

TextMate 2 (Public) Alpha - fredleblanc
http://blog.macromates.com/2011/textmate-2-0-alpha/

======
jakr
I can't believe the number of "oh screw this i'm using <x>" comments sprinkled
all over everything TM2 related these days.

It's as if people need to echo their personal choice every time TM is
mentioned to give them a sense of reassurance that they made the right
decision and to prevent themselves from relapsing back to TM.

I'm looking forward to see how TM2 progresses!

~~~
applicative
There is a palpable anxiety and dishonesty in all these attacks, it's stunning
really.

------
peregrine
In the mean time Sublime Text 2 has all of the Alpha features as well as cross
platform support and support for TextMate bundles. You should really give it a
shot if you haven't.

~~~
pilif
There is one feature in TextMate that's not in Sublime which I really love to
the point, where it's an absolute requirement for me: when I edit a file in
TextMate and my account lacks permission for saving the file, TM would allow
me to sudo right from the GUI in order to still save.

This is much better than seeing that I can't save, copy the whole file to the
clipboard, reopen it with 'sudo vim' and then pasting it (no. Not even 'sudo
subl' works)

One of the main reasons I use an editor like TM or S2 for is system
administration which often requires root. For development I'm usually using
the JetBrains IDE with the respective plugins.

~~~
gosub
Would something like this work for you?

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/95072/what-are-your-
favor...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/95072/what-are-your-favorite-vim-
tricks/96492#96492)

~~~
nyellin
No blow should pass, without _two_ blows returned:

* <http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/SudoSave>

* [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/95631/open-a-file-with-su...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/95631/open-a-file-with-su-sudo-inside-emacs)

(I jest. Vim is an awesome editor and I recommend it to all my friends using
Eclipse, Visual Studio, and XCode. But true enlightenment lies in Emacs, where
vim is only another mode called evil: <http://emacswiki.org/emacs/Evil>)

~~~
dmm
With emacs you can use TRAMP (included by default in recent versions) with
something like:

C-x C-f /sudo:root@localhost:/etc/config_file

------
durandal1
Just tried it out and it's actually pretty awesome, especially considering
it's an alpha. A real 2.0 in every sense. Tried Sublime Text 2 for a while but
while the spec looks good on paper it feels clunky to use, even compared
against TM 1.5. And with 2.0 it's completely blown out of the water.

And for you vim/emacs promoters always jumping out of the dark: I use vim
_every day_ for a lot of tasks, and have done so for the last 15 years, but
for coding and quick navigation of large source bases Textmate wins hand down.

~~~
weaksauce
What about textmate makes it better for quick navigation over something like
macvim with nerdtree and one of those project search tools like command-t?
Curious on this one not being snarky. I like text mate for the find and
replace that can do counts on matches to make sure you are getting the
ballpark of matches correct, and incremental replace is nice too until you are
satisfied with your search terms. Any way to do this in vim easily? Plugin?
Other than that vim is way faster for me.

~~~
durandal1
I can navigate the TM drawer much faster than I can navigate NERDTree. And
I've probably spent more time in Vim so it's probably not just habit, but
usability. Yes, command-t works, I mean, Vim is not a bad editor at all, I
just find that TM is easier to use which leads to quicker workflows.

~~~
dextorious
"""I can navigate the TM drawer much faster than I can navigate NERDTree. """

Then you're doing it wrong.

~~~
durandal1
Or I'm really fast?

~~~
dextorious
Faster to 1) leave the keyboard, 2) navigate with the mouse to the project
pane, 3) select file, 4) back to the keyboard etc than to press 2-3 keys in
Vim to move between NerdTree and your content and open whatever?

I don't think so.

In the very least, you could just use NerdTree with the mouse, exactly like
TM, and it would be the exact same speed.

~~~
durandal1
Yes, there's been several UI research papers which show that keyboard heavy
users underestimate the time their keyboard strokes take compare to quickly
switching to mouse because of the higher cognitive load. I know, [citation
needed], but I'm sure you'll find them if you google.

~~~
dextorious
I've read those. They were not about "keyboard heavy users" of our ilk
--mostly about power desktop users.

