14 ms·

The old guard of Mac indy apps has thrived for more than 25 years

285 points by PretzelFisch 8y ago

EamonnMR 8y ago
If you're interested in this sort of thing, there's a lot of coverage in https://secrethistoryofmacgaming.com https://secrethistoryofmacgaming.com
neurobashing 8y ago
I've been using BBEdit since OS9. I love precisely 2 things about it: it takes care to not break, and it takes care to avoid trends. Everyone used TextMate, then everyone switched to Atom, then Sublime, now VS Code. I've played around with them and it's always a question of spending time trying to get the keymaps "right" and which plugin do I use on X to replicate the functionality of X-1. You want to yell at Bare Bones and say, you must implement .tmLanguage or .tmTheme support now! You must support Python as a scripting language and get rid of AppleScript! You must, you must, you must! But BBEdit doesn't break, and when it does release a feature comparable to the rest of the pack, it's solid and "fits", aesthetically and functionally. (Their recent "command-p-alike" is great, for example) It doesn't have a giant themes or plugin site, but it can open files as big as your available RAM while staying fast. I'll give up a nice TM theme for "always works and never crashes". (Please make JavaScript for Automation the defacto over AS!)
- tristor 8y ago
  I came from another platform and tried BBEdit, but never quite got the hang of it. I ended up using TextMate and that's what I've stuck with ever since, largely for similar reasons. Text editors have advanced a lot over time, somewhat surprisingly, but ultimately I need a text editor to operate via the principle of least surprise and be incredibly stable. I still mostly use `vim`, but I am really happy about the state of editors on OS X. It's far better than on my prior platform.
- bayindirh 8y ago
  BBEdit has a nice and distinct feeling of a well-baked application. I love its legacy parts with its take on modernism. I'm not a very old user, but after touring the usual suspects, I've returned to it and I'm very happy with it.
- reificator 8y ago
  I liked BBEdit when I played around with it, but my core suite needs to work everywhere, and preferably be open source so I can rely on/contribute to it limping along after the primary authors abandon it.
- aasasd 8y ago
  As a passing note: afaik Vim can edit files larger than (used) memory―thanks to the mechanism of 'swap files.' The same feature also allows it to restore the editing state after a power failure, even if the changes weren't saved to the original file (it possibly even restores the undo history, but I'm not sure about that). I didn't think too much about this feature until I moved to Emacs looking for the sane scripting. Turns out, it's very nice to not need a hex editor to open a large file, and to have all editor features you're used to instead.
  - bitwize 8y ago
    There's an Emacs extension for that (called vlf or vlfi).
    - aasasd 8y ago
      Splendid, thanks! Should've thought of looking in plugins. Though, from the description it sounds like it's still rather awkward compared to Vim's transparent handling. But I'll have to try it and see.
      - bitwize 8y ago
        Yeah, Emacs doesn't have plugins as such. It's a Lisp system, and programs, packages, and modes can modify or extend that system. From what I could tell about vlf, it runs pretty seamlessly, aside from a prompt when you open a large enough file.
    - paradoxparalax 8y ago
      I remember reading a xkcd where they say: there is an Emacs command for everything. -- Seems there is an Emacs extension for everything too :)
      - aasasd 8y ago
        The secret is that lots of Emacs commands actually call Elisp code, not the internals of the editor―you can invoke help on a command and then navigate to the code of the function. (I have to confess that this sometimes comes useful in adding customization to those commands.)
- reaperducer 8y ago
  but it can open files as big as your available RAM while staying fast This is BBEdit's (and TextWrangler's) biggest asset to me. When other text editors on any platform on any machine choke on large files, BBEdit just doesn't care.
  - damontal 8y ago
    TextMate in windows is like this too.
  - jmiserez 8y ago
    For really big files, I like glogg (https://glogg.bonnefon.org https://glogg.bonnefon.org). It's just a viewer not an editor but it handles files larger than the available RAM with ease (multi-GB log files).
  - cimmanom 8y ago
    Older versions of BBEdit and TextWrangler used to be able to open enormous files (larger than entire system RAM) while remaining incredibly performant. I don't know how they did it, but it was magical and a killer feature. Unfortunately, that stopped being the case since they refactored the text display UI somewhere around version 9.
    - enos 8y ago
      Are you sure it was that good with large files? I used to be a TextWrangler evangelist until I noticed it was mangling large files. You'd change one character but the saved file differed by far more than one character. Medium-sized nowadays, hundreds of MB TSV files. About 10 years ago.
