem for a KDE dependency but FeatherPad will remain desktop-agnostic.
FC: Anything you would like to add?
TJ: I hope more people use FeatherPad's latest git version, instead of its latest release. I don't release a version every time I fix or add something; so, git users' reports could be very helpful.
Tsu Jan’s FeatherPad github web page is https://github.com/tsujan/FeatherPad