For me, BBEdit is one of those applications that I just have too much time invested in. What it does is rather simple, and there are dozens of similar apps out there that accomplish the same thing. But having used BBEdit for so long, exclusively — it’s like an old baseball cap that fits just perfectly after years of wear. It’s just comfortable.
That said, I finally upgraded to version 8.0 and have found the single feature that made it worth the purchase: the Documents Drawer. Instead of having multiple windows (one for each file) scattered all over the desktop, they’re now contained in a single window. Toggling between or closing each file is handled in the new drawer that sticks off the side. This is good.
Now, I know what most of you are saying — this feature is in every other text editor out there. And it probably is. Nothing ground-breaking being introduced here. But if you’re a BBEdit user, there is reason for celebration.
I’m sure there are many other new features to be discovered, but this one makes it worth the upgrade alone.
BBBetter
Dribbble What are you working on? 
Instapaper Icon design 
Sass For Web Designers Paperback + eBook A Book Apart
CSS3 For Web Designers Paperback + eBook A Book Apart
Bulletproof Web Design Third Edition New Riders 
Handcrafted CSS Book and DVD New Riders 
Web Standards Solutions Special Edition Friends of Ed
79 Comments
Now what I’d like to find is a way to save a set of documents so that, later, I could have them all opened into a single window. While I was working on the slide show system, I spent easily a minute opening all the relevant files and then drag-consolidating them all into a single window. Am I missing something in the application that already does this?
I have seen, that many of you well known and respected designers are using such programs like BBedit.
I tried out the trial version some months ago, and i just couldn’t see the big thing there should actually be comfortable within it. (note: i’m actually using dreamweaver for code).
Can you tell me why i should spend my money on a such program (which should be much more professional than i.e. Dreamweaver) ? I would really appreciate a little advise.
Anyway, it does look nice i think.
Opening windows automatically in 1 window:
In prefs go to Documents and check Open in the Front Window under New & Opened Documents.
This doesn’t allow one to save a set (which would be a great feature) but you can highlight all the docs you wish to open and open them all at once :-)
Rune: Thats the beauty of BBEdit. It looks quite ordinary and thin at first glance, but if you give it some time and dig into the features, you will fall in love.
I made the move from DW about 2-3 years ago and never turned back.
I use skEdit to do my coding and web development and it’s an incredible text editor. It includes features to aid in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, ASP, Perl, Python, and ColdFusion. Saves me a lot of trips to php.net with it’s auto completion for functions (just as good if not better than dreamweaver). You get a document sidebar and it offers unlimited upgrades if you buy it. It’s so nice. Also, I find the coloring preferences for code much more useful than bbedit.
http://www.skti.org/skEdit.php
Rune, there is nothing wrong with Dreamweaver… just so long as you don’t use it’s code :)
I use DW on the pc just because I’ve been using it since version 2.0 (I’m always in code view though ;). DW is crap on the Mac in my opinion. It’s too sluggish, and it handles multiple windows poorly. I have BBedit8 for my powerbook, but haven’t used it very much. I like it just for the Documents Drawer, just like Dan mentions, the syntax highlighting and non-sluggishness also helps :) I’d use textpad over either of the two if it had syntax highlighting or handled multiple documents well. Anyone know of another program that’ll do that?
Eric, check out BBEdit’s File Group feature. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Admittedly BBEdit’s price has become quite steep over the past few years, and if it wasn’t for the upgrade pricing I don’t know if I could actually justify paying full price ($179.00).
BBEdit is an extremely powerful and expandable editor which also happens to be very stable. It supports many different progamming/scripting languages and is very scriptable. It’s also very fast.
Dreamweaver’s code view. while much improved in MX 2004, still doesn’t hold a candle to BBEdit’s speed, stability and expandability. BBEdit’s Find/Replace and support for regular expressions are light years ahead of Dreamweaver. On the other hand, DW has one or two features that BBEdit doesn’t such as tag auto-complete (which i find more annoying than helpful anyway).
