TextMate fits into the OS X user experience well, and is a highly regarded editor. It contains decent project management features, clipboard history, automatic bracket pairing, and can be expanded with plugins.
Whether you are a developer switching to the Mac or you’re just shopping around for a nice new editor, you are spoiled for choice when it comes to text editors. Here are my candidates for best text editor for Mac OS X, with some pros and cons of each. Check out my recommendations
The main things I look for in a text editor apart from speed and stability:
Good support for projects. I like to be able to drag a folder from the Finder onto the app and have it open a new project browser. When I’m editing a file I want a simple key command to add a new file to the same folder, and for Command S to open a save dialog that saves by default in that folder (I know this seems obvious). I also want a key command like Command Shift F that will let me find any string, and it should default to the currently open project. The find should also have a Find in File option, and a Replace function that is flexible and fast (I often have to do a find and replace on URLs in MySQL .sql backups for example). All the permutations of Find should support regular expressions.
Great support for Plugins, Clippings, Scripts, Triggers, and what have you. Editors can’t do everything, so it’s important that they expose some kind of scripting engine so that you can do all the tweaking you need. All of the apps below do this, all in different ways.
BBEdit
BBEdit has been around basically forever and is mature, fast, and reliable. I don’t think it has ever crashed on any of my Macs, but I’ve been using it so long that it must have at some point. BBEdit is not the most modern editor around: it doesn’t do code completion, for example. But it has some very powerful functionality, most notably Text Factories, AppleScript support, Automator Actions, Clippings, and Stationery. I have always found things that BBEdit just does better than other editors: see for example Zap Gremlins or Process Lines Containing or Process Duplicate Lines or Sort Lines. BBEdit has always been good at opening large files too, which is something that other editors can’t really match (maybe because that fancy syntax highlighting requires too much processing power). Note: I haven’t tried BBEdit 10 yet: BBEdit 9 is so good that I haven’t needed to. BBEdit is the fastest at doing the SQL backup find and replace that I mentioned above.
TextMate
TextMate made a splash a few years back, introducing a bunch of cool features previously unseen in the world of Mac text editors. Pokemon save editor platinum. TextMate, for many programmers at least, dethroned BBEdit as our editor of choice: support for snippets, triggers, code completion and syntax highlighting made TextMate a compelling reason to switch. But fast-forward to 2014: TextMate is seemingly abandoned, and the preview of TextMate 2 — open-sourced back in August 2012 — is still a preview. TextMate is still a great editor, but it suffers 1from some performance issues and some bugs. There is still some ongoing development but it’s hard to resist the conclusion that the byline ‘The Missing Editor For Mac OS X’ has become a bit ironic! TextMate was consistently slower at the SQL Find and Replace than BBEdit.
Chocolat
I haven’t really used Chocolat enough to know either way, just a 30-day trial a few months back. I like the look of it and it seems to be a TextMate replacement, plus it has a markdown preview, which is great for me since I use markdown for general writing. I’ve heard that performance might be an issue, but that was almost a year ago, so may have been fixed by now.
vim, vi, Emacs
I’d like to hear from anyone using any of these every day for development on the Mac. I use nano for pretty much any editing I do in the Terminal, which I know is kind of lazy. I could probably save some money and get some nerd cred using Emacs. Should I give it a go?
Sublime Text
Almost as fast as BBEdit, and has many powerful features: Command Palette, Snippets, Goto Anything (think QuickSilver for project navigation), a good distraction-free mode, column mode, multiple selections, and a great plugin system with lots of available plugins. The edge over BBEdit is in its blazing fast code completion. Sublime Text is slower than BBEdit at the .sql Find and Replace, but is faster than TextMate.
And the winner so far is… Sublime Text
Sublime Text may be the best editor out there right now. The balance of features, flexibility, and speed make it a great all-purpose development tool. I would recommend also keeping a copy of BBEdit on hand for certain unique features (‘Process Lines Containing’).
Final note: Before you pay for any software, I suggest you download trial versions and test them out. Plus you should try using vi for a couple of weeks, just for educational reasons! Leave a comment if you have any suggestions or alternate options.
