There are so many good text editors for the Mac. TextMate, skEdit, SubEthaEdit, Smultron, and even Xcode. I’ve tried all these, but none of them really stuck with me. I keep going back to BBEdit.
I actually bought and used skEdit for awhile. It has an elegant site manager in it and intelligently allows you to browse your site directory. It also has a classy auto-complete feature for you as you’re typing CSS. That said, I decided to drop it as my main tool. I still use skEdit if I have a lot of CSS work I need to do.
I also keep an eye on TextMate. It seems like one of the more innovative tools of the bunch. It has a clever feature of being able to collapse parts of your code based on the structure of your page. For instance, you can hide everything that’s in your <head> tags or all the code in a particular <div>. Neat.
That said, BBEdit is faster and more powerful. It has the few things I found lacking in skEdit, though it does lack that CSS auto-complete feature. It also can do much more. The scripting capability is excellent, and it even supports Tiger’s new feature, Automator. You can use BBEdit to run custom scripts using a key combination, such as using a script to check the PHP syntax of the page you’re editing. I just tap a custom key combo (command+p, for the curious) and I get something like this:
And occasionally, I’ll get this one:
And to be honest, after using BBEdit for many years now-since version 4 back in the old days-it just feels comfortable. I work faster there.
I still keep my eyes open for the better hammer. I enjoy trying new things. I’m glad there’s so much innovation going around.
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Be Good Not Bad is all about really good web design, based on the utmost respect for web standards, accessibility and respect for the user. Based in Denver, Colorado, Be Good Not Bad is run by Brian Warren, freelance designer, blogger, homebrewer and coffee nut.
I have tried jEdit. Granted it was awhile ago, but I couldn’t really get into using the java app when I had so many native Mac apps to choose from. Using a mac you get spoiled by the consistant UI. If I remember correctly, you’re on windows, right John? If you ever switch, try TextMate. It’s very Rails friendly and uses tabs well. I’m playing with it right now for some Rails stuff, but I’ll probably go back to BBEdit in the long run. It’s paid for and has multiple documents drawer.
§ By Brian Warren at 10:40am on May 26 2005
Heh, patience is a virtue. But you could be waiting as long as 2 years for that.
§ By Brian Warren at 10:40am on May 26 2005
Ah, you’re completely locked into a music platform. That stinks. You could just burn some cds, Oh right you have to pay extra to do that. :( Alas, Napster owns you, John! If you ever leave, all that music you’ve been paying to use is gone.
Yep, i’ve been playing w/ Ruby on Rails late
ly. It seems interesting. You should talk to Jer. He’s someone local been doing web development on the mac for a long time. He switched from the PC many years back. You could see how he harnesses the power of the mac and puts up with anything he misses from the windows world. It truly is a better way to go in my opinion. I’m not saying it’s perfect, just far preferable.
§ By Brian Warren at 10:40am on May 26 2005
Jeremiah? I was talking about Jeremy, as in Weathers.
I don’t buy every DVD i watch. Because I don’t watch very many movies more than one or two times. I do, however, listen to my music over and over a lot, and I like burning it on CDs and taking it w/ me on my ipod. Not something you like to do, then that’s fine. I just prefer more control than the rental method on my music.
§ By Brian Warren at 10:40am on May 26 2005