The bottom line is really what you’ll be using an editor for. if it’s strictly XHTML/CSS/Javascript one could argue that BBEdit is overkill and that Dreamweaver’s code editor is up to the task. There are also a handful of new text editors that look very promising from both a feature and price perspective. Here are a few to consider:
Smultron
Tag
skEdit
Jedit
There’s one thing I haven’t figured out in BBEdit 8, the keyboard shortcut (or how to define it) for cycling through the various documents currently open in the side drawer. Cycling between separate windows is possible, but when the documents are in the same drawer… no idea.
I’ve been a happy user of BBEdit for many years, and I like the new features in BBEdit 8, but I’m somewhat dissapointed that these two issues have not been addressed:
1. Search window is non-modal. If the search window is open, you can’t switch back to our document window.
2. BBEdit captures whatever you last searched for in Safari, and puts it into the search in BBEdit – overwriting what was there previously. Apparently this is Apple’s fault, but it’s been a problem in BBEdit since version 7
Anybody else annoyed by these things?
I’m just not clear on why BBEdit costs so freaking much… $180 for a text editor? SubEthaEdit seems to do many similar things and is either free or $35, depending on how you’ll use it.
So… what’s worth the extra $145? Or in my case as a student, $180?
What, no VIM fans here?
David: It looks beautiful. It really does.
The only things i am actually using dreamweaver for is the easy ftp connect and the accessibility with managing documents. It looks like BBEdit is much better, though the price is still my worst fear if i should ever think of buying it.
And, i have actually not thought about the fact that my application is PC. I must admit that i like the Mac, and i had actually forgot there was no versions for PC available.
What would your suggest for PC editing programs be? (if anyone is using a PC though).
Now, if only we could get a keyboard shortcut for Save As…
Life would be grand.
Ah, disregard my previous comment. Just noticed how to set that.
Eric,
John Gruber of Daring Fireball fame offers a solution to your problem here.
– Denny
You should just use Vim and get it over with ;]
TextPad is my editor of choice on the Windows side of things. It has a lot of power, and you can customize it with additional syntax definitions and clip libraries (which are offered as free downloads from the TextPad site). I have used it for years and recommend it highly. I compiled a few useful Clip Libraries myself, which anyone is free to use.
I agree with Kevin Hale – skEdit is the best out there. I’m a DW user, have been forever, but I continually gravitate to the speed and simplicity of skEdit. It’s beautiful. Drawer, FTP, Code hinting, great code coloring options. Great tool. And inexpensive!
I read Daring Fireball but have been using AppleScript to automate BBEdit for a while now. You can simple record any process any way you like it, go back and edit the script (without knowing a thing about AppleScript as it’s quite intuitive), stop recording, save and then you have a menu item in BBEdit to open the works. The single window/drawer option is a pref but if it’s chosen everything opens into that system.
Now, if BareBones would just put tags in a drawer I’d be happy. Pallets are just not my thing.
All of that said, for posting to a weblog, even with custom code, MarsEdit from Ranchero is quite good.
Colin: In the View menu, there are two new commands for cycling through documents within the front window: Next/Previous Document.
I don’t remember if there are default keyboard shortcuts for these commands; I changed mine to Ctrl-[ and Ctrl-] using the Set Menu Keys dialog.
Pretty soon there will be new competition for BBEdit in the form of TextMate. Neither the site nor the app are finished yet but TextMate looks to have a pretty decent feature set. You can sign up for release notification here.
“What, no VIM fans here?”
I’ll never understand UNIX people’s fetish for text-mode editors. BBEdit is, in its own inimitable way, one of the most Mac-like programs out there. emacs and vi (but especially emacs) are quite possibly the least.
“BBEdit is…one of the most Mac-like programs out there”
I don’t know what “Mac-like” means, much less what it has to do with choice of editor. Unix types like vi and emacs for the simple reasons that they are *extremely* powerful, ubiquitous, and free.
Bottom line though is: use what you like.
