Ideal OS X Text Editor? is a post on The Hickensian

That last post got me thinking. My ideal text editor for OS X is out there, but all the elements I want are in different apps! If I could somehow melt these bits together (like melting 4 chunky kit-kats together and pretending they’re the old style kit-kats), these are the ingredients I would use.

  • SubEthaEdit’s collaboration ability, split-view, web preview (just prefer it to Textmate’s), code navigation and general cocoa feel. Textmate allows you to navigate the code, but its a separate window. skEdit puts its navigation menu in the toolbar (where it should be), but SubEthaEdit’s implementation includes icons that find easier to scan.
  • skEdit’s code hinting, colour blender and project management. Its code hinting makes writing CSS and HTML so quick and painless, and its the only one that allows you to create a list of projects to open. In Textmate, I’ve got around this by keeping a folder of aliases to ’.tmproj’ files in my dock for quick and easy project opening.
  • Textmate’s project drawer, code-folding, bundle editor and CSS & HTML validator. skEdit has snippets, but Textmate takes this much further with its bundle editor. Unfortunately, Textmate doesn’t use a standard cocoa textfield, so services items such as lipServiceX’s Generate Lorem Ipsum aren’t accessible.

With the exception of a built-in Textile filter (which can be added in Textmate, as Drew shows), this would do me nicely thankyou!

Please, don’t start talking Vim or Emacs to me. It always happens when I mention text editors, and It’ll just fall on deaf ears. Hopefully from reading the list above, you’ll get the impression that I’m just not a vim kind of guy! ;o)

The Hickensian is the journal of Jon Hicks, one half of the creative partnership Hicksdesign. See the work we do.

AD by FUSION

Jobs

Hicksdesign doesn't have any vacancies, but these fine folk do:

    Via Authentic Jobs Come in, we're hiring!

    playlist

    See more on last.fm

    My Zoo

    I use Zootool to collect the things I like on the web…

    Contact

    Hicksdesign

    73a High Street

    Witney

    Oxfordshire, UK

    OX28 6JA

    +44 (0)7917 391 536

    Download vCard

    Happy Cog Hosting

    Hicksmade. Unique handmade products made for machines, not by them