The humble text editor is great for managing code, writing down quick notes, or just as a distraction-free writing tool. This week, we’re looking at five of the best, based on your nominations.
Whether you’re a developer or a writer, a good text editor is a must-have on any computer, in any operating system. The humble text editor is great for managing code, writing down quick notes, or just as a distraction-free writing tool. This week, we’re looking at five of the best, based on your nominations.
Earlier this week we asked you for your favorite text editors, and while you suggested far more than we can highlight here, there were a few that earned more nominations than the others. Here are the tools you liked the best:
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Sublime Text
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Cross-platform and feature packed, Sublime Text was a crowd favorite in the call for contenders thread, partially because of its amazing feature-set. Plug-ins and add-ons are available for specific programming languages and uses in Sublime Text, the app features extremely powerful search and go-to features, tons of keyboard commands to help you never have to take your hands off the keyboard while you use it, a distraction-free mode that lets you focus right on your work—whatever that work may happen to be, and much much more. Sublime Text has a tabbed interface so you can have multiple documents open at the same time, and a 10,000ft view on the right so you can see where in your document you are at any time. You can select multiple rows to make simultaneous changes, customize shortcuts to suit your own needs, and even chain shortcuts together to perform complex—but fast—operations. It’s remarkably powerful.
Sublime Text is available for Windows, OS X, and Linux. It’s distributed as evaluation software (meaning it’s free to try, but there’s no time limit on how long you can use it for free) and a full license will cost you $70. A full license is per user, so you can use it on as many computers as you like once you have one. In the call for contenders thread, those of you who nominated Sublime praised its impressive feature-set, developer-friendly plug-ins and API, side-by-side file comparisons, and much more. Read all about it in the nomination thread here and here.
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Notepad++
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Notepad++ has been around for a long time, and many users have only ever used Notepad++ when they’re ready to upgrade from Notepad or Wordpad. It’s stil under development though, and combines the simple interface of Notepad or Wordpad with advanced features that will make writers and developers happy. Some of them include a customizable interface that you can make as minimal or toolbar-rich as you choose, a document map so you can see where you are in your work at any time, a tabbed interface so you can work in multiple documents, auto-completion and text shortening, macro recording so you can customize shortcuts, and more. You also get customizable syntax highlighting, text folding and collapsable parts of the document (to make things easier to read,) and options you can use to launch the app under certain parameters, just to make your work easier.
Notepad++ is free (free as in free speech and free beer) and available for Windows only. You can grab it as an installable app, or a portable app to run from a flash drive or cloud storage service like Dropbox. If you’re not sure exactly what you’re looking for in a text editor, it’s a good place to start, especially because it’s free. You can donate to the project though, and if you enjoy it, you should. The code is available too, so if you’d rather contribute, you can do that as well. Those of you who nominated it praised its simplicity, wealth of plug-ins for just about every type of user, and of course, its price tag. Read all about it in the nomination thread here.
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Vim (and Its Iterations)
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Oh boy, Vim. Designed to bring the simplicity of Vi to every platform and person who needed a configurable but not-too-heavy text editor, Vim is one banner of the Holy Text Editor Grail Wars to march under. It’s not without good reason—Vim is cross-platform, free, and while it’s aimed squarely at programmers who want an interface they can tweak to their liking and really get some work done in, you don’t have to be a programmer to get the most use out of it. Instead, you just have to take the time to configure it so it works the way you prefer. It won’t hold your hand (although its extensive help is useful for beginners), but once you remember its keyboard shortcuts and commands, download tons of user scripts to apply to it to streamline your work, and learn your way around, it quickly becomes an essential tool. It supports dozens of languages, keeps a history of your actions so you can easily repeat or undo them, supports macro recording, automatically recognizes file types, and lives—once installed—at your command line.
Vim—and most of its iterations, which include editors that add a GUI to the app so you can launch it without resorting to the command line—are free (GPL licensed). It’s available for any operating system with a command line of just about any type, and it’s charityware, meaning instead of paying for the app, the team behind it suggests you donate to children in Uganda who could use the support via the ICCF. Those of you who praised Vim noted that it takes some commitment to learn, but once you’re familiar with it, the sky’s the limit. Read more in the nomination thread here.
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Atom
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Calling itself a text editor “for the 21st century,” Atom earned a lot of praise in the nominations round for being a text editor designed for the needs of today’s developers. It’s built by the team at GitHub, and incorporates some of the lessons the team there learned by managing so much code on a regular basis. It’s flexible, customizable, themeable, and even though it’s relatively new, it already has a large following and tons of plugins, thanks to its open API. It operates like a native application, and even the application package is customizable so you only get the modules you need. It packs a tabbed interface, multi-paned layout, easy file browser, and easy learning curve so you can get up and running with it quickly. There’s also solid documentation to help you get started if you need it. Only downside though: Atom is currently in private beta, and you’ll have to sign up for an invite and cross your fingers if you want to give it a try.
