[schamae]

Have a bet going with a friend. Says he will buy a mini if I supply a mac alternative *that does all the same things*. I have no idea what ultraedit does, but I'm assuming some of you will. Thanks for any help!

<DrReno> Ultraedit lets me press one button and look at a file in text (ascii) mode
<DrReno> I can search on strings
<DrReno> then press the button and edit them in hex mode.
<DrReno> this makes for easy gba homebrew.
<DrReno> and exe modification for that matter.

for an indicator of what hes looking for.

[Salty]

I have no idea if sub etha edit is what he'd be looking for or BBEdit... that said he could always just run a virtualization app.

[ibookuser2]

I'm not aware of anything on the Mac that lets you switch between ASCII and hex views like that, but HexEdit lets you search for a string in either ASCII or hex, and edit them in either mode (the hex view is displayed in the majority of the window, with the corresponding ASCII over in the right column. Both are editable.)

I like Aquamacs Emacs (or just straight emacs) as a text (non-hex) editor, but SubEthaEdit and TextMate are both excellent as well (though not free.)

So no, there's probably no perfect equivalent to Ultraedit, but there are definitely tools that allow the same thing.

[Dr.Michael]

Originally Posted by tutelary

Have a bet going with a friend. Says he will buy a mini if I supply a mac alternative *that does all the same things*. I have no idea what ultraedit does, but I'm assuming some of you will. Thanks for any help!

<DrReno> Ultraedit lets me press one button and look at a file in text (ascii) mode
<DrReno> I can search on strings
<DrReno> then press the button and edit them in hex mode.
<DrReno> this makes for easy gba homebrew.
<DrReno> and exe modification for that matter.

for an indicator of what hes looking for.

No hex edit with any mac ascii editor I am aware of.
Only BBedit or TextWrangler compare to UltraEdit feature wise, but both cannot edit Hex. JEdit is also an exceptionally powerful editor - without hex.
I also suggest HexEdit for the weird stuff.

But be aware: If a windows guy says "does all the same things" most of the time he means "the same things the same way". Shortcuts are different on the mac and the first day will be like Grrr for him however powerful his editor of choice will be.

Basically BBedit is as powerful as UltraEdit.

[snoopy199]

I'm a big fan of ultraedit myself

Anyways have you taken a look at TextMate

Some people swear by it. I'm trying it out now. Barebone's BBEDIT is probably the 800 pound gorilla in the text editor/mac world.

[Dr.Michael]

Originally Posted by darth-vader000

Barebone's BBEDIT is probably the 800 pound gorilla in the text editor/mac world.

thats what UltraEdit is for Windows, isn't it? So the match isn't too bad.
But, coming back to the requirements of tutelary, neither BBedit nor TextMate fulfill them.

Edit
####
Just browsed through the current feature list of UltraEdit (did not update my version for a while). I take back my suggestion of BBedit. BBedit does not come close and I guess there is no Mac editor that does. Maybe with the exception of JEdit if you use plugins.
UltraEdit does it all from repairing your car to cooking your meals. And that for a quarter of BBedits price. No competition.

[zmcgill]

Why can't he just run Windows on the mini?

[schamae]

Originally Posted by Gossamer

Why can't he just run Windows on the mini?

that wasnt the point. the point was the supposed existence of alternatives to pretty much anything you would want to do aside from games on the mac.

I'm suprised something as fully featured apparently doesnt exist on the mac (by the replies in this thread).

[Dr.Michael]

Originally Posted by tutelary

that wasnt the point. the point was the supposed existence of alternatives to pretty much anything you would want to do aside from games on the mac.

I'm suprised something as fully featured apparently doesnt exist on the mac (by the replies in this thread).

You shouldn't be surprised.

UltraEdit like BBedit suffers from featuritis - at least thats what its called among developers. That is the trend to to put every feature that a client might ask for into a program. The result is software where every user only uses a small subset of the features and has to spend endless time to configure or find a setting (2 or 4 spacs per tab - where is it in Ultra Edit?) because the property windows are as crowded as the menues. A good example is Word. The side effect of such software is often slow execution, excessive memory usage and code thats very hard to manage which leads to bugs.

The way out is a small and sleek program that does exactly what you want. This is the reason why TextMate is sucessful although a closer look shows that it has MUCH less features compared to BBEdit (for example). But it does what a programmer wants to do - not more. And it works fine.

Maybe your friend should think if his requirement is smart. If he wants to edit hex code, he can use a hex editor, if he wants to edit ascii code, there are a lot of good ascii editors on the market. Most of them are free.

My experience is: the choice of editors on the mac platform is simply great. Thats why I write my programs on macs. I wouldn't even think about programming on windows.

[OreoCookie]

There will never be a 1-to-1 replacement. However, there are plenty of choices on the Mac, TextMate, BBEdit and SubEthaEdit come to mind.

I use TextMate to earn my living and I'm more than satisfied with it.

[Chuckit]

There's a difference between there being replacements for programs and having the exact same program working the exact same way.

[wataru]

You know we do have a "software" forum.