NCIANCA  I sure hope "Avian" makes an appearance soon, which is supposed to be free to registered users. Alan, I'm sure that most TM2 prospective users would be filling to pay a reasonable upgrade fee if that gets it into our hands faster.

Software doesn't age well like a good wine, but rather becomes vinegar when the underlying APIs of its foundation evolve, thus broadening the time curve gap.

And I really hope that my next comment on TM will be singing the TM2 praises.  
(Version 1.5.9)

TRASHIE  Does not do that for me or anyone I know using it....  
(Version 1.5.9)

L0XBY  textmate is the only app that changes my mouse tracking speed upon startup. wtf??  
(Version 1.5.9)

SIMMAN  I've tried a lot - but this one is simply the best one. Thanks for this!  
(Version 1.5.9)

ICONZ113  I agree this needs to be in red, best editor or osx.  
(Version 1.5.9)

ILIKETRASH  NOTE TO MACUPDATE EDITORS: TextMate should be displayed in the red text indicative of a high quality product.  
(Version 1.5.9)

MISHA  Mac OS X 10.6 users:

TextMate’s command-left/right arrow key functionality (one of the most commonly used keystrokes) is broken in Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard).

Fortunately’ there’s a fix. Edit (or create) the file named ~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict and add the following lines to the end:

"@\UF702" = "moveToBeginningOfLine:";

"@\UF703" = "moveToEndOfLine:";

"$@\UF702" = "moveToBeginningOfLineAndModifySelection:";

"$@\UF703" = "moveToEndOfLineAndModifySelection:";

Quit and re-launch TextMate, and your precious key-combo should be working again.   
(Version 1.5.8)

DAN BRIGGS  I've tried a lot of text editors in my 25 years developer life but this one is simply the best one. It's almost perfect and even better than TextPad on Windows. Add the Project+ plugin and your developer environment is rock solid. I use every day 400+ php/html/css files with MAMP in every project and I need speed. TextMate is always fast and responsive, very simple to use for beginners and still very very complete for geeks. I bought Coda and Espresso too but they are far from TextMate in many cases. With TextMate I can work as twice as fast on my php/html/css code. It's true that the others are better on presenting html and css but when you know these languages a little, everything is done by copying ans pasting part of code to new places. Add Safari and Transmit for your ftp and you got the best and fastest development environment someone can have. Long life to TextMate and thank you to all community for this piece of Art. AL-Paris.  
(Version 1.5.8)

GRFX GURU  Excellent program, and honestly I'm surprised (but happy) to see a minor update after all this time.

I thought for sure after all the talk about the new version waiting for Leopard to be released and then nothing indicated the developers had either stopped or no longer cared to update TextMate.  
(Version 1.5.8)

NCIANCA  I like TextMate as a general text editor and registered my copy when it was still in pre-release way back in the day. Coda, with its workflow, superb UI, project tools, auto-completion, editors and other tools has become my tool for web sites, I still use TextMate for all my other text needs, such as shell programming and general text manipulation.

However, I'm disappointed that its been a year now since the last release. I understand that the next version will be a complete rewrite, but there are a number of small "issues" that would have benefited from an interim release. The lack of releases also give the appearance that TextMate has been abandoned, though I'm sure it hasn't.

While Allan is very responsive to emails, there is nothing on the TextMate site about the future of TextMate or its progress. The blog is updated every now and then, but mostly announcing a new bundle.

Overall TextMate is an excellent editor and I hope that it will continue to be part of my daily tools in the future.  
(Version 1.5.7)

PROMETHEAS  Allow me preface this comment by mentioning that TextMate is an absolutely great text editor.

The problem is, it feels like it's gone stagnant.

Since TextMate's last minor release, the Panic team has brought Coda to the table (after which 1.5 years have passed), and BBEdit has dropped two major versions since TextMate 1.0 was released.

It's gone too long since a major (or minor) release.

Although Allan is in fact just one man working on this software (vs. a team of n-many that BareBones probably has), there's something nonetheless to be said about remaining competitive.

Unfortunately, it's starting to feel like nothing is going on here, while the other two attractive competitors keep innovating.  
(Version 1.5.7)

TOMKOX  I do not see reason to buy "just another colorized" text editor, if I have for free Xcode 3.0 (with Organizer option - excelent for Rails projects etc.)...  
(Version 1.5.7)

STRIDER72  Just testing it out, I've quickly discovered what I consider a fatal flaw: the Undo functionality is nearly useless.

