I've just had a look at sublime text 2, and it's everything I'm looking for in a textmate replacement. After several abortive attempts to enjoy coding in macvim, I can't believe I didn't try this sooner.
EDIT: does anyone know how I can get two different projects in different sides of a split in the same window? I know this is going against OSX's window management paradigm, but I'm sick of pressing CMD ~ all day, trying to mentally model a stack of windows in LRU/z-order is a cognitive burden I can do without.
EDIT: I love how the Preferences menu item just opens the config file.
EDIT: OMG OMG it actually goes to the most recently open tab on tab close by default, rather than the one on the left! Hallelujah! It kills me that browsers still don't do this.
I can't be the only one waiting eagerly for sublime text to include transparency/alpha-channel backgrounds right? That was one of the big sticking points for me in TextMate, and also one of the big reasons vim on OSX terminal is my secondary option.
I know it sounds like a silly thing to dwell on, but having my editor slightly transparent helps a lot when dealing with UI work.
I just recently switched to Sublime Text 2, and a after a solid week of coding in it, I must say I'm hooked. It's the best editor I've ever used.
I'm writing Boo, both client-side (Unity3D) and server-side (between Mongrel2 and Redis), and all it took was for me to drop in the Boo TextMate bundle and away we went.
The Boo bundle is outdated and needs some love, and Unity integration is missing, but Sublime is so nice that it really seems worth the effort of getting these things set up (when I can get around to it). For now, however, I'm quite happy with it.
Before the switch I jumped around (angrily) between Unitron (Unity's Smultron fork), Smultron, MonoDevelop (still sucks on Mac), GEdit (great editor, but GTK looks like shit on Mac), and tried several others without satisfaction.
For Emacs users, Plain ol' GNU Emacs[1] is almost as tickbox compliant as Aquamacs, and has the benefits of not breaking a whole lot of existing stuff by trying to retrofit it with a 'Mac OSX User Experience'.
If you're familiar with standard emacs settings[2] (and have the appropriate vitriol for those who falter into cua-mode), then http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/AquamacsFAQ might be of use.
If you are a programmer, do yourself a favor and learn vi[m] or emacs. You are then ready to hit the ground running on any platform upon which you happen to find yourself working. vi in particular is almost always available on any *nix environment unless it's been deliberately removed as part of a "hardened" configuration. Emacs also is often installed, or if not is easily obtained. Both editors are also available for Windows.
I just started playing around with vim. I still use Sublime for most of my editing, but I enabled Vintage mode so I can test myself occasionally. I have also run through vimtutor a few times.
Finally, I made vim my default terminal editor, which forces me to use it for tasks like finishing my interactive Git rebase sessions.
I understand what the Aquamacs people are doing, but I think it's a big mistake. What makes Emacs so useful is not adherence to platform standards, but that it is a Lisp runtime with a lot of highly specialized text manipulation primitives that people have been hacking on for years.
It's an autarky wherever it runs, so let it be. I'm as big a proponent of the Macengeist (or whatever you want to call the ineffable quality that makes a good Macintosh application) as anyone I know, but Emacs is it's own world. Best to use straightforward Emacs 23 or 24 as a portal into that world, rather than trying to shoehorn alien concepts into it.
Now, building it on OS X can be a PITA -- not that it's not fully supported, but some stuff could be in better locations than the hated /usr/local. But that's an argument against myself that I'd prefer not to have at this exact moment.
You don't have to build emacs to get a modern version without all the Aquamacs hoo-ha. I've been using the build at http://emacsformacosx.com/ ever since carbon emacs was discontinued. It's a nice, no surprises build.
You might find this useful; you might find it laughable. On my i7 15" MBP it's about ten minutes start to finish, so I usually build first thing in the morning while I'm brewing my coffee.
The Sublime Text 2 developer is wonderfully responsive. I've emailed suggestions twice and they were both implemented and in short order.
I was disappointed that discussions on the Mac-centric 5by5 podcast network framed BBEdit as the only place to go from TextMate. Granted, BBEdit has a history of not being abandoned, but it's clearly near the end of its evolution while bright new things like Sublime are blazing forward.
In particular Kod seems to have stagnated completely, there has been no updates to the source tree since June 20th, and even before that the updates were very light. Kod is an interesting idea, but in it's current state I didn't find it very usable.