      - cimmanom 8y ago
        Yup. About 15 years ago, doing search/replace on multi-hundred-MB log files and SQL database dumps. About 3-4 years ago it stopped being nearly as performant with large files (even a couple MB). I’ve never had a problem with either BBEdit or Textwrangler mangling files. I can believe there may have been such a bug at one point, but I must have sidestepped it - perhaps it was caught and fixed quickly.
- Cyph0n 8y ago
  I went from Sublime to Atom to VSCode to Vim. The modal editing scheme was alien at first, but now it’s starting to become second nature. I might be transitioning to Emacs + Evil for a more IDE-like experience.
- bnastic 8y ago
  it used to cost eye-watering $200 until relatively recently. Big price drop made it an interesting alternative for Mac people over more "modern" alternatives. I've been using it for years (although I'm mostly a Vim person), but its old-school, html-first, nature shows through a bit too much for me.
- trm42 8y ago
  Been using first Text Wrangler for the last ~ten years. At some point as my main coding editor and later on as generic txt/md/csv editor. When they sunsetted Text Wrangler, ended up switching to BBEdit. Its trial version's free features are enough but recentely ended up buying the license just to show my support and appreciation. Awesome applications which can handle big files.
- usermac 8y ago
  I use the heck out of BBEdit daily. Love it. Solid.
- nicoburns 8y ago
  > It doesn't have a giant themes or plugin site, but it can open files as big as your available RAM while staying fast. I'll give up a nice TM theme for "always works and never crashes". I don't know what the early versions were like (it was already version 2 when I started using it). But I've been using Sublime Text for the last 6 years and I don't think I've experienced a single crash with it either.
- tokyodude 8y ago
  I hope this doesn't turn into a editor war but.... I used slickedit since 1993 Windows 3.1 for Networks and loved it, ... VSCode is the first time I've seriously considered switching because AFAIK it's the only editor that has eslint integration and that's proved invaluable. It's not just eslint linting JavaScript but the fact that their are library specific plugins for things like React, Vue, GraphQL, etc.. I have no idea how well it does for other languages. I assume it does well for C# and typescript. It does feel (to me with my limited experience) that eslint's plugin architecture and uber configurable rule system are adding something I had not seen in other languages. Hoping that other languages will come up with something similar and maybe more editors will take up the integration.
- twarge 8y ago
  AFAIK Smooth scrolling isn't available on BBEdit, and my eyes can't track the code as it scrolls. If you use Cocoa text views or basically anything from NEXTstep way back in 10.0 your view would be either automatically or trivially be upgraded to smooth scrolling over the years. BBEdit seems like a perfect example of what happens when you don't continuously adopt and rewrite to new/modern interfaces.
- whywhywhywhy 8y ago
  > Everyone used TextMate, then everyone switched Some of us still do, it's open source now, still getting updates and feels like a modern Mac app, all shortcuts work as expected, find/replace dialogue is a separate window, file panels look and act like Mac file panels complete with blur, smooth scrolling and elastic overshoot act as expected.
- paradoxparalax 8y ago
  Apple script, then, makes me sad, because is some of those things that, when you build, you have a lot of hope on that and put a lot o effort for it to be nice and beautiful, and imagine how people will love and how successful it will be. The team developing it probably had dreams and believed they were doing something innovative or meaningful. Then the harsh reality is that all the effort and hope in beauty and niceness were useless because the thing you were building wasn't really necessary or useful to the world. The fact that it was a team in a big company makes it less sad, if it was an solo guy or "small family team" then its really sad. I like Automator and think the natural language style of its script is a brave idea, but I found it too complicated to put to use when I tried it years ago, when I was a completely level-zero non-technical, And I would propably find it too basic now that i can do some Ruby and C#. Just as a note, I didnt get, in the end, if its JS or Python you want for Automator, or both, in this last case, please add Ruby too :D
rauhl 8y ago
It’s been twenty years since I last seriously used macOS, but I’ll always have a place in my heart for BBEdit. I still have the BBEdit T-shirt I got when I was in high school, and proudly wear it when I work out. I even have print-outs from back then (remember printing things to read them offline?). It was an amazing text editor way back then, before I discovered Emacs & when my computer was too slow to run Alpha (and honestly, I don’t think that I really appreciated Alpha at the time). BBEdit was fast, flexible and did everything I could want. I wonder if they still have my name in their customer database? Maybe my license is still good …