BTW, while emacs might not seem very “Mac-like”, some parts of OS X are very “emacs-like”. Try using CTRL-a, CTRL-e, or CTRL-t in Mail.app sometime. :)
bbedit is a fine app, I even remember when it was bundeled with dreamweaver :)
Just make sure you get the replacment icon from john hicks
http://www.hicksdesign.co.uk/journal/564/bare-bones-means-comic-sans
more sexy indeed!
HI everybody,
what I’ve read here and my own experience is, that DW losts more and more his place for creating sites (XHTML, CSS, PHP) because he is slower than any text/html editor out there.
I use DW only for 10% of my work, and then most time as a “word for internet jobs” (Replacing text, some table stuff…)
Are there many guys arround that uses DW for css/xhtml Layouts?
My 2 Cents
Rene
If you want to see your project files at a glance, you should should definitely take a look at Backdrop Folders.
Rene,
I use it all the time, or bbedit, depends on if i want to do alot of visaul stuff. I have no issues with it, i have an ibook g4 1.2 gig of ram.
I am looking at making the switch from XP to OSX in the next coming weeks and I have been using the mac at work for preparation (panther installed).
On the pc I am a big big big homesite fan and the closest thing on the mac is DW 2004 MX in code mode. The keyboard shortcuts in bbedit are what I find hindering (mainly because they aren’t really intuitive and I don’t know them) and the lack of a snippet pane (if there is one in there I am yet to find it) which I can customize snippets of code for various applications.
If macromedia ported homesite to OSx it would be a happy day
I use Dreamweaver for CSS/XHTML layouts, but mostly in code view, you can do it in design view, but it’s kind of hard… :) I think Macromedia should port homesite to OSX to
xPad has this feature and for me does it better than BBEdit.
Eric said: “Now what I’d like to find is a way to save a set of documents so that, later, I could have them all opened into a single window. While I was working on the slide show system, I spent easily a minute opening all the relevant files and then drag-consolidating them all into a single window. Am I missing something in the application that already does this?”
In Html-kit, they have an option to “save your workspace”. Whatever files you are working on at the time (like a project fileset), you can save this workspace with a friendly name to be recalled later. Perhaps you have something like that in bbEdit, I am not sure.
I have tried bbEdit before, and like some of the remarks here already — I cannot see what the big deal is over it. Of course, it was a long time ago when I did.
I am using Html-kit which is a free editor with everything you can imagine working for it — including TopStyle Lite integrated into the IDE. Html-kit is only for Windows though.
Benjamin. I think BBEdit glossaries are the feature you’re looking for to store your code snippets. The name seems a little oblique to their function to me, but it works quite nicely.
I can see most of your guys are using Mac. But I am still using an old window machine just because it’s an laptop. Anyway, I am using Textpad at the moment. But it gets very confusion once you have all those looped tables and , s. So does anyone know is there a better program that can make this part simpler or just better editor?
Wonder how they going to improve Textpad
File me under the “I don’t get it when it comes to BBEdit” category.
I have been using skEdit, and while it is not perfect, for only $20 it is a steal. It easily my favorite editor for HTML on OS X.
Oh theres an update 8.01
http://www.barebones.com/support/updates.shtml
Hi, ive been looking into using a Mac for web design. Does BBEdit have a “Save All As” file option? i’m currently using Visual Studio. I know what you’re all thinking, evil MS, well, Visual Studio is the best code editor on the PC, what ever language you’re using! anyway, as is always the case with code orientated projects, i have loads of documents open at once, and i’m changing bits in all of them. I hate it when i want to test something and i have to manually save each document. Dreamweaver used to have this feature, but they took it out in v4, which is when i started shouting at the machine and moved to VS
BBEdit fails to facilitate my markup/coding work without an ENORMOUS amount of customization; and, even then, it doesn’t hold a candle to PC analogues like Nick’s Topstyle and Homesite.
The interface is bloated, non-intuitive and LONG over do for a complete overhaul. I’m a recent Mac convert and I own BBEdit, but I just can’t seem to get comfortable with it. I understand how long time users of the program could be married to it. It has a lot of horse power once you figure out how to harness it. But I want an editor that supports the way I work, rather than one I have to try and bend to my will or (worse yet) forces me to change my work patterns.