If you type in a string of text, undo will reverse the typing letter-by-letter. To undo a sentence I have to hit command-z 20 or 30 times. Completely ridiculous.

I've had my eye on this program for a while now, and I really _want_ to like it, but every time I look at it again there's always something screwy like this to ruin it.

Overall it seems a good program, with (so far) one tragic fatal flaw. Hope for the future, but not really usable for now.  
(Version 1.5.7)

FREEBSD  My workspace consists of 2 xterm windows running screen and multiple instances of vim. It's incredibly fast and efficient for me.

However, sometimes when I am wishing for something a bit more modern (and screen keystrokes get a bit tiring after awhile), I try and move to TextMate. Unfortunately, I could never learn the emacs keybindings after all these years, nor do I wish to.

I am sure it's been said a hundred times before, but there's a reason we love vim so much. If TextMate would add a command mode support environment that supported the primary keybindings for vim's command mode, then I would switch in an instant. That simple, really. Oh, and while I'm on this 'dear santa', tabs are key and missing.

Having said all of that, it is the ridiculous number of features already in TextMate that make it very appealing for future use. It's lightweight and fast, being native, and while I don't really know how to use all the crazy stuff that's built in, these are the two basic things that are keeping me from really getting into it. Most programs that are this feature-packed are bloated and difficult to use, but TextMate is already very nice.

I'll upgrade my license gladly for inclusion of these features. Otherwise, nice app. For me, almost worth the current price of admission.   
(Version 1.5.7)

ADAM BYRTEK  I started writing my thesis in Vim, using LaTeX, and then decided to try TextMate. I’m amazed by the fact that it’s clean and simple without losing extra power for more advanced users. But the bottom line is that by the time my file approached 64kB in size, TextMate was not responsive anymore (on new MacBook). It was able to work, but the delay after every keypress was annoying. Looks like I will stay with Vim at the end.  
(Version 1.5.6)

MRGANDO  This software is AMAZING, I am using it together with Xcode and almost all my Xcode headaches are gone!!!

you should add Tab support for non project files, so that when I open my Xcode project files with TExtMate ( set as default source code editr in Xcode ) , the sources go to their respective tabs.

PLEASE add that , and I will buy today!  
(Version 1.5.6)

TOBYS  simply the best of any editor i've used on any platform. I use this app every single day to earn my living, and I find new things that make me love it even more all the time. get the textmate book as well, it opens up a lot of the app's potential that you might have overlooked.  
(Version 1.5.5)

FREEBSD  I really tried to like this piece of software, but it never was able to make it into my daily routine. It is incredibly feature packed and does certain things quite well, such as markup and line highlighting. It's also incredibly extensible, by people who are able to write extensions for this program.

I tried using it primarily for HTML, MATLAB, and LaTeX, but I'm going to stick with vim - just can't seem to switch, sorry.  
(Version 1.5.4)

HENRIKTEKNIK  I love TextMate, just as much as I love SubEthaEdit. I have decidede to let TextMate be my local text editor, and SubEthaEdit, my collaborational ditto.

There are a lot of things one can say about both. But all in all, for me, I can't be without one or the other. Mainly, I'd say SubEtha is uncomparable in terms of forementioned collaboraion features. And its editing qualities does take you a long way as well. On the other hand, in regards to text editing funcions, great looks and simplicity, TextMate exudes sex appeal. I'd say, as it stands currently, they're on par with each other.

Pick one, pick the other, or pick both. To help you narrow your search for a decent editor, I'd say, these are the ones to consider.  
(Version 1.5.4)

TASKMAN  Files without extension open in TextMate when double-clicked in Finder. However, the current implementation has undesirable side-effects. For example, all of your shell scripts are identified as "Document" instead of "Unix Executable File" and their icon becomes the default blank page thing.

Unix Executables won't open with a double click anymore, and you will have to manually modify the Info.plist file and rebuild the LaunchServices database with every new release of TextMate you install.

Just not worth the effort.

http://comox.textdrive.com/pipermail/textmate/2006-June/011293.html  
(Version 1.5.4)

SIMPLETEXT  Recently I had to edit a document that was encoded in windows-1250 character set. When I open it in TextMate it screws-up all the diacritics. When I do search on TextMate help for encoding I get this: "TextMate is heavily biased toward UTF-8" What is this? Some sort of encoding police? Yes I know UTF-8 is an answer to everything, but I can't force it on my client if they ask for windows-1250.

