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I vote for TextMate except for one extremely annoying thing that the dev refuses to fix: it undoes typing o-n-e c-h-a-r-a-c-t-e-r a-t a t-i-m-e instead of undoing the whole most recent block like, well petty much every other app on the planet.

For free stuff it's pretty hard to beat TextWrangler, you can do just about anything with it and it has some really advanced features.

Of course it really depends on what you need to do with a text editor. For RTF editing, I find TextEdit, included with OS X, to actually be pretty useful. So I end up using 4-5 editors pretty regularly for different things.
 
TextMate for Fortran, C, C++, Ruby, LaTeX and any intensive HTML, PHP, JS work.

Coda for routine fixes to HTML, CSS, JS, PHP for my sites. Also has a convenient CSS editor built in. CSSEdit for bigger CSS editing jobs or when poking around someone else's site. Coda gets much more use since it has FTP built in and a killer site management system.

TextWrangler for quick fixes when I am borrowing someone else's Mac in a pinch (its free, easy to download and dive into).

I used to fall back to TeXShop for LaTeX work but now that I have TextMate configured I am using it less and less.

When I worked more with other people on programming, we used SubEthaEdit. Now all those features are in Coda, so not an issue. Still installed for non-web projects, but not really a high-use app.

--

TextMate is my life right now, with Coda as a strong second.
 
I use TextMate. Tried BBEdit, TextWrangler and Emacs, and although they're all great, TextMate just made my life easier with auto-completion of parentheses etc.

That being said, I didn't spend long with Emacs. Having to, to an extent, re-learn how to navigate text just seemed like a task I wasn't willing to undertake.
 
Vim because one can be lightning fast using it. Emacs would be my #2 choice although I understand why people would prefer that over vim. With either one, remapping the caps lock key to control makes things much easier and faster (who decided to stick the caps lock key where it is anyway? That's where the control key should be).
 
Let me also add that whatever text editor that you pick you should learn everything you can about it. The goal is to have it be an extension of your thought like how when you learn to type you no longer thing of each letter, but in words and sentences and and they just appear on the screen.

Learning an editor to this level can take some time investment and that's why many people go with a cross platform editor like vim or emacs so that they know any computer they sit down at will have the editor they spent so much time mastering.

For example, I like Textmate and have used it on the mac but I don't want to take the time to master it when I already know vim and use it on osx/windows/linux without any issue. Plus, Textmate was made big with rails popularity and now that there is a vim-rails plugin I haven't started up Textmate in a long time.
 
For standard Vim, just open a terminal and type "vi filename" and there you go. :D

I use MacVim myself. All the Vim goodness with a Mac UI.
 
I'm really like VIM. Question about MacVIM though.

I downloaded MacVIM and can use it but how to access MacVIM from the command terminal from another directory? I assume I have to stick the shell script, "mvim" somewhere, so I can type "mvim"?

Make a symbolic link to it?
 
I'm really like VIM. Question about MacVIM though.

I downloaded MacVIM and can use it but how to access MacVIM from the command terminal from another directory? I assume I have to stick the shell script, "mvim" somewhere, so I can type "mvim"?

Make a symbolic link to it?

You need mvim in your path. You can symlink it to /usr/local/bin or any other place where your path points.
 
I use several different applications for different purposes. I'm sticking to the free apps, because I don't like spending money.

:D TextWrangler: I use this for web development because of its really great find/replace features, and it gets the job done without getting in my way. Also I use Texw when I need to be sure the editor is not screwing with the text encoding.

:D Xcode: I use this for making Cocoa stuff because it's the center of activity when writing applications. Apple-Return Return saves, builds and runs. If there's another editor that can do it that easily, let me know! Besides, it was built for Objective-C so its text completion is pretty handy.

:cool: Bean: Rich text is a limited technology, but Bean manages to make it acceptable to work with by squeezing out every drop of usefulness.

:confused: vi(m), emacs, etc: These may be textually powerful, but I fail to see why I should be forced to use the Terminal—ever—in 2010. MacVim looks promising, though…

:mad: Dreamweaver: This may have looked promising in the '90s, but now it's a bloated, HIG-violating beast that likes to slow my typing and mess up my neatly-laid-out code.

:mad: TextEdit: Just… no. Don't. Equals cannot. This one would be better off sitting in the Trash.

:D FountainPen: When you're not writing code but don't want to get stuck in a word processor, FountainPen uses Markdown to turn plain text into HTML or Rich Text. Okay, just so you know, I made this one (or rather, making it; the link takes you to a semi-dysfunctional prototype).
 
Coda for web development, vim for C/C++ and hidden/system files (eg. if I wanted to edit the php.ini file, I would have to make it visible and assign writing permissions. with the Terminal, it's as simple as sudo vim /etc/private/php.ini).

By the way, here's a rather awesome Coda syntax highlighting theme. It's the only dark theme I enjoy using.
 
GUI: TextWrangler/Aquamacs
Terminal: nano/vim/emacs

All depends on what it is that I'm doing at the time...

B
 
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