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The Ultimate List of Text Editors for Mac in 2023



Say you want to rename a literal (variable, function, and so on) in multiple places. Sublime Text allows you to highlight the literal, and using Ctrl/Cmd D you can select other occurrences of that literal and edit, replace, or do what you want.




What Is A Text Editor For Mac




The VSCode editor offers syntax light, IntelliSense features (autocompletes, code hinting, and more), custom configurations, and room for different plugins. VSCode also allows multiple selections and multiple view panes.


VSCode has a large marketplace for different languages, frameworks, and even your editor. You have extensions that beautify your editor's appearance and experience and tools that help with autocompletion when writing code.


Atom is a highly customizable code editor. This is why the team calls it a "hackable text editor". From the appearance and colors on the editor to the key combinations for commands and many other things, you can customize Atom as much as you wish and make it very personalized.


WebStorm takes the name "development editor" quite literally. From running scripts to breakpoints and general debugging, WebStorm provides developer tools that allow you to write, execute and debug your code.


Well, you can use any plain text editor such as NotePad. However, there are better code editors out there with features like syntax highlighting, advanced find and replace option, FTP integration, and more.


It comes with syntax highlighting for many languages including PHP, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. It also comes with a built-in FTP plugin that allows you to connect to your server and edit files directly without leaving the editor.


Komodo IDE is a free and fast code editor for Mac, Windows, and Linux users. It lets you work on multiple popular programming languages, including PHP, Python, Perl, Ruby, Node.js, Javascript, and more.


It looks beautiful and you can tweak the appearance to make it more comfortable for you. Sublime Text comes with advanced code editor features which allow you to autofill, autocomplete, reference function in a file, multiple selections, split editing, and many more.


The editor uses the native macOS APIs for fast code editing and processing. It has a syntax coloring engine based on the iOS source code editor. Textastic lets you import code from other editors like TextMate and Sublime Text.


The Araneae editor supports HTML, CSS, PHP, Javascript, Ruby, and other popular programming languages. It comes with syntax highlighting, instant browser preview, custom quick clips, tabbed multi-document, and drag and drop support.


CoffeeCup HTML Editor is an easy-to-use HTML editor for Windows. It supports PHP, HTML, Markdown, and CSS and allows you to use autocomplete, syntax validation, and semantic code, among many other features.


A number of very good editors here. I also like Metapad and Context Editor. Both are free. (I use Metapad more than any other editor except maybe KM tools like Evernote, OneNote, etc. Metapad is old but very stable, lean, and fast.)


A good text editor is one of my favorite tools. I have been using them for decades, first in DOS, then Windows, Linux, and now Mac. I often edit content for the web in a text editor, viewing the HTML markup directly. I can sometimes be quite fussy about the code that is used and how it is laid out.


On Linux, my favorite text editors were Genie and Bluefish, though I also regularly used Gedit and Kate. When I switched to Mac, I initially used TextMate. After some time, though, I turned to Sublime Text, which was updated regularly.


I continued experimenting with other text editors and eventually settled on Komodo Edit. It had the features I needed at the time and an interface that suited my workflow. That included recording many basic search-and-replace macros that were conveniently listed in a side panel. I could launch them one-by-one by double-clicking on the macro name.


Who needs a decent text editor? Anyone who needs to work with plain text files. That includes people who need a casual tool for small edits and those who use one as their primary software tool every day. You can use a text editor for tasks like:


Some text editors are developed with one or more of these tasks in mind. A text editor aimed at app developers may include a debugger, while a text editor aimed at web developers might feature a live preview pane. But most text editors are flexible enough to be used for any purpose.


The appeal of a text editor is that it can be used for so many different things, and personalized in ways that no other type of app can. However, many users prefer to use a more specialized tool, for example, an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for programming, or a dedicated writing application like Scrivener or Ulysses.


It looks great and is rich in features. Sublime Text 3 works consistently across all platforms, which is achieved by the use of a custom UI toolkit, and the app itself is native to each operating system. That makes it more lightweight and responsive than other cross-platform editors.