(Not to mention the keyboard benefits of less RSI from mouse use).

------
jarin
A lot of people I know switched from TextMate to vim because of the lengthy
delay. After using vim for a couple of years now, it would be very hard to go
back to TextMate.

~~~
kennystone
Yeah, but far more people will never learn vim because of the learning curve.

~~~
tikhonj
I suspect that people who actually _try_ Vim are perfectly likely to learn and
like it. People who are scared away by comments like yours, on the other
hand...

~~~
jarin
It took me several false starts over the course of a few years to finally take
the plunge.

------
bstar77
I moved to vim more out of boredom more than anything. Using vim turned into a
game for me... always trying a more efficient way of doing something.

Problem now is that all of the vim keybindings are etched into my head, and it
goes way beyond the standard basic keybindings. It has to do with the way Vim
chains commands. There's no vim-like editor that can do that except vim, gvim
& mvim.

For this reason alone, vim has ruined me for all other editors. I would have
jumped all over TM2 two years ago, but I've since changed my priorities.
Regardless, I hope TM2 is a success.

~~~
shadowfiend
I would recommend keeping an eye on vico. It's likely it doesn't do everything
you're used to in vim, but there's been constant improvement in this regard
over the past 2-3 months.

~~~
bstar77
Problem with vico is that it's based on textmate plugins. If it natively
supported vi (and mvim) plugins, then I would have already purchased it. I
never understood the decision to go that direction. Vico is gorgeous, though.

~~~
shadowfiend
That's both an advantage and a disadvantage in my book. The upside is the
scripting language is pretty awesome (in my mind). Presumably it would have
taken significantly longer to write full handling for the vi scripting
language. TextMate bundles seem to be more limited, except insofar as they
invoke external scripts.

I do get what you're saying though. You lose a great deal of existing work
because of that. I considered vico a new editor built on the base concept of
vim, rather than a total replacement, and in that sense I think it succeeds
very well.

------
ddagradi
> Full screen mode: This is mainly because we are hesitant to go Lion-only so
> we are holding back with “lionizing” TextMate till we feel confident we can
> fully drop backwards compatibility.

That's not true. Adding full-screen support does not require breaking
backwards compatibility: it's a quick check to see if the feature can be
enabled.

~~~
peregrine
I am also confused by all of the Lion hate. I will admit I just recently got
my first mac but man is Fullscreen mode NICE. Swipe right to go to the
browser, swipe right to my text editor, swipe again to check on the irc
window.

All the while those screens are not distracting me with popups and notices. To
me Lion is still more fluid and better built then anything I've used from
Ubuntu to Win7/8.

~~~
lparry
Add more than one physical screen you'll see lion's fullscreen mode completely
wastes the extra screens by blanking them out with that grey crosshatching.
very lame if you have 3 screens

~~~
peregrine
Ahh I can see the issue. I suppose that's something that would drive me nuts.

------
scelerat
Congratulations on shipping. That's the hardest thing sometimes, especially in
the face of so much opinion and scrutiny. Seriously, pat on the back to Mr.
Odgaard for persevering.

------
deweller
Split views are coming. From the post:

"Split views: Yes, I actually had this on the alpha milestone, I’m not overly
excited about this feature myself, but I know it’s a very common request, so
eventually it should find its way into the application."

~~~
e1ven
I don't get why people think this is an editor feature, and not an OS feature.

When I want to view two files at the same time, I open two windows, and put
them side by side.

Not everything needs to be fullscreen all-the-time. Let the OS manage windows.
It's better at it!

Besides, having windows automatically become half-maximized is easy with the
right tools, like BetterTouchTool (Do it with a gesture!), or Divvy.

~~~
frou_dh
The OS isn't better at it if there is none or limited ability to manipulate
the windows in a keyboard driven way.

I use and love the 3rd party tool SizeUp, but SublimeText2's integrated pane
management (including moving tabs between them) is far better than plain
windows.

~~~
e1ven
Can you help me understand how it's better? SizeUp looks perfect for something
like this.

Want to view two files? Ctrl-right on one, it's now on the right side of the
screen.