Even if there is a way to open a document in windows-1250, it's not obvious how, and i don't have the time to vaste on this. In other text editors this is very simple.

TextMate has a nice "minimalist" interface, but unfortunately a "minimalist" set of features. Sorry mate, you are not getting my €39. I am sticking with the trusty old workhorse BBedit for now.  
(Version 1.5.4)

MACSWEEP  I can only speak from limited html experience, bt TextMate, while pretty good and while I'd like to say it's great, it is not that user friendly or intuitive. I can't fot the life of me figure out what some of the little graphics are in some of the submenus. The Find command does not find things that I can clearly see. It says "Not found" and its right there in plain sight. It may be that it is feature-rich, but I can't find the features.

Developer, Take a lesson from Taco HTML Edit.

To me it's not worth $49.00 USD.  
(Version 1.5.3)

MACD  Overall, a nice text editor, but there are things which have to be improved in order to make it a good editor, not just nice.

- the editor claims to support UTF-8 encoding text editing, but just try to enter some double-byte characters, and you'll see the broken spacing between characters, and actually inability to enter characters at all, in many cases. What's the meaning of having UTF-8 support if in reality you only support its Roman subset?

- the undo feature is one of the most primitive in the industry. Type undo and it will do it fine, but letter-by-letter! Think about painful undoing

- having the functions list popup menu at the bottom of the editor window makes it pretty inconvinient to access the menu as most of the time you have to scroll thru the list EVEN if the function you need to access is, say.. 5th item in the list

- when every other programmers editor out there (even, you know.. the other one) supports wide range of possible encodings and converting between them (not all projects are Roman-language, or UTF-8 based), TextMate STILL - after how many much time of development? - doesn't support anything except for UTF and Roman (and the UTF-8 encoded text editing is broken, as I have wrote earlier)

- on the good side, TextMate is a nice editor to have, when it works. But making my living developing various stuff for Japanese clients, it doesn't work for me way more than it does.

Resume: I own license to several times more expensive BBEdit, and don't even think of buying TextMate at its current stage of development, even though its price several times lower. I would be really cool for the developer to get his acts together and actually start implementing features users are asking for, rather than adding new language bundles and small fixes.

Also, just an advice though.. there are pretty big and willing to pay markets here on the asian side of the world. It might be pretty good idea financially to do something to support these markets (double-byte support, localization?)  
(Version 1.5.3)

JOHN NOWAK  TextMate is quite popular nowadays. For the most part, that's for good reasons. It has a good number of features, including the most advanced per-language system for handling syntax, special features, etc, out of all the Cocoa editors.

It does have some problems though. I've hit one nasty bug with it where what was shown in the window as being part of the file was actually not being saved. Deleting it and pasting it back in was not solving the problem either -- I had to paste it into a new file and overwrite the old one. This cost me an hour of time, as I never considered the editor might be lying to me. I captured this with Snapz Pro as it was so insane, but I've lost the file. Nuts.

Also, while TextMate is more advanced than the rest of the "Mac" editors, it still is behind other editors like vim in terms of how well it handles languages without algol-like syntax. Editing Scheme in TextMate with the Scheme bundle is a bitch, and languages like OCaml can be quite quirky. This is not a problem with the bundles: It's a problem with the system TextMate uses for performing these things, which needs to be completely revamped (a big undertaking at this point).

It's also a bit slow to launch, which can get to be a bit of a pain. Removing unneeded bundles helps, but not enough to eliminate the problems. It doesn't handle large files very well.

The undo feature sucks. If you type a sentence and undo, it'll only remove one character at a time, instead of the whole 'insert' you just performed. This needs to be fixed before I'll pay for it. It just is not acceptable.

Finally, the price is steep for what is still really beta software. It's nice, but it has rough edges still, and a couple show stoppers. For now, I'll stick with vim and Smultron for my editing needs.  
(Version 1.5.3)

CORVUS32  I didn't realize how much (s)ftp integration improved my web development workflow until I switched to TextMate, and it was missing.

A split view would be nice, as well as tabs -- as in not side drawer which you have to create a project to use.  
(Version 1.5.2)

EXILIO  BB Who?

