... yet ever so very, very briefly.
When it's at its best, Pulsar is so bright you gotta wear shades, it's that good. Its default theme (One Dark) is great, optional Dark One Dark is just gorgeous. Plain and simple project management, as-in collection of files. GUI is uncluttered. Editor split into two panes is joy to use, especially given that split panes aren't supported by many editors, or only in some hybrid form. Add to that a large selection of easy-to-install, easy-to-use plugins.
Things are getting dimmer from here on, I'm afraid. Plugins are mostly leftovers from Atom era, some fail to install, other do not work as intended. While plugin dependencies are handled when installing, they aren't when disabling. For instance, disabling autocomplete-plus also makes otherwise working autocomplete-python non-functional, without any visible clue; and even with "Output Debug Logs" on, I haven't been able to find error message in DevTools console, though it might be buried under the pile. Once installed, there is no telling what dependencies a certain plugin has. So, if I disable open-on-github what will stop working?
Plugin resolution is just by its name, name clashes are also not handled. For instance, if you search for "ctags", you'll find symbol-provider-ctags plugin made by savetheclocktower, with version 0.0.5, and no installs as of yet in package manager, and 55 on website. If you click on said plugin, both in editor and on website you'll encounter the same name plugin, but it'll be the one bundled with editor, made by pulsar-edit, and with version 1.0.0.
Pulsar's worst isn't any worse than any other editor, but leaves you blinded, and befuddled how people who took their time to put sublime "Ignore Whitespace On Current Line" option (in whitespace plugin) could also put fixed syntax highlight list into language-todo plugin. I know it's about managing one's expectations, and not every plugin is ready for prime time; but c'mon, it's not done in C, there are no worries if all strings are properly terminated, or if an array has enough space, lists and dicts are so very easy, settings are also already persisted.
There are other annoyances, too. One that almost made me rage-quit Pulsar is "Atomic Soft Tabs" (in Editor Settings); until I found the bugger I thought I was getting tab chars, even though I clearly set indents with spaces. Some annoyances are spillovers, terms from Mac. Keyboard shortcuts having +cmd; what's cmd key on a PC? Another one, tab size defaults to 2. Also, what's with tabulation choices, "soft", "hard", "Soft Tabs", and their interactions? If you have to explain them, maybe it's time to rename? Or, better yet, simplify; one reasonable way to handle tabs is in Geany, feel free to copy its design.
There are some idiosyncrasies, as well. What is buffer, and why it's exposed to end-user? Is it a file? What if a file is really large (e.g. 40+ MB), does the equivalence still holds? Is "Find in Buffer" always the same as "Find in File"? Maybe rename it if it is? Or, better yet, implement "Find/Replace in File" that works on files of all sizes, even if only portion of that file is loaded into a buffer?
Also, why "Max Screen Line Length" is even an option? Why very long line can't be displayed as such? Is there a limit scrollable pane can handle? Does it considerably slows down editor? If so, why its numeric field accepts 19-digit numbers? I'd prefer editor to show me the content of a file as-is, with no modifications, except UTC-8 ones.
I could continue rambling, as Pulsar has it's fair share of annoyances and idiosyncrasies; but all editors have, you can only choose which ones you hate the least. Most of Pulsar's annoyances can be solved, others are not relevant to me. In fact, taken just as an editor it's great, and I like it a lot. It's only when I try to hold it by its devs promises ("Hyper-Hackable Text Editor", "Packages make Pulsar do amazing things."), then it comes a bit short. I tried Code::Blocks, CodeLite, Kate, even return back to Geany; in short, it was like a trip down the very bumpy memory lane, all the way back to 90s.
So, the blinky star it is ...
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