Command-O, chose the new file, Ctrl-left on it, it's now on the left side.

I'm honestly very curious what Sublime/etc offer that is better than what you
can do with the OS?

~~~
hesitz
In Vim there are many benefits from having multiple buffers open within the
same Vim instance. Buffers share session data of the Vim instance they're in.
This has a lot of different benefits, including automatically sharing whatever
options or settings have been set (many dynamically or temporarily set),
sharing of Vim registers, macros, and command history, all of which are
heavily used when editing (if OS handled they would generally share a single
clipboard register), Vim-controlled navigation between buffers and windows,
Vim-controlled scripting between multiple buffers, Vim-controlled searches of
multiple buffers, and more.

Because there are so many benefits of having multiple buffers/files open
within the same Vim instance it makes sense to have multiple buffers viewable
at once, not to have only one viewable at a time. You lose a lot of editing
power if buffers are not open in same Vim instance; it doesn't make sense to
open a new file separately in different Vim instance. Moreover, many times
split windows are useful to show two different views of the _same_ buffer at
once.

------
g3orge
TextMate 1 was my first "programming" editor, one year ago I faced the truth
and said to myself that v2.0 is not coming.(!!) I switched over to vim and I'm
very happy. I now can use it very fast and I'm very productive. Yes, TextMate
2.0 is late and maybe all of those features are now all over other editors,
but I'll definitely give it a try and I'll keep it installed on my computer
for the old times' sake.

------
veidr
The new alpha is _still_ incapable of editing Japanese text. Although at least
this time it is probably a bug that is fixable, not a fundamental design flaw
that isn't.

Pressing Return, which is how you select the kanji characters that correspond
to the phonetic words that you typed, inserts the kanji as it should, but then
unhelpfully replaces the Japanese characters with a newline. :-P

I don't personally care that much, though; TextMate 1 was actually pretty bad,
IMO. It was slow and buggy, with nothing much special about it except its
bundle system for extensibility. That was indeed a killer feature, but
TextMate bundles can now be used by many other, much better, editors like
Sublime Text 2.

------
st3fan
I tried it out. But there is no wow-factor. When TextMate came out it was
amazing. Specially because BBEdit was so much behind. Now there are (have
been) many competitors that are awesome, look modern, etc. Meh.

------
lailsonbm
What about the Chocolat editor? I hate the name but it seems to be an awesome
editor. chocolatapp.com

------
c4urself
Is there a good story behind the logo change and choice, or was it just time
for something new?

~~~
danielmorrison
I'm assuming it is to differentiate it from TM1 during the alpha.

~~~
Sachse
When I asked on IRC I was told that the new icon is permanent. It's really
nice in my opinion, but I do find it a somewhat odd choice for a text editor.

------
shaggy
I've had a TM1 license for a while now and I'll definitely be giving TM2 a
shot. Last time I tried Sublime Text 2 there was a complete lack of a
subversion plug-in (that I could find). Has that changed? If not then it's a
no go.

~~~
argarg
A wild subversion user appears!!!

------
quonn
rmate is pretty cool. I'm using this script locally to forward connections
from a server with rmate installed. Save this to /bin/matehost and adapt the
list of hosts to

#!/bin/sh

###########################################

mhosts=(

host1

host2

)

###########################################

mpids=()

for i in "${mhosts[@]}"

do

ssh -nNT -R 52698:localhost:52698 ${i} &

mpids[$[${#mpids[@]}+1]]=$!

done

read -p "Press any key to close tunnels ..." -n 1

for i in "${mpids[@]}"

do

if [[ `ps $PIDns` == _ssh_ ]]

then

    
    
    		kill ${i}
    
    	fi
    

done

------
podperson
I don't see any mention of this under notable changes since 1.5.10, but does
TM2 undo more than one character at a time yet? This was the deal-breaker for
me with TM. I like being able to undo and redo quickly.

~~~
evanwalsh
I just checked the latest build and...

Yes. It has been fixed.

------
tzury
Nothing have yet moved me away from SciTE.

It was on my Windows NT4 and NT5 (aka Win2K), and then, from 2005, on any of
my Ubuntu installations.

I use VIM only when I edit remotely, on servers, but not locally. Haven't took
the time to learn how to use it like a ninja.

But if I will ever switch, that would be VIM, no doubt.

That was yet again, code-editor-of-choice discussion, now going back to real
work (not meta such as editor config files and plug-ins).

------
siddhant
Out of curiosity, does anybody have any screenshots or something, just to get
a feel of what this is like? I don't have a license, and don't want to buy one
either.