nvr219 8y ago
Add Little Snitch and Transmission to the list :)
- 4ad 8y ago
  Transmission is not an indie mac app, it's a cross platform open source program, free both as in free speech and free beer. Little Snitch is a malware vector, pretty much like PC "antivirus" software.
  - CharlesW 8y ago
    > Little Snitch is a malware vector, pretty much like PC "antivirus" software. Wait, what? I personally found it annoying and poorly designed to the point that I uninstalled it, but I'd like to see the receipts on "malware vector" please.
    - nvr219 8y ago
      yeah malware vector is quite an accusation
  - walterbell 8y ago
    > Little Snitch is a malware vector, pretty much like PC "antivirus" software. Is that because the Little Snitch network capture parser can be exploited by magic/malformed network packets to gain kernel privileges? Are there known exploits that were previously patched? Do you recommend any alternative Mac firewall which doesn't have this problem? Can the native firewall perform outbound packet filtering? Edit: https://www.sentinelone.com/blog/shut-snitch-reverse-engineering-exploiting-critical-little-snitch-vulnerability-reverse-engineering-mac-os-x/ https://www.sentinelone.com/blog/shut-snitch-reverse-enginee... (2016)
    - pseudalopex 8y ago
      There was a local privilege escalation vulnerability in the kext[1] and another in the installer[2]. pf can filter outbound packets but not by application. [1] https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2016-8661 https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2016-8661 [2] https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2017-2675 https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2017-2675
reaperducer 8y ago
For a lot of platforms, a company will produce a single piece of good software, and then milk it forever. For the Macintosh, especially the small developers scene, there is a group of companies that consistently produce outstanding products. If they come out with a new program, you immediately give it weighty consideration because of the quality or utility of previous releases. BBEdit, mentioned elsewhere in this discussion, is one of those. I'm also a big fan of Panic. I mention Panic because I spent the morning working with its terminal emulator Prompt on my iPad. I also use Transmit and Coda2 at work. Can anyone recommend other companies worth keeping an eye on for new products?
- zozbot123 8y ago
  > For a lot of platforms, a company will produce a single piece of good software, and then support it forever. Fixed that for you. And it's a very good thing of course - a lot nicer than the alternative of pointless "upgrades" that don't actually bring anything worthwhile, or branching out into all sorts of useless projects.
- danieldk 8y ago
  Can anyone recommend other companies worth keeping an eye on for new products? Anything coming from OmniGroup is generally great (if you need it). OmniGraffle has absolutely been a life-saver for me. When I have the time, I like doing slide diagrams in TikZ. But I've found that I can typically do in OmniGraffle in ten minutes what would take me hours in TikZ. So if time is a constraint, I will use OmniGraffle to create graphs. I have also used OmniFocus for a while, which also worked great. (Though it was too strongly focused on GTD for me, so I switched to Things.)
  - simonbarker87 8y ago
    Apparently OmniFocus 3 has dropped much of it’s GTD focus, might be worth looking at again if that was your main issue.
  - heyjudy 8y ago
    Omnigraffle is why there's no Visio on Mac, which is probably a Good Thing™. ;) Also, Omni has a cool name logo that almost reminds me of AVID's.
josephhurtado 8y ago
Nice article indeed. Two amazing products missing, probably because they came with OSX OmniGraffle and OmniOutliner; both classics that keep innovating and nowadays also run on iOS: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Omni_Group https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Omni_Group
- misnome 8y ago
  ”Innovating” ways to make you pay more when you buy Omnigraffle on iOS, and six months later find it doesn’t work any more, but there is a “new” version you can pay full price for all over again.
  - josephhurtado 8y ago
    That sucks for sure. I bought both for iOS. But hardly use OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner has worked like a champ though.
stevoski 8y ago
For 11 years I’ve been selling a Mac app I created. It does get monotonous working on the same code base for so long. I find it unenjoyable having to update the app to keep up with modern UI trends, and to cope with changes to the OS. Things that have happened in the last 11 years include the death of PowerPC support, the introduction of GateKeeper, the introduction and apparent temporary neglect of the Mac Apple Store, the switch to make codesigning effectively required, and the end of life of Apple’s own Java distribution (which was bundled with macOS until a few years ago). Dealing with these takes time but doesn’t really make my product better. I typically need to have an update ready by the time Apple releases a major OS update, or I’ll have frustrated customers. This is something I didn’t realise I was committing to when I created version 1 back in 2008.