IMO BBEdit is merely the best option available in a weak field of OS X editors, and for that reason Bare Bones been resting on its laurels. Well, there’s a new sheriff in town…
I’m banking on the soon to be released TextMate to be my web dev “killer app”. I second Chris’s (#22) aspirations for TextMate. I think it’s going to sink BBEdit’s “market share”. And for the price of one copy of BBEdit, you can own four copies of Textmate!
Beta testers can sign up here.
I don’t understand people’s obsession with BBEdit. Saying that you use it just because you always have is almost as bad as saying you use windows because you always have.
I really want to like BBEdit. I have downloaded it a million times and used the demo, only to be severely disappointed. I was excited with some of the new features that 8.0 offered such as the file drawer and the new text-line highlight similar to textpad. However, it is still missing some of the key features that I love to have in an XHTML/PHP/CSS/whatever editor.
I would really like it to have code hinting and auto-complete. While some find this annoying, I started out coding with DW a long time ago, and just got used to having code completion. It has made my life/job 100 percent easier and faster. As well, the file drawer is nice, but just like Eric mentioned, it is a little annoying to have to go through and open all your files individually. While I saw that Gruber wrote and apple script to handle that, should a 170 dollar application need an applescript to do such a simple function?
I really want to use BBEdit, simply for the fact of the way it feels. There is something so robust about it as a text editor, if it had half the features that I need, I would swear by it.
SKEdit, originally suggested by Jon Hicks has been my answer. The site manager is awesome. Place all your files in a folder and it remembers the entire site and loads all the relevant files and dir’s into the ‘drawer.’ The code hinting and auto complete is years ahead of anything else I have seen, especially with PHP functions and the like. I mainly use it for XHTML though, and it is amazingly fast and intuitive. The auto-suggestion for links to files or pages in genius, saves hours of time. While the feature set of skedit is way beyond bbedit for my purposes, I still have issues with it. It just feels beta. Small stuff like the square search box, the fake inappropriate scroll bar at the bottom of the navigation pane and other inconsistencies just make the program feel very loose.
So for look and feel – bbedit
for features – skedit
I wish I could combine the 2.
As well, I have been unable to find a good forum for bbedit. There is the mailing list, but I can’t stand mailing lists. I would really love to see a good healthy forum where I could ask about stuff such as possible code hinting and site saving.
$.02
timfm, I think you’re spot on with regard to TextMate being able to make a serious cut in BareBones market share.
[QUOTE]
On September 29, 2004 6:26 PM, Rene Grassegger said:
Are there many guys arround that uses DW for css/xhtml layouts?
My 2 Cents
Rene
[/QUOTE]
Me, for example:) Although I consider myself just at the beginning of the road, all of my latest projects I completed on Dreamweaver MX 2004 in code view.. It has some really nice functions – you work on a site, want to see the latest changes you’ve made to an html or css or php file – just hit
CTRL+SHIFT+Uon the keyboard and the file is uploaded to its exact place on the remote server. It has code hints, autocomplete, powerful search&replace function, and as to its sluggishness… Well, I almost never complained about it on my Pentium 4 machine running at 2.6 GHz with 512 RAM.. :-PRuss:
Me too, if I work on table layouts with some CSS on it, its more intuitive than a text editor.
Mikhail Bozgounov :
The search and Replace is really one of the things I love on DW MX.
The other stuff is also working in my HTML Editor.
———
I just for Win XP put I really love it. Its called “Phase 5″ (http://www.qhaut.de), its small fast, has many usefull gimmicks.
One of the major lacks at the moment is, that there is no XHTML support at the moment.
But I hoping for the next version.
As mentioned above a mixture of homesite and DW would be great app.
Rene
I use BBEdit – have for years – but I wish its Search Box had bigger text entry boxes and was resizable.
For the PC thing, I think nobody has mentioned CodeGenie yet. In less than 1MB you get syntax coloring, autocomplete, replace in files, files opened in tabs, file compare, code snips… even a small hex color selector. All of it fully customizable/expandible.
