Kate editor on all platforms

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Overall perception and use cases

  • Many commenters describe Kate as a surprisingly powerful yet lightweight text editor.
  • Common use: quick file-based editing, scripting, and small projects rather than full-blown IDE work.
  • Some see it as “the Notepad++ of KDE” or a more capable Notepad/TextEdit equivalent.
  • Sessions feature (saving/restoring sets of open files and layout) is called out as a major usability win.

Features and strengths

  • Praised for: multi‑cursor editing, strong search/replace (including multi-file), LSP support for pseudo‑IDE workflows, integrated terminal, CSV helpers (e.g., rainbow columns), and customization.
  • Line operations (remove empty/duplicate lines, duplicate lines) now exist and are discoverable via “Find Action”.
  • Syntax highlighting is considered excellent and easy to adapt to unusual languages/ISAs.
  • Performance: repeatedly described as very fast and snappy, with low latency; one dev briefly explains an efficient block-based text buffer design.

Cross‑platform availability

  • Widely appreciated that a historically KDE/Linux editor now runs on Windows, macOS, and BSD.
  • Windows builds are said to be fairly polished.
  • macOS builds: mixed experiences. Some praise recent stability; others report shortcut/keybinding mismatches, build complexity, and rough edges.
  • On OpenBSD, dependency set pulls in PulseAudio and speech packages due to text‑to‑speech, which some find heavy.

Comparisons to other tools

  • Positioned between simple editors (Notepad, TextEdit) and full IDEs (VSCode, JetBrains).
  • Favored by some over VSCode/BBEdit for being lighter and free of “surveillance/corporate” integrations.
  • Others still prefer Vim/Emacs or IDEs for advanced workflows, but keep Kate as a secondary editor.

KDE ecosystem context

  • Kate’s editor component is reused across KWrite, KDevelop, Kile, etc., tying into long‑standing KDE technologies like KParts.
  • Several nostalgic digressions: KDE 3.5, Konqueror, Amarok, k3b, and the evolution of KDE’s philosophy around configurability.

Criticisms and rough edges

  • macOS keybindings and shortcuts seen as non‑native and frustrating by some.
  • UX complaints: default start page, restoring many files, and Kate’s icon/theme choices.
  • Some dislike perceived visual convergence toward VSCode’s design.
  • SQL plugin is mentioned as under‑maintained; help is invited.