Atom is currently OS X only (10.8+), although Windows and Linux versions are on the roadmap. It’s also free to use while it’s in beta, but when it’s finished and released, the team behind it says it’ll be “competitively priced.” Those of you who nominated it praised its customizability and available plugins, and pointed to the tool’s potential to become one of the best and most powerful text editors we’ve seen in many many years. https://yellowrap682.weebly.com/free-text-editor-for-mac-shows-syntax-highlighting.html. You can read more about it in the nominations thread here.
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Update 07/2015: Atom has released its first stable, 1.0 version, along with fully supported versions for Windows and Linux! You can check out the details here.
Emacs (and Its Iterations)
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If you’ve used an operating system with a command line interface, you’ve had Emacs available to you. It’s been around for decades (since Richard Stallman and Guy Steele wrote it in 1976), and its the other major text editor to stand behind in the Holy Text Editor Grail Wars. It’s not the easiest tool, but it’s definitely one of the most powerful. It has a steep learning curve, but it’s always there, ready for use. It’s had a long and storied history, but the version that most people wind up using is GNU Emacs, linked above. It’s richly featured, too—Emacs can handle almost any type of text that you throw at it, handle simple documents or complex code, or be customized with startup scripts that add features or tweak the interface and shortcuts to match your project or preference. Similarly, Emacs supports macro recording, tons of shortcuts (that you’ll have to learn to get really familiar with it), and has a ton of modules created by third parties to leverage the app for completely non-programming purposes, like project planning, calendaring, news reading, and word processing. When we say it’s powerful, we’re not kidding. In large part, its power comes from the fact that anyone can play with it and mold it into something new and useful for everyone.
Emacs is completely cross platform, with versions and derivatives available for Windows, OS X, Linux, and just about every other operating system on the planet. It’s free, as in both free speech and free beer, and comes with detailed help, tutorials, and guides to help you get started using it if you’re new to using Emacs. Those of you who praised it in the call for contenders thread highlighted its flexibility and power, complete customizability, and the fact that you can play Tetris in it, which is admittedly a nice bonus. You can read all about it in its nominations thread here.
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Now that you’ve seen the top five, it’s time to put them to an all-out vote to determine the Lifehacker community favorite.
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Honorable mentions this week go out to TextWrangler (OS X) and UltraEdit (Windows/OS X/Linux). TextWrangler, as BBEdit’s lighter brother, works equally well as a writing tool as it does a development tool, although it’s designed to be the latter. It’s a great general-purpose text editor with an auto-saving cache that keeps all of your data and documents intact even if you don’t save them to disk between launching the application and closing it. UltraEdit on the other hand, is another crowd-favorite and sports a customizable layout, built-in FTP, find and replace that supports regular expressions, syntax highlighting, and more. Plus, it’s cross-platform. They’re both great options that just missed the top five if you want something more than the top five offers.
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We really can’t say how many amazing nominees we got in the call for contenders thread this week. If you’re wondering where your favorite editor is, odds are it was nominated back in that thread, so make sure to go check it out. Remember, the top five are based on your most popular nominations from the call for contenders thread from earlier in the week. Don’t just complain about the top five, let us know what your preferred alternative is—and make your case for it—in the discussions below.
The Hive Five is based on reader nominations. As with most Hive Five posts, if your favorite was left out, it didn’t get the nominations required in the call for contenders post to make the top five. We understand it’s a bit of a popularity contest. Have a suggestion for the Hive Five? Send us an email at [email protected]!
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Title photo by Darrell Nash.
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If you are an advert user of a computer, then you would know the inevitable use of text editors on a daily basis. Whether it is the need to take notes or do programming, there is a broad range of functions that text editors perform. Usage for Mac has been increased compared to Windows and therefore looking for best text editors for Mac is not an easy task to choose when there are many best text editors for Mac available in the market. Every OS comes
Every OS comes with the inbuilt ability of text editor like Notes in iOS or Text Edit in OS X providing the same universal function. But 10 best text editors for Mac OS are must for high-end programming.
If one wants to create software and apps that require complex coding, it becomes intermediate necessary to look for the best text editor for programming on Mac. To get a laptop with an excellent writing tool that offers no distraction, it is a must that it should be loaded with 10 best text editors for Mac. So 10 best text editors for Mac OS guide is here to sort out best for you .
Contents
What is a MAC iOS Code Editor?
Now before you look for best text editors for Mac one must know little about text editor. A text editor is a program that serves the purpose of editing the plain text files. Now a regular text editor is just used for text editing and formatting whereas on the other hand there are programming text editors that are specifically used for writing codes and are intended to serve the purpose of code formatting and indentation.
Best Text Editors for Mac
So here you will get the 10 best text editors for Mac Programming that may even extend the use of debugging.
