[MW Forums]

Bare Bones Software announced at Macworld Expo last week several new features and enhancements to its consumer text editor, TextWrangler. Almost two years after first being introduced, the US$49 application also dropped in price -- by $49. The company decided to give away the new version to any Mac user that wants to go to the company's Web site and download it. more

[gregoj]

BareBones continues to impress me. This kind of offering is precisely why. I purchased the full version of BBEdit just a few months ago with my own dough after using it for several years at my previous job. It was years off BBEdit Lite before that, prior to its discontinuation. The superior products BareBones creates continually makes me anxious to hear of an upgrade or new products.
They released an update to BBEdit 8 a few months ago, and I noticed a bug that was contrary to a feature they mentioned in their update notes. I sent in a ticket about it, and received a personal response within hours, and with a very suitable explanation. This was indeed very impressive, and made me feel that I truly spent my money well.
I'm glad to see the "free" model back at BareBones. As much as it might hinder the bottom line, I think that this goodwill toward the Mac community in general will truly help this company continue to shine and prosper.
And, as much as it might disappoint me in my professional endeavors, I truly respect that BareBones has remained exclusive to the Mac unlike so many of the original Mac-faithful developers. I certainly understand the business sense behind cross-platform, but watching a company continue for so long without it is quite admirable. This being said, I continue to use my Mac in doing any and all code projects, as any editor, free or commercial, is relatively intolerable to use on other platforms. It is amazing how many features and abilities I have at my fingertips that no other editor on the planet offers.
Although I'm a BBEdit owner, I'll be downloading this so that I may be an informed proponent of this great software for all of those out there now feverishly eying their $500 FIRST Macintosh.
Be well all.

[jmincey]

You make a number of good points and Bare Bones is indeed an asset to the Mac community, but I'm not quite sure how I feel about TextWrangler itself. I like free software as much as the next person; but Bare Bones' explanation that it wants to "raise the bar" is suspect in my mind. What exactly does this mean?
Do Apple, Adobe, or Microsoft care if the genres of software which pertain to their markets are compromised by inexperienced developers? There will always be examples of good and bad in any category. Also, a "consumer text editor" is almost a contradiction in terms anyway. Bare Bones may speak of the market of students, teachers, and technical people, but however you slice it, we are still talking about coders here (or scripters). This ain't for people writing that letter to Mom.
This looks and smells more like a preemptive strike against the competition. In effect, it's a "market dumping." I don't think the motives are so noble as this article would make it seem.

[Steve_S]

In reply to:

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This looks and smells more like a preemptive strike against the competition. In effect, it's a "market dumping." I don't think the motives are so noble as this article would make it seem.

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I think if you read between the lines, that's what it is. Of course, there was always BBEdit Lite, etc. So, this is nothing new. It's just now, it's become increasingly easier to develop a simple editor with Cocoa, etc. Also, there are Java based editors to choose from. Barebones is basically just saying, we're giving a way a fairly substantial text editor for free, so unless you can significantly surpass our freeware, you're wasting your time.
Oh well... we all know that real men use "vi"! /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
Steve

[minderbinder]

Looks cool. But 10.3 only? For a text editor?

[jmincey]

"Oh well... we all know that real men use 'vi'"
Ha! I'm a vi user myself, but I'm trying to migrate to emacs.

[Zobeid]

Looking at the included manual, I found this bit. . .

In reply to:

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Many of TextWranglers pull-down menus are dynamic: if you hold down the Shift or Option key while a menu is open, you can see some of the items change.

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Am I the only one who thinks this is a blindingly stupid idea? It really seems to undermine the whole concept of drop-down menus, which is that all your options should be easily visible -- without having to perform any tricks (like holding down meta keys) to find them.
I've always considered BBEdit Lite okay but quirky, and I never really understood why it developed such a huge reputation in the Mac world. Now I'm going to give TextWranger and jEdit a good competitive test and see which I like better. (My first impression is that jEdit seems even more quirky than BBEdit Lite, but I'm going to give it a chance.)
Lest we forget, the Mac OS X dev kit also includes a text editor. PLUS you can use TextEdit as a basic text editor. It's funny to see so much competition to give away free replacements for something that already comes free with the OS. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[d00d]

Sounds like what Apple does with the Apple menu (holding option while choosing restart/shutdown/etc. makes them execute without confirmation).

