

CotEditor – Text Editor for OS X - uchooseyourself
http://coteditor.com/

======
heliodor
Looks beautiful and well-designed. Clearly a lot of effort has gone into it. I
can't say I will try as I don't see enough selling points to peel me away from
Sublime. I see some features that seem to address some pain points of Japanese
users, so maybe that demographic will be more interested.

Looking at the screenshots, I have to wonder why the developer chose to place
the settings for line endings, encoding, and file content type in prime real
estate: the top left corner. Something's wrong upstream if you have to deal
with these settings. They've rarely, if ever, caused me problems and I don't
want to see them. They just work 99% of the time. Maybe not so much for
Japanese users.

I think the developers need to put on a their business hats and figure out who
the target audience is and tailor their pitch to them. I don't seem much here
that would change people's text editor habits away from Vi, Sublime, Atom,
etc. That said, this definitely must have been a very good learning experience
for the developer.

~~~
veidr
I can confirm that text encoding is still a real pain in Japan. Despite the
fact that we now have UTF-8, which should be used whenever possible, legacy
encodings like SJIS, EUC, etc. still abound.

For instance, whenever I download CSV bank or credit card data here in Japan,
I always have to convert the file from one of those encodings before using it.
At work in Tokyo, I deal with email in these encoding (or worse -- parts of
the email in SJIS, with other parts in EUC).

So yes, I think the barbaric text encodings of yesteryear are still a pain
point for Japanese users. (Even so, I agree that it doesn't merit top billing
in the window toolbar.)

 _Off-topic bonus tip for aspiring text editor authors_ : make an awesome
autocompletion UI, but leave the indexing/autocompletion up to third party
open source plugins. Look at Chocolat.app for what the completion UI should
look like (a big, attractive complex popover view (not just a menu) with
optional documentation display), but open up the actual dynamic completion
itself to your users. There is no way a small team can do good completion in
tons of languages, but providing a great UI is totally doable.

~~~
alextgordon
_Off-topic response:_ w.r.t. code completion plugins in Chocolat, the hard
part is already done. With v3, the plugin API is now process-separated, and
communication is over mach ports. Now that there's a stable, non-blocking and
_low-latency_ foundation for plugins, all I need to do is figure out a good
API for it.

My advice to aspiring text editor authors would be: do development on the
slowest most outdated computer you can find. I use a 2007 iMac: 2GHz, 3GB of
RAM and a 128MB ATI Radeon 2400. If the app works OK for me, it should work
awesomely for everybody else!

~~~
veidr
That is _great_ to hear! I bought Chocolat (a purchase mainly instigated by
the hilarious "the demo expired so it still works, but only with Comic Sans
font" gimmick). And I even sent friends screenshots[1] raving about its
completion UI.

But... Chocolat didn't really stick for me, with the plethora of editors I
already use. Even though it's good.

I would _definitely_ revisit it, if it got extensible completion.

[1]:
[https://www.dropbox.com/s/r2da0rc7spgpxqq/Screenshot%202014-...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/r2da0rc7spgpxqq/Screenshot%202014-11-21%2011.59.45.png?dl=0)

~~~
mkhalil
Is there an app that does have that autocomplete in the screen shot?

~~~
veidr
Yes! That is indeed a real screenshot of an editor for OS X, called
Chocolat[1].

The alextgordon fellow that replied to me upthread is one of the principal
people behind it.

[1]: [http://chocolatapp.com](http://chocolatapp.com)

------
fdsary
I'm pretty effective with vim, so much that other 'normal' editors like
sublime & other modern gui editors make me feel a little crippled. That is a
problem, because you need to be flexible about things in life.

Has anyone succeeded in deliberately changing editors, even when not feeling
like it's necessary? I'm especially curious how I could start using emacs, and
actually get up to speed with it instead of using it as Notepad/TextEdit (as I
would do if I started today)?

~~~
tzs
I didn't so much change editors as start using multiple editors. On OS X, I
regularly use vim, TextMate, and BBEdit.

I find that TextMate looks the best. I simply enjoy typing code into TextMate
more than I do in vim or BBEdit. Thus, when I'm doing a stretch of writing new
code, or straightforward modification of existing code, I'll probably do it in
TextMate (although some days it just feels like it is a vim day or a BBEdit
day).