The app is highly customizable. Settings are changed by editing a text-based configuration file. While that may take beginners by surprise, it makes a lot of sense for those who are used to working in a text editor, and the preferences file is highly commented so you can see the available options.


The app was created by GitHub, which has been subsequently acquired by Microsoft. Despite misgivings by some in the community (especially since Microsoft had already developed their own text editor), Atom remains a robust text editor.


This editor provides more tools for writers by default than most of its competitors. In fact, author Matt Gremmel has been using it as one of his primary writing apps since at least 2013, though he does use other apps as well.


TextMate 2.0 by MacroMates is a powerful, customizable text editor for macOS only. Version 1 was highly popular, but when Version 2 was delayed, many users jumped ship to something updated more regularly, most notably Sublime Text. The update was eventually launched and is now an open-source project (view its license here).


Komodo Edit is a simple yet powerful text editor by ActiveState and is available free of charge. It was first released in 2007 and now looks quite dated. It is a cut down version of the more advanced Komodo IDE, which is now also available for free.


The app is simple enough for beginners to begin using immediately. Focus Mode displays just the editor. A tabbed interface lets you easily switch between open files. Go To Anything allows you to quickly search for and open the file you want. Here is how an HTML and PHP file is displayed in the editor.


Textastic is an advanced code editor originally written for iPad, and now available for Mac and iPhone. Unlike Coda 2, which also offers an iPad app, the mobile version of Textastic is feature-complete and powerful. In fact, the company speaks of the Mac version as being its companion app.


A text editor designed specifically for Mac will look and feel like a Mac app; dedicated Mac users may find it easier to learn and use. A cross-platform app may break lots of Mac user interface conventions, but it will work the same way on all operating systems.


Users of text editors tend to be quite technical and prefer functionality to ease-of-use. Keyboard shortcuts can speed up your workflow and allow you to keep your hands on the keyboard instead of reaching for a mouse.


Many text editors allow you to have multiple cursors so that you can select and edit more than one line at a time. They may also provide columns so that you can see different sections of the same file on the screen at the same time.


Code completion saves you time and reduces typos by offering to type code for you. This may be intelligent, where the app understands context, or simply a way to access a popup menu of available functions, variables, and other elements. Related features may automatically close tags and brackets for you.


Code folding allows you to use the text editor like an outliner, collapsing sections of your source code so that they are hidden from sight when not needed. Some text editors also allow a live preview of HTML and CSS files, a feature appreciated by web developers.


Some text editors include additional features for writers, like Markdown support and text folding. Many writers appreciate that text editors are simpler, faster, and more customizable than word processors. Translators often use text editors that offer regular expressions for advanced search and replace.


The most appealing feature of many text editors is that they allow you to choose which features you need by offering a rich ecosystem of plugins. It allows you to build a custom app. It also means that text editors are less bloated: by default, they only include essential features.


Plugins are written in a variety of languages depending on the text editor that you choose, and developers can create and share their plugins. You can often access the library of plugins from within the app, then add the ones you want with just a few clicks. Some text editors include a simple way to record macros without coding.


If you have attempted to use nano at the command line on MacOS recently, you may have noticed that the pico text editor is launched instead, via a symlink for /usr/bin/nano to pico. This is because the latest versions of MacOS remove the nano text editor from the command line for whatever reason, and instead have replaced nano with pico.


Emacs runs on OSX and is a very popular editor for code, text and well... just about everything. It was originally very much a geek's editor, but has since become much more simple and easy to use. You might give it a shot.


If you think you might consider Vim, it definitely has vertical text splitting. You can split your window into as many windows as you like - top and bottom, left and right, two on the top and one on bottom, etc. The splits can be different files or different parts of the same file.


Sublime Text has a Python API, meaning that a wide variety of plugins can be integrated with the text editing solution. This includes the thousands of plugins that are consistently created by the Sublime Text community. 2ff7e9595c


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