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We have evaluated over 20 free HTML editors for Macintosh against over 40 different criteria relevant to professional web designers and developers. The following applications are the best free HTML editors for Macintosh, both WYSIWYG and text editors, rated from best to worst. Each editor listed will have a score, percentage, and a link to more information.
Best Value: Komodo EditWhat We Like
What We Don't Like
Komodo Edit is hands down the best free XML editor available. It includes a lot of great features for HTML and CSS development. Plus, if that isn't enough, you can get extensions for it to add on languages or other helpful features (like special characters).
Komodo Edit is not the best HTML editor out there, but it is great for the price, especially if you build in XML. I use Komodo Edit every day for my work in XML, and I use it a lot for basic HTML editing as well. This is one editor I'd be lost without.
There are two versions of Komodo: Komodo Edit and Komodo IDE.
Best for JavaScript Developers: Aptana StudioWhat We Like
What We Don't Like
Aptana Studio offers an interesting take on website development. Instead of focusing on HTML, Aptana focuses on the JavaScript and other elements that allow you to create rich internet applications.
One thing I really like is the outline view that makes it really easy to visualize the document object model (DOM). This makes for easier CSS and JavaScript development.
Free pdf editor for mac os x. If you are a developer creating web applications, Aptana Studio is a good choice.
A Full Featured Java IDE: NetBeansWhat We Like
What We Don't Like
NetBeans IDE is a Java IDE that can help you build robust web applications. Like most IDEs, it has a steep learning curve because they don’t often work in the same way that web editors do. But once you get used to it you’ll be hooked.
One nice feature is the version control included in the IDE which is really useful for people working in large development environments. If you write Java and web pages this is a great tool.
Best for LAMP Developers: BluefishWhat We Like
What We Don't Like
Bluefish is a full-featured web editor for Linux. There are also native executables for Windows and Macintosh. There is code-sensitive spell check, autocomplete of many different languages (HTML, PHP, CSS, etc.), snippets, project management, and auto-save.
It is primarily a code editor, not specifically a web editor. This means that it has a lot of flexibility for web developers writing in more than just HTML, but if you’re a designer by nature you might not like it as much.
A Powerful Multi-Language IDE: EclipseWhat We LikeBest Free Html Editor For Mac Os X
What We Don't Like
Eclipse is a complex, Open Source development environment that is perfect for people who do a lot of coding on a variety of platforms and with different languages.
Eclipse is structured as plug-ins, so if you need to edit something just find the appropriate plug-in and go.
If you are creating complex web applications, Eclipse has a lot of features to help make your application easier to build. There are Java, JavaScript, and PHP plugins, as well as a plugin for mobile developers.
A Swiss Army Knife IDE from Mozilla: SeaMonkeyWhat We LikeText Editor For Mac Free
What We Don't Like
SeaMonkey is the Mozilla project all-in-one internet application suite. It includes a web browser, email and newsgroup client, IRC chat client, and Composer, the web page editor.
One of the nice things about using SeaMonkey is that the browser is built-in, so testing is a breeze. Plus it's a free WYSIWYG editor with an embedded FTP client to publish your web pages.
A Basic HTML Writer: AmayaWhat We Like
What We Don't Like
Amaya is the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) web editor and web browser. It validates the HTML as you build your page and displays your Web documents in a tree structure, which is useful for learning to understand the DOM.
Amaya has a lot of features that most web designers won’t ever use, but if you want to be certain that your pages follow the W3C standards, this is a great editor to use.
Straightforward and Stable: BBEdit 12What We Like
What We Don't Like
BBEdit is a paid program that has a set of free capabilities (the same capabilities that the now-defunct TextWranger had. While Bare Bones Software, the makers of BBEdit do offer a paid version, you may find the free version does everything you need. You can review a feature comparison here.
Note
If you're using TextWrangler, it is not compatible with macOS 10.13 (High Sierra). However, the free (and paid) version of BBEdit is.
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