- coldtea 8y ago
  Isn't that part and parcel with running a business? Else it would be "write once in 2008 and print money for eternity".
  - csallen 8y ago
    It's easier developing for the web, where your code is less likely to break or require drastic changes over time. But yes, almost all businesses need at least some ongoing maintenance.
    - Aloha 8y ago
      Try running a PHP app from 2008, today, and let me know how that works for you. There are decent odds it wont run well on modern versions - I can go down and look at every other web technology and point out the same thing - no computer program lives in stasis (except possible on z/OS)
      - rpeden 8y ago
        OTOH, an ASP.NET web app written in 2008 and not touched since then would probably still run happily now if you bumped its version up to .NET 4 or 4.5. C# has had Linq and lambdas since 2007 so there's a decent chance the code would be decently pleasant to work with, too. Some devs might find 2008 Web Forms apps a bit crufty in 2018 but if you squint and pretend your .aspx is inside a render method issued of a separate file, the mental model isn't all that different from a SPA.
MattRix 8y ago
Good article but I gotta ask why it says "indy" in the title and then "indie" in the article itself? Using "indy" is so obviously wrong.
- Stratoscope 8y ago
  A common reason for this kind of discrepancy is that the author writes the article, but the editor writes the headline.
- bobochan 8y ago
  There is also no such institution as “Dartmouth University,” so I would guess that editors are in short supply over the holidays.
  - schuetze 8y ago
    Well there was, but it was taken down by Daniel Webster in front of the US Supreme Court. It’s a surprisingly common mistake though. I think I see Dartmouth University more often than Dartmouth College when reading non-Dartmouth materials.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    I'm always amazed when I read about "editors" neglecting this and that. Mainstream newspapers and magazines have 1/5 the editors they once had, and everything is underpaid and on a hectic schedule. And people expect editors to be involved at anything beyond a fleeting level in online outlets?
mmahemoff 8y ago
This AMP link is barely readable on PC - this is the regular URL: https://www.macworld.com/article/3327502/macs/mac-indy-apps-thrived-for-more-than-25-years.html https://www.macworld.com/article/3327502/macs/mac-indy-apps-...
- jetrink 8y ago
  Why do these amp pages not automatically redirect on desktop? They are becoming a plague.
NelsonMinar 8y ago
How many of these fit in the Mac App Store with its sandbox restrictions?
- yardie 8y ago
  I know BBEdit, GraphicConverter, and Fetch use some system hooks to integrate with Finder. I've never used PCalc and can't think of a reason it wouldn't work in a sandbox.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- bayindirh 8y ago
  Most of the BBEdit can fit, however some functionality will be lost. Similarly, Fetch can fit. If Forklift, Cyberduck, Transmit and DaisyDisk can fit into the AppStore model with minimal losses, Fetch can too. However there's always a distinct beauty to an application which is downloaded independently and can run on a platform without restrictions. BBEdit has a very distinct feeling to it. It's fast, compact and packed with lots and lots of features. It's fitting into the definition of well distilled and developed application.
- neurobashing 8y ago
  Apple engaged with Panic and Bare Bones to get them back into the MAS after they left.
theonemind 8y ago
I started using BBEdit in the last few years, and mostly prefer it. I used emacs and vim for a couple of years each, so it's not because I haven't seen/used "better" editors. I think using only AppleScript as a scripting language really holds it back from a broader audience, and personally, I just don't script it, although I do use the option to run scripts on my text from menus, etc. (Any language, Python, perl, whatever.)
thaumaturgy 8y ago
Notably absent from this list is Ambrosia (https://www.ambrosiasw.com/ https://www.ambrosiasw.com/) and Panic (https://panic.com/ https://panic.com/). BBEdit was my first "real" text editor, maybe along about 93 or 94. When it came out, it was far, far ahead of any other similar tools on either platform. It introduced a lot of future programmers to regular expressions -- whether that was a blessing or a curse might be debatable.
- porphyrogene 8y ago
  I tried to make a purchase from Ambrosia last night and it appears that their payment and fulfillment systems are inoperative. I had heard that was the case but I was being optimistic. They may have gone defunct without warning at some point in 2018.
  - username223 8y ago
