XLr8Editor vs MVVS Editor

U2logic's XLr8Editor was developed 20-plus years ago and is part of the XLr8Tools family. XLr8Editor development has not been static. There have been about 400 updates throughout the years for the family of products. On average this means XLr8Editor has had about 20 to 24 updates a year.

When you compare that to MVVS Editor from Rocket Software which has about 4 to 6 per year that is quite a difference. When you talk about functionality, the real differences come into play between the two software products.

You can copy data/programs from any Universe to Universe, Unidata to Unidata, Universe to Unidata, or Unidata to Universe. The copying is about 10,000 records per second using built-in dataset technology in UniObjects for Java in XLr8 with no such capability in MVVS.

You can edit dictionaries in XLr8. You can edit the values individually or you can edit them in a grid. Nonetheless, inside the XLr8 Dictionary Editor, you can add indexes, remove indexes, create associations, and even export them as a Txt file to your workstation. There is no such capability in MVVS.

Let's take some known issues in MVVS and compare them to XLr8Editor:

1. The selected formatting alignment is not correct. XLr8Editor uses the AE program by default for formatting. There are no issues with it. BTW you can use your program as well in XLr8Editor
2. Extremely slow to include the U2MQI.H file for the parser. XLr8Editor uses the actual Universe or Unidata compiler and any parsing done is with EclipseIDE.
3. Variable names are displayed in breadcrumbs rather than function names in some cases. XLr8Editor uses standard Java libraries to create the outline of External Subroutines, Global Variables, and Labels.
4. Incorrect grammar tip for the SWAP function. XLr8Editor uses the actual Rocket Software documentation for each command.
5. Enhancement request to avoid adding a blank line to the end of BASIC source code. The XLr8Editor never adds anything you did not explicitly type.
6. Need support flavor 'r' and 'm' in task.json. XLr8Editor uses your $OPTIONS in Universe and $BASICTYPE in Unidata to handle your different compiling needs.
7. Compile BASIC programs will list out nonexistent BASIC programs. This is not an issue since XLr8Editor supports compiling as you type using the real compilers for Universe and Unidata.

Probably the biggest difference between XLr8Editor and MVVS is one is free and the other costs money. But you have to decide whether to want to wait months or years for the code editor in MVVS to be as good as XLr8Editor or do you want to pay for the best and have it today?