UltraEdit for Mac nears beta... First look

[burriko]

I think most Mac users (okay, i'm generalising) have become used to their software looking good. There are already many editors for OS X that have simple, elegant interfaces and that follow Mac interface guidelines. e.g. Textmate, Coda, Espresso, even Xcode and MacVim to a point.

In my opinion Ultraedit for Mac is ugly and looks like what it is, a port of some Windows software. I'm sure it's a fantastically powerful editor and this might seem shallow, but this is enough to stop me from using it. If I'm going to stare at an interface all day it needs to be visually pleasing.

[subwindow]

If you can't turn off that top toolbar, it's a no-go for me from the start. Using up ~10% of extremely valuable real estate for buttons that you should have memorized the keyboard shortcuts for? No thanks.

In general it appears to be very wasteful of screen real estate, and to be poorly thought out from a UE perspective. Buttons and fonts are bigger than they need to. There's some extremely quizzical usage of padding, as well.

[sigzero]

I am looking at a picture of Textmate. I don't really consider that "good looking". I use MacVim. I don't really consider that "good looking" either. It is a first shot at getting UE to the Mac. I am hoping that means they will be open to suggestions. I have signed up for the beta and I will certainly be letting them know when things aren't Mac "like".

[jasonlotito]

I'm sure part of the reason for this is an increase in their clients asking for a Mac port. A Windows user moving to Mac might like to keep the things he's used to if he can. Having more than one test editor isn't a bad thing for the Mac. Having software ported over just makes the transition easier for those that want to move over. It's a good thing. =)

[xutopia]

I loved UE in 2000 when it was the best text editor on Windows. Now I use Textmate and honestly UE on Mac looks like it hasn't evolved much in the last 10 years.

[petsos]

To be fair, TextMate hasn't evolved much in the last 5 years.

[absconditus]

UltraEdit is popular on Windows because most other text editors for Windows are quite bad. Why would anyone want to use UltraEdit on a Mac?

[city41]

Serious question: who on Windows is really using text editors? If you're a programmer using Windows, chances are good you're using a Microsoft stack and thus very likely Visual Studio. For me, text editors on Windows are nothing more than scratch pads.

Maybe I'm just biased, but if you're not using Microsoft technology it seems like you'd be better off with a Unix-like OS, where awesome text editors are plentiful. Maybe there really are enough people out there using non-MS tech but still prefer Windows?

[fizzfur]

It's not for me, (mate & vim have yet to fail me), but always nice to see development.

Anyone else think it looks like it was made for MacOS 10.1 though?

[lenni]

Yeah, it does have the Java Swing Look. Which is to say it almost gets it right, but there are quite a handful of things that look alien. Us Mac people are nitpicky.

[teilo]

I am happy to see this, but I will withhold judgment until I see it for myself. Ultra Edit on Windows could be a bit of a beast a times.

Text editors on the Mac have stalled in recent years. TextMate 2 (also known as TextMate Forever) has been in the offing for years now. Coda is unstable. JEdit has poor OS integration. Eclipse is great for a heavy IDE, but too bloated for basic editing.

TextMate is still one of the best editors available, and I still use it for all of my Python development, but it has gotten way too old, and has long fallen behind the OS so that you could hardly call it tightly integrated.

[deweller]

Is this the replacement for TextMate on the Mac I have been waiting for?

Even with its flaws and the frustratingly long wait for TextMate 2, I have yet to find something that works better for me.

[PanMan]

I actually really miss Ultraedit. I think it's the only app I miss since switching to a mac. Things I haven't found in 1 app yet

    * Everything is keyboard driven. Most mac apps still need a lot of keyboard.
    * It has SSH/FTP integration
    * It was not too buggy.

I currently use Coda, but it crashes too often, and is less powerful.

[peregrine]

Did you try TextMate? I hear its very good.

[brisance]

Mac users; no love for BBEdit?

http://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit/

There's stripped-down, gratis version called TextWrangler too.

http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/

[joe_bleau]

If I had to use a Mac, I'd be all over that. Love it on windows, but I'm still using Codewright as my primary editor.

[sigzero]

That is an awesome thing. I love UE on Windows.