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Comment by jessepollak | Hacker News Reader

I tried switching to LightTable from SublimeText 2 a couple months ago for javascript development, but was too confused and eventually gave up.

That said, the feature set seems very intriguing and I'm tempted to give it another shot (especially with all this news).

Does anyone have any thoughts on (or know of someone who's written about) making the transition to Light Table?

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We relatively recently put up a full tutorial that should help you get going http://docs.lighttable.com/tutorials/full/ :) If you run into other issues our discussion list is pretty active and usually quite helpful: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/light-table-discussi...

This was my biggest issue getting started as well. The new tutorial and documentation is awesome, thanks!

Btw, on an iPad the scrolling of the docs is severely broken.

I think the key is to get used to hitting Ctrl+space to do everything. Pretty much everything that Light Table is capable of is through that interface.

Sure, similar to Sublime's Cmd+T choice. The problem I have though, is that in Sublime I really can use that for near everything- even opening new files. You don't have that same option with Light.

Why not? There's a `File: open file` command, and then there's the navigator to look through files that are in the workspace. You can also add files to the workspace from the command pane with `Workspace: add file` or `Workspace: add folder`.

Right, but none of those options are particularly fast.

In Sublime, if I want to open my Gemfile(at root), I just go

Cmd+T: Gem

And it's selected.

If I want to open my admin_controller, located inside of /app/controllers/, I use

Cmd+T: adm

And it's selected.

If I wanna do my Admin Controller test(spec) file, at /spec/controllers/admin_controller_spec.rb?

Cmd+T: adm sp

This is all a ton faster than what I'm seeing currenltly in Light Space, where I'm essentially forced to use my mouse, or OSX's poor keyboard controllers for open menu navigation.

If you'd prefer not to deal with workspaces, you can try the claire plugin [1], which is inspired by emacs ido-mode. It performs iterative fuzzy search over the entire FS.

(Disclaimer: I'm the author of claire)

[1] https://github.com/joshuafcole/claire

once you've added something to the workspace (just like in Sublime's "project") it's now available in the navigator. Press cmd-o type Gem

If I find I'm running the same command several times I map it to a shortcut key (very easy to do in LightTable). It doesn't take long before I hardly ever hit Ctrl+space.

I wish lt used the centred "pull-down" panel, like sublime, instead of a side panel. the side-panel feels somehow constricted and ruins the flow.

I had the same problem last time I tried LightTable. I'm going to give it another go though.

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