Open External Editor

Summary

Godot's script editor is quite good, but if you're coming from Vim or Emacs, moving around can feel sluggish.

It's already possible to write scripts in an external editor, but there's no way to quickly switch back to the built-in editor (for, say, debugging) without opening the editor settings and disabling the external editor.

This plugin gives you the best of both worlds by adding a button to the top-right of the built-in script editor that opens the current script in your defined external editor. When you save the script, Godot will detect the change and automatically reload it.

Compatibility

Godot 3 (gd3) version tested in:
- v3.0.6
- v3.1.2
- v3.2.3
- v3.3.4
- v3.4.5
- v3.5.2
Godot 4 (gd4) version tested in:
- v4.0.1

Installation

As submodule

If you use git as your Version Control System (VCS), you can You can install this as a submodule of your project as follows.

# Godot 3
git submodule add -b gd3 \
    https://github.com/krayon/godot-addon-open-external-editor.git \
    addons/open-external-editor

This will check out the Godot 3 branch of the addon as a submodule of your repository, under your project's addons/ directory.

For Godot 4 it's the same but a different branch:

# Godot 4
git submodule add -b gd4 \
    https://github.com/krayon/godot-addon-open-external-editor.git \
    addons/open-external-editor

If you ever need to clone again you should do so using either:

# Clone and then initialise and checkout submodules automatically
git clone --recurse-submodules <YOUR_CLONE_ADDRESS_HERE>

or after cloning, manually initialise and checkout the submodule:

# Initialise and checkout submodules
git submodule init
git submodule update

From a downloaded archive

If instead you'd like to download an archive, you can do so from the Releases page. Make sure you select the right version!

Once downloaded, extract it under your project's addons directory, creating it first if needed. eg. In Linux, it would be something like this:

mkdir -p addons/; cd addons/
tar -zxvf <PATH_TO_DOWNLOADED_ARCHIVE>

Usage

Install this in your project's addons directory;
Open your "Editor Settings" -> "Text Editor" -> "External" settings dialog;
Ensure "Use External Editor" is unchecked for this addon to work;
Configure your "Exec Path" and "Exec Flags"; then
Click the button or press the keybinding to launch the external editor.

Configuration

Keybinding/Shortcut

By default, the shortcut is set to Ctrl+E but this can be changed at the top of the open_external_editor.gd script.

Exec Flags

Within "Exec Flags", the following strings will be replaced:

{file}
- The filename of the current file
{line}
- The line the cursor is currently on
{col}
- The column the cursor is currently on

Examples - gVim

Exec Path:  gvim
Exec Flags: "+call cursor({line}, {col})" {file}

Examples - Terminal Vim

Exec Path: [terminal]
Exec Flags: -e vim "+call cursor ({line}, {col})" {file}

Examples - Emacs

Exec Path: emacs
Exec Flags: +{line}:{col} {file}

Examples - Sublime Text (Windows)

Exec Path: C:\Program Files\Sublime Text 3\sublime_text
Exec Flags: {file}:{line}:{col}

History

This addon was originally by calviken however the repository (and their GitHub account) is now gone.

License

MIT - see LICENSE file.

Roadmap

Add to v3 Asset Library - (pending) Godot Asset Library entry
Add Godot 4 Support
Add to v4 Asset Library - (pending) Godot Asset Library entry
Add keybinding to editor (if possible) or project settings

krayon / godot-addon-open-external-editor