    Sadly, it looks like https://www.ambrosiasw.com/ https://www.ambrosiasw.com/ is now defunct. "They tried to kill it with a forklift..."
  - naravara 8y ago
    Well, guess I’m never recovering my license key for “Escape Velocity: Nova” then Captain Hector take the wheel!
  - mminer 8y ago
    It’ll be a shame to lose gems like Escape Velocity. I know several people (myself included) have asked about acquiring the rights to the games but received no reply. It appears Ambrosia is indeed defunct.
    - phaedryx 8y ago
      You may be interested in https://endless-sky.github.io/ https://endless-sky.github.io/
  - LiNeXT 8y ago
lostgame 8y ago
No mention of Panic here - they’re definitely the first group I think of when I think quality indie Mac software.
- setpatchaddress 8y ago
  Too recent. Panic was very late 90’s, IIRC.
makecheck 8y ago
I’ve maintained my Mac project for 20 years for free (despite paying $99/year these days) and I can say quite a bit about the experience. It is a tremendous amount of work, far more than most people would imagine, just to keep up (i.e. zero features, just keeping the code base in sync with the platform). I ported the entire code base from System-6-style to Mac OS 8, complete with fancy Appearance support and a lot of different callback mechanisms and other OS features of the day. I ported networking code away from deprecated layers. I ported from 68K to PowerPC, to Intel 32-bit, and now 64-bit is required. I ported file management code multiple times to entirely different APIs. I added tons of Objective-C. I migrated compilers from MPW, to CodeWarrior, to GCC, to LLVM. I replaced, painstakingly, thousands of lines of Carbon-style code with entirely different Cocoa idioms. I redesigned interfaces that were once described by Rez input files, to use Interface Builder (multiple times, as IB kept changing). I added code-signing. I split a single-application architecture into sub-processes with OS services. And these are just things I can pick off the top of my head; I am sure there are many more. Again, this is just to keep the damn code working as a nice modern app, before you even add work to make it do whatever it’s supposed to do. Also, in every single case, it is noteworthy that the OS features I worked so hard to adopt were eventually thrown out by Apple anyway. This means I fully expect 10 years from now that even today’s code isn’t going to “last”. Some of the changes were particularly insulting, I would add, since Apple at the time made bold statements about those APIs being “the future”, and such; for instance, after completely redesigning an application to use the Mac HIToolbox “properly” in every possible way, it really hurt when Apple just decided they didn’t give a damn about Carbon to the point where it wouldn’t even compile anymore a few releases back. I am fine with this because this is the kind of thing I like to work on. I do wish though that more people would realize how much effort software maintenance really is. Unfortunately, a heck of a lot is hidden behind simple-looking UIs and most programs will be a lot more effort to build than they appear to be.
- nikanj 8y ago
  This is why I love being a Windows programmer. Microsoft really does take backward compatibility seriously, and the last breakage worth mentioning happened when Vista started to enforce roles and permissions.
asix66 8y ago
I understand people like BBEdit, and this article is more than just about the popular editor. FWIW, I tried it, but for me, BBEdit just can’t “defeat” vim, even on mac. Vim is now 27yrs, and actively maintained, and once learned, its power is unmatched imho. As for graphics conversion, I’ve never used the app mentioned in the article, rather always turned to netpbm, which is available in homebrew on mac. Still. Much respect for developers sticking to, and maintaining their well liked apps for the long haul.
ErneX 8y ago
Rogue Amoeba is another one https://rogueamoeba.com/ https://rogueamoeba.com/
b3b0p 8y ago
Another I fondly remember is Red Sweater: https://red-sweater.com https://red-sweater.com
dev_19 8y ago
I love BBEdit to death because it is the exact opposite of what things like Atom and VSCode stand for. A lightweight, bomb proof text editor that can scroll through 100k+ line documents without a sweat.
torstenvl 8y ago
Like many, I really appreciate the role that BBEdit has played on the Mac. There's just one thing about it that really gets on my nerves, and that's the fact that auto-indent... doesn't.
oblib 8y ago
Hmmm... I just noticed my name is listed under "unindicted co-conspirators" in the "About BBEDit" menu box on version 11.6.8. I'm pretty sure that's not me, unless it's a "easter egg" trick that shows a registered user's name in there. They did, however, add a feature I requested in BBEdit 7.0 (rectangular text selections) which I still find kind of astounding and use almost daily. I don't remember exactly when I first bought BBEdit, but it was in the mid-late `90s so it's been more than 20 years I've been depending on it. Honestly, BBEdit is the main reason I still use a Mac. I'd switch to Linux in a heartbeat if BBEDit made a version to run on it.

