06 Oct 2004 | Drew said...

augh

line numbers?
code coloring for actionscript?

maybe a simple preference for default font, code colors, etc?

How come I can't use tabs with multiple unrelated documents?
autocomplete for brackets/functions, etc doesnt work for html?

=(

06 Oct 2004 | mark said...

Wow, this is nice! No more unclosed tag and quote hunting.
My only objection is the hideous icon.

06 Oct 2004 | Ned Baldessin said...

It's a good start.

It lacks code completion and hinting in PHP, IMO.

And as Drew said, lots of settings should be moved out of the menus and into a standard Preferences panel : how often do you change on a document basis the numbers of spaces used to replace a tab, or font settings ?

The way Snippets are handled is very good : inobstrusive, simple. They should maybe not list all the snippets in that submenu, because it's going to get really crowded.

As I said : it's a great start.

06 Oct 2004 | Dale Cruse said...

How about a Preferences menu?

That icon? You're kidding, right? Yuck. I would be embarrassed for someone to see that thing in my Dock.

Nice start, but not ready for prime time.

I would love to find a replacement for BBEdit, but this isn't it (at least not yet).

06 Oct 2004 | Gene said...

Oh the blasphemy of speaking against BBEdit... Shame to you all...

06 Oct 2004 | Ian said...

So when are us windows users going to be blessed?

06 Oct 2004 | a said...

That icon's not an "icon" at all. At small sizes it's unreadable.

A set of default code coloring schemes that I can't edit (or extend) is pretty cruel. The minimum requirement for a text editor should be an easy way to write a new syntax library as a plain text or XML file (so someone could quickly write an Actionscript or MovableType library) After the painful years of BBEdit's compiled syntax libraries you would think someone would have learned.

Line numbers are there, btw, in View>Gutter>Line Numbers, which is exactly the wrong place.

I know David's critisized skEdit for being based on OS X's default text handling services, but at the moment, it's far nicer than TextMate.

06 Oct 2004 | Don Schenck said...

As a Winders user, I'm always SO jealous of Mac users.

*sigh*

My son even gets to use a Mac at Penn State on his research stuff

06 Oct 2004 | Unearthed Ruminator said...

There's been quite a discussion about alternatives to BBEdit over at Simple Bits that might be worth checking out if you haven't already.

06 Oct 2004 | Mathew said...

Nice except for the odd lack of a preference dialog - it took me some time to find line numbers and colour choices.

The text editing interface is quite attractive though, and mac-like, which really does make a difference.

06 Oct 2004 | Paperhead said...

Ian, Don

There's several similar programs out there for windows users, off the top of my head there's UltraEdit and Textpad, both pretty good products and easy to extend.

06 Oct 2004 | Sean said...

For those Windows users out there looking for additional options, there's also HTML-Kit. I've been using it for a couple months and I'm happy so far.

06 Oct 2004 | David Woodward said...

The snippets are pretty cool. I like the way this things works compared to the way BBEdit does some of its things.

If you want to change the syntax coloring, you can just make a new language bundle in ~/Library/Application Support/TextMate/Bundles. You'd then just make a folder in there called "HTML.tmbundle" for instance, and then create a folder inside called Syntaxes, then create a HTML.plist file.

See the default in TextMate.app/Contents/SharedSupport/Bundles/HTML.tmbundle/Syntaxes for the HTML bundle.

Overall its pretty simple and all uses text files. Sure there is no clicky-clicky interface yet, but its all in the help files. This is what they have out of the gate which is pretty awesome. It can only get better. I've already paid for mine, serial #42! Yeah, I'm awesome :) My serial number is the answer to the Universe!

06 Oct 2004 | soopa said...

I like the icon :o

06 Oct 2004 | cracyfeature said...

you're such friggin link whores. the desperation with which you link to your stuff (constantly!) makes me feel almost sad for you - not getting anough business?

06 Oct 2004 | edmz said...

Please don't let emacs out of the discussion. I'm a recent switcher and bbedit just didn't make it for me. I gave emacs a try and forced me to learn it. I just love it now. It's not a resource hog and it's completely flexible. Yeah, it does have a steep learning curve.

I use "carbonized emacs" version that you can find in macupdate. Ohh, yeah, and it's free.

06 Oct 2004 | Mathew said...

Jealous cracyfeature? Not getting any links?

06 Oct 2004 | Walker said...

Hah. BBEdit 8.0 was an upgrade I didn't quite care for until I gave it a try. It's amazing. Totally blew me away. All of the user interface tweaks and features were completely thought through and felt as if they had seen some amount of study and focus group thought.

I own TextMate as well and found it alright, but not the blockbuster that some have made it out to be.

06 Oct 2004 | bongoman said...

Monaco 10 looks weird in TextMate: too spaced out. What's up?

And the bolding in the syntax highlighting turns 'm' into a little blob.

And underlining in HTML syntax? What's that about? I know I can modify this via a text file but still, I got a fright when I opened up my PHP/XHTML documents.

07 Oct 2004 | Ryan C. said...

The question is, what does 37s use for thier projects?

07 Oct 2004 | Jeremy Flint said...

As a PC user at work, I have note found anything better than Homesite for coding my sites. I will sometimes use TopStyle Lite for a little CSS, but the majority of my coding is done in Homesite. I think I have Dreamweaver MX installed...but use it so rarely that it is not even in my quicklaunch bar.

Having recently switched from a Dell Inspiron laptop to a 17" Powerbook for my "on-the-road" machine, I have been looking for something comparable to Homesite. BBEdit has come close, and I have tried a few others.

I am still looking for the perfect fit and I think I will give this one a try and see what happens.

