I strongly believe that while developing, your editor is like your right arm when you’re shooting: you must be very confident with it or things will shortly get fucked up.

I’ve used so many editors from DOS, through Windows, to GNU/Linux and OSX. Let me enjoy myself writing a list, more or less cronologically ordered (ascending…):

  • microemacs
  • spf
  • multiedit
  • brief
  • ultraedit
  • emacs
  • vim
  • kate
  • jedit

Tested, but not used much: Eclipse, gedit, NOTEPAD!

Is this list complete? Maybe. I do not mention, though, some IDEs or RADs (Visual BlahBlah, or Delphishsm).

I’m currently developing a very complex web application, that mixes in the same “page”, jsp taglibs, HTML, CSS and a lot of javascript. In GNU/Linux I’m fine with jEdit. This editor really rocks, and its syntax hilighting is superior (maybe, only a bit under vim’s one).

The “problem” is that now I need to do some work in OSX, for the same project. I do not “fell in love” with an editor, not much as I can do with other tools, so being this a not trivial editing need I asked myself: which editor could serve me better under OSX? Am I sure Jedit is the best, here?

My “special” needs are:

  • edit long pages with mixed languages (syntax hilight must work the smarter than it can)
  • possibility to use “markers” or “bookmarks” to skip rapidly from a point to another in the document
  • need a “current line” and “end of line” hilight
  • need the smart folding feature possible, for all those long “DIVs”
  • possibility to remap keyboards and colors, simply and efficently (no editor restart for that changes to be applied, simply a “Apply” button)

First in the list comes Textmate. It seems that it is a must. So I tried it.

No way. Syntax hilighting sucks. Keyboard shortcuts are not (easily?) configurable. Default keyboard mapping screwed my brain. Maybe the best editor for one-language purpose for all-day OSX users. I’m not. And Textmate is not free software (bad bad!)

OK, there’s the BBEdit thing. Bleah. I tried an old version, I admit. Quite the same problems as for Textmate, but without the highlights. And BBEdit is not free software (bad bad!)

There’s also Smultron. It’s free software! Syntax highlight is QUITE right… no markers, configurability is SO poor… I’ll give it another try when it will be more old.

So, the winner?

The winner is JEDIT. You get the same functionalities as in GNU/Linux or Windows and no one beats it.

By now.