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kstor · Nov 23, 2003, 01:25 PM

Hey,

As much as I like XCode for large projects, it's not a great standalone code editor, for just working on individual files. Right now I use jEdit for this, but the imperfect integration with OSX really annoys me.

I need something with
a) nice osx interface
b) all standard code editor features: syntax highlighting, line numbers, good search and replace, etc.
c) support for JAVA, PHP, HTML, CSS, really as many languages as possible

What is the best code editor out there? I know bbedit is probably the answer, but what about cheaper or even opensource alternatives?

Nick

Earth Mk. II · Nov 23, 2003, 01:41 PM

Personally, I prefer vim... but there isn't a good native (Aqua) OS X port that I know of.

um.. You might want to look at SubEthaEdit. I haven't used it much myself, but I've heard good things.

Angus_D · Nov 23, 2003, 01:55 PM

Many, many people swear by BBEdit.

Catfish_Man · Nov 23, 2003, 02:08 PM

Originally posted by kstor:
Hey,

As much as I like XCode for large projects, it's not a great standalone code editor, for just working on individual files. Right now I use jEdit for this, but the imperfect integration with OSX really annoys me.

I need something with
a) nice osx interface
b) all standard code editor features: syntax highlighting, line numbers, good search and replace, etc.
c) support for JAVA, PHP, HTML, CSS, really as many languages as possible

What is the best code editor out there? I know bbedit is probably the answer, but what about cheaper or even opensource alternatives?

Nick

Well, if it weren't for 3 I would recommend Eclipse, but then if it weren't for 3 I'd be using Eclipse myself. Subethaedit is a bit primitive, but it works fairly well and has good multilanguage support.

Ilja · Nov 23, 2003, 02:45 PM

I personally use SubEthaEdit as well to edit individual files and it's working fine for me. It's not fully featured, but does everything you just required

kstor · Nov 23, 2003, 05:04 PM

SubEthaEdit is nice, in fact I used it for a while, but it's not really powerful enough. Basically I'm looking for a native osx version of jEdit, or a cheaper alternative to BBEdit, to give you an idea.

si_lance · Nov 23, 2003, 11:47 PM

kstor,
if you find this wonder.app please let me know... thanks!

p.s. if they'd just port Editplus to OS X

Gee4orce · Nov 24, 2003, 02:44 AM

SO what does 'powerful' mean in this context ? I don't know of any other editors - on any platform - that allow multiple people to work on the same document across the internet. That's pretty powerful ! Even if you're working on your own, the ability to colourise the text you've changed is very handy.

As for your run-of-the-mill editing, don't forget that a lot of text manipulation tools are provided by the Services menu to all Mac OS X apps.

If you really want a super-powerful editor where you can do just about anything with a couple of keyboard commands, then you need to learn vi or Emacs - both of which are installed on you system already.

Gul Banana · Nov 24, 2003, 06:45 AM

The only free way to get the power of BBEdit on OS X is vim (emacs doesn't count). BBEdit itself is amazing, but you already know the problem with it

Turias · Nov 24, 2003, 09:44 AM

There's a free, stripped-down version of BBedit. Is that not powerful enough for you?

CheesePuff · Nov 24, 2003, 10:30 AM

Originally posted by Turias:
There's a free, stripped-down version of BBedit. Is that not powerful enough for you?

Not anymore. It has a new name and its $49.95.

Turias · Nov 24, 2003, 10:34 AM

Well, it's been discontinued, but doesn't it work just fine?

You can still download it from the following link:

ftp://ftp.barebones.com/pub/freeware...te_612.smi.hqx

kstor · Nov 24, 2003, 10:43 AM

BBEdit Lite lacks one very important thing: syntax coloring. Crucial if you want to edit code.

Also, vim and emacs are out of the question. I've used them before, and hate their interface.

Also, I'd agree that SubEthaEdit (anyone like the name Hydra better or is it just me?) is very impressive when it comes to collaborative editing... if you use that. It still feels too simple for my purposes.

Nick

mmj_ngen · Nov 26, 2003, 09:00 AM

I used to use Pepper a lot and irEdit a little. They weren't too bad.

I liked Pepper. Unfortunately, it had become a little buggy and development had stopped by the original developer. Mac development has since progressed through a different developer.

I usually use Vim, but will probably check these out again.

for Pepper

for iredit

darkcore · Nov 27, 2003, 05:10 PM

Mi seems pretty decent (formerly known as MMKEdit), it's freeware and has some features that BBEdit has. Has syntax hilighting (Modes), line numbering, multi-file find, find/replace using regular expressions, switching between unix, mac or windows linebreaks, etc.

http://www.mimikaki.net/en/mimi/download.html

Though one annoyance is that if you want to turn off the toolbar, you have to turn it off in each individual Mode's preference.