1. Brackets- Best Text Editor
Bracket is one of the 10 best text editor for Mac coding and is a free and open source that has gained a big name in the tech industry. The most favorite thing about Bracket is that it has an elegant interface and comes with a unique feature called as Extract. It allows you to customize font, measurements, colors, gradients and you can even grab PSD file into the clean CSS ready to use for a web page. Apart from this the text editor also supports extension, inline editors, and previews. It also supports W3C Validation, Beautify for JS, HTML and CSS, Git Integration and much more. These features make this tool stand out of all other text editor tools.
You can download this versatile text editing tool from the link
2. Text Wrangler
The next pick in the list of 10 best text editors for Mac is Text Wrangler that is developed by Bare Bones. It includes all those features that are must for hardcore programmers and developers. Those who want to change the order of certain columns in a CSV, or a server admin that requires writing scripts. It is a free tool and is almost similar to Notepad ++ allowing you to do all necessary editing and is a tool worth looking forward. This tool can be considered as the short version of BBEdit and is the simplest tool to use as the script writer.
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So do try this popular text editor for Mac by downloading it from the link-
3. BBEdit
The developing company of BBEdit, Bare Bones claims that it is one of the best text editor for Mac OS. This tool is Holy Grail for Mac users. It is mighty and incredibly rich text and HTML editing tool that proves to be best for Web developers. It supports advanced features like editing, searching, and manipulation of text. You can also use this tool to command files, folders, text, and servers and also boasts the syntax support and color coding. But when you get such highlighted features under one umbrella you need to pay the price and is not available for free to support your needs.
Best Gui Text Editor For Mac Terminal
Follow the link to use this tool
4. TextMate
Talking about another massive and freely available text editor for Mac programming is TextMate that has made its approach to Mac users. This tool has easy to use graphical interface, neat and is powerful of UNIX command console that is equally useful for both dedicated and amateur programmers. It combines some great features like search and replaces within the project, auto-indentation, column selection, word completion from the current document, dynamic outlines, and regular expression support. It is a text editor that also supports Xcode and helps in building Xcode projects efficiently. With this tool, you can also use its inbuilt themes for visual liking.
Get this tool for free
Macbook Text Editor5. Sublime Text
With the wide variety of features and high customization options Sublime Text is the popular text editor that offers you the best interface. It is one of those text editors for Mac that supports code and markup. It has one of the fastest search engines, and the best part of this software is that it offers shortcuts and has powerful plugin API that is highly customizable. Its full features are accessible only after paying a certain amount, but you can use it for free for unlimited time.
Get this text editor for Mac free download from the site
6. Atom
Atom as a text editor for Mac is new in the market but is very much capable of doing your coding job. It is open source software that is available for free and is maintained by Github. It comes with massive user submitted package library and its impressive features are file system browser, fuzzy search, multiple tabs for editing, code folding, and multi-selection for quick edits, It also supports extension library, four UI and eight syntax themes in both dark and light colors. Apart from this it is also considered as the best text editor for Mac python.
Download this tool for free.
7. Textastic – Best Coding Text Editor
Another cross-platform text editor for Mac users is Textastic. It has made the coding easy job not only on Mac but also on iPhone and iPad. A unique feature of this tool is cloud syncing. If you are doing your coding work on Mac and want to switch to your iPhone or iPad then carry on from where you left without any effort. Therefore it is an excellent tool for on the go edits and quick in functionality. It is a versatile tool that supports almost 80 coding and markup language. Thus it is one of the 10 best text editors for Mac coding.
Get this out of box tool from the link given
8. Ultra Edit
The name Ultra Edit is a lot famous among developers from so many years and comes from IDM Computer Solutions. The main strength or USP of this tool lies in their editing capability. It supports HTML, PHP, Javascript, C/C++, Perl, Python and bundle of programming languages. With this tool comes features like features syntax highlighting, column/block editing, file/data sorting etc. It has integrated FTP client as well as SSH/telnet support. Most of its features are accessible with its premium offer but is a tool that is worth a buck.
9. Code Runner 2
It is another hardcore coding or text editor tool that you will love to use for prose writing. This tool unlike others supports themes that come from textmate and has ample of customizing options. Its attractive features that make programming job easy include symbol navigation, auto complete for words and bracket matching. In addition you get argument execution with input sets, an interactive console, and much more.
Want to use this versatile tool get it now
10. MacVim
Well, the list comes to an end with another famous 10 best text editors for Mac OS X. This text editor is free with primitive interface. This unique software is packed with standard OS X keyboard shortcuts lessening the learning curve a little. With this tool you get transparent backgrounds and full screen mode for distraction-free coding. It comes along with tabs and multiple windows with a fully-loaded ODB editor.
Want to try now and wait no more
Conclusion
So these were some of the most versatile, top selected and the top text editors for Mac. They will make your machine more useful. These are our best picks and are highly recommended 10 best text editors for Mac. One must give a try for they are build to serve the purpose of programming, coding and web designing. Hope this will make your search easy and sorted,
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