285 points by PretzelFisch 8y ago

If you're interested in this sort of thing, there's a lot of coverage in https://secrethistoryofmacgaming.com https://secrethistoryofmacgaming.com

neurobashing 8y ago

I've been using BBEdit since OS9. I love precisely 2 things about it: it takes care to not break, and it takes care to avoid trends. Everyone used TextMate, then everyone switched to Atom, then Sublime, now VS Code. I've played around with them and it's always a question of spending time trying to get the keymaps "right" and which plugin do I use on X to replicate the functionality of X-1. You want to yell at Bare Bones and say, you must implement .tmLanguage or .tmTheme support now! You must support Python as a scripting language and get rid of AppleScript! You must, you must, you must! But BBEdit doesn't break, and when it does release a feature comparable to the rest of the pack, it's solid and "fits", aesthetically and functionally. (Their recent "command-p-alike" is great, for example) It doesn't have a giant themes or plugin site, but it can open files as big as your available RAM while staying fast. I'll give up a nice TM theme for "always works and never crashes". (Please make JavaScript for Automation the defacto over AS!)

tristor 8y ago
I came from another platform and tried BBEdit, but never quite got the hang of it. I ended up using TextMate and that's what I've stuck with ever since, largely for similar reasons. Text editors have advanced a lot over time, somewhat surprisingly, but ultimately I need a text editor to operate via the principle of least surprise and be incredibly stable. I still mostly use `vim`, but I am really happy about the state of editors on OS X. It's far better than on my prior platform.
bayindirh 8y ago
BBEdit has a nice and distinct feeling of a well-baked application. I love its legacy parts with its take on modernism. I'm not a very old user, but after touring the usual suspects, I've returned to it and I'm very happy with it.
reificator 8y ago
I liked BBEdit when I played around with it, but my core suite needs to work everywhere, and preferably be open source so I can rely on/contribute to it limping along after the primary authors abandon it.
aasasd 8y ago
As a passing note: afaik Vim can edit files larger than (used) memory―thanks to the mechanism of 'swap files.' The same feature also allows it to restore the editing state after a power failure, even if the changes weren't saved to the original file (it possibly even restores the undo history, but I'm not sure about that). I didn't think too much about this feature until I moved to Emacs looking for the sane scripting. Turns out, it's very nice to not need a hex editor to open a large file, and to have all editor features you're used to instead.
- bitwize 8y ago
  There's an Emacs extension for that (called vlf or vlfi).
  - aasasd 8y ago
    Splendid, thanks! Should've thought of looking in plugins. Though, from the description it sounds like it's still rather awkward compared to Vim's transparent handling. But I'll have to try it and see.
    - bitwize 8y ago
      Yeah, Emacs doesn't have plugins as such. It's a Lisp system, and programs, packages, and modes can modify or extend that system. From what I could tell about vlf, it runs pretty seamlessly, aside from a prompt when you open a large enough file.
  - paradoxparalax 8y ago
    I remember reading a xkcd where they say: there is an Emacs command for everything. -- Seems there is an Emacs extension for everything too :)
    - aasasd 8y ago
      The secret is that lots of Emacs commands actually call Elisp code, not the internals of the editor―you can invoke help on a command and then navigate to the code of the function. (I have to confess that this sometimes comes useful in adding customization to those commands.)
reaperducer 8y ago
but it can open files as big as your available RAM while staying fast This is BBEdit's (and TextWrangler's) biggest asset to me. When other text editors on any platform on any machine choke on large files, BBEdit just doesn't care.
- damontal 8y ago
  TextMate in windows is like this too.
- jmiserez 8y ago
  For really big files, I like glogg (https://glogg.bonnefon.org https://glogg.bonnefon.org). It's just a viewer not an editor but it handles files larger than the available RAM with ease (multi-GB log files).
- cimmanom 8y ago
  Older versions of BBEdit and TextWrangler used to be able to open enormous files (larger than entire system RAM) while remaining incredibly performant. I don't know how they did it, but it was magical and a killer feature. Unfortunately, that stopped being the case since they refactored the text display UI somewhere around version 9.
  - enos 8y ago
    Are you sure it was that good with large files? I used to be a TextWrangler evangelist until I noticed it was mangling large files. You'd change one character but the saved file differed by far more than one character. Medium-sized nowadays, hundreds of MB TSV files. About 10 years ago.
    - cimmanom 8y ago
      Yup. About 15 years ago, doing search/replace on multi-hundred-MB log files and SQL database dumps. About 3-4 years ago it stopped being nearly as performant with large files (even a couple MB). I’ve never had a problem with either BBEdit or Textwrangler mangling files. I can believe there may have been such a bug at one point, but I must have sidestepped it - perhaps it was caught and fixed quickly.
Cyph0n 8y ago
I went from Sublime to Atom to VSCode to Vim. The modal editing scheme was alien at first, but now it’s starting to become second nature. I might be transitioning to Emacs + Evil for a more IDE-like experience.
bnastic 8y ago
it used to cost eye-watering $200 until relatively recently. Big price drop made it an interesting alternative for Mac people over more "modern" alternatives. I've been using it for years (although I'm mostly a Vim person), but its old-school, html-first, nature shows through a bit too much for me.
trm42 8y ago
Been using first Text Wrangler for the last ~ten years. At some point as my main coding editor and later on as generic txt/md/csv editor. When they sunsetted Text Wrangler, ended up switching to BBEdit. Its trial version's free features are enough but recentely ended up buying the license just to show my support and appreciation. Awesome applications which can handle big files.
usermac 8y ago
I use the heck out of BBEdit daily. Love it. Solid.
nicoburns 8y ago
> It doesn't have a giant themes or plugin site, but it can open files as big as your available RAM while staying fast. I'll give up a nice TM theme for "always works and never crashes". I don't know what the early versions were like (it was already version 2 when I started using it). But I've been using Sublime Text for the last 6 years and I don't think I've experienced a single crash with it either.
tokyodude 8y ago
I hope this doesn't turn into a editor war but.... I used slickedit since 1993 Windows 3.1 for Networks and loved it, ... VSCode is the first time I've seriously considered switching because AFAIK it's the only editor that has eslint integration and that's proved invaluable. It's not just eslint linting JavaScript but the fact that their are library specific plugins for things like React, Vue, GraphQL, etc.. I have no idea how well it does for other languages. I assume it does well for C# and typescript. It does feel (to me with my limited experience) that eslint's plugin architecture and uber configurable rule system are adding something I had not seen in other languages. Hoping that other languages will come up with something similar and maybe more editors will take up the integration.
twarge 8y ago
AFAIK Smooth scrolling isn't available on BBEdit, and my eyes can't track the code as it scrolls. If you use Cocoa text views or basically anything from NEXTstep way back in 10.0 your view would be either automatically or trivially be upgraded to smooth scrolling over the years. BBEdit seems like a perfect example of what happens when you don't continuously adopt and rewrite to new/modern interfaces.
whywhywhywhy 8y ago
> Everyone used TextMate, then everyone switched Some of us still do, it's open source now, still getting updates and feels like a modern Mac app, all shortcuts work as expected, find/replace dialogue is a separate window, file panels look and act like Mac file panels complete with blur, smooth scrolling and elastic overshoot act as expected.
paradoxparalax 8y ago
Apple script, then, makes me sad, because is some of those things that, when you build, you have a lot of hope on that and put a lot o effort for it to be nice and beautiful, and imagine how people will love and how successful it will be. The team developing it probably had dreams and believed they were doing something innovative or meaningful. Then the harsh reality is that all the effort and hope in beauty and niceness were useless because the thing you were building wasn't really necessary or useful to the world. The fact that it was a team in a big company makes it less sad, if it was an solo guy or "small family team" then its really sad. I like Automator and think the natural language style of its script is a brave idea, but I found it too complicated to put to use when I tried it years ago, when I was a completely level-zero non-technical, And I would propably find it too basic now that i can do some Ruby and C#. Just as a note, I didnt get, in the end, if its JS or Python you want for Automator, or both, in this last case, please add Ruby too :D