Seriously. I have been using BB Edit since 1995 and I have been looking for an alternative. TextMate is that alternative and is surpasses BBEdit in terms of cost, approachability and updates. I gladly paid for this software and have made this the standard coding software for my creative team.

That being said, the program would probably attract even more users if it had a more accessible user interface.  
(Version 1.5.2)

YULETIDE  Educational discount for us poor students? (pun intended) BBedit offers one... :-)  
(Version 1.5.1)

PROMETHEAS  Oops, sorry I was a little vague... what I meant is that it simply shouldn't be a drawer -- should be more like the sidebar in mail.

Main problem with the drawer is that there's no way to show/hide it and keep the window completely maximized -- at some point, the window will have to be resized manually (with the mouse).  
(Version 1.5.1)

//IDN  Best coding editor I have ever used. This one got me to learn PHP with MySQL from ground up and to switch from WYSIWYG web authoring to plain HTML. Perfect!  
(Version 1.5)

NETHELP  On-target review at http://veraperez.com/archives/1195  
(Version 1.5)

RGOULD  i feel really silly raving about a text editor, but for those that need one, this application is absolutely amazing. yes, really.  
(Version 1.5)

JEROME  Awesome text editor, I have yet to dive into it's customization features to better optimize my work flow with snipets etc. But I know they're there and just gotta find time to put in some stuff I do often which would be awesome. Best code editor around, speedy syntax highlighting, nice project/tab view. etc.

Indispensable  
(Version 1.5)

MINIMAL DESIGN  I own BBEdit and never use it anymore...

As a web designer, TextMate takes a little more work to tailor it to your needs at first, and that's why I first gave up on it... But give it a few days to customize it and you'll never go back to whatever you used before. That's the key of this editor, every little aspects of it can be tweaked to YOUR way of working. This flexibility does come with a steeper learning curve than other apps of this kind but, again, it's really worth it.

So my advice is, try it out when you're not too busy, read the documentation, and play with it for about a week. It's an investment in time, but you'll be saving hours and hours after that on every projects you'll work on...

And make sure you sign up for the mailing list, everyone on there is a genius coder and very helpful, well... besides me I guess ;)  
(Version 1.5)

STEVE HODGSON  I just wonder if am missing something here. I would have expected 1.5 to be a fairly significant revision i.e. "hundreds of major improvements". I was previously using build 898 but this latest jump from 1.1b to 1.5 only has two changes in the release notes.

How many of the changes planned for 1.2 and 1.3 (http://macromates.com/wiki/Suggestions/GUI) are in?  
(Version 1.5)

TAKAAKI  As the author admits, international languages like Japanese, Chinese, Korean are not supported. Providing Mac OS X is more powerful than any other platforms in terms of internationalization. It is a cry to see that feature missing.

My writing with text editors is almost in English, but I need to type Japanese in comments especially when I work with other fellows.

The TextMate manual says that support for other languages is a long term goal because the author thinks that most people type in English only.  
(Version 1.1b17)

ZZEN  Abstract: This is -THE EDITOR-! Best for markup/coding I have seen. Ever. Anywhere. Any platform.

Introduction: I've been hand writing HTML for 10 years now. I've been scripting/coding for 8 years now. I have my own company, I do both for living. I rely on text editor as my single most important tool. I've been using BBEdit for many, many years now (since v3.0). I got VERY used to it.

Results: This editor leaves BBEdit in dust. It's like comparing MacOS 8.6 to 10.3 Panther. Seriously - we all know BBEdit's mindset is still in those MacOS 8 days.

Best features: jaw-dropping, most first time on Mac:

Code folding that ROCKED my world. BBEdit doesn't have this at all. Other Linux/Win programs do, but TextMate's implementation is best I have seen.

Advanced scoping. Makes it VERY inteligent. Never seen this to such an extent. Press shift-enter in a //-style comment block? It'll make a new line and start with // again. Press shift-enter in C++ while typing a function name? It'll lay out all the round and curly brackets for you and place the carret at the start. Have a 'string' inside JavaScript code embedded inside a mixed PHP-HTML document? No problem - TextMate handles it all.

Snippets. Period. This alone is worth the whole editor for me. If you haven't seen this in action - do yourself a favour and watch this 5 minutes screencast (don't forget a napking to wipe the drooling).