If I need to make a lot of related changes, I'll switch to vim, and use
regular expressions or I'll record a macro to repeatedly apply.

If I'm doing something like making some modification at all places that use a
particular database table, I'll probably go to BBEdit. I can do a search for
that table and click "find all", and it gives a separate window showing all
the matches, with an editing section in the bottom part that shows whichever
search result I click. This lets me easily see all the places where the table
is referenced, and easily edit them, and go back and forth as needed. It works
similarly with the results of a multi-file search, which makes it nice when
I'm trying to understand crusty old legacy code.

If I start a work session in TextMate, and switch to vim to do something with
macros, I'll probably stay there and continue editing. When I exit the editor
to test the code, then I'll probably head back to TextMate. Same if I go to
BBEdit for something--I'll stay there until I need something that is better in
vim.

I realize I'm not making full use of the capabilities of one or more of these
editors. BBEdit can certainly do most of the things vim can do, and all of the
things I use vim for, for instance, but I'm fine with simply popping into vim
for those things.

~~~
visarga
I use Text Wrangler for quick access by SFTP to my code (open server / edit /
save). I don't like the SFTP window much, but it does the job. TW is also very
good for processing text: sorting, removing duplicates, applying regex-es,
filtering and vertical columns.

I tried using Sublime and I did get along well with it for a few projects, but
when I am jumping around on various servers, I prefer Text Wrangler's shorter
setup. Why doesn't Sublime manage SSH better?

------
archagon
This is awesome, but I wish developers would charge for polished, full-
featured software like this. The people who made this probably have full-time
jobs; meanwhile, independent developers who want to break into this niche now
have to compete with "free". This results in a market ruled by large
corporations that can "subsidize" free software via the spare time of their
employees.

Maybe I'm just being too grouchy. This editor looks impressive.

~~~
agilebyte
Well maybe that is the point. The developers get paid, somehow, so why do they
need to get even more money? This way more people can use their software
because it is free.

(I don't know the developers)

~~~
archagon
Yeah. I can definitely see the point. I also realize that open source software
is often a political statement, and good for that. But at the same time, I
want to see a world where a developer could earn money from making cool
applications like this without relying on a large corporation for the bulk of
their paycheck. It's what the free-to-play app store model is coalescing to,
and I don't like it.

~~~
agilebyte
Sure, but what is a _right_ price? Shall all code editors cost the same and
differentiate on features? Otherwise it seems to me like a race to the bottom
where CotEditor people charge $30 and indie developer charges $25. So what
about the next indie developer then? $20?

And yes you are right, as developers we tend to publish useful stuff more
often for free than not. But maybe it stems from our inability to market cool
applications so that we get money for them.

------
vinicius
I like it. Obviously won't replace a programmer's favorite editor, but for
quick things you need to write throughout the day (code or not) it's a good
replacement for TextEdit.

------
FreakyT
It definitely has potential, but without tabbed windows, editing multiple
files at once seems like it'll be cumbersome.

~~~
kolev
Same thought here - now even Finder has tabs!

------
nahiluhmot
Not sure why the site advertises "Just for OS X" as if it's a feature.

~~~
Void_
Have you tried using one of those IDEs written in Java?

~~~
stormbrew
This isn't an IDE. The comparable type of editor that's cross platform is
probably sublime. Have you tried using that?

~~~
0942v8653
Sublime is the best cross-platform app I've ever used. I can count on one
finger the number of times I've used something that felt native on more than
one platform.

------
doublextremevil
The license is GPL v2; you might want to consider using “Version 2 of the GPL
or any later version” as GPL v2 is unfortunately incompatible with the Apache
license. Also, the GPL v3 is becoming more and more popular nowadays.

This means you could keep the project under GPL v2, but people would have the
option of using a later GPL version.

~~~
TylerE
I've never liked this idea. What's to keep the FSF from adding a "you give us
royalty-free rights to all your patents for eternity" as a clause in GPL v4?

