Exciting news for text freaks today, with the release of BBEdit 8.5, described by Bare Bones as a major upgrade.
Primary new features include a revised toolbar interface, new preferences window, code folding (at last!), replacing the old Glossary with a Clippings function, and a new icon.
I’m downloading the update as I type these words, and I’ll post some more detail later on when I’ve had the chance to explore the new stuff a little bit.
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I recently purchased TextMate, and have enjoyed the experience a fair amount, but I have never used BBEdit, and in the past all I really used was TextEdit (and before that SimpleText). I am a student in Computer Science, so I am just getting started in the world of real text editing, and I was wondering if anyone would care to provide a run down of the major text editors. Either the readers in the comments below, or maybe you could write an article on it Giles? Anyway, just thought I'd ask. Thanks all.
Woo-hoo! I love me some BBEdit. I was just thinking yesterday it was probably time for an update. Code folding and Ruby support are perfect. Thanks for the heads-up.
BBedit and TextMate are two big mac editors. Every mac comes with emacs and vi (vim actually) and you can download a graphical version of vim too. Vim and emacs have a higher learning curve but are incredibly powerful and extensible.
JEdit is a java based editor that is very nice. I found it slow to start up, but once running worked nicely. It supports tons of languages, folding etc. and it's free.
Alpha is a text editor built on top of tcl/tk. I haven't tried this since OS9 days, but even back then, it support smart clippings and just about every other feature you see in todays editors.
SlickEdit is a commercial editor available on many platforms including OS X.
Here's a site with a few more:
http://www.pure-mac.com/textword.html
The best advice I can give for editors is to try a bunch, pick one you like and learn everything you can about it. I tried this with vim many years ago and still find new things when I use it. I also like BBedit for many tasks because of it's ability to use placeholders/includes/ftp editing and some other cool features.
Have fun! cheers,
Zac,
Here's a few:
SubEthaEdit ($35USD) (my own preferred editor due to it's collaborative editing feature!): http://codingmonkeys.de/subethaedit/index.html
TextMate (€39 EURO): http://macromates.com/
TextWrangler (Free, baby brother to BBEdit): http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/
Eclipse (Free, open source): http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/
Smultron (Free): http://smultron.sourceforge.net/
skEdit ($25USD): http://www.skti.org/skEdit.php
jEdit (Free, open source, cross-platform): http://www.jedit.org
There's a few anyway!
BB calls it a major upgrade, but gives it "only" a .5 version number. Makes me wonder what they have in store for 9.0, then. ;) But for now, I think I'm falling in love with BBEdit all over again.
Don't forget the wonderful and free TextWrangler - BBEdits little brother. A great text editor and I use it all the time
I like the new features, especially folding, but performance is awful. bbedit no longer keeps up with my not very fast typing! That's a very big negative for me.