It was freeware for some years but right now it costs 24$. I think is worth it; I’ve been testing a lot of text-editors (Textpad, Notetab, Ultraedit, Editplus, …) and WYSIWYG editors (Homesite, HotMeTal, Dreamweaver, Hotdog, …) in recent years and I’ve come to choose this one.
Sorry for the commercial look of this post, but man, I love this little app :)
If all you are using is xhtml and/or PHO, Taco HTML Edit is a nice freeware app.
A quick suggestion on the Windows side,
Edit+ is a nice full featured editor for a reasonable ($30) price.
Integrated FTP, handles multiple files well (tabs), configurable syntax and shortcuts, preview panes, etc.
Not that I expect an answer here, but does anyone else use BBEdit 8 with 2 monitors? When I open a new window set to full screen with Finder room on the right and bottom, my documents drawer slides out and spills across both monitors. It’s really annoying and there’s no “Leave room on the right for the Finder and the documents drawer” option. Anyone else in this boat, too?
Personally, I use jEdit. It’s written in Java, and there are binaries and sources for most modern OSs. It’s also free and open source.
I use EditPlus exclusively for coding in pretty much any language other than Java (which I use Eclipse for – and that is because I love its refactoring capabilities though it is too slugissh).
EditPlus rocks – simply put. It costs around $30 US – and has syntax hilighting for pretty much every language I use, has a “tabbed interface” lets you create “projects” which are basically just sets of files – and provides the ability to tie in external apps (such as tidy if you want, or compilers etc..)
Its really quite amazing how much it does – I aquired it to be a notepad replacement and it has become the single most used app on my machine.
If your interested in it I think it is available at editplus.com (or just do Im feeling lucky at google for EditPlus)..
On the PC side of things, I’ve found UltraEdit to be very handy. It’s also similar to bbedit (which I use exclusively on the Mac – no other editors)
Though the ‘which editor is better’ discussion is an old one, I find some of the talk about the various editor GUI’s interesting.
It seems to me that editing text is such a basic operation that adding features via a GUI is counter-intuitive. If the primary input device is the keyboard, why should I have to keep moving my hand to the mouse? Any features an application provides should be accessable without leaving the keyboard. Better yet, have automagical features (e.g. code/markup completion).
I’ve used Dreamweaver, vi, emacs, EditPlus, jEdit, and BBEdit (though admittedly, an old version) and found that those editors with more features tend to get in the way. It’s not so much that things aren’t accessable through keyboard shortcuts, but having a prominent graphical interface encourages you to do things with the mouse instead of with keys.
For example, I have a friend who programs in C with Visual Studio. I can’t tell you how many times during our coding sessions I’ve watched him write some code, see a mistake, highlight a single word with the mouse, change it, and then mouse to the end of the line. Except on Unix, I haven’t seen an editor in which you can’t do the same operation faster with arrow, Ctrl, and Shift keys.
Then again, I absolutely need an interface for some tasks (initial file saving comes to mind). However, these features are the ones I use least often, so switching to the mouse for those isn’t so bad.
Anyway, this was just a thought that occurred in reading this discussion. For my part, I use jEdit or Joe.
While BBEdit is the best visual editor for the Mac IMHO I still prefere Emacs for all work.
I can use it to check my mail, surf the web and work on my web dev projects.
It has a very steep learning curve, but once your over the hill you will never go back! :)
“Emacs is my OS, Panther is its device driver”
I used BBEdit for *years* and pretty much lived in it, as many people do with their editors. It’s still good, but I’ve since moved on to jEdit, which is open-source, runs on many platforms, and seems much more extensible and customizable than BBEdit. There are a number of jEdit users who are old BBEdit users, and whenever a Windows user asks about BBEdit for Windows, I usually recommend jEdit as a close match.
Coming from a Unix background, I started out with VIM on the Mac. The problem with VIM is that it’s ugly. I wish it was Cocoa.
I switched to SubEthaEdit and found it to be very good. The only problem with it is the very slow source highlighting.