~~~
belorn
The author is never forced to use a later version. "Version 2 of the GPL or
any later version" simply means that distributor (other than the author) can
choose between using gplv2, gplv3, gplv4 and so on.

The author is always free pick any license of their choosing for work that
they have themselves has authored.

------
mb_72
This editor addresses my need for something simple but 'programmy' \- I
develop Xamarin Mac apps on OSX and have been frustrated not finding anything
I like that is between TextEdit and Xamarin Studio in functionality and
useability. Awesome!

------
0942v8653
The File Drop feature is interesting. I'm not sure what it would be useful for
though—for me, anyway, it's faster to just type that kind of stuff out. Good
to see something fully scriptable too.

------
unicornporn
Nice looking. But I can't use it as is now — it has no tabs/sidebar for more
documents. TextWrangler FTW.

I actually run Notepad++ via Wine too for HTML. It's the only editor I've
found that can expand and contract a hierarchy of *ML using plus and minus
signs in the marginal of the editor. Difficult to explain, I guess you have to
try it to understand.

It's indispensable and I can't be without it. I'd love to go native, but I
haven't find an editor for OS X that does this.

~~~
fredsted
TextWrangler and TextMate has it.

~~~
unicornporn
TextWrangler is my default text editor in OS X and I haven't noticed this. Do
I have to enable it in some way?

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sciurus
Why the emphasis on character encodings?

~~~
acdha
The GitHub location says Japan so I'm assuming it's a personal pain-point for
at least one of the developers:

[https://github.com/coteditor/](https://github.com/coteditor/)

------
mholt
Nice, but in the kind of dev work I do, I need to be able to work with text
files that are hundreds of MB, even over a GB, in size, and CotEditor chokes
on 200 MB text files...

~~~
VieElm
Why do you have text files that are 200MB? Why don't you separate that into
multiple files? 200MB of text? Moby Dick is 1MB in plain text. The Holy Bible
is like 4MB in plain text. What is in your files? I think you may be doing
something wrong.

~~~
jackmaney

        s/I think you may be/You are/
    

No single file of source code should ever be even close to 200MB, and no data
file (CSV, XML, etc) of that size should be manually edited in a text editor.

Wrong tool for the wrong job.

~~~
netheril96
"no data file (CSV, XML, etc) of that size should be manually edited in a text
editor"

A new law of the land!

Seriously, tools are meant to solve problems, not to dictate what problems
people should solve.

------
tkubacki
recently I replaced OSX on my macbook to Ubuntu and I'm very pleased for the
following reasons:

1\. better key shortcuts: no hassle to maximize, windows ninja moves without
additional software, can do every UI operation with keyboard (most common with
cmd+num run/bring back app), fn + arrow works as cmd+arrow on osx, same key
shortcuts, UI on all desktops I use everyday

2\. easier software install: apt vs brew (ex. installing postgres was pain in
ass for me recently on osx)

3\. no OSX maximize button madness

4\. default file manager is much better on Ubuntu (eg. easy way to modify
current path with ctrl+l)

5\. same dev machine OS as production - no additional steps for docker
(boot2docker etc)

6\. sublime works great

Ubuntu has good support for my (non-retina) macbook 2012 (no driver problems
at all!)

All this on default Ubuntu installation - no special tweak (except enabling
mac WIFI driver in _UI driver configurator_ ) - so it just works.

I do understand someone likes OSX specific UI etc. but for me Linux (Ubuntu)
matured enough to be better dev machine than OSX

~~~
plg
how is battery life? Last time I tried installing linux on a macbook pro (1)
the machine ran hot all the time and (2) the battery life was seriously
reduced compared to using os x.

Have things improved? Might be time to try again?

~~~
tkubacki
I think it' not much worse than osx but can't say anything for sure - I
usually work with power cord (just sometimes in customer's office)

~~~
Demiurge
I really have no idea why someone would downvote your honest answer.... This
is getting out of hand.

Anyway, in my experience it's been about 50-70% worse battery life on ubuntu
compared to OSX. Which, as you point out, is no issue if you don't need all 4
or 8 hours of the full potential of MacBook battery life. A meeting might last
2 hours for me at most, but if traveling, battery life is a deal breaker for
me.

