Switching To TextMate
- August 09, 2005
- No Comments
A friend of mine wrote me an email the other day asking me for some help with TextMate. He knew I had checked it out earlier and thought I had made it my main editor. I was still using BBEdit at the time though.
His email and questions made me download the latest TextMate beta (1.1b16 as of this writing) and try it out again. I had forgotten how light and out-of-the-way TextMate feels compared to BBedit. It seems quicker and easier to use. And the last few betas have included one of my most wished-for features, a way to quickly navigate large files by their functions. BBEdit has a function drop-down in their toolbar which I use all the time with larger files. TextMate now pops up a little window that shows all functions/selectors in a file if you hit cmd-shift-T. At first, I didn’t like it as much as the drop-down, but I’m beginning to like it more now. If it would only stay open after I select something, then I would like it a lot more than the drop-down.
So after working with it the last couple of days, TextMate’s tabbed interface, code-folding, amazingly powerful and flexible bundles, shortcuts and overall lightweight feel have finally convinced me to make TextMate my main editor now. I’ve still got a few gripes with it, the main one being able to open multiple remote files in a tabbed window instead of multiple windows, but other than that I’m really happy with it. It’s well worth the price.