~~~
mrweasel
There's not much to see, it's an editor, but here you go:
<http://i.imgur.com/ZyIP5.png>

Blackboard theme and the font is DejaVu Sans Mono... I think TextMate 2 just
uses the font I set in version 1.

~~~
danieldk
Off-topic: I see in your screenshots that Dock icons of applications that are
not started are on their side. How did you do this?

~~~
mrweasel
Short answer: I didn't. The sleeping dog is an Adium icon, ask them how it
works. I assume that the other icon is the "Fr" icon. That's Flush.app that
flushes Flash cookies. The icons just looks like that, it never changes. Sorry
to disappoint.

But based on Adium, I assume that Mac OS X somehow allows you to change icons
when the application starts. I would assume that it's something that the
application need to handle.

------
c4urself
List of changes: <http://macromates.com/changes>

------
pwenzel
The thing that has kept me with Textmate has been its particular style of
autocompletion, and a few bundles that I really love, namely the jQuery
bundle, Javascript Tools, and the CodeIgniter bundle.

I use it nearly every day, so it's hard to adjust to anything else.

------
jacknagel
Does anyone know how to adjust the line height?

In 1.x I could do

    
    
        defaults write com.macromates.TextMate OakLineHeightDelta n
    

but 2.x doesn't respect that (or com.macromates.Avian OakLineHeightDelta).

------
jdc0589
no cross platform support = no interest. If you only ever use a mac, textmate
is awesome. However, having to use a different editor in every OS is just
ridiculous. Thankfully Sublime Text 2 is around.

~~~
sovande
Textmate 2 comes with rmate which may be an alternative. IMHO it is better to
be great on one platform instead of mediocre on many.

------
BonoboBoner
Crashes on startup on my Leopard 10.5.8 machine, just me or anyone else?

~~~
antimatter
Same here. Crash on launch. I'm on Lion 10.7.2 though.

Edit: Problem was that I had Textmate 1 running. Closing it solved the issue.

~~~
BonoboBoner
Thanks, that fixed it for me as well.

------
mjijackson
Glad to see that <http://wastm2released.com/> was updated to reflect this
announcement! Congrats on being so close Allan!

------
etherealG
for those that prefer the old icon:

cp /Applications/TextMate\ -\ Old.app/Contents/Resources/TextMate.icns
/Applications/TextMate.app/Contents/Resources/

------
tjholowaychuk
not a fan of the new sidebar thinger.. also stuff like GIT integration is
pretty lame, it's must faster via the terminal. I'm pretty happy with old
textmate, I would have rather seen CSS for styling the entire app or
something, it looks kinda ugly

------
tuananh
Unable to check for the updates at the moment.

------
randall
Mirror?

~~~
jarquesp
This should work: <http://jarqu.es/dl/TextMate_r8930.tbz>

~~~
backwardm
Thank you... that does indeed work. The updates.textmate.org site is certainly
non-responsive.

------
MrAnger
Fullscreen? mode?

------
dextorious
From the announcement:

"""Performance: Overall performance is fine, but there are still edge-cases
that we haven’t looked into, for example the long lines issue which also
exists in 1.x or opening files that exhaust TextMate’s memory space."""

So, the same performance re: long lines and long files as 1.x.

And here I thought that the lack of new features meant that at least the core
engine was re-worked. Now, it seems like there just wasn't much done at all,
backend or front-end wise.

The list here couldn't be more basic or boring:
<http://macromates.com/changes>

Here's what I'd like to see, minimum:

1) SCM integration 2) Split panes 3) Better fuzzy search 4) Robust long line
handling 5) Robust long file handling 6) Improved extensibility esp. with re:
build systems\ 7) Robust auto-completion 8) Better project handling features