Shell integration. If, like me, you know your way well around shell, this editor can change your life. You can -very easily- run any script. Pass it a lot of variables from the editor. Like current word. Current position in code (CSS,PHP,C++,inside a string, inside a comment etc.) You can run any other command from the shell script. Automate your whole workflow. You get the possibilities...

Plus: all the features of those other editors. Like live HTML preview. HTML/CSS online validation. FTP client integration. "mate" command for command-line integration. Great visual Cocoa design of the application. Great, quickly changable, detailed syntax highlighting themes. Kick-ass developer support.

Summary: How much better can this get? If you are into serious coding, find a 1-week project and try it out.

...no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself...  
(Version 1.1b17)

NUZZACI  amazing app. have used bbedit and textwrangler for a long time. sure, both of them are good app - but text mate is better.

it have a lot of very very nice features to make your everyday work so much easier.

download and try it. read the manual and you will be amazed after a few hours.  
(Version 1.1b17)

NETHELP  I have heard a lot of buzz about TextMate, but I don't get what's so great about it. Best text editor for the Mac? HTML-writers dream?

It is missing so many key features --

Can't do HTML syntax checking unless you're connected to the internet.

No built in FTP support.

One 'Tidy' option, and who knows what it actually does with what switches, without going into the guts of the app? And it doesn't even throw back warnings?

The text fields in the find/replace dialogs are teeny...one line might be fine if you're searching for every mention of "Cocoa" in a single document, but what about finding long data strings across multiple documents on various servers?

TextMate's 'tag completion' is really just matching pointy brackets with pointy brackets and quotation marks with quotation marks, it's not actually completing tags (for example, when an alt attribute is required for validity, or you've got a single-tag element like img that needs to be closed, TextMate does neither of them. Just gives me a happy little pointy bracket.)

I sense that there's a good deal of buzz because this is a new product, and it has a couple of cool features that other text editors don't have, such as code folding and opening directory listings in a little drawer there...er...what else? It's fine for writing and spell checking all your cool blog posts, but UltraEdit on Windows and BBEdit on the Mac both are light-years ahead of TextMate in functionality for web programmers writing XHTML, PHP, etc. Perhaps not in Oooh, Shiny!, but I am not a magpie, I have work to do. :-) The demo was nice to try out, but I won't be sending in my fifty dollars.  
(Version 1.1b17)

PROMETHEAS  Please axe the project drawer. Apart from that, it's the best editor (that requires a Window Server) ever.

... Ever.  
(Version 1.1b17)

ANONYMOUS  Absolutely the best text-editor for the mac. It lacks some features of BBEdit like FTP support and some of the more advanced coding wizard features...

But TextMate can be built upon by you, the user, using the Bundles system, thereby extending the functionality of the product.

Wonderful. Amazing. Never looking back.  
(Version 1.1b17)

RAE FRUEN  I feel impoverished when I go to work now. Not only do have have to use Windows and Solaris instead of my trusty Mac, but I have now been spoiled rotten with a GUI text editor that really works.

During my 19 years of coding I thought vi could not be bettered. Can I please have a cross-platform copy of your product?  
(Version 1.1b17)

JOSE CAO-GARCIA  This is by far the best Text Editor Available for the Mac. It is really, the best Text Editor period. The developer posts updates to the product almost daily.

I wish it had more of a GUI, but despite this it is STILL the best text editor out there bar none.

$40 is a pittance for this awesome, powerful, extensible, brilliant piece of software.   
(Version 1.1b17)

ANONYMOUS  By far the best editor on OS X, and only getting better.

There are some areas that could use improvement, but the developer seems very responsive to user suggestions.  
(Version 1.1b17)

DWT  The project view that lets you view a folder (in tree form) is very usefull. Also the default fonts are very readable and the coloring useful most of the time.

However it's pretty slow on not so high end machines, it has no outline view that lets you navigate quickly in the document structure (the code folding stuff can't substitute that, Eclipse does this much better).

Other than that I very much liked it, though I returned to SubEthaEdit because of the function menu and the speed.