I’ve tried BBEdit many times, but never could get used to it. I think it’s because it’s not a Cocoa app. The fonts are ugly (v8 fixed that) and there is just something about it that I can’t get used to.
I’m still looking for the perfect editor. On Unix it’s VIM all the way. On the Mac…?
One word: Notepad. :-)
Have you tried Tag? It’s in an early stage but it looks really promising. You can find more information about it at talacia.com
It stills feels like a beta, but it has some nice autocompletion and code hinting features.
Notepad? Nah!
You want Notepad2.
I’ve used practically every HTML/CSS editor under the sun, from the most basic to the totally bloated…
The best, undoubtedly, is TopStyle, the main reasons:
Code completion. Not because you don’t know the code, but it saves you having to type it. Typing ‘pl:’ and having it change instantly to ‘padding-left:’ raises your productivity.
Code Insertion. Hit CTRL+U and it adds an unordered list (with one empty) item. So handy! Highlight some text and hit CTRL+L and it wraps it in tags. You can’t beat it. Same for links, CTRL+SHIFT+A will make some text an href.
The fact you can remove all the bloated features, keeping only the useful features, and add your own code replacements makes this the ultimate editor.
Not to mention the live preview or the ability to change the luminosity of a colour code.
VIM is a nice editor for PC. Try running your BBEdit documents through it and see all those hidden chars you never thought existed. If I ever get a problem with a CSS or HTML document because of hidden chars – I run them through VIM.
I don’t see that anyone has mentioned EditPadPro. While I’m currently on a PC, my entrance to the world of web development came on a mac, back when BBEdit was still in version 3…if there was a version 3, I forget. I just remember not being able to upgrade to version 4.somethingorother.
Anyway, I use Dreamweaver for its WYSIWYG layout stuff for the initial prototyping phase, then I move over to HomeSite for most of my coding. EditPad Pro comes in for quick edits, block text selections, and is great for any type of code you need to write, and has a color-coding editor that runs on regexes so you can customize it to your heart’s content.
One of the most powerful features of EditPad Pro – the Tools menu – I currently can zap any document with HTMLTidy with a quick F12 keystroke – very helpful when viewing the source of dynamically generated, poorly formatted files. Any exe that writes to stdout can be used to modify files in EditPadPro.
Vim for quick changes to one file.
bash for sitewide find/replace in a directory.
skEdit for working on an entire site. I tried bbedit and left it because the site-drawer function wasn’t there in the last version – I came from Dreamweaver and really couldn’t stand having such a hard time working on many files in a site at once.
I just wish he’d get the ftp feature set a little more robust – the one thing I miss about dreamweaver was the simple “up arrow” to put a file. Now I have to use Transmit, which isn’t bad, but not quite Dreamweaver.
Really, skEdit has everything I need, when combined with the unix shell for things that are just easier with regex’s, it feels good, it has a hell of an icon set now, and lets me manage many files at once.
Oops. Sorry about the comment above, my mistake, by the way… I also use VIM, even on Windows because it seems to be the only GOOD editor available both in Windows and Linux. But Eclipse is also a great IDE.
Notepad? Nah!
You want Notepad2.
I like that – I’ll have to check it out.
Reminds me somewhat of Arachnophilia, which I’m surprised nobody here has mentioned. I only use it with much longer documents (like an HTML computer glossary I wrote some months back. I like it; it’s pretty cool, and being a Java app, I would think it’ll work on any platform.
BBEdit 8 is an improvement over v 7.x, but it is NOT perfect or even close to being as good as it can be.
A few weeks ago I suggested a few additions to the drawer:
1. Finder type list view of current project folder.
2. Glossary window
You can read more and see my mock-ups at http://www.imediatec.co.uk/BBEdit/
Hopefully they will implement these improvements.
However, my money and allegiance has moved towards skEdit as it is close to perfect, and it is improving and Sean Kelly – the 20 year old single developer – is highly professional and helpful.
Give it a try, and learn how you can do most of the things you’d like with it much faster than with BBEdit.
