Three stars are not enough credit for an application like this. I switched from BBEdit to Freeway Pro ten years ago, from Freeway Pro to Coda and Espresso three years ago, and from those two back to BBEdit since january 2011 (that was version 9.6, I think).
I have used all the apps mentioned above to write small to medium sized websites: Coda is great, but it lacks code folding and sometimes does not highlight all HTML5 tags properly. It also lacks some of the utilities that BBEdit has for tidying texts and the search and replace functions are not as good as those found in BBEdit. The new built-in Markdown support (and conversion from Markdown to HTML) is a great timesaver (although it took some time for me to realize this, while I had installed the .pl tools in version 9 so I assumed I did use those). Espresso is a very promising piece of software: the problem is it stays 'a very promising piece of software' for a very long time and it continue to crash more often than any other app I use.
I use BBEdit on a daily basis and almost every day I find a solution in this software for a problem I've encountered. Almost all my little helper apps I kept around online or offline remain untouched since I switched.
Version 10 (round number) had some troubles but most of them are ironed-out in 10.0.1. At the moment I don't have a reason to look elsewhere.
This is a great tool, but I did have some troubles with it.
I do not like a lot of things in my menu bar, so I switched this option off. I use a (very huge amount) lot of software at the same time, so I erased the keyboard shortcut so it could not interfere with some other app.
...and now I could not control the app anymore and had to quit it in Activity Monitor (clicking the app icon did not do anything).
But it did help me to focus, works very well and the 'filters' to hide the desktop are great!
Well, Espresso is finally on the front page of MacRabbit so I assume the developers are happy with it. And they have got enough reason for this: Espresso always was a nice and fast text editor (at least since version 1.0.5 which was the first version I have used) and it is one of the best looking apps I own.
A lot of the bad comments on this app are based on the idea Espresso is the same type of application as Coda. But while Coda beats Espresso in workflow possibilities like uploads, working on local and remote servers, previews and such its text editor is counterproductive.
Of course: Espresso has 'codefolding' (and Coda will have this in a future version since it is based on SubEthaEdit), it's autocompletion and codewrap is superior and just gets the daily code writing done faster.
Other bad comments were made because people expected Espresso would have the same features as CSSEdit for it's CSS. But CSSEdit was nice when I started to explore css, but I hardly use it anymore since I know what to type.
Now, with this new version, startup-windows and projects work like expected, there is finaly (a very basic) picture preview with a 'open with' commando and probably much more.
…it still is note a very stable app: I had a very nasty crash when I tried to move some blocks of code within the code navigator: the feedback report was so large I could not reach the 'send' button to submit it to Macrabbit.
I have tested TextSoap and Clean Text and settled on Clean Text because it's cheaper.
They offer more or less the same functionality but TextSoap wins: it's more simple to write your own actions and the services are more useful than those of Clean Text.
However: Clean Text offers all I need out of the box. I don't mind opening the app and make all the tweaks I need in the app. If you want to automate everything and don't mind paying more (and enjoy a more refined interface) you will like TextSoap more.
[Version 6.5]
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Dropbox
Eelco Deuling rated on 19 Jan 2012
[Version 1.2.51]
+1
Glyphs
It is priced for €35,99 (Dutch price). Has anybody tried it?
GraphicConverter
Eelco Deuling rated on 07 Nov 2011
[Version 7.4.1]
+1
BBEdit
Eelco Deuling reviewed on 12 Sep 2011
I have used all the apps mentioned above to write small to medium sized websites: Coda is great, but it lacks code folding and sometimes does not highlight all HTML5 tags properly. It also lacks some of the utilities that BBEdit has for tidying texts and the search and replace functions are not as good as those found in BBEdit. The new built-in Markdown support (and conversion from Markdown to HTML) is a great timesaver (although it took some time for me to realize this, while I had installed the .pl tools in version 9 so I assumed I did use those). Espresso is a very promising piece of software: the problem is it stays 'a very promising piece of software' for a very long time and it continue to crash more often than any other app I use.
I use BBEdit on a daily basis and almost every day I find a solution in this software for a problem I've encountered. Almost all my little helper apps I kept around online or offline remain untouched since I switched.
Version 10 (round number) had some troubles but most of them are ironed-out in 10.0.1. At the moment I don't have a reason to look elsewhere.
Isolator
Eelco Deuling reviewed on 26 May 2011
I do not like a lot of things in my menu bar, so I switched this option off. I use a (very huge amount) lot of software at the same time, so I erased the keyboard shortcut so it could not interfere with some other app.
...and now I could not control the app anymore and had to quit it in Activity Monitor (clicking the app icon did not do anything).
But it did help me to focus, works very well and the 'filters' to hide the desktop are great!
+5
Espresso
A lot of the bad comments on this app are based on the idea Espresso is the same type of application as Coda. But while Coda beats Espresso in workflow possibilities like uploads, working on local and remote servers, previews and such its text editor is counterproductive.
Of course: Espresso has 'codefolding' (and Coda will have this in a future version since it is based on SubEthaEdit), it's autocompletion and codewrap is superior and just gets the daily code writing done faster.
Other bad comments were made because people expected Espresso would have the same features as CSSEdit for it's CSS. But CSSEdit was nice when I started to explore css, but I hardly use it anymore since I know what to type.
Now, with this new version, startup-windows and projects work like expected, there is finaly (a very basic) picture preview with a 'open with' commando and probably much more.
…it still is note a very stable app: I had a very nasty crash when I tried to move some blocks of code within the code navigator: the feedback report was so large I could not reach the 'send' button to submit it to Macrabbit.
+4
Clean Text
They offer more or less the same functionality but TextSoap wins: it's more simple to write your own actions and the services are more useful than those of Clean Text.
However: Clean Text offers all I need out of the box. I don't mind opening the app and make all the tweaks I need in the app. If you want to automate everything and don't mind paying more (and enjoy a more refined interface) you will like TextSoap more.