rauhl 8y ago

It’s been twenty years since I last seriously used macOS, but I’ll always have a place in my heart for BBEdit. I still have the BBEdit T-shirt I got when I was in high school, and proudly wear it when I work out. I even have print-outs from back then (remember printing things to read them offline?). It was an amazing text editor way back then, before I discovered Emacs & when my computer was too slow to run Alpha (and honestly, I don’t think that I really appreciated Alpha at the time). BBEdit was fast, flexible and did everything I could want. I wonder if they still have my name in their customer database? Maybe my license is still good …

nvr219 8y ago

Add Little Snitch and Transmission to the list :)

4ad 8y ago
Transmission is not an indie mac app, it's a cross platform open source program, free both as in free speech and free beer. Little Snitch is a malware vector, pretty much like PC "antivirus" software.
- CharlesW 8y ago
  > Little Snitch is a malware vector, pretty much like PC "antivirus" software. Wait, what? I personally found it annoying and poorly designed to the point that I uninstalled it, but I'd like to see the receipts on "malware vector" please.
  - nvr219 8y ago
    yeah malware vector is quite an accusation
- walterbell 8y ago
  > Little Snitch is a malware vector, pretty much like PC "antivirus" software. Is that because the Little Snitch network capture parser can be exploited by magic/malformed network packets to gain kernel privileges? Are there known exploits that were previously patched? Do you recommend any alternative Mac firewall which doesn't have this problem? Can the native firewall perform outbound packet filtering? Edit: https://www.sentinelone.com/blog/shut-snitch-reverse-engineering-exploiting-critical-little-snitch-vulnerability-reverse-engineering-mac-os-x/ https://www.sentinelone.com/blog/shut-snitch-reverse-enginee... (2016)
  - pseudalopex 8y ago
    There was a local privilege escalation vulnerability in the kext[1] and another in the installer[2]. pf can filter outbound packets but not by application. [1] https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2016-8661 https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2016-8661 [2] https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2017-2675 https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2017-2675

reaperducer 8y ago

For a lot of platforms, a company will produce a single piece of good software, and then milk it forever. For the Macintosh, especially the small developers scene, there is a group of companies that consistently produce outstanding products. If they come out with a new program, you immediately give it weighty consideration because of the quality or utility of previous releases. BBEdit, mentioned elsewhere in this discussion, is one of those. I'm also a big fan of Panic. I mention Panic because I spent the morning working with its terminal emulator Prompt on my iPad. I also use Transmit and Coda2 at work. Can anyone recommend other companies worth keeping an eye on for new products?