Conclusion? Keep an eye out on this editor, it will be one of the best in a year or so.  
(Version 1.1b17)

MRANDRE  This is the best. The absolute, indisputable best editor on the mac. The developer is one of those hyper-responsive independent mac developers. There's a thriving plugin community. Quality software does the things you would rather not, then gets out of the wayy. That's TextMate in a nutshell. And I can't remember an unstable release.  
(Version 1.1b17)

JF  I've just used this for a couple days. Great production shortcuts -Code hinting, completion of tags, snippets, the ability to view your files in tabs, adding bookmarks to your code, folding of text blocks (Awesome!), etc. make this my new favorite text editor. Plus, you gotta luv the beautiful GUI. Leaves BBedit in the dust!

-JF  
(Version 1.1b16)

ANONYMOUS  TextMate is a really good text editor, but I think the freeware TextWrangler from BareBones is better. Oh, and free.  
(Version 1.1b16)

INDY  Great piece of software! Best editor vor Mac OS X...  
(Version 1.1b16)

ANONYMOUS  best editor on osx. i've been looking for something that could fit the description 'The Cocoa Emacs' for some time now, and I believe I've finallly found it  
(Version 1.1b15)

ANONYMOUS  1.1b15 is a nice improvement to an already excellent editor. Words don't do this app justice. You need to try the demo to understand. I've fumbled around with most of the other text editors available for the Mac. I finally caved and spent the fifty bucks -- no regrets whatsoever.  
(Version 1.1b15)

SCHMELDING  TextMate, will you marry me?  
(Version 1.1b15)

ANONYMOUS  TextMate rocks.

I've used SubEthaEdit for more than a year and have now switched to TextMate. It's quicker and smarter, plain and simple.

  
(Version 1.1b14)

PERCY  This is the best editor I've ever used, for any platform. Extremely powerful syntax highlighting, support for many languages, and just a nice and simple interface. Definitely worth the money!  
(Version 1.1b14)

ADEVELOPER  I think the developer is trying to say that MacUpdate jumps the gun and posts updates here without the developer realizing it. Both MacUpdate and versiontracker (by the way, versiontracker is the worst with this behavior) send out webcrawler bots that crawl the developer's sites for files. When the bots spot a suspect file, they (the support crew) post it here without the developer's permission. This action by these sites should not be tolerated. The consumer and the developer both get nailed with this confusion. At least, an email of intent should be sent to the developer so he/she can try to stop the mistaken confusion. It didn't used to be like this, folks.   
(Version 1.1b12)

ANONYMOUS  is this an official release? I've been using b12 for awhile now...  
(Version 1.1b12)

ALLAN ODGAARD  Please note that this beta is NOT an official beta and requires a subversion checkout to be useful.

The program listing for TextMate was updated w/o my consent and 1.1b5 is still the version I recommend to users not interested in maintaining a subversion checkout.  
(Version 1.1b9)

ANONYMOUS  1.1b9 is out - if you don't mind checking out the bundles from svn, it's much better than b6 (never tried b8)  
(Version 1.1b5)

SCHMELDING  TextMate, will you marry me?

(The *only* thing needed that would push this to 5 start for me would be better Undo and Find. The Undo seems a little weird to me. It should Undo the last set of changes, not l e t t e r - b y - l e t t e r. Other than that, it rawks.)  
(Version 1.1b5)

ANONYMOUS  This is without a doubt a really powerful program. If it had a decent HTML and PHP bundle, I'd buy in the blink of an eye. It's clearly light-years ahead of BBEdit (which I own and is my main editor for now) unfortunately the currently available HTML bundles are good enough to show you what this program could do... But it would require so much work to input all the shortcuts, auto completion, color coding, etc... that are available out of the box with BBEdit that I'll have to stick with this aging program for now.

I'll keep an eye on TextMate and its available bundles in the future though... I'd love to be able to switch - it's just not practical at this point...  
(Version 1.1b5)

JAN CINERT  - It does not consider encoding of a document.

No effect.

While trying characters to a document opened Tag is inserting always UNICODE characters instead of a on-the-fly conversion according to META tag encoding included in document.

Exactly same problem has HTML editor TAG.  
(Version 1.1b5)

ANONYMOUS  command line tool :D nice! can't wait to get home and install it  
(Version 1.1b5)

ANONYMOUS  You can't compare BBEdit with TextMate.  
(Version 1.1b5)

JAN CINERT  It is unusable with x-mac-roman and ISO 8559-2 encoding.  
(Version 1.1b4)

ANONYMOUS  This is a great editor, but too many buttheads use it and want it to do things like display PDFs inline. I'm afraid the developer will cave and ruin it :(  
(Version 1.1b4)

REID ORSTEN  I've been using TextMate for all of my programming for a few days now, and I'm finding myself almost giddy with the power of it. "Ha ha, Mr. Project. You want me to type almost the same thing 30 times, do you? I'LL TYPE IT ONCE. BUAHAHAHA."  
(Version 1.1b4)

JAMES A BAKER  This app is one of the best I've ever seen! I've been a Mac user since 1984, so believe me when I say I've seen a lot of apps come and go. -- This one is here to stay. You can do practically anything with text that you might need to do... and usually a lot easier than you can in the old classic BBEdit.

