Subject: text-editors-ii Date: Sun, 16 Jan 94 23:16:54 GMT From: Yoram Ney Dear moderators Please replace my original April '93 posting (text/text-editors.txt) with this slightly reedited version. Thanks in advance Yoram ------------------------------8x--- Cut Here ---8x------------------------- Changes in the text-editors arena April '93 - January '94. | April '93 | January '94 | By | Shareware | -----------------------------------------------------------------------| | Alpha 5.31# | Alpha 5.72h | Pete Keleher | 25.- | | | | | | | BBEdit 2.2 | BBEdit 2.53 | Rich Siegel | Commercial | | | BBEdit Lite 2.31 | | Free | | | | | | | QUED/M 2.5 | QUED/M 2.61 | Nisus Software | Commercial | | | | | | | Vantage 1.61 | Vantage 1.61 | BaseLine Publishing| Commercial | | McSink 7.0a | McSink 7.0a | | 45.- | | | | | | | ** new ** | Edit7 1.0b2 | Hideaki Iimori | ? | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ # Alpha's home ftp site, where the latest version of Alpha can be found, as well as Alpha 4.03 (the last version supporting System 6.0x is): site: cs.rice.edu directory: public/Alpha ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The following text is a collection of all replies to my question about available text editors for the Mac, posted on 17th March 93 on comp.sys.mac.programmer, comp.sys.mac.oop.misc and comp.sys.mac.digest. For the sake of saving archive disk space, quotings of my original question, where not too firmly entrenched in the reply's text, were left out, as were headers and signatures. Also, as these replies were sent to my mailbox directly, (full) author names were deleted, for responders privacy. A warm thankyou to all who replied. ************************************************************************ Replies start: ************************************************************************ QUED/M 2.5 is quite good. Robust, its search/replace is fantastic (amazingly fast, powerful regExp GREP search replace). Its file-comparing is wonderful, too. It's equivalent to Unix' diff, so it can compare 2 or 3 files, can either (or both) of just marking the different places in the 2/3 windows, or create a separate diff output listing file. As for other features, it has good macro system, and it has multiple-'MenuKeys" feature, so it's very capable, but the range of features is somewhat limited (but of course, it's MUCH more capable than Vantage 1.6.1.) If you are looking for an ultimately-powerful Mac text editor, you should check out Pete Keleher's shareware Alpha. 'Alpha 5.31' is the current version, and it's in: info-mac/app/alpha-531.hqx Alpha's Macro language is based on Tcl (Tool Comand Language), so you need to get used to it for a while, but once you get the point, the macro can do _virtually ANYTHING_ !! There's nothing that Alpha can't do, actually. So, you can write ANY macro, and you can bind ANY key combination to anything. For example, if I type control-x followed by m, then the following text pops up: $$ \multline \\ \endmultline \tag{} $$ and the insertion point comes between the braces. If I press command-keypad3, then, it searches forward for an expression \subsection{blahblah} Everything is 100% customisable, so if you want, you can pretend it to be a EMACS on Macintosh. Anyway, since it's shareware (US$25), it's worth checking out. Happy Mac'ing! Mark -- P.S. I forgot to mention it, but Alpha 5.31 requires System 7. If you are still running System 6, please email me, I can send you version 4.03 of Alpha, which is old, but is the last version that still runs under System 6. [ Alpha 4.03, like the latest version of Alpha can be obtained by anonymous ftp to cs.rice.edu in the directory public/Alpha. - y.n.] P.P.S. I have all of Alpha 5.31, QUED/M 2.5, and Vantage 1.6.1. I use QUED/M when I compare files, and when I do _very_ complicated search/replace work, and when I want to edit a non-TEXT file, but for everything else, I use Alpha. I almost never use Vantage any more (as you said, its macro is very flakey, so I never used it), perhaps except for using its 'Compare files' VCMD, which is useful for comparing large number of similar files in two Folders. ************************************************************************ You should seriously consider BBEdit. It's more feature-laden even than Apple's MPW. It supports IAC and sends apple scripts to any application you want. It's freeware, but don't let that fool you - it's an awesome package. It has a wonderful macro environment that will send files to both ThinkC and MPW when you are done. It works 100% with toolserve and has hundreds of additional features. "I gave up the MPW shell to type in BBEdit..." -- _____________________________________________________________________________ ************************************************************************ I use BBedit (which is totally free), but Alpha is actually a bit nicer (share-ware). Alpha lets you customise all your menus and key-bindings and add in extentions created in think-c -- and also contains tcl-scripting. -- Michele ************************************************************************ How about Alpha? It's shareware ($25 I think), available from the usual sites. ************************************************************************ No idea what you mean by a Text Processor. Alpha 5.31 has a built-in scripting language, like perl or such, so can be coaxed to do almost anything you want. It's shareware, at any decent ftp site. ************************************************************************ In comp.sys.mac.misc you write: >This is probably a FAQ in programmers circles, but I found no RECENT reference >to it in info-mac archives: >What is a good, solid text processor for the Mac? I mean something of OUR >times not something like Vantage 1.6.1 that was last updated just before the >dynosaurs vanished. >Background: I've just sent back a money-back-guarantied Vantage 1.6.1., >mainly (but not only) because of a virtually customer-insulting macro >language, and crashes. >Anyone using Qued 2.5? - How is it?? How does it compare to Vantage >featurewise. Is Qued still supported? I've tried it, and it was pretty good, but I like BBedit better. >Also a friend told me to 'cut the crap' and get MPW, because it's >a better deal than Think C, and the best Mac text processor to date. >any comments?? (Qued wasn't 2.5 then though). Using MPW as just a text editor sounds like overkill. Slow and big. >Please reply (or send a copy of your net reply) directly to my mailbox, - >and I'll summarise. I recommend BBedit. It is free, works well, and can be extended using C (and perhaps Pascal) code modules. For Emacs-freaks, Alpha might be an alternative. -- ************************************************************************ In article (yoram@ibmpcug.co.uk), you write: I think MPW is good value for money at US$150, but it does take a lot of disk space and ram, although if you only use it as an editor, you can probably get away with a 1M partition. It's not a problem for me as I use MacApp/C++ so I need MPW running all the time for compilations etc. Howver, if you are a Think C user, you might want to look into the shareware Alpha and BBedit. MPW is not just an editor, but a command shell with a scripting language. Together with PD tools like awk, perl, bison, flex etc, it's a very powerful text processing system. It's also highly-customizable. Alpha uses a scripting language based on tcl (tools command language), and again is very customizable. Not sure about BBedit. ************************************************************************ Two come to my mind. 1. BBEdit. Freeware, and written by Rich Siegel, a former programmer on the Think C team. He claims to have listened closely to user feedback during development. Both features bode well. Systems 6 and 7 supported. 2. Alpha. Shareware, by Pete Keleher. This appears to be very configurable, and certainly looks nice in colour. Versions later than about 4.0.3 don't support System 6. They're both in the info-mac archives and its mirrors. I downloaded them only last week, as _I_ was peeved by the antiquity of the source editors on my new Windows box! I haven't formed definite opinions worth passing on yet, but as you have Net access you could form your own within the time it would take to have a commercial package delivered. Hope this helps, ************************************************************************ BBEdit. Free. In the archives. ************************************************************************ Well, I'm sorry to hear about your experiences with Vantage, because I've used it for years with no problems (I am tired of waiting for an upgrade, though). Most of the time now, I use the freeware editor BBEdit. I'm assuming you want a TEXT processor and not a WORD processor. I also use Alpha, which is an excellent emacs-style text editor, shareware. Both of these editors are very extensible, and we're starting to see a lot of extensions from other folks for BBEdit -- also free in the spirit of BBEdit. By the way, don't make the mistake of assuming that just because BBEdit is free it isn't professional and isn't maintained. It is both, and well-documented to boot. A third choice is Tom Bender's freeware Tex-Edit. I have no experience with QUED, so can't comment other than to say I saw a lot of complaining on the net the last couple of years that Paragon had abandoned work on QUED to concentrate on NISUS. Apparently, they have released an upgrade though. I would be more specific, but your note spent so much time ranting about Vantage that you didn't have room to tell us what KIND of an editor you'd like, what