I, for one, am astonished at quality and release frequency Jon Skinner (the author of Sublime Text 2) has been able to achieve. Perhaps he has help, but that doesn't appear to be the case. He has made steady, incremental, and visible progress that keeps giving people reasons to buy his product.
Here's to hoping he figures out how to make the configuration a little easier for non-programmer types to deal with.
I checked it out a few months ago, and it looked awesome, but it was missing too many basic features (like right clicking a folder to create a new file or showing the current file in the file tree) so I went back to TM. I just took another look last week and literally every single issue I used to have with it has been fixed. The pace of development is amazing. I had no problem parting with my $59.
100% agree with his conclusion. For textmate fans who havent been able to make the jump to vim or emacs, try sublime text 2. It blows away textmate in every dept, and is incredibly extendable. Theres nothing out there thats more powerful (aside from vim/emacs)
I've been using MacVim on a daily basis lately and I don't get why everyone is so excited about Sublime Text 2. Does it have git integration, VCS integration, autocomplete, good plugin management, etc? Or is it just a better Textmate?
Some years ago wanted to try Textmate but then couldn't afford to buy a Mac. Being multiplatform is a plus for Vim, Sublime and Komodo. Not being is a deal breaker for Textmate (Mac) and Notepad++ (Windows).
Also love the fact that with just one license I can run Sublime on OS X, Linux and Windows so thinks it's not expensive.
The reason I switched from TextMate to Vim was simple: portability. I can keep my environments at work (Windows) and home (OSX) the same. Editors naturally prompt a deep investment in studying, plug-in finding, and muscle memory if you really want to use them to their fullest. I didn't want to split my investment between TextMate and <some Windows editor>, so I started the long process of getting familiar with Vim. I do miss some of the native flavor of TextMate, but the comfort of having my entire suite of plug-ins and shortcuts apply virtually anywhere (e.g. logged into some VPS) is really helpful.
If I was mostly in OSX it would be a different story, but for the cross-platform developer, I really think the Vim and Emacs options are the way to go.
I've been on a Mac a few years and tried a few editors, so (for what it's worth) here's my 2c. Main use case is scripting and Rails development.
Smultron: Used this a bit. not bad but I didn't really take to it. Missing a number of features
Vi: still use it regularly, but I don't have much skill with it. Extra handy for quick editing of a single file (I use the command line a lot so vi is convenient)
Aquamacs/Emacs: Gave this a shot but really had no idea how to use it. Gave up in the end
Netbeans: Been using this for years and found it mostly the best fir for my needs. Looked around when Orace took it over and ended up with...
Rubymine: Excellent. Great fit for me, although I'm still on 3.1 as the newer releases run like molasses on my aging macbook. It's a bit heavyweight, but it has a ton of really useful features.
Kod: Showed great promise as a Scite replacement but seems to have been abandoned. (Scite was what I used in Windows for years. fantastic once you change the default fonts)
Texmate: Used the demo, couldn't see what it offered over netbeans
GEdit: Used this all the time in Linux and was surprised to find it runs fine out of the box on the Mac! Great for reading extra large files like long logs etc.
Textwrangler: For some reason I really can't get to liking this. I give it a shot again every now and then but it just doesn't seem to work the way I do
Coda: Looks lovely but I just couldn't get over the price.
I agree re: Rubymine. It is heavier weight by far than TextMate but auto-completion, syntax error highlighting, undefined variable hilighting, etc. is often worth the sub-second delays while editing.
> GEdit: Used this all the time in Linux and was surprised to find it runs fine out of the box on the Mac! Great for reading extra large files like long logs etc.
I just tried Vico (free trial downloadable from the website), and damn is it nice. I'm a huge fan of ST2, and I've been playing around with Vintage mode, but so far it just isn't enough for me: my poor fingers get confused by Vim operations that aren't supported. Vico has much better Vim support (although still not complete), and it's just as shiny as ST2 to boot. Anyone else have experiences with Vico to share?
