Editing Bluefish (software) (section)

== History of Bluefish in the early years of the Linux desktop ==
Bluefish was started by Chris Mazuc and Olivier Sessink in 1998 to facilitate web development professionals on Linux desktop platforms.<ref name="usalug">{{cite web |url=http://usalug.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=5302 |title=An interview with Oliver Sessink - Bluefish Developer |access-date=2024-05-03 |author=Dave Crouse |archive-date=2010-06-20 |publisher=USA Linux user group |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100620182148/http://usalug.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=5302 |url-status=dead }}</ref> In 1998 [[KDE|the K Desktop Environment]] 1.0 was released, and in 1999 [[GNOME|the Gnome desktop environment]] 1.0 was released, so this was in the early days of the Linux desktop.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://opensource.com/article/19/8/how-linux-desktop-grown |title=How the Linux desktop has grown |access-date = 2024-05-23 |website=opensource.com}}</ref> Bluefish was at the time one of the only web development focused editors on the Linux.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://linuxgazette.net/issue55/skjoldebrand.html |title=Bluefish HTML Editor |author=Martin Skjøldenrand |date=July 2000 |publisher=Linux Gazette |access-date=14 August 2024 }}</ref><ref name="enki-editor">{{cite web |url=https://enki-editor.org/bluefish/ |title=Bluefish / for perfect coding |author=Omara Howard |date=8 July 2021 |access-date=2024-08-15}}</ref> Linux, due to the [[LAMP (software bundle)|LAMP stack]] (first introduced in 1998<ref>{{Cite web |last=Kunze |first=Michael |date=December 1998 |title=LAMP: Freeware Web Publishing System with Database Support |url=http://www.heise.de/ct/english/98/12/230/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19990203093819/http://www.heise.de/ct/english/98/12/230/ |archive-date=1999-02-03 |access-date=2024-06-15 |website=c't}}</ref>), was becoming the most popular web hosting platform.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://tedium.co/2021/09/01/lamp-stack-php-mysql-apache-history/ |title=The LAMP stack history |author=Ernie Smith |date=2021-09-01}}</ref> Bluefish was quickly part of the major Linux distributions, such as [[Debian version history|Debian Potato]] (released in 2000),<ref>{{cite web |url=https://snapshot.debian.org/package/bluefish/0.3.5-1/ |title=bluefish-0.3.5-1 - snapshots.debian.org}}</ref> [[Knoppix| Knoppix 2.1]]<ref>{{cite mailing list |url=https://lists.debian.org/debian-knoppix/2001/09/msg00016.html |title=KNOPPIX Release V2.1-BETA-12-09-2001 |mailing-list=debian-knoppix |date=12 September 2001}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.zdnet.com/article/hands-on-with-knoppix-linux-7-2-0-a-well-established-and-very-stable-linux-distribution/ |title=Hands-on with Knoppix Linux |website=ZDNet}}</ref> (at the time the most important Linux Live distribution) and the first [[Fedora Linux|Fedora]] release.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/bluefish/releases |title=Releases - rpms/bluefish }}</ref> On the early Linux desktop Bluefish was the most important web editor.<ref name="debiandesktop">{{cite book |title=Debian GNU/Linux Desktop Survival Guide |author=Graham Williams |date=2007 |publisher=Togaware |isbn=978-0-9757109-1-3}}</ref> Various books about web development on Linux therefore cover the use of Bluefish. For example ''Practical PHP and MySQL'' by Ubuntu community manager [[Jono Bacon]] which even included a customized Ubuntu live CD with Bluefish as primary editor.<ref name="PracticalPHP"/><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.computerworld.com/article/1500846/review-practical-php-and-mysql.html |website=computerworld |title=Review: Practical PHP and MySQL |author=Sharon Machlis |date=25 January 2007}}</ref>

The development of Bluefish was initially inspired by two other editors: the configurable syntax scanning and highlighting was inspired by the [[Nirvana editor|NEdit]], but the user interface was inspired by [[Macromedia HomeSite|Homesite]] which was only available on windows. The work title for the application development in the very early stages was ''Thtml editor'', but this was considered too cryptic by the small development community; for a short time ''Prosite'' was used, but this was abandoned to avoid clashes with web-development companies already using that name.<ref name="bluefishhomepage">{{cite web|url= https://bluefish.openoffice.nl/development.html#history|title = Bluefish history|access-date = 2024-05-02}}</ref> Finally the name ''Bluefish'' was chosen after a logo (a child's drawing of a blue fish) was proposed on its mailing list.<ref name="usalug"/>

The 1.0.x branch was released in 2005, and included a new logo. The 1.0 release was featured on [[Slashdot]],<ref>{{cite web |url=https://linux.slashdot.org/story/05/01/13/1628238/bluefish-10-released |title=News for nerds, stuff that matters - Bluefish 1.0 Released |date=13 January 2005 |access-date = 2024-05-02 |website=Slashdot.org}}</ref> causing the slashdot effect on the Bluefish website. In 2005 a Bluefish fork of 1.3 was made to create Winefish, a [[LaTeX]] editor.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://github.com/viettug/winefish |title=Winefish |website=[[GitHub]] |access-date = 2024-05-02}}</ref> The 2.0.x branch<ref>{{cite mailing list|url=https://bluefish-dev.ems.narkive.com/oyJ4FAUJ/bluefish-2-0-0-released |title=Bluefish 2.0.0 released! |mailing-list=bluefish-dev |date=February 2010}}</ref> was a big rewrite, changing to the [[GTK|GTK-2]] GtkTextView widget and a new syntax scanning engine based on a [[deterministic finite automaton]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://oli4444.wordpress.com/2010/08/14/bluefish-editor-widget-design/ |title=Bluefish editor widget design |access-date = 2024-05-02 |author=Olivier Sessink|date=14 August 2010 }}</ref> The 2.2.x branch,<ref>{{cite mailing list|url=https://bluefish-dev.ems.narkive.com/B9WXDgFG/bluefish-2-2-0-source-code-released-please-help-with-binaries |title=Bluefish 2.2.0 source code released - please help with binaries |mailing-list=bluefish-dev |date=November 2011}}</ref> which is the current stable branch, supports both GTK-2 and GTK-3.

Although Bluefish is not an official part of [[GNOME|the Gnome desktop environment]], it is often considered so because it uses the GTK toolkit and integrates well in GNOME.<ref name="debiandesktop"/><ref>{{cite web |url=https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2007/09/gnome-2-20-review/ |title=Desktop deliverance: an overview of GNOME 2.20 |date=25 September 2007 |website=Ars Technica}}</ref>