[jmincey]

I generally oppose having functions accessible ONLY by means of modifier keys (acting on menus), but as an optional (and quick) way for access to functions, I don't object to it. I don't know if this violates some sacrosanct UI standard but there is certainly historical precedent for it. Modifier keys modify, and the precedent for this dates back to the age of typewriters and the shift key.
Whether we are speaking of other keys, menus, dialog boxes, or any GUI object, it's not unreasonable to expect that what I'm calling modifier keys might exert an influence on their behavior.
"I've always considered BBEdit Lite okay but quirky..."
What text editor on any platform is NOT quirky? This is a genre of software characterized by having innumerable functions deliberately buried (in UI terms) for reasons which the use of these tools for software engineering makes necessary. This isn't to say that the UI for text editors is completely up for grabs or that one is no better than another; but ultimately it comes down to what one is accustomed to.

[legionary14]

jmincey proposes a plausible explanation for Bare Bones' action, but I disagree with the idea that TextWrangler is aimed at coders alone. I paid for TW to code but found that TW was an excellent environment for writing - any fancy-making gets done in InDesign. Although I own Office 2004 I dislike Word, and the capabilities of TW can be vary useful when writing - compare the find & replace capabilities with that of MS Word, for example, or the many mini-tools like 'exchange characters'. TW started to be useful almost at once - a very well-made tool.
I find myself more productive in writing when separating composition from presentation - and this is partly because I don't waste time fiddling around with formats when I have not finished my text. Have others found the same?

[jmincey]

You make an interesting point. I dislike Word as well (for a number of reasons which I won't detail here); but now that Apple has "Pages," we shall see whether that will meet the text editing (or word processing) needs of non-coders who ultimately may want to export the text into apps like InDesign. Time will tell.

[Steve_S]

In reply to:

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Ha! I'm a vi user myself, but I'm trying to migrate to emacs.

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Yeah, I figured you might be a vi user too, but I'm not sure why you'd want to migrate to emacs. Not that there's anything wrong with emacs, but once you went through the trouble of learning vi, why switch?
I did the opposite. I came from emacs side early on. On a previous job, I was forced to learn vi because I had to work on client's machines. Which editor was available on which machine was always a crap shoot. "vi" was the only editor that was universally available. Though I initially hated vi, I came to understand just how powerful and efficient it was compared to others.
Programs like BBEdit have carved out a nice niche with web developers, etc. Still, 90% of my text handling is best served with vi. Though, I think most will agree, it's not a consumer / user friendly editor. It's definitely for people that have to do a lot of editing and likewise have time to learn the commands, syntax and nuances of a dedicated text editor.
Steve

[SimDude]

"Ha! I'm a vi user myself, but I'm trying to migrate to emacs."
I migrated FROM emacs to vi! haha. At least on my SGI at work
where BBedit is not an option. BBedit let's you use some
emacs keystrokes. I wish it also had a "vi" mode for basic entry.
I know those that don't use it are wondering what I'm talking about
as it seems so archaic, but if you've ever seen someone very good in
vi do some complicated text transformations, it's amazing.
BBedit (and I'm sure TextWrangler) is a great editor though and Barebones is a fantastic company.
Keep up the good work!

[lassowitz]

While generous of Bare Bones to offer TextWrangler for free, my company already switched from BBEdit Lite to Smultron ("http://smultron.sourceforge.net/") for all of our code and text editing. BBEdit Lite and SubEthaEdit were both great free text editors... Smultron is truly free (it's an open source effort with an incredibly responsive and friendly developer), and has managed to do all the things we needed in a text editor without the hassle of guessing whether the app would be charged for tomorrow.
If you haven't already, check it out.