features you want, and so forth. ----- ************************************************************************ I personally like Alpha. It is shareware and supports TCL a command language you can write your own operators in. It supports some nice features. Others like BBedit and its extensions. ************************************************************************ One reason I went with Alpha is that it allows you to grab a column of text like MS Word does. It also offers a popup menu with all your functions in it so you can go directly there. Basically both Alpha and BBedit are extensible and flexible editors. ************************************************************************ There's one you ought to try right now: Alpha 5.31. Alpha is shareware -- $25 registration -- and is available from sumex-aim.stanford.edu. Alpha is an extremely powerful multi-buffer editor with a built-in TCL (tool command language) interpreter and TCL shell (a la Ousterhout). It talks AppleEvents, can handle multiple files of any length, can be customized to within an inch of its life, looks not unlike GNU Emacs, and is IMHO the best editor I've ever seen. It's half-way to being a UNIX-style shell interpreter for the Mac, never mind an editor! It _is_ slightly wobbly, but it gets better with each release -- and it's under active development, so if it does something you don't like, scream at the author and it will probably be fixed within a matter of weeks. (Oh, I forgot the on-line help, full extended regular expression matching, UNIX<-->DOS<-->Mac text file conversion, and optional tea-brewing attachment :) ************************************************************************ You should take a look at "Alpha", which is a emacs-like text editor available via anonymous ftp from sumex-aim.stanford.edu and presumably most other major Mac archives. I don't recall what version is the most recent, but the author frequently posts updates, so at least it doesn't suffer from the Vantage syndrome. By the way, it's shareware, but I don't recall the fee. Cheers, ************************************************************************ I've never used MPW, so I can't comment on that. I do use Qued/M 2.5 and Alpha (up to version 5.3) at the moment. Alpha is shareware ($25) and available in the Sumex archives. Highly recommended. However, QUED/M does better regexp replaces, which is primarily why I keep it around. I also like the 10 clipboards, and I think the printouts are better (although I use Save A Tree for long printouts). If you're doing LaTeX, then Alpha is the best option. For C/C++ programming, I use Alpha and QUED/M about evenly. For reformatting data files, I generally use QUED/M. ************************************************************************ I don't really use QUED to write programs with, but do use it in editing and writing text documents, and especially for data manipulation that I do for my graduate assistantship. The macro language (GREP) is very nice. I was introduced to QUED when I worked for a electronic publishing service bureau, and I needed to hack at rather large postscript files. The only potential downside I see to QUED is that it loads the entire file you're working on into RAM, so if you're trying to make some heavy changes to a 6 megabyte postscript file, you need to have at least 6 megabytes of free RAM (after System and QUED take their slice of the pie). I tried learning MPW, but it's pretty arcane (but, I will grant, more powerful than QUED). If you need ultimate power, and have big bucks, go with MPW. If you only want to spend about $100 (US$), and still want a lot of power, go with QUED. As a final plug, I really respect Nisus software. Once they sold me Nisus (the word processor) for $100 (student price) and, after about a week of playing with it, I decided I didn't like it as much as MS Word. They not only refunded my $100, but were sincerely interested in why I liked Word better, and what I thought they could do to make me want to use Nisus. Good luck with your choice, and sorry for this rather long post! ************************************************************************ I use BBEdit, by Rich Siegel, almost exclusively. It is, as you say, of our times, and is updated frequently. It is also absolutely free. Not shareware, free. I used to use Vantage, but I didn't like it for many reasons. Primary reason was probably the fact that it's a DA. Also, I didn't like the way it felt, if that makes sense. I've messed around with some others (Edit II, Alpha), and nothing really compares to BBEdit. ************************************************************************ There are 2 PD/Shareware products 1. BBEdit (stands for bare bones editor). It is quite good, do not let the name fool you. 2. AplphaEdit. If you like emacs, this one is for you. Both