🚀 Hands-on with the Panic Nova beta

[adam]

Update 17/09/2020: It's out!

Nova

The beautiful, fast, flexible, native Mac code editor from Panic.

nova.app

Thrilled to finally get my hands dirty with the new Panic Nova beta, the successor to Coda 2.

Nova

The beautiful, fast, flexible, native Mac code editor from Panic.

panic.com

The first thing you notice is how fast it is. Absolutely lightning fast. It is very plain to see the improvements that come from native code for this type of program as opposed to an Electron powered app.

The next thing you notice is, it is beautiful! There are 4 colour schemes out of the box. Neon is very funky but I went for Palette.

Unlike Coda and more like more modern editors, it takes a window per project approach with a more prominent file browser in the sidebar.

The tabbed interface includes your open files, a more in-depth file browser (both local and remote servers available), and local/remote terminals. It appears to have dropped the MySQL GUI from Coda but this is no great loss.

There is also Git tools baked in but I have yet to play with these.

Projects can be created from local folders or from a huge number of external providers. I assume this is using the very popular Transmit engine under the hood.

Somewhere where Coda 2 was lacking was it's slim extensions library. Particularly when compared to something like VS Code. I really hope that this time will be different! The editor landscape is very different now but I trust Panic know what they are doing.

I am looking forward to trying out the build & deployment tools on my next project.

I don't want to review since it is just a Beta at the moment but I am very excited to see where it goes. I have only just scratched the surface of what it seems capable of.

I think it is polished enough to be my daily driver for now so I can help to identify any bugs or improvements in real world cases but I won't be removing Coda from my dock just yet. 😉

Update 19/02/2020 with some new screenshots!

File editor with preview & terminal

Extensions library

Git integration

 

[addy]

It's refreshing to see a dev tool written in something other than Electron. Is this only for macOS?

 

[adam]

It's refreshing to see a dev tool written in something other than Electron. Is this only for macOS?

Definitely! Yes it is macOS only (and likely always will be from Panic's track record). They do have a Coda app for iOS that is getting an overhaul apparently, so I guess this may come in line with the new Nova.

 

[Gummibeer]

So after all it's a sublime but not a full powered IDE replacement!? 🤔
The moment you get used to the possibilities of a jetbrains IDE - yes, until now it's the only one I know with this much features - you don't want/need to use the other dedicated tools. I only left phpstorm for chrome. Database, git, API testing, terminal, SFTP ... - everything neatly integrated in phpstorm with the needed integrations in my project.

 

[adam]

Several beta versions on and it's looking great! Extensions are being added now. Very happy to have Prettier support. Hoping Emmet is coming soon. Added some more screenshots to OP.

 

[Sharkie]

Several beta versions on and it's looking great! Extensions are being added now. Very happy to have Prettier support. Hoping Emmet is coming soon. Added some more screenshots to OP.

Oooo I haven't heard of this before, might have to give it a peek shortly!

 

[Mangini]

Thank you for the insider look at Nova! I don't know about you but Coda has been my exclusive code editor for over a decade (the first app I ever bought). Knowing how quality Panic's products are it should be easy transition though.

 

[adam]

Thank you for the insider look at Nova! I don't know about you but Coda has been exclusive code editor for over a decade (the first app I ever bought). Knowing how quality Panic's products are it should be easy transition though.

Yeah! Coda was the reason I pined after a Mac many many years ago and has been my daily driver ever since despite taking advice from others and temporarily cheating on it. Nothing came close – until the Nova beta invite arrived in my inbox that is. 😛

I was starting to get a little jealous of some of the features in VS Code where Coda was being left behind. But I am thoroughly satisfied now.

I have no idea on a release date, no indication from them yet as far as I can tell. I would guess a couple more months at least.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1228064364210446336

Feeling very blessed I was picked as one as the impatience would be tormenting me.

 

[adam]

Nova announces Click-to-Clone, demoing a Eleventy installation complete with in-built installation and task-running... Get an Eleventy site up and running in less than 30 seconds.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1235388967538708480

Exciting!

 

[VickiLanger]

That got integration is pretty. I find the one in VS Code lacking. It’s decent and it works, but the gui isn’t near as pretty

 

[adam]

Updated with Beta 11 yesterday, now with Emmet support. Still feels like they're a couple months from launch at least but I am using as my daily driver absolutely fine! Will be interesting to see what the price will be. They are doing a Sketch model (pay once for a year of updates).

Nothing seems to come close to Coda or Nova in terms of editing remote files. I much prefer to work on a remote VPS, keeps my computers clean, back-ups easier and more like prod to experiment. Faster than Docker at least, particularly where I work in the same env & stack almost all of the time.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1260643519422582784

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1261066621398822914

 

[adam]

Nova finally launches in just a few days!

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1303800397786619904

I managed to get in there early though. 😎

 

[Gummibeer]

But website still behind http basic auth 🤯😅🙈

PS: welcome back @Adam ! 😉🎉

 

[adam]

But website still behind http basic auth 🤯😅🙈

PS: welcome back @Adam ! 😉🎉

I may have been gifted with the username and password. 😄 A few more days to go for those not in the club.

PS. Thank you 🥳

 

[adam]

It's out! 🤩

Nova

The beautiful, fast, flexible, native Mac code editor from Panic.

nova.app

 

[Gummibeer]

@Adam would you say that it has a similar deep understanding of PHP like phpstorm?
I mean extension detection, min-version analysis and whatelse phpstorm does.

Or is it more comparable to VS code or sublime? 🤔

 

[adam]

@Adam would you say that it has a similar deep understanding of PHP like phpstorm?
I mean extension detection, min-version analysis and whatelse phpstorm does.

Or is it more comparable to VS code or sublime? 🤔

Definitely more in the VS Code league. No deep parsing of PHP like PHPStorm (yet, maybe an extension could help!) but more build and deployment tools than Sublime.

 

[Gummibeer]

Definitely more in the VS Code league. No deep parsing of PHP like PHPStorm (yet, maybe an extension could help!) but more build and deployment tools than Sublime.

Okay, thanks. So no new IDE for me.^^
Primary because it's more expensive than phpstorm. 😱
And a plugin won't really help. It's the same for VS code and sublime - you can't add the deep knowledge, parsing, analysing and detecting that phpstorm offers as a third party plugin. Most is based on first party things - otherwise the plugin would have to add all this, which would mean that you will pay another 100$ for the plugin. 😅
Not starting with the time and experience advantage jetbrains has in this field.^^

But if it's native it will be a pretty good VS code competitor! 🚀
The slow HTML/JS base was the killer for Atom - VS code seems better but nothing beats native. 💪