Have you tried using some not-so-great text editors for programming? You must have used the app you downloaded (or the first thing you found online) and it felt like a lessoning-in-pain. Your entire coding plan went down the drain.
I understand that you need something that not only works well but also makes your coding experience fun and enjoyable. You don’t want to spend hours undoing and redoing things. Here are the best Mac text editor
Bluefish
It’s open-source, supports pretty much every programming language, and comes packed with a range of valuable features.
Features of Bluefish text editor include:
- Being a GUI (Graphical User Interface) editor, Bluefish is a lightweight and clean editor. It loads up pretty quickly, too, even if you were to open several files
- You can work on multiple projects efficiently with project support
- Supports FTP, SFTP, HTTPS, HTTP and WebDAV
- Powerful search and replace feature that includes search and replace files on disk, sub-pattern replacing, and support for Perl compatible expressions
- Handle advanced text processing and error detection by integrating external programs such as lint, weblint, make, xmllint, javac, or your own program
- Unlimited undo and redo functionality
- A smart inline spell checker that is aware of the programing language and spell checks comments and strings but not the code elements
- Auto-recover changes carried out in your documents after a system shutdown or crash
- If you are working on a site, you have the option to upload and download the files
- Several additional features such as full-screen editing, tabs to spaces, join lines, lines to columns, strip whitespace, and more
While Bluefish is a conventional text editor, it functions better as an integrated development environment (IDE).
An IDE is an application that provides programmers with all the nuts and bolts to develop software. From the default text editor to automation tools and a debugger, an IDE comes fully loaded. And Bluefish provides you with just that.
Brackets
Brackets is particularly useful for front-end web developers to create websites and preview changes with real-time visualization tools.
Features of Brackets text editor include:
- A cross-platform solution that supports Windows, Mac, and Linux
- Integrates with Photoshop (PSD) files
- Brackets connect with GitHub
- Customize interface using several extensions
- Live preview feature
Brackets is another open-source text editor that lets you code and also pull out information such as colors, fonts, measurements, and gradients directly from Photoshop files. This is very useful if you’re using images on your WordPress website and want to extract information from them.
CodeShare
Do you want to share your code with other developers in real-time? CodeShare helps with that.
The editor is ideal for those new to WordPress, PHP or CSS, educators, interviewers, or just about anyone who joins and sees your code in real-time.
CodeShare has several themes and syntax highlighting for major programming languages.
Features of CodeShare text editor includes:
- A free, lightweight browser-based tool with no requirement to sign up
- Real-time code sharing via video call
- Includes syntax highlighting
- Several themes
CodeShare is a free, web-based text editor that allows you to code and share simultaneously. This is not your ideal text editor to code on a daily basis and have all your workflows in place, but it works perfectly well if you’d like to share your code with someone remotely and get instant assistance.
CoffeeCup – The HTML Editor
The editor allows you to reuse website elements easily. For instance, every website has common elements such as a menu, header, and footer used across all pages. These elements can then be saved into a component library.
HTML forms part of how WordPress works so is a very useful language to learn. CoffeeCup HTML Editor is a simple yet highly powerful text editor that helps you create websites effortlessly. With handy tag references, code completion tools, live previews, and plenty of fantastic tools and features, CoffeeCup HTML Editor is indeed a tool that makes life simpler if you are learning to be a programmer.
When required, you can embed these elements into the page you want.
The next time you want to update a particular element, you needn’t update them across your website’s various pages. Just edit it in the component library, and it will get updated automatically everywhere.
CoffeeCup HTML Editor comes at a one-time cost of $29. You could try out the software with their free version. However, most of the advanced features are available in the paid version.
Features of CoffeeCup HTML text editor includes:
- Use the tag highlighting feature to check the end of the tag. This way, you needn’t miss out on a closing tag while writing code.
- Import 100% responsive HTML templates using the template installer and have your website templates ready in no time
- When starting a new project, the welcome screen allows you to jump-start development. Want to create a static page, start with a responsive template, a complex web project with some PHP? The start screen provides you options to choose from and get going accordingly
- Organize the entire website structure and eliminate issues such as broken links
- Use a comprehensive tag reference at your fingertips to complete code automatically. The built-in validation tool also allows you to check code
- Utilize the split-screen and preview your web pages in real-time as you go about editing them
7. Komodo Edit
Komodo Edit strikes the perfect balance between getting both your smaller projects done and using more advanced tools like unit testing.