Vico basically rocks my planet. It's got shortcomings, but it's scriptable using Nu, and you have access to all of Cocoa when scripting, so there's definitely room for big, awesome improvements. For example, I reimplemented a subset of the zz/zt/zb functionality in just a few lines of Nu (https://github.com/Shadowfiend/vico-fill-in-the-blanks.tmbun...), added the ability to run an external console process and pipe its output to a vico buffer in a few more (https://github.com/Shadowfiend/pointy-haired-boss.tmbundle) and then implemented support for Scala's simple-build-tool on top of that in a few more (https://github.com/Shadowfiend/simple-build-tool.tmbundle). 250 lines of Nu altogether. Epically awesome.
I'm still missing a couple of key functions, especially `` when doing searches, but vico is already awesome and can only become more so with progress.
I was going to write that I don't use Vico because it lacks the interface polish of other Mac editors like TextMate, but I just downloaded the latest demo and I'm happy to see that the interface is improved dramatically! The only remaining issue for me is that panes are separated by a needlessly wide and visually distracting divider.
Definitely my favorite now of the post-TM editors. Still use Vim in Terminal.app though.
I was so enthused by Vico that I wrote a fairly wordy review about it in August. Added some corrections and notes recently. Feel free to add/contribute/fork. I think it's a great editor, with just a few minor shortcomings which I hope will be addressed soon.
I would just like to throw in that the major obstacle to my finding an editor on Mac OS X has been the pricetag involved with most of the more popular editors. Sure, $60 isn't much if you already have a stable programming job, but I am a college student (which is financially the exact opposite of a stable programming job), and as a college student I am generally highly adverse to paying for things (especially software, since I "grew up" as a programmer among Linux and OSS).
That said, TextWrangler is a decent option if you aren't in the mood to spend money. The only thing I miss about other editors from TextWrangler is an actual file browser that works like Gedit's instead of "you can only have one file open from the file browser at once."
"Sublime Text 2 may be downloaded and evaluated for free, however a license must be purchased for continued use. There is currently no enforced time limit for the evaluation."
Apart from (UNREGISTERED) in the title and a rare (daily?) nag screen, there's nothing preventing you from using Sublime Text 2 without buying it.
I have been a happy user of Vico for the past two months after years of putting up with Textmate's lame undo. I recommend it if you are comfortable with vi/vim/macvim but want a more Maclike interface plus Textmate bundles and theme support.
[+] [-] JonnieCache|14 years ago|reply
EDIT: does anyone know how I can get two different projects in different sides of a split in the same window? I know this is going against OSX's window management paradigm, but I'm sick of pressing CMD ~ all day, trying to mentally model a stack of windows in LRU/z-order is a cognitive burden I can do without.
EDIT: I love how the Preferences menu item just opens the config file.
EDIT: OMG OMG it actually goes to the most recently open tab on tab close by default, rather than the one on the left! Hallelujah! It kills me that browsers still don't do this.
[+] [-] frou_dh|14 years ago|reply
[0] http://www.sublimetext.com/blog/articles/sublime-text-2-publ...
[+] [-] lunaru|14 years ago|reply
I know it sounds like a silly thing to dwell on, but having my editor slightly transparent helps a lot when dealing with UI work.
[+] [-] nrbafna|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sodiumphosphate|14 years ago|reply
I'm writing Boo, both client-side (Unity3D) and server-side (between Mongrel2 and Redis), and all it took was for me to drop in the Boo TextMate bundle and away we went.
The Boo bundle is outdated and needs some love, and Unity integration is missing, but Sublime is so nice that it really seems worth the effort of getting these things set up (when I can get around to it). For now, however, I'm quite happy with it.
Before the switch I jumped around (angrily) between Unitron (Unity's Smultron fork), Smultron, MonoDevelop (still sucks on Mac), GEdit (great editor, but GTK looks like shit on Mac), and tried several others without satisfaction.
Sublime is like a breath of fresh air.
[+] [-] shabble|14 years ago|reply
If you're familiar with standard emacs settings[2] (and have the appropriate vitriol for those who falter into cua-mode), then http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/AquamacsFAQ might be of use.
[1] Fairly recent binary builds are maintained at http://emacsformacosx.com/
[2] or, more probably, a config built over several years of slow accretion.
[+] [-] magoghm|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ams6110|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mdonahoe|14 years ago|reply
Finally, I made vim my default terminal editor, which forces me to use it for tasks like finishing my interactive Git rebase sessions.