I loved BBEdit for years, but it got a big head IMO because it was the best option for so long. Now... that's no longer the case, and I think people should know that. -- Wake up, BBEdit! A new king of the mountain is here!  
(Version 1.1b3)

ANONYMOUS  I'm loving the new project search feature! And the bundle editor is a nice addition. How about that functions menu for the next beta??? This is really all I need to switch to TextMate full time.  
(Version 1.1b3)

ANONYMOUS  This is a new trick unknown to shareware users.... The program just up and quit when I click "later" on the registration page. I guess after I've failed to open it for 30 days maybe I'll decide to pay money for it?  
(Version 1.1b3)

ANONYMOUS  Sorry, the url was in brackets: http://one.textdrive.com/pipermail/textmate/2005-January/002420.html  
(Version 1.1b3)

ANONYMOUS  I like this program a lot. But I'm writing to post a fix, in case you have a problem with no syntax highlighting in your 1.1b3. Go to for a fix from the mailing list.  
(Version 1.1b3)

ANONYMOUS  I love this editor. I wish it was more focused on actual development (in C/C++/Obj-C/Java) than on scripting and markup languages, but compared to what else is out there, this is heaven.  
(Version 1.1b1)

ANONYMOUS  I've been using skEdit for a while. TextMate is pretty good, but I'm torn between the two. TextMate has a lot of great features, and overall I like it better. The code folding is really great, makes it much easier to find the methods you need in a large class. I also like having the ability to have virtual folders and references in the code navigation, so I can keep frequently used files handy. And the tabs make it much easier to switch between a few files than in skEdit, especially if they are buried in different locations in a large directory of files.

On the down side, there are two major things I miss from skEdit. One is site wide search/replace. This is really handing for finding the implementation of certain methods when you have a lot of code you didn't write. The other feature I miss is auto completion of functions along with tooltips showing the syntax and order of arguments (useful with php especially)

Overall TextMate is quite good, if they implement those two features I'd be very happy.  
(Version 1.0.2)

FRED B.  Each update/beta makes TM better.

It still needs a bit of work, but at the speed the dev is working, it will soon be THE editor on Mac.  
(Version 1.0.2)

ANONYMOUS  This editor does everything I used to do with BBEdit, but it's faster, cheaper, and has a great interface!  
(Version 1.0.2)

ANONYMOUS  Love it... I LOVE IT!!  
(Version 1.0.2)

PAOLO  I've already rated this but just to say it's improving at a fantastic rate... Amazing how fast new features are added. What a joy. (But shame about the icon!)

I think the screenshot below doesn't do it justice, actually, but I'm averse to white text/dark backgrounds for some reason.  
(Version 1.0.2b10)

DOM  The community is very active too. Make sure to check out the wiki

http://wiki.macromates.com/textmate/show/HomePage

There are plenty of add-ons, coloring and stuff for many languages (actionscript, ...).  
(Version 1.0.2b10)

NCE  Fantastic editor - fast, stable and flexible. As a BBEdit user since the beginning, it'll be sad to say goodbye to an old friend, but I think the BBEdit 8.0 update will be my last - TextMate already suits my needs far better, and it'll have improved even more by the time BBEdit 9 comes out. Download the TM betas for proof.  
(Version 1.0.1)

ANONYMOUS  best app ever...worst icon ever....  
(Version 1.0.1)

SFPNO  I cannot say how pleased I am to have come across this -- it is really what I've been looking for as an external editor for TeXShop.  
(Version 1.0.1)

M SPREIJ  Used BBEdit for about 9 years webdev stuff now (from HTML with Lasso and WebSiphon/Filemaker to PHP/MySQL), and tried many other text editors, always came back to BBE for speed and power, and the nice features like customizable menu shortcuts, multi-file find/replace, and others.

