Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

redneon

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 27, 2006
77
0
Can anyone recommend a decent text editor for programmers (preferably free)?

I used to use MultiEdit or TextPad in Windows and am looking for something similar for OS X.

EDIT: I should probably add that I want hex editing features and such.
 
I use TextWrangler as my all-purpose text editor. Powerful, but free... :)

As for hex editor, I don't know, but I'm pretty sure you'd be better of with one good text editor and a good hex editor instead of some application doing a half...good job on both... ;)
 
textmate is awesome if you can deal with some of the current limitations (like fixed-width-ness).

wait for 2.0 to be released if you want to buy it though ;)
 
textmate is awesome if you can deal with some of the current limitations (like fixed-width-ness).

wait for 2.0 to be released if you want to buy it though ;)

TextMate 2.0 will be a free upgrade to anyone who purchased 1.0, so there's no penalty for buying it now. I would like to second the recommendation for TextMate, though, it's an incredibly powerful text editor.

SubEthaEdit is also nice as it allows for real-time, collaborative editing (if you need that kind of thing).

Smultron is a decent freeware editor (although the icons are crap).

...as for a hex editor, I'll be of little help to you there.
 
Just use textedit
Use anything but TextEdit for text only documents (though it's actually a very nice, light weight rich text word processor).

For programming, with syntax highlighting and other text tools, use something better, much better, like the ones mentioned above...
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.