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For those familiar with Windows, I used to use "Programmer's Notepad" and "TextPad".

I want a Text Editor, not an IDE, with the following few features (in no particular order):

  • Syntax Highlighting
  • Tabbed editing
  • Projects (groups of files together in one "project" file)
  • Spellcheck
  • Lightweight - I prefer something other than XCode.

EDIT:

I am looking for something primarily for web development.

EDIT2:

Must be Free. +1 For relevant link(s).

EDIT3:

GUI Based only please.

EDIT4:

I realized that gEdit is available for OS X. I met it back on Ubuntu 6.something-or-other. We have a winner.

Thanks all for input.

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6 Answers

up vote 6 down vote accepted

TextMate http://macromates.com/ or Aquamacs http://aquamacs.org/.

XCode isn't exactly heavyweight, but I understand why you might not want to use it... I only use it for debugging, and edit in TextMate.

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Why the downvote? Good answer, not complete with links though... – Moshe Jan 7 '10 at 3:41
That better? Links now. – Andrew McGregor Jan 7 '10 at 4:11
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Yes. sing TextWrangler for now. TextMate is not free.. – Moshe Jan 7 '10 at 4:42
First answer gets the check. I realized that my favorite Ubuntu Editor, gEdit is available on OS X, Now using that. – Moshe Jan 7 '10 at 5:14
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up vote 2 down vote

Vim for Mac - http://macvim.org/OSX/index.php

Impress your friends and confuse your neighbors as you get used to this wonderful editor.

The gVim (i.e. Gui VIM version I use on Windows and on Ubuntu can show line numbers, do diffs between files, show bracket completion. If I really want a spellcheck, I could install CREAM, but for most programming/shell scripting, spellcheck isn't helpful.

I tried a number of text editors on Windows, but the REGEX search and replace in vi kept me coming back to the commandline, until I found gVIM.

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GUI Preferred... – Moshe Jan 7 '10 at 5:09
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Vim For Mac is gVIM, only with all the frufy mac eye candy stuff. – pcapademic Jan 7 '10 at 5:44
Aha, Perhap's I'll give it a try. Thanks. BTW, I'm a PC - using this for iPhone dev. Learning the OS Slowly... – Moshe Jan 7 '10 at 5:55
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up vote 1 down vote

Xcode is free for Mac OS X development.

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Besides for that. something lightweight. – Moshe Jan 7 '10 at 3:09
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Now that you've edited the question, try aptana.org or bluefish.openoffice.nl - these are probably a little bit "bigger" than your needs but I've used them in the past and they are pretty good. Otherwise try macromates.com or en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smultron – ta.speot.is Jan 7 '10 at 3:25
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You can edit your answer too, instead of commenting on it. ;) – Moshe Jan 7 '10 at 3:31
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up vote 1 down vote

Emacs.

Emacs is the text editor. Along with vi.

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Link please? - Also, GUI based only. – Moshe Jan 7 '10 at 3:51
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aquamacs.org – pcapademic Jan 7 '10 at 5:01
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up vote 0 down vote

Redcar is a cross platform, open source editor with a similar feature set to textmate, it works with textmate bundles, if you don't want to fork out for textmate.

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It looks interesting, but in early development. Right now, I've got a few other awesome options out there. Perhaps once this reaches a stable version I will play with it. – Moshe Jan 7 '10 at 7:17
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up vote 0 down vote

Also already answered you should take a look at Smultron. It is very lightweight but can do anything you asked for. Second is Komodo Edit which is a little bit more powerful.

Both are free, unfortunately Smultron gets not further developed.

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