There is no shortage of options for text editors geared towards developers on the Mac, but TextMate is our top pick. It wins out thanks to its massive programming language syntax support, helpful code snippets, expandability, and integration with the OS X terminal.
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TextMate
Platform: Mac OS X
Price: Free!
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Features
- Column Selections and Column Typing
- Expand Trigger Words to Code Blocks With Tab-able Placeholders
- Support for Darcs, Perforce, SVK, and Subversion
- Works As External Editor for (s)ftp Programs
Note: This feature list is borrowed from the TextMate site and the links will take you directly to TextMate's pages containing more info on each feature.
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Where It Excels
TextMate is excellent. It's as simple as you need it to be, providing only a single window for editing a single document, or it can expand to handling a large file structure. It supports syntax highlighting for practically any programming language you can think of, plus it contains code snippets. These things can be expanded by downloading third-party add-ons. TextMate has great code organization features. It updates frequently enough that you feel taken care of but not so frequently you want to smack it in the face (like with Evernote). You can even use TextMate as your text editor in the terminal with the command mate. If you're looking for a WYSISYG editor, TextMate—and this entire category—is not for you. If you just want to write code in a great editor, you've come to the right app.
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Where It Falls Short
Organizing the files you're currently working on could be a little more user-friendly, as it can be a little bit tedious if you don't open your entire work folder immediately at launch. The undo history is so detailed that you can find yourself pressing Command+Z a lot just to get back to the place you wanted. Generally it's just faster to retype it. Overall, though, there's very little to complain about. At one point we complained about its $58 price tag, but now that TextMate is open-source and free it's got almost everything going for it.
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The Competition
It's impossible to avoid mentioning SublimeText because it's so similar. It has almost the same support for language syntax as TextMate, and even has a Windows version as well (which is where the app originated, but that Mac version is still very Mac-like). Honestly, whether you use Sublime Text or TextMate is really going to come down to preference. They're both excellent and both, perhaps, a bit too expensive. They also both come with trials, so you can check them both out and decide for yourself.
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But maybe you're someone who doesn't want to pay for their programming-friendly text editor. If that's you, there are a couple of other alternatives that don't cost a thing. First, TextWrangler is a capable option with a loyal user base (if they haven't already upgraded to its big brother BBEdit), but it's a little low on capabilities and has an interface that feels pretty dated. Alternatively, there's Fraise (the successor to Smultron), which is another free, capable, but not-as-amazing-as-TextMate (and Sublime Text) text editor.
The other free option that's probably most like TextMate (and Sublime Text, for that matter) is Kod. It supports over 65 languages, is remarkably fast and lightweight, and only comes with one real disadvantage: it's in its early stages of development. When I checked it out earlier this year, however, it was pretty solid. Kod is very much worth a look, even if it hasn't been around for quite as long as the others.
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The Notepad++ is widely used in Windows operating systems, however, the programming software is not available to the Mac OS. There is no need to fret if you move from a Windows environment as the OS X has a native Unix environment that is compatible for html editors, and a simple text editor called TextEdit. There are other programming software for Mac that can best NotePad++ if you are in need of more functionality that is not present with TextEdit.
Text Editor For Mac Os
People who ask the question“What is the best source code editor for OS X?”, or continually look for the best notepad++ alternatives, either free or paid for Mac OS, look no further than to refer to this article. Here listed are the next best text editors and Notepad++ alternatives for Mac. In this article, we will certainly reveal you a few of the most effective code editors readily available for Mac and Windows customers.
1. Light Table (Free)
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An open-source text editor, it’s main feature is the real-time feedback allowing instant execution, access to documentation and debugging. This reduces the programming time by showing the results of the code as your write it. It has “watches” which can keep track of high priority values in your code, built-in plugin manager, and inline evaluation which does away with printing to the console to see the results of your code.
2. TextMate (Paid)
One of few exclusive code editors for Mac, it uses features both from Emacs and OS X into a single text editor, for designers and programmers alike that seek to replace the full IDE. With features such as auto-pairing of brackets, Regex and Grep support, visual bookmarks for jumping in between locations in a document make TextMate a viable alternative to Notepad++. It works well with the Xcode environment, you can take advantage of these features while still using the built-in OS X IDE.
TextMate is offered for $58. It is additionally available as a cost-free download.
3. Sublime Text (Paid)
An elegant design welcomes you with this text editor, with features such as GoTo Anything, which can open any files with only a few keystrokes, full screen mode, split editing, a command palette to automatically switch between specific parts without navigation to menus. It has a Python console which you can experiment with in real-time, and a customizing function to just customize key bindings, menus, macros, completions, basically anything with JSON files.
Superb Text is available on test as well as a single permit will cost you $70.
4. Atom (Free)
A code editor made by the GitHub developers, it’s main selling point (although it’s free), is that it was made to be customized by developers. Featuring packages, these add-ons can be made by other developers to add more functionality to your Atom code editor. The program can be used in conjunction with HTML and Javascript, so you don’t have to learn complicated languages.
5. TextWrangler (Free)
If the fee of $49 isn’t justifiable for purchasing a text editor like BBEdit, then it’s little brother TextWrange will be enough for you. It includes features like syntax highlighting, Unix scripting integration. It functions like other similar simple text editors, with features such as multi-file search, unicode viewing and spellcheck.
6. BBEdit ($49)
The big brother of TextWrangler it offers many more features in addition to what was included in TextWrangler such as HTML tools, Clippings system, GitHub integration, and adapting Automator. You can also develop your own language module using the BBEdit SDK to add syntax coloring and navigation without writing any code.
7. Chocolat (Free)
Best Free Code Editor For Mac
Chocolat is a native text editor for Mac, that means it utilizes the advantages of the latest features of the OS and strictly is not a port from Windows, so you should be able to comfortable right away as it focuses on the Mac experience. It works with every programming language such as Ruby on Rails, PHP, C++, and Haskell. Boasting user friendliness and no steep learning curve, projects are easy to start, and you can even view two files at once with their split editing feature.
Best Code Editor For Mac
8. Komodo-Edit
A light version of Komodo IDE, it’s integrated development environment (IDE) is used by those who don’t need an entrie IDE, but just the essentials. Core features include multi-language support, autocomplete, tracking, and Markdown viewing. It’s also integrated with Kopy.io, an alternative pastebin to Github. You can add more functionality by integrating extensions you can download from Github repositories.
9. Brackets (Free)
Adobe’s answer to a Notepad++ alternative, it is deemed as one of the most viable alternatives for Mac. The best feature it has is called Extract, which extracts the color, gradient, font and measurements from a PSD file automatically which can dramatically reduce the time to turn a PSD file into a website. There are extensions being released every 3 weeks, so Brackets is always improving.
10. Aquamacs (Free)
A user-friendly version of the famous Emacs text editor, it combines the Mac functionality with the ergonomics and extensibility of the features of Emac into one single editor. It boasts a range of proportional and mono-spaced fonts, and basically a standard Mac interface with the functionality of a text editor.