Sometimes you just need a pencil.
BBEdit is not that. BBEdit is more like a lifetime of writing and editing tools compiled into one veteran application, and regularly updated with more. It got a shakeup with version 11, but now the new BBEdit 11.1 introduces still more features -- seriously, where do they keep finding features to put into this text editor?
There's a funny thing about BBEdit, though: you can lavish this with praise, you can count its great features, you could alphabetize its powerful tools -- and then you could use all the same things as criticisms too. For it has all the features you could want, but in order to want them you have to be a programmer. You can, and many people, do use BBEdit for writing everything from notes to novels, but if their work varies enormously, the people don't. BBEdit fans tend to have that kind of mind that enjoys computers and programming. It's for the fiddlers and the twiddlers who not only know how to customize things, who not only enjoy customizing them, but can make those customized bits sing.
So BBedit is not for you if you want a word processor for writing a short sermon in. It's not for you if you really want to do some page layout, and can't afford
Adobe InDesign.
However, BBEdit is seriously and most definitely for you if you write extensively for the web, if you work across many documents at once, if you program or if you regularly manipulate text files like you're wringing them out to dry. It's for you if you appreciate all that UNIX can give you, and if you both know what "grep searching" is and keenly want it.
We can't praise BBEdit enough for all that it can do, and actually for how it keeps those functions ready rather than requiring you to learn them all before you can write, say, a shopping list.
This is an oversimplification, but what the new version 11.1 adds can be divided into two sorts: tools for programmers, and tools for handling text. So as an example of the latter, you can now search for text and have all occurrences of it collated into a new document. As this uses grep, this is big -- because the text you search for can be certain words that only appear near certain other ones.
In a similar way, there is a revised Find Differences feature that shows you two documents side by side with the list of differences.
Microsoft Word can compare documents, but it's a multi-step process, whereas BBEdit just shows you.
For programmers and coders, there is now selected support for Git that is available directly from within BBEdit. Previously, you could use BBEdit in your workflow, but now you can stay within the app and use the most common Git functions.
No, hang on, you're looking at us like we don't know Git and are starting to bluff. Full disclosure, hand on heart, honest to goodness, we thought Git was a mildly rude British insult -- but that's because we've never needed to know any better. It's our parents we blame. If you know Git, though, and were required to patiently write us a note about why it's so very useful, you would automatically write it in BBEdit.
Maybe that's the way to describe BBEdit. Scriptwriters feel at home in
Final Draft –– although they'd like to redecorate –– while academics like
LaTeX, novelists enjoy
Scrivener, and everybody has put up with Microsoft Word at some point. Coders and technically-minded people belong in BBEdit.
BBEdit 11.1 requires talent, OS X 10.8.5 or later, and
costs $50 from the official site.
Who is BBEdit 11.1 for:
Quick test. Are you now, or have you ever been, tempted to write CSS? Congratulations: BBEdit is for you.
Who is BBEdit 11.1 not for:
If what you really want is a Bare Bones text editor as BBEdit started out, if you want page layout design or if you're writing 100,000 words of fiction, there are easier choices to make.
-- William Gallagher (
@WGallagher)
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