BBEdit 8.5 released with new UI, code folding, clippings - 160 total improvements

"199$ is a lot of money, any good alternatives out there?"

I recently tried (and bought) TextMate. Defintely the greatest of its kind. I have never been very familiar with BBEdit so I can't comment much on it. I previoulsy used Smultron which is free but not as good. I just know that TextMate is absolutely great for what I do: PHP (install the bundle named 'PHPCodeCompletion'). The author uses it for Objective-C too but I find it easier to stick with Xcode.

For those who can read french, here's what I thought about TextMate:
http://jack.link-u.com/2006/09/03/textmate-ultraedit32-pour-mac-et-plus-si-affinites/

Plus one for TextMate. really great app, great community, and awesome developer. there's always a way to talk to Allan if you're having problems or have ideas, and he really knows his stuff.
It's fast and pretty light weight, and just has some really nice features. I did try BBEdit, and it just felt all wrong, plus it was just way to ugly to share any space with OS X.
Anyway, glad to see they're doing something about the UI.

Al.

What I personally want is nice replacement icons for BBEdit. Brian Zeitler's are nice, but the text is grainy at smaller sizes for the docs. :(

Ooops, wrong link. Here goes: http://smultron.sourceforge.net/

Didn't like BBEdit much. Felt old school and clunky to me.
I use TextMate. Well worth €39.
Smultron is a pretty good open source alternative: http://cogosx.sourceforge.net/

Anyone who has been using Editplus or Ultraedit on Windows for Perl style editing will find every editor on the Mac a joke. Nobody comes close. Smultron (smultron.sourceforge.net) has a fair go, but none of them seem to understand how to cater for somebody who spends all day in Editplus and often has 50 files on the go at once.

Cool, thanks everybody for the help. I think I'll take TextMate out for a spin. ;)

BBEdit is the tool i use when i need to process multiple files using Applescript. i haven't really tried scripting any other text editors such as SubEthaEdit or TextMate, so i can't vouch for them. but with BBEdit i have set up some great automated workflows.

FYI...if you're a student, an educational license for BBEdit is $50. you can select it from the order page.

I generally use TextMate for all quick tasks, as it is a lightweight but extendable text editor. I use ActiveState Komodo for large web application development.

I have been a long time UltraEdit user. I have only had the Macbook a few months and have been using open source JEdit, but I haven't fallen in love with it like I did UE. Barebones has an insane price tag that put me off right away, even with all of Leo Laporte's reviews. Merlin Mann seems to like textmate alot and I have been thinking of trying it out myself.

I too would love to know of a good alternative.