BBEdit Review: It Doesn’t Suck

The Mac is usually known as the platform that creative people work on. Whether it’s Web Design, Programming or Design, there are many possibilities for applications you can use. And especially when it comes to text editors, there’s an app everywhere. But, there are really two extreme text editors out there. Today I’m talking about one of them by Bare Bones Software, called BBEdit.

The first thing you will notice about BBEdit is how many menubar items it has. For basic text editing and programming, you probably won’t even use half of these. So, BBEdit can be used in extremely advanced ways, and basic ways. However, if you are just using it for basic tasks, it can be very daunting.

When creating a document there is one main thing that you will need to worry about–the type of document. There are about 30 choices, including Objective-C, HTML, CSS and TeX. Choosing the right type will help BBEdit get the code-sense right. You can also set it to automatic, and it will choose one for you based on the content of the document. When you open a file that has not been created with it, this is what it does. Automatic is a very helpful choice.

The main window in BBEdit is actually very simple. The toolbar has normal items like an inspector, a button to show the file in the Finder, locking and unlocking and a few view options. Then, under the toolbar, you have a few popups. The arrows allow you to go through all the files opened in the current window. The next one displays the currently opened file. If you click on it, you can choose from all files in the current window. The next one allows you to go to specific ’symbols.’ A symbol can be a method or a declaration. They are very useful for long documents. The next button allows you to add, find and delete markers. Markers are basically bookmarks for your files. The next button opens the file’s counterpart. This is really only used in Objective-C and other C languages–You have a header and a main file. So, if you have the header file open, it will open the main file, and vice versa. The last button has a list of included files (for the current document). If you click on one, it will try to find it, and then open it in the Finder. BBEdit provides a lot of usability just in the main interface–And that is only about 2% of the whole application.

The next most useful feature in BBEdit is its search. My favorite part is that it does multi-file search. This means that you can replace a word with another in many files at once. This feature is found in Search>Multi-File Search… You can also do a regular search, and a quick search from the same menubar item. BBEdit also has a file comparer. This means you can feed it two files, and it will show you what’s different. You just go to Search>Find Differences… Then, select the newer version of the file, and the old version. BBEdit will then show you both documents at once, and the differences below. You can also compare two opened documents by going to Search>Compare Two Front Documents. Other standalone difference comparing applications show you a bit more info like visually what’s changed. BBEdit just tells you. BBEdit also includes a few other search features for advanced users.

One great thing in BBEdit is its autocompletion. It will try to figure out what you want to type based on the contents of the file you’re in. If you’re coding in Objective-C, and you created a method, but you only remember the beginning, this can help you. Just type in the first few letters, and BBEdit will give you a list of possibilities. However, this feature is also in a free app like Xcode. But, Xcode is built for programming with Cocoa, and BBEdit is built for…well…anything.

There are also a few notable features that I will not go into detail with. BBEdit now has MobileMe syncing. This means that your preferences and Application Support will be synced to all of your computers running BBEdit. Another is To Do tracking. With this, you can actually put To Do’s and Fixes to make in your files so you remember what you’re supposed to do. The final is the scratchpad. This gives you a window where you can put things for remembering or edit text to get it the way you want it before you actually put it in your code.

Overall, BBEdit is a very full-featured app. There are many more things that what I talked about in this review. But, my main issue is its interface. It looks fairly outdated–It doesn’t look like a Leopard. They are on version 9, so it has been out for a while, so it’s not like they created an app specifically for Leopard without a Leopard interface. But, it could use a revamp. My other gripe with it is text coloring. You can change the color of different things (like in Xcode and TextMate). But, there are no color packs! No one can share their awesome color combinations with others. Even Xcode has this feature.

Bare Bones Software, called BBEdit retails for $125 and you can download a free trial from their site. That is a very high price, so, in my opinion, BBEdit should only be used by advanced users. Because the others can just use Xcode or TextMate. But, for the advanced users it is…well…very advanced. It gives you a lot of flexibility and a lot of features–It doesn’t suck.

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