title: BBedit 10 Mini Review (and why I'm switching) category: article link: date: 08/08/2011 timestamp: 2011-08-08 13:27:27.801825 -06:00
BBedit has a very long and successful track record as the premiere text editor for the Macintosh. When TextMate was released, many Apple users made the switch. It wasn't hard to jump on the bandwagon with its amazing bundle support, minimalistic design and powerful customization options. It also didn't hurt that it was practically custom made for Ruby and Ruby on Rails. The last major release of TextMate (1.5) occurred in 2006. Since then there have only been incremental compatibility updates as the landscape of OS X changed. And things have definitely changed since 2006. Many of us have given up on the idea of TextMate 2.0. If you're like me you're finally ready to move on to something that is actively developed and supported. I've mentioned my transition to BBedit a couple of times on Twitter and have received a helpful response from the official BBedit account every time. It feels good to use a product in which you can look forward to the next release and know that their are humans actually working on the thing. TextMate hasn't felt that way in years.
BBedit 10 brings a myriad of improvements and features. Most notably, perhaps, is the price reduction. You can buy BBedit for $39.99 until October 20, 2011. Once the introductory pricing has expired it will still be available for the relatively low price of $49.99.
Other significant changes include the way files and folders are presented in the app. Dragging a folder onto the BBedit dock icon will open it as a project. In the left sidebar you see the expected list of files and folders inside of the the project, but below that you will also see a list of currently open and recent documents. Managing open documents in a list like this is much easier than the traditional tabs of TextMate (and is the way another popular text editor, Espresso, functions). In TextMate, once I have more than 10 or so files open I can't see any additional files without clicking a dropdown arrow to the right of the tabs.
BBedit also makes general purpose writing (such as this post) much easier. There is built-in preview support for Markdown. This is one of the reasons I love Notation Velocity so much. Now that it is included in a powerful text editor like BBedit I can open my Dropbox synced Notional Data folder as a project and do my writing from there. I still love Notational Velocity (and nvAlt, my fork of choice) but if I'm already using BBedit, why open another program? If BBedit supported syncing to Simplenote I might not have to open nvALT ever again. It might not be for everybody, but I also like the dictionary word hinting. When writing out a post, if I pause while typing a word BBedit will present a list of words it thinks I might be trying to write. Oftentimes I simply ignore this list and continue to type, but BBedit is smart. As you write, it will start to suggest repetitive words you've already written. This is awesome if you have to type out something like "thisismynext" over and over for a post. Traditional dictionaries will never suggest something like this, but again, BBedit is smart. Other awesome features include text transformations and editing documents in zip files without actually having to unzip them.
In short, the transition to BBedit is going very well. There is a lot of muscle memory issues to overcome during the transition from one editor to another, but I promise you, you'll feel better at night knowing BBedit has a proven track record for providing updates and support for its application. As the landscape of the Mac continues to change I'll know for certain that the text editor I have chosen to put so much time mastering will be there every step of the way. Heck, BBedit 10 has full-screen Lion support right out of the gate. For those of you still using TextMate, unless a miracle happens your days are numbered. There have been no signs of TextMate 2.0 and I seriously doubt it will ever come to fruition.
Some resources (provided by the BBedit Twitter account) that helped me make the transition:
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