TextEdit-like program with tabs?

Text Wrangler doesn't have tabs but it does have a side bar that shows all open documents. I'd give that a try.

rspeaker said:

I write weekly columns for my college newspaper, and my outlines tend to be rather long; also, each point I plan to use gets an outline in it's own window, to avoid confusion. Of course, that means I get two to four windows open just for the outline, plus another for actually writing the column (which in turn gets dragged-and-dropped into Pages for final editing, word count, etc.)

I'm looking for a "lightweight" text editor like TextEdit that supports tabs. If there is a plug-in available, or a plug-in available for Pages, or a whole new app... whatever. I'm just dying with all the windows cluttering my desktop up. Thanks.

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TextEdit has tabs. By default, left-aligned tabs are set every half inch. The symbols at the right side of the toolbar let you choose more tabs.

PeggyD said:

TextEdit has tabs. By default, left-aligned tabs are set every half inch. The symbols at the right side of the toolbar let you choose more tabs.

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I think the OP is referring to tabs like those safari. They allow you to have multiple documents open in the same window.

panoz7 said:

I think the OP is referring to tabs like those safari. They allow you to have multiple documents open in the same window.

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I've never heard of anything like that. When tabs & writing are put together, I think formatting tabs.

I will have to recommend textmate:

http://www.macromates.com

Insanelly powerfull app once u no all the tricks.

Smultron (free, open source text editor) has tabs - however, it doesn't have rich text formatting (which is maybe what you're looking for?). I don't know if this is a viable alternative, but maybe you could use something like Circus Ponies' Notebook (really strong, capable outlining features) and just write in that (so you can have your outlines/work side-by-side.)

You could use the notebook layout in Word - though that ain't exactly "lightweight". I use it for my Extension English class, in which our teacher (while exellent) is somewhat all over the place... it's good for keeping your thoughts and notes collected/organised.

Thanks for posting your follow up, it's now 5 years old, but posting follow ups really does help people find things. very nice interwebsocialbehaviourism. think macjournal might have moved on a bit since your last post, but it still has tabbed text pages of a sort. Not exactly what I was after, but pretty good. Surely someone can put together a simple tabbed notepad? anybody?

One year on, still looking. Apple just announced tabbed finder windows. I guarantee it's a matter of time until textedit gets tabs. Just wish they would get around to it quicker.

Master-D said:

One year on, still looking. Apple just announced tabbed finder windows. I guarantee it's a matter of time until textedit gets tabs. Just wish they would get around to it quicker.

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There's a freeware text app called Bean that allows a view of tabs. But I'm quite sure each tab shown is a separate document. Don't know if that would fit your needs or not.

Quite a good and very lean app, though I thought I remember reading it is no longer being developed.

Nam Pla said:

There's a freeware text app called Bean that allows a view of tabs.

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This is perfect! Thank you very much!!

http://www.bean-osx.com/Bean.html

To anyone still looking, its not tabbed exactly, but Notational Velocity is an incredibly lightweight, quick to use text editor. Nothing fancy, but it allows you to quickly create, search and edit notes with actual .rtf files that are easily accessible in the finder too. I would also like to see a tabbed version of Text Edit (a bit like preview) and think it is a strange oversight on Apples side.

Anyway, Notational Velocity also syncs with Simplenote, so you can instantly edit/access stuff on iphone/ipad or whatever. I've started using it for everything including todo lists and shopping lists etc! I hate being ties intoprograms, and the fact it creates text files rather than locking them away in a proprietry database is what really drew me to it.

http://notational.net/

Now I just need to find as simple a solution for getting 'print to pdf' files sync'd back to my computer. I use PDF Printer on my iphone to save articles etc for later in a universal format, but I'd really like it to automatically sync - it's dropbox integration is not great in my opinion.

Why are programs not as easy as NV? Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best.

I would recommend sublime text:

http://www.sublimetext.com

Very nice and simple but also ver sophisticated and powerful.
If you use it just for yourself it is free