I’m mostly in windows world most of the time, and I’ve used Macromedia’s (used to be Allaire) HomeSite for years (the bulk of my web design/coding career actually). I also use TopStyle Pro for my CSS editor. Homesite supports a bunch of different server side scripting languages, which is good because I code for more than one type of server scripting language, and with the 5.x version, you can do XHTML. It’s a code editor that I’m very comfortable with since I use it all day long almost every day. I just recently did an upgrade to TopStyle Pro 3.0 from an older version, and it’s pretty good as well.
Oh great! :( Now instead of doing my work, I’m looking at a bunch of text editors. uhg. Thanks a lot. And I used to be satisfied with my editor.
Mac Users,
TextMate is IT people: BELIEVE THE HYPE!
Agreed Dan, I just finally picked up BBEdit 8 a couple weeks ago and although it was excruciatingly painful shelling out the 180 for it, I havent looked back. Prior to that I was using pagespinner… because a friend of mine swore by it -even pointed me to zeldman using it… after buying it (albeit a nice 29.95) it wasnt worth it to me…was a pain having to style the text to keep it consistent, you couldnt even edit code in a line you typed without it altering the font, and having to restyle the text…anyway..for the mac bbedit rocks…. pc i gotta go with homesite…
Yeah it would be nice if i got a Mac :/ www. lop. esol.pl
I’m surprised how many mac authors there are out there. I’ve only seen one or two companies using macs here.
FWIW, I use Homesite, (or Visual Studio on them cursed .NET projects)
I use Eclipse with XML/CSS/Javscript plugins to edit XHTML files and style sheets. Yes, it’s true.
Well, now I have even less reason to not use a Mac (besides lack of money)…
If only there where some quality editors like BBEdit for windows.
On the Mac side of things, I generally swear by BBEdit, though SubEthaEdit seems like a decent package as well.
On Windows XP, I look no further than the freeware HTML-Kit.
(A bit late in the discussion, I know.)
Funny that you mention BBEdit’s drawer as the main feature that makes 8.0 worth the upgrade. I for one, may stop using BBEdit just because the of the drawer!
The drawer is kinda broken. Try editing two documents with the same name in different directories, witness how sometimes one is on top of the other and other times it’s below. This is very confusing and has almost managed to make me lose a half day of work this past week! There probably is some logic at work there, but I shouldn’t have to decipher it as a user…
I’m also a bit late. I’ve been searching for a decent mac text editor for ages too, and have wasted hours trawling blog entry comments like this for links to The One. I was happy with BBEdit on my Mac until I got used to Scintilla SciTE on my Windows machine (I switch several times a day between my iBook and my windows desktop). Simple, light, speedy, great syntax colouring for all languages I need, total customisability, tabbed documents and… free. I found an experimental Mac port of SciTEthat runs via XWindows (not Aqua) so it is certainly “un-mac-like” and is in fact quite broken when it comes to keyboard mapping (CTL+C etc). If I knew the first thing about porting to Aqua I would make this my side project. But I’m just a lowly PHP programmer looking for an easy time with a text editor.
Sure, now there’s TextMate. I don’t care about the icon – gonna try it out.
I dont know what all the hype about textmate is…I tried it out, and apart from being inexpensive like pagespinner I see no reason to leave bbedit for it…
I’ve used BBEdit for years too, love it. The first thing I did after installing version 8 was disable the document drawer.
it’s a disaster!
Talk about a late post :)
I still haven’t found the perfect editor. . they’re all close but all missing one absolutely needy feature
apart from the basics, my most necessary features are :
multi-site management (hello skedit)
comment/uncomment shortcut that works properly and without having to select the entire block of commented text (hello topstyle)
syntax highlighting that i like without having to modify (hello dreamweaver)
snippet completion with replacement tokens (topstyle and skedit work good here)
i’m willing to bet skedit will make it in the end, it’s damn close.. and i’ve been a major topstyle user on the pc side of things, so i hope nicks new job at newsgator doesn’t affect topstyle development