TextWrangler and Mac based development

Being a die-hard vi user, I eventually switched to Adobe Dreamweaver a couple of years ago when I acquired CS4. The time had come to upgrade into the 21st century - or so I thought. But my time with Adobe was less than perfect, and I have since been looking for something better. Two things I like: Mac and Linux. On the server, Linux, on the desktop, Mac. One thing was sure, I was leaving vi for shell scripting and small projects. Having a nice, Mac based, text editor was the goal.

The problem with Dreamweaver for me is the same as all other Adobe products, it's over engineered, bulky and slow. I wanted something that is fast and efficient with a clean interface that loads in a snap.

After having tried many, many, Editors and IDE's, I stopped at Coda. Coda was fresh and great, but I soon ran into new problems. The moment you open more than one project/document, it starts getting slow - something I've never quite warmed up to. It also changed the permissions on my files which was unwanted, so I decided to keep looking.

I tried Komodo (slow), Dashcode (great but limiting), X-Code (great but limiting), TextMate (great but too expensive for the competition), BBEdit and finally TextWrangler.

TextWrangler came as a surprise because I somehow missed it during my early searches. It is an amazing, snappy, efficient editor with almost everything I need. I use the Document Browser to view the files in my project and quickly access functions that I need to work on.

After implementing BBColors, I could easily transfer my custom color scheme from my G5 to my PowerBook.

What I like about TextWrangler:

1. It's fast and opens in a snap. It doesn't become slow and crash on exit like DW.
2. It gives me quick access to functions and files.
3. It's free.

After having paid way too much for Adobe products, TextWrangler is definitely my favorite. If you are a programmer working on a Mac, try TextWrangler if you haven't already. It's free and very efficient.

^{By Peet de Vos on 2010-06-24 07:10:00}

Make the Internet even better...

Welcome to Orax Solutions. This website and thousands of other websites are aligned with modern web standards. Orax recommends the following standards compliant browsers: Google Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Opera, Internet Explorer 9, iPad or iPhone to navigate this site.