CodeWright
Encyclopedia
CodeWright is a Windows Programmers Editing System for software developer
s originally marketed by Premia Corp. (Beaverton, Oregon) and developed by Premia co-founders Eric Johnson and Don Kinzer, initially released in 1991. Premia was acquired in April 2000 by Starbase Corp. which was itself acquired in January 2003 by Borland
.
CodeWright is considered easy to use by many developers and has powerful extension tools. The program can be configured to work with other integrated development environment
(IDE) systems, and synchronize with IDEs on the fly. Support for version control systems, compilers, error files is available.
It is possible to extend the editor using DLLs
.
CodeWright was a crossover product at a critical time in the history of Windows. The most popular editor for programmers at the time was Brief
, a DOS-only product that was considered the essential editor for programmers, due to its split-screen ability and extensive macro capability.
While Windows had extensive word processing capabilities, the kind of block character processing and programmer-oriented features were lacking in Windows editors, which were often considered toys compared to Brief. Since the makers of Brief were not moving to a Windows-based editor, that left it to other parties.
CodeWright was the first Windows editor that offered equivalent or better facilities as Brief, and would even emulate Brief. Additionally, CodeWright arrived at the same time as hardware graphics acceleration was arriving for Windows, removing at a stroke one of the biggest obstacles to the use of Windows, the slow redraw times that made quickly browsing through large code bases difficult or impossible in Windows.
Despite its wide initial popularity, CodeWright would be eclipsed rapidly by a growing number of IDEs available for Windows, which offered similar features as CodeWright, and typically were better integrated to the specific language at hand.
It also enables extending the IDE by writing CodeWright-specific API scripts, Visual Basic scripts and Perl scripts.
CodeWright was acquired by Embarcadero Technologies
as part CodeGear
from Borland in 2008. CodeWright is currently sold by Embarcadero Technologies.
Software developer
A software developer is a person concerned with facets of the software development process. Their work includes researching, designing, developing, and testing software. A software developer may take part in design, computer programming, or software project management...
s originally marketed by Premia Corp. (Beaverton, Oregon) and developed by Premia co-founders Eric Johnson and Don Kinzer, initially released in 1991. Premia was acquired in April 2000 by Starbase Corp. which was itself acquired in January 2003 by Borland
Borland
Borland Software Corporation is a software company first headquartered in Scotts Valley, California, Cupertino, California and finally Austin, Texas. It is now a Micro Focus subsidiary. It was founded in 1983 by Niels Jensen, Ole Henriksen, Mogens Glad and Philippe Kahn.-The 1980s:...
.
CodeWright is considered easy to use by many developers and has powerful extension tools. The program can be configured to work with other integrated development environment
Integrated development environment
An integrated development environment is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development...
(IDE) systems, and synchronize with IDEs on the fly. Support for version control systems, compilers, error files is available.
It is possible to extend the editor using DLLs
Dynamic-link library
Dynamic-link library , or DLL, is Microsoft's implementation of the shared library concept in the Microsoft Windows and OS/2 operating systems...
.
CodeWright was a crossover product at a critical time in the history of Windows. The most popular editor for programmers at the time was Brief
Brief (text editor)
BRIEF was a very popular programmer's text editor in the 1980s and early 1990s. It was designed and developed by UnderWare Inc, a company founded in Providence, Rhode Island by David Nanian and Michael Strickman, and was published by Solution Systems. UnderWare moved to Boston, Massachusetts in 1985...
, a DOS-only product that was considered the essential editor for programmers, due to its split-screen ability and extensive macro capability.
While Windows had extensive word processing capabilities, the kind of block character processing and programmer-oriented features were lacking in Windows editors, which were often considered toys compared to Brief. Since the makers of Brief were not moving to a Windows-based editor, that left it to other parties.
CodeWright was the first Windows editor that offered equivalent or better facilities as Brief, and would even emulate Brief. Additionally, CodeWright arrived at the same time as hardware graphics acceleration was arriving for Windows, removing at a stroke one of the biggest obstacles to the use of Windows, the slow redraw times that made quickly browsing through large code bases difficult or impossible in Windows.
Despite its wide initial popularity, CodeWright would be eclipsed rapidly by a growing number of IDEs available for Windows, which offered similar features as CodeWright, and typically were better integrated to the specific language at hand.
Features
CodeWright is project-based. Within your projects you can define and load everything. All features can be changed by the user. Such features are Syntax Highlighting, Code completion, but also make use of the Microsoft Visual Studio libraries (or .Net) and the Java Class Libraries.It also enables extending the IDE by writing CodeWright-specific API scripts, Visual Basic scripts and Perl scripts.
End of life
Borland is no longer renewing support contracts and is no longer engaging in new development.CodeWright was acquired by Embarcadero Technologies
Embarcadero Technologies
Embarcadero Technologies is an American computer software company that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services related to software through its various dynamic product divisions...
as part CodeGear
CodeGear
CodeGear is a wholly owned division of Embarcadero Technologies. CodeGear develops software development tools such as the Delphi IDE, the programming language Delphi, and the database server InterBase. Originally a division of Borland Software Corporation, it was launched on 14 November 2006...
from Borland in 2008. CodeWright is currently sold by Embarcadero Technologies.