I switched to TextMate in about three days - only use BBEdit now when I need 'External Editor Protocol', but they're working on that.  
(Version 1.0.1)

ANONYMOUS  Well BBedit did have 10 years worth of features at one point... Things like OpenDoc support, PowerMail support, MPW integration... And yeah, shell worksheets are pretty funny: "how do i list my files again? Oh yeah! ls! I just have to click the mouse and hit enter! Macs r so user friendly"  
(Version 1.0.1)

PAOLO  Long time BBEdit user, and I played around with SEE for a while. I like them both. But TextMate seems much easier to use for some reason, despite the various bugs/glitches. And I agree that BBEdit doesn't compare well considering its years of history! (Mind you, I still think BB is fantastic, though I've finally balked at the 8.0 upgrade price.)

I'm now using TM full time and learning its tricks (the macros seem esp. powerful and easy) and will happily pay the fee.

One thing I like is the developers blog, Wiki, and the user list archives; we're truly seeing software development by "community" with accelerated user feedback loops and contributions. Great stuff!

My only objection is the concept of "Windows envy," which I've never suffered, even for a text editor :)  
(Version 1.0.1)

ANONYMOUS  I agree with the people choosing TextMate over BBEdit. Yes, BBEdit has more features at this point, but it's been in development for about a decade more than TextMate. BBEdit does NOT have 10 years' worth more features. And many of the features it does have are of questionable value (built-in hardcoded HTML tools, shell worksheets, and so on.)

TextMate feels so much more in place on OS X that I'm more than willing to overlook some of the rough edges for now.   
(Version 1.0.1)

ANONYMOUS  Yeah, it's nice but unfortunately also amazingly slow on large files.  
(Version 1.0)

ANONYMOUS  Well, after an initial burst of enthusiasm, I'm back to SubEthaEdit + TextExtras. I'm sure it will improve, but for now TextMate just has too many little glitches and missing features. Of course, it's still better than BBEdit, even at this stage.  
(Version 1.0)

JUSTIN FRENCH  Absolutely love this editor... In the first few hours, things will feel a little odd -- it's not trying to emulate and improve the behaviour of BBEdit or skEdit... it's trying to revolutionise it!

Within a day I'd forgotten most of my BBEdit "habbits" and was hooked on the endless personal customisation and power of TextMate in my hands. BBEdit is not even in my dock any more (granted, still in TigerLaunch), and I'm hooked forever!  
(Version 1.0)

MR. SAHL  I have only used TextMate for a day but I'm already very impressed. It just seems to know what I want to do and all the autocomplete-features makes my work faster than ever. Goodbye to BBedit and all its annoying dialogs.

I'm just dying to see what the next version of TextMate have to offer.  
(Version 1.0)

STEVEN  Best text editor I've used on OS X, hands down. It finally feels like we have something comparable to one of the more powerful, fast windows-based editors (like EditPlus or UltraEdit). Not a 'bare bones' over-priced rip-off, like the competition.

This editor also beats out my other favorite, SubEthaEdit. It doesn't offer collabrative editing, but does have code folding, macros, live preview for HTML, tabbed editing, and project management. I look forward to the next versions. Thanks to the author for a great, reasonably priced product!  
(Version 1.0)

RICHARD BLUMBERG  Absolutely fantastic. Unlike many "project" oriented packages, this one works with what you have on your disk right now; you simply drag existing folders, or selected files, into the project sidebar, where you can group them logically and where they're available in a Finder-like hierarchical list. TM presents structured text (e.g. CSS, HTML, program code) in outline form; you can show or hide the block details, and you can drag things around to reorder them. That alone is worth the $39 registration. But there's so much more - syntax coloring for a variety of languages; regex search/replace capability; recordable macros; snippets (like BBEdit Glossary entries, but easier); a well-written Help file; and quick and responsive email support. I suspect I've paid for my last BBEdit upgrade. Incredibly complete and stable for a 1.0 release. If I could give it more than a 5, I would, in every category.  
(Version 1.0)

NCIANCA  Been using it for a day now. Very nice cocoa programmer's editor. So far it's been stable. Certainly impressive for a 1.0 release. I'd have to say that BBEdit is getting some real native competition.  
(Version 1.0)

ANONYMOUS  Awesome editor... still a few rough spots and missing features but that's to be expected for a 1.0 product.  
(Version 1.0)