Features of Komodo Edit text editor include:
- The option to use either the Komodo Edit light version or the version for advanced users
- Multi-language editor
- Auto-complete
- Track changes and make multiple selections
- Kopy.io Integration
- Included skin and icon sets
Simple, yet powerful. That’s Komodo Edit.
Komodo Edit is another integrated development environment (IDE) that provides a robust platform to carry out unit testing, debugging, code profiling, and other tasks efficiently.
Atom
Atom is particularly helpful when it comes to creating a dedicated workspace to share projects.
If you’re looking for a text editor that does more than just be an editor, Atom has a lot to offer. You can collaborate with fellow developers, manage projects and make changes in real-time.
Features of Atom text editor include:
- Allows cross-platform editing across operating systems such as Windows, OS X, or Linux
- Install or create a new package of your own by searching from within Atom’s built-in package manager
- Write code faster using smart autocomplete
- Browse and open file(s), project, or multiple projects easily in one window
- Compare and edit code by splitting the interface into multiple panes
- Use the search and replace feature to make edits in a file or across your entire project
Atom is an open-source platform that has the backing of a strong community of developers. The same developers contribute to other open-source tools, including WordPress plugins and themes.
BBEdit
BBEdit is an exclusive text editor for macOS. It includes features such as auto-completion, syntax highlighting, and Git integration.
Locating your files and elements are super easy using BBEdit’s clean user interface
With features such as hard wraps and canonization, the writer in you can use BBEdit to handle text easily. This text editor is helpful when it comes to web development and coding in HTML as well.
You can use BBEdit for free. When you download it, you can use all the premium features for free for 30 days. You can continue using BBEdit even after the trial period, however, without the premium features, such as web authoring tools, code completion and Git integration.
Features of BBEdit text editor include:
- Supports a wide variety of coding languages, along with syntax checking
- Includes features such as find and replace syntax coloring
- Insert HTML attributes and tags while writing code
- Preview your changes in real-time
- Auto-completion tools
- Organize work efficiently by managing your project folders
- Use SFTP and FTP to access and edit all your files
Notepad++
If you are used to the traditional Notepad, this version has some new features to impress you such as the tabbed document interface, an autosave function.
If you are starting with development or coding, Notepad++ is a much simpler and easier text editing platform to work with.
Notepad++ is an open-source text editor that runs in the Windows environment. It’s a notch higher when compared to the good old Notepad and supports several languages.
Notepad++ has been translated into more than 80 languages. If you don’t find your language in the list of translations, you can translate Notepad++ into your native language with ease.
Features of Notepad++ text editor include:
- Notepad++ is free and governed by GNU General Public License
- Your changes are saved automatically using the autosave feature
- Search and replace strings of text
- Guided indentation and line bookmarking
- Tabbed document interface
Nova (Previously Named Coda)
When it comes to the user interface, Nova seems to be the best of the bunch. Nova is a powerful text editor that allows you to create flexible workflows, has several tools and settings to help enhance your coding experience. However, Nova is Mac only.
You can customize Nova to make it look exactly the way you want. Be it bright or dark, it’s all up to you. When your Mac switches the mode from light to dark, Nova changes your theme automatically.
Nova has built-in support for various languages, such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby, and a whole lot more.
Features of Nova text editor include:
- Command palette
- Project launcher with custom artwork
- Multiple sidebars and sidebar splits
- Separate editor and window themes
- Automatically change themes
- Project-wide indexing
- Autocomplete
- Powerful open quickly
- Git source control sidebar
- Preview tabs
- Built-in static web server
- Remote publishing via FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, and Clouds
- Local and remote terminals
- Customizable in-apps
- Robust extension API
- nova Command Line Tool
Conclusion
Nowadays, many fashionable content management systems (CMS) and website builders give you the opportunity to publish your texts, change any element or create a new page without any coding skills. But there are also times when you need to program a custom system and work on large-scale projects for multi-platforms. In such cases, you won’t be able to avoid using a powerful programming language like JavaScript.