07 Oct 2004 | Jay said...

Hmmm. I read all these comments and I started defending TextMate in my mind, even though I hadn't even tried it yet. :) I love text editors.

Now that I've messed with it for a few minutes, I'm starting to agree with some stuff people said. The absence of any preferences pane is a little shocking for an app that is calling itself mac-like. (Although I don't think it's at all clear what "should" and "shouldn't" be in a Mac preference pane anymore. Look at all the "preferences" in the view menu of Safari. Plenty of them are comparable to turning on and off viewing of line numbers. Especially considering the other "code visualization" features available in the same menu.)

I didn't mind the icon when I saw the webpage, but now that I'm looking at it in my dock it looks a little dark... and confusing. I prefer the brighter (and perhaps equally confusing) SubEthaEdit icon. But anyway, on to things that are actually important.

I wish text was anti-aliased by default. I like my monaco nice and pointy and crisp. Is there an easy way to get that with TextMate? That's how text is by default in SubEthaEdit and Terminal.app, and that's how I'm used to my plain text looking. I really like the old bitmappy Monaco. It looks much bigger at size 9 than the Monaco that appears in the font panel for TextMate. What's up with that? Is Apple pulling something tricky behind the scenes with the transition from old fonts to new fonts? I bet they are.

Ok, so that's 1) preferences 2) unsettling icon and 3) monaco weirdness. So far nothing too important if you're really interested in powerful text editing.

Ok, now how do I open a new tab? I kept hearing about that and I want to try it.

.... ok, either that was just a rumor or i'm an idiot or it's really hard to find the "new tab" selection. I'm pretty damn sure I heard about that. So, if it's there, then that's a good thing.

And so are bookmarks. Crucial, in my opinion. And folding is wonderful, especially if it's programmable, which I'm concerned might not be the case with TM. Macros sound like a good step as well.

If i wasn't deeply (deeply!) in love with emacs, I would probably pay for this editor and start supporting it. I think the developers have the right idea in mind, and I hope they will keep at it.

Speaking of text editors, yall've heard of emacs, right? It takes some serious getting used to (and it's certainly not for everybody), but if you *really* want to deepen your relationship with your text -- I mean if you want to get right down into the text and wave magic wands and cause your text to march around like those broomsticks in Fantasia when mickey mouse puts on that wizard's cap -- then I know of no tool that is even in the same solar system as emacs.

After you've been using emacs for a few years, and spent a little time each day reading through the documentation, and learned the hundreds and hundreds of command combinations, and started to grok all the modes and the ways of climbing around the inside of your computer like it's a jungle gym and swinging from all the plain text goodness and shooting characters around like laser beams... after you get comfortable with all this, editing text is like dreaming while your awake.

Anyway, like I was saying, emacs isn't for everybody. Editing sweet, plain, nutritious text can be enjoyable in other editors too. TextMate looks like a promising alternative for Mac users.

07 Oct 2004 | G. I. said...

No Mac OS 9 version, no business.

07 Oct 2004 | Todd Dominey said...

Like others have noted, the lack of a Preferences window is quite odd. And after using BBEdit 8 for a while now, I'm hooked to having multiple documents open in a single window. TextMate could easily (at least in my mind) migrate the project-tab functionality to single document windows. And yes, ActionScript syntax coloring would be very welcome (why virtually no text-editor developer has added this to their editors is beyond me).

07 Oct 2004 | Ryan Schroeder said...

I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one that gags at antialiased text in a text editor. Can anyone explain to me why this is acceptable at all? I'm open to a new text editor, but not one that drives my eyes batty.

( BBEdit 8.0 AS module here )

07 Oct 2004 | AK said...

BBEdit and all other Mac text editors are good but I can't find something that works as well as HomeSite for the PC. The three panel interface is perfect for development, color coding, and tabbed interfaces that actually seem right.

Sure I hate the limited search/replace capabilities.

07 Oct 2004 | Brad Hurley said...

Regarding the lack of a preference window, the TextMate site says:

TextMate doesnt have one. We consider it a feature and a testament to the simplicity inherent in the application. All the choices made in View and Behavior are sticky, though. So enabling Tab Emulation will make TextMate remember across all files and projects.

That said, it may very well be that future features will force us to add a preference window. But for the current set, were quite content with its absence.

I can understand the argument, but it actually makes this application less Mac-like, because we're all used to applications having a preferences window. So even if the application itself is "so simple that it doesn't need one," the user still needs one.

I'm less interested in reading comparisons between this and BBEdit than I am in comparisons with PageSpinner, which works pretty well as a text editor for HTML and CSS, at least for my purposes. Quite a few web designers use PageSpinner; Zeldman uses it for all his sites (or he did until recently).

07 Oct 2004 | Aaron said...

You don't have to create and use TextMate projects to enjoy the tabs and single window interface. Just grab a couple of files (or better yet a folder) and drop them on the TM dock icon.

Though in practice the tabs and drawer are kind of redundant... I found it better to just hide the tab shelf and use the drawer and keyboard shortcuts to navigate between documents.

11 Oct 2004 | hartmurmur said...

GREP? So key for me.

G.I. said:

No Mac OS 9 version, no business.

Ha! Seriously, is someone helping you get up to speed with other things that have happened in this world since you have come out of the coma?

11 Oct 2004 | Amit Snyderman said...

For those of you who dig homesite, give JEdit (http://www.jedit.org) a shot. Aside from pc-like key-bindings, it behaves pretty well in os x. It has a left-side pain for file/sftp browsing, excellent syntax highlighting control, great search/replace tools, macros, and a pretty big community and plugin archive to support it.

Admittedly, I'm really enjoying the new BBEdit release and will probably finally be able to use it as my primary dev environment on os x.

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