of them have grep-like facility, macro language (which I never used) and both are available from your favorite mac archive place (like sumex). ************************************************************************ In comp.sys.mac.digest you write: >This is probably a FAQ in programmers circles, but I found no RECENT reference >to it in info-mac archives: >What is a good, solid text processor for the Mac? I mean something of OUR >times not something like Vantage 1.6.1 that was last updated just before the >dynosaurs vanished. Have you tried BBEdit? It's free, and on the usual FTP sites. -- ************************************************************************ QUED/M 2.5 is quite nice and very powerful, with full regexp support, etc. Also check out the shareware/freeware text editors Alpha and BBEdit, both of which should be in the info-mac archive on sumex.stanford.edu. I haven't used MPW, unless you are doing Mac development full time, it's probably overkill. Cheers. ************************************************************************ Try BBEdit (Bare-Bones Edit) first. It's a free, simple & System 7 compatible editor. It's extensible & has good text search including grep. It's quite good now & yet still a "work in progress" meaning it'll continue to get better as Rich Siegel & collaborators continue improving it. If that isn't powerful enough, try Alpha. It's a shareware package with lot's of features beyond even BBEdit. It allows you to reconfigure it in any way you'd like by way of it's scripting language, TCL. Both are available at sumex-aim.stanford.edu and probably all the usual mirror sites. ************************************************************************ On text-processors. I use two different text processors that I find really useful. Alpha 5.3 is a good processor that uses lots of tcl language extension stuff that is like a full shell environment. The only reason I use it is because it is one of the only processors that actually has a text wrapping feature. It just adds CRs, but it's better than teachtext. BBedit 2.2.1. This is one of the best I have ever used. The only think I miss about it is the text wrapping. Otherwise, it is very small and far easier to use with all the features, plus it has grep-style searches, mutliple file searches, and it has the ability to plug in modules, like the one that I got will send apple-events! very cool. Highly recommend. These are both available on sumex-aim.stanford.edu. About the MPW shell. Yeah, it's powerful and nicely customizable, but the size is outrageous. You might be able to try some of it out (although much of the power comes from the extras) by getting the shell from ftp.apple.com. They used to have the shell app up there. Good luck. I will be interested in hearing what others have to say too. ************************************************************************ There are several options: MPW Shell: only option I know of which lets you edit multi-megabyte (larger than RAM) files, atlhough rather slowly. The editor is great and MPW comes with Un*x-like utilities for automative tasks (sed, grep, ...) The compilers take more memory than Think's and are somewhat slower (a lot if you don't use precompiled headers and the like), but can be freely mixed (i.e. C, Pascal, Asm; there are Fortrans available from third parties) Unlike Think, MPW's compilers issue warnings on request and they try to recover after an error, i.e. they don't stop compiling when they encounter a single missing '; ' or so. BBEdit: freeware, nice fairly small editor. Great 'find in multiple files ' Alpha: Emacs and beyond. Haven't used it much, but it looks good, too. Includes a macro language and such things as automatic entry of matching parenthesis, endif's and the likes. Share/freeware Edit II: Haven't used this in a long time. disadvantage is/was that you ca n open 4 windows only at a time. TeachText: comes with every Mac. One font only, files can't exceed 32K, one file at a time. Only 'editor' I know of which wraps automatically. No t recommended for real work (but practical for 'Read me' files sinc e pictures can be included and files can be made read-only) There probably are a few I missed or don't know of. Hope this helps, ************************************************************************ Hi, this message might be a little late as I get the Info-Mac from an echo-site. You may have received this answer many times already, but just in case, try using the freeware text editor BBEdit. BBEdit has many features that Vantage has and a nicer (I think) interface. I'm sure its located somewhere on the Internet, its a pretty popular program. Well, good luck! ************************************************************************ END of Replies ************************************************************************