[+] [-] jfb|14 years ago|reply
It's an autarky wherever it runs, so let it be. I'm as big a proponent of the Macengeist (or whatever you want to call the ineffable quality that makes a good Macintosh application) as anyone I know, but Emacs is it's own world. Best to use straightforward Emacs 23 or 24 as a portal into that world, rather than trying to shoehorn alien concepts into it.
Now, building it on OS X can be a PITA -- not that it's not fully supported, but some stuff could be in better locations than the hated /usr/local. But that's an argument against myself that I'd prefer not to have at this exact moment.
[+] [-] pivo|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gcv|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jfb|14 years ago|reply
http://homonculus.net/blog/2011/10/02/how-i-build-emacs-now
You might find this useful; you might find it laughable. On my i7 15" MBP it's about ten minutes start to finish, so I usually build first thing in the morning while I'm brewing my coffee.
[+] [-] frou_dh|14 years ago|reply
I was disappointed that discussions on the Mac-centric 5by5 podcast network framed BBEdit as the only place to go from TextMate. Granted, BBEdit has a history of not being abandoned, but it's clearly near the end of its evolution while bright new things like Sublime are blazing forward.
[+] [-] CJefferson|14 years ago|reply
In particular Kod seems to have stagnated completely, there has been no updates to the source tree since June 20th, and even before that the updates were very light. Kod is an interesting idea, but in it's current state I didn't find it very usable.
[+] [-] Groxx|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ary|14 years ago|reply
Here's to hoping he figures out how to make the configuration a little easier for non-programmer types to deal with.
[+] [-] pkulak|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jbrowning|14 years ago|reply
http://www.sublimetext.com/docs/2/vintage.html
Here, have some cake.
[+] [-] nestlequ1k|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cormullion|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zmanji|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hmart|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LVB|14 years ago|reply
If I was mostly in OSX it would be a different story, but for the cross-platform developer, I really think the Vim and Emacs options are the way to go.
[+] [-] goshakkk|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cubicle67|14 years ago|reply
Smultron: Used this a bit. not bad but I didn't really take to it. Missing a number of features
Vi: still use it regularly, but I don't have much skill with it. Extra handy for quick editing of a single file (I use the command line a lot so vi is convenient)
Aquamacs/Emacs: Gave this a shot but really had no idea how to use it. Gave up in the end
Netbeans: Been using this for years and found it mostly the best fir for my needs. Looked around when Orace took it over and ended up with...
Rubymine: Excellent. Great fit for me, although I'm still on 3.1 as the newer releases run like molasses on my aging macbook. It's a bit heavyweight, but it has a ton of really useful features.
Kod: Showed great promise as a Scite replacement but seems to have been abandoned. (Scite was what I used in Windows for years. fantastic once you change the default fonts)
Texmate: Used the demo, couldn't see what it offered over netbeans
GEdit: Used this all the time in Linux and was surprised to find it runs fine out of the box on the Mac! Great for reading extra large files like long logs etc.
Textwrangler: For some reason I really can't get to liking this. I give it a shot again every now and then but it just doesn't seem to work the way I do
Coda: Looks lovely but I just couldn't get over the price.
[+] [-] mark_l_watson|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dongsheng|14 years ago|reply
Does Gedit for require X11?
[+] [-] SebMortelmans|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] singingwolfboy|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shadowfiend|14 years ago|reply
I'm still missing a couple of key functions, especially `` when doing searches, but vico is already awesome and can only become more so with progress.
[+] [-] msutherl|14 years ago|reply
Definitely my favorite now of the post-TM editors. Still use Vim in Terminal.app though.
[+] [-] scelerat|14 years ago|reply
https://github.com/scelerat/vico_review/blob/master/vico_rev...
[+] [-] boernsj|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LeafStorm|14 years ago|reply
That said, TextWrangler is a decent option if you aren't in the mood to spend money. The only thing I miss about other editors from TextWrangler is an actual file browser that works like Gedit's instead of "you can only have one file open from the file browser at once."
[+] [-] Scaevolus|14 years ago|reply
Apart from (UNREGISTERED) in the title and a rare (daily?) nag screen, there's nothing preventing you from using Sublime Text 2 without buying it.
[+] [-] dongsheng|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] scelerat|14 years ago|reply
I have been a happy user of Vico for the past two months after years of putting up with Textmate's lame undo. I recommend it if you are comfortable with vi/vim/macvim but want a more Maclike interface plus Textmate bundles and theme support.