What is the “best” text editor for Mac?

[StigBratvold]

I am just curious what people think is the “best” code editor? Currently I am using Text Wrangler cuz it is free but I have been looking at Sublime Text and BBEdit… Any other suggestions?

[chrisburton]

This is a pretty great article by @jamy_za
http://css-plus.com/2012/02/my-journey-to-the-perfect-text-editor

This discussion has been talked about many times in the forums. The majority seem to like Sublime Text 2.

[Andy Howells]

Sublime Text 2 is probably one of the favourites around here.

[theCSSguru]

I use Coda because of it’s awesome built in FTP capabilities, but if it weren’t for that I’d be using Sublime Text 2.

[TheDoc]

I used Coda for a long time before making the switch to ST2. The problem for Coda (and Textmate, for that matter) was they waited too long before releasing a major update. While they were both tinkering, Sublime Text pumped out an outstanding beta that was free to use and a lot of people made the switch.

I’d definitely recommend using ST2. You can even use it free for a while (it’ll remind you to buy it, though). I’d of course recommend paying for it as I think it’s a fantastic product.

[chrisburton]

@thecssguru, ST2 has a plugin for FTP.

[theCSSguru]

@chrisburton I’ve used the plugin for FTP on ST2 and while it was nice for local development, production work just didn’t have the fluidity and ease of use that coda has built right in.

Both are great editors, but would love to see ST2 have FTP as a built in feature rather than a plugin.

Anyone else start with Dreadful Dreamweaver back when you started? I know I did, and I facepalm…

[chrisburton]

@thecssguru Definitely agree with that.

[Andy Howells]

@chrisburton @theCSSguru – I tried Coda 2, but for me the lack of plugin support and customisation in comparison to ST2 didn’t impress. The FTP was handy, but these days I just use Transmit anyway or indeed don’t use FTP at all because of Git deploying.

[Andy Howells]

@joshuanhibbert – Just installed the package, WHAT IS THIS WIZARDRY.

Thanks for the tip, this will be super handy for sites I’m editing that I can’t use Git with.

[elmsoftware]

After watching Chris’ videos in the Lodge and seeing him work in Sublime Text 2 and recommend it, I gave it a go and have really enjoyed it.

I also watched the Tuts+ [Perfect Workflow in Sublime Text 2](https://tutsplus.com/course/improve-workflow-in-sublime-text-2/) and it helped me get used to the environment and set it up.

Two of my favorite packages are:
[Bracket Highlighter](https://github.com/facelessuser/BracketHighlighter)
[Emmet](https://github.com/emmetio/emmet)

[StigBratvold]

Based on what you guys are saying I think I am leaning towards Sublime Text 2… Well actually that was the direction I was leaning towards even before I asked the question but now it is confirmed :)

@theCSSguru @chrisburton Yeah I was actully going for that as well since I am used with all the other Adobe software for print but a lot of people recommended me just learning coding from the basis instead so that is what I am doing :)

@elmsoftware Tuts+ is awesome!

[StigBratvold]

@chrisburton love your article btw! Thanks for sharing your experiences

[bogus]

i work with espresso. just like its way of handling stuff somehow…

[Zoom]

Sublime Text 2 is what is trendy. It has some cool features but personally I prefer an IDE like Netbeans (free) or WebStorm / PHPStorm.

if what you do is HTML/CSS/JS then you should try WebStorm (PHPStorm adds PHP support). It is a full IDE and it is cheaper than ST2. It supports some of the latest technologies out of the box (sass, less, coffeescript, zen coding, Live Edit etc). And of course with an IDE you get real codeIntel, FTP, versioning, linting etc without the need to download and setup third party plugins which are rarely as good as native features of an IDE anyway.

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