Few months ago I’ve bought an Android tablet made by ASUS, together with the docking keyboard.
Until few days ago I didn’t use to much the keyboard, it is useless for browsing and games.
In one weekend I had to go outside of town (no internet) and I still wanted to code some simple PHP pages.
So I was looking for an editor, but looks like it was not easy to find someting convenient on google play store.
I’ve try few editors but non of them was what I wanted.
I was looking for at least two features:
- fast enough when editing
- syntax highlighting
Because I’m very comfortable with vim, in the end I just search on google play store for vim … et voila: there is VIM for Android.
It’s name is vim touch.
It has most of the features of the real VIM.
At least the syntax highlight , auto complete and all search features are in place.
I’ve made a screenshot of the vim touch application, to have an idea about what I’m talking about.
To make the user’s life easier there are shortcuts like “yy”, “pp”, “:w”, “:wq” alaready on your screen.
I had to admit that editing using the touch screen is slow, very slow (you have to switch a lot between alphanumeric chars and programming symbol).
But having a docking keyboard is like you are using a notebook, much easier.
Also the docking keyboard of ASUS Transformer TF101 has a built in battery which will extend(double) the autonomy of your tablet .
If you own a tablet for which there is no docking keyboard , then exists the possibility to use a bluetooth keyboard, and your vim will be fully functional and fast enough.
If you found some other good PHP/HTML editor for Android please leave a comment.