~~~
tkubacki
>I really have no idea why someone would downvote your honest answer

there is a big part of HN crowd whose whole life purpose is to downvote
something they didn't like or don't understand

------
jinushaun
"Just for mac" is a non-starter for me. I already suffered through it with
TextMate. With Sublime Text, not going back to Mac-only.

------
Derbasti
The second screen shows the search an replace dialogue, which is its own
floating window. I can't tell from the screen shot whether it is modal.

Anyway, search is an incredibly crucial feature for navigation. It has to be
fast, and non-modal. Even having it in a separate screen is suspect in my
book.

------
kentosi
Very nice editor. I like that Solarized is built in as a theme I also like the
nice list of syntax highlighting.

One question: For a text-editor focused on programming, why doesn't it come
with a monospace set as the default?

------
oneeyedpigeon
Just a first impression: that Find box looks highly out of place within an OSX
interface. Are those native yosemite UI controls? If so, that seems like one
less reason to upgrade: terribly crowded buttons, for example.

~~~
Alphasite_
No they aren't.

------
sergiotapia
I must have missed something but I can't seem to open a Folder. :/

~~~
fredoliveira
Probably out of scope for this app. TextEdit doesn't let you open a folder
either.

------
indubitably
Gotta be honest my doubts are raised by the HTML4.0 doctype in the sample
document.

------
pax
What does the 'Navigation Bar' do? What should I do to see anything there?

------
source99
Why is 'find' so horribly difficult to use in sublime? I want to find another
instance of the current word and then quickly modify it.

I wish getting out of the find text box was simpler and more intuitive.

Maybe it's just me.

~~~
Walkman
I don't know how it could be easier: You position inside a word anywhere,
press CMD+OPTION+G; the next word is already selected, you can already edit
it, no need to bring up Find panel.

~~~
0942v8653
Or double-tap Command+D.

~~~
source99
This doesn't seem to work well as it highlights multiple instances of the word
I was on. The current instance and the next instance(but not all instances).

------
woah
Where is the most important part- plugins?

------
visarga
No SFTP integration?

I don't want to donwload and uploadmy files with an external program or to
mount remote filesystems.

------
jessonfoo
why? we already have sublime, vim, atom.. not to mention IDE's like IntelliJ

------
eccstartup
I have already got one text editor, which is free, with rapid launch, but why
Cot?

~~~
eccstartup
Again, I have to handle errors like:

You cannot save this document with extension “.hs” at the end of the name. The
required extension is “.(null)”.

------
T_T
why are we making another editor.

~~~
Semiapies
In other words, exactly what someone said as someone else started working on
your preferred text editor.

~~~
mapcar
good point. unless it is vi or emacs...

------
120photo
Atom been working just fine.

~~~
jeffcox
Atom is strange to me, it seems like a less familiar Sublime Text with no real
distinguishing features.

~~~
tw04
The distinguishing feature is it's horribly slow with large files. The
performance is an order of magnitude slower than sublime text. And it doesn't
auto-save unsaved work if it closes. Both deal breakers for me.

~~~
pbreit
Extremely slow to load, too. Brackets and TextMate load much faster.

------
_pmf_
Finally. I have been running Notepad in Parallels just to get a decent editor
for the last 3 years.

------
pdenya
> There is no complex setting files require geek knowledge. You can access all
> your settings incl. syntax definitions and themes from a normal preferences
> window.

Who is this for? This is not a feature I want.

~~~
boken
I think the clearest answer is: "It's not for you, then."

I've written and edited plenty of runtime configuration files, but there is
this to say for GUI preference panes: you don't need to bother with learning a
new language, even a simple one, for every other program. Set it up, and then
_use_ it. Maybe occasionally define a new text snippet.

I know many heavy users of editors and IDEs who are by no means _power_ users,
with their dotfiles on version control and everything. There is a distinct
difference. In all honesty, I don't think either group is more productive than
the other except on a _very_ micro scale.

------
trevorhartman
I don't get it. Haven't they ever heard of vim/emacs?

~~~
idbehold
Do those support native OSX key bindings?

~~~
omaranto
I'm going to guess the answer is yes, but possibly not out of the box.