zozbot123 8y ago
> For a lot of platforms, a company will produce a single piece of good software, and then support it forever. Fixed that for you. And it's a very good thing of course - a lot nicer than the alternative of pointless "upgrades" that don't actually bring anything worthwhile, or branching out into all sorts of useless projects.
danieldk 8y ago
Can anyone recommend other companies worth keeping an eye on for new products? Anything coming from OmniGroup is generally great (if you need it). OmniGraffle has absolutely been a life-saver for me. When I have the time, I like doing slide diagrams in TikZ. But I've found that I can typically do in OmniGraffle in ten minutes what would take me hours in TikZ. So if time is a constraint, I will use OmniGraffle to create graphs. I have also used OmniFocus for a while, which also worked great. (Though it was too strongly focused on GTD for me, so I switched to Things.)
- simonbarker87 8y ago
  Apparently OmniFocus 3 has dropped much of it’s GTD focus, might be worth looking at again if that was your main issue.
- heyjudy 8y ago
  Omnigraffle is why there's no Visio on Mac, which is probably a Good Thing™. ;) Also, Omni has a cool name logo that almost reminds me of AVID's.

josephhurtado 8y ago

Nice article indeed. Two amazing products missing, probably because they came with OSX OmniGraffle and OmniOutliner; both classics that keep innovating and nowadays also run on iOS: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Omni_Group https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Omni_Group

misnome 8y ago
”Innovating” ways to make you pay more when you buy Omnigraffle on iOS, and six months later find it doesn’t work any more, but there is a “new” version you can pay full price for all over again.
- josephhurtado 8y ago
  That sucks for sure. I bought both for iOS. But hardly use OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner has worked like a champ though.

stevoski 8y ago

For 11 years I’ve been selling a Mac app I created. It does get monotonous working on the same code base for so long. I find it unenjoyable having to update the app to keep up with modern UI trends, and to cope with changes to the OS. Things that have happened in the last 11 years include the death of PowerPC support, the introduction of GateKeeper, the introduction and apparent temporary neglect of the Mac Apple Store, the switch to make codesigning effectively required, and the end of life of Apple’s own Java distribution (which was bundled with macOS until a few years ago). Dealing with these takes time but doesn’t really make my product better. I typically need to have an update ready by the time Apple releases a major OS update, or I’ll have frustrated customers. This is something I didn’t realise I was committing to when I created version 1 back in 2008.

coldtea 8y ago
Isn't that part and parcel with running a business? Else it would be "write once in 2008 and print money for eternity".
- csallen 8y ago
  It's easier developing for the web, where your code is less likely to break or require drastic changes over time. But yes, almost all businesses need at least some ongoing maintenance.
  - Aloha 8y ago
    Try running a PHP app from 2008, today, and let me know how that works for you. There are decent odds it wont run well on modern versions - I can go down and look at every other web technology and point out the same thing - no computer program lives in stasis (except possible on z/OS)
    - rpeden 8y ago
      OTOH, an ASP.NET web app written in 2008 and not touched since then would probably still run happily now if you bumped its version up to .NET 4 or 4.5. C# has had Linq and lambdas since 2007 so there's a decent chance the code would be decently pleasant to work with, too. Some devs might find 2008 Web Forms apps a bit crufty in 2018 but if you squint and pretend your .aspx is inside a render method issued of a separate file, the mental model isn't all that different from a SPA.

MattRix 8y ago

Good article but I gotta ask why it says "indy" in the title and then "indie" in the article itself? Using "indy" is so obviously wrong.

Stratoscope 8y ago
A common reason for this kind of discrepancy is that the author writes the article, but the editor writes the headline.
bobochan 8y ago
There is also no such institution as “Dartmouth University,” so I would guess that editors are in short supply over the holidays.
- schuetze 8y ago
  Well there was, but it was taken down by Daniel Webster in front of the US Supreme Court. It’s a surprisingly common mistake though. I think I see Dartmouth University more often than Dartmouth College when reading non-Dartmouth materials.
- coldtea 8y ago
  I'm always amazed when I read about "editors" neglecting this and that. Mainstream newspapers and magazines have 1/5 the editors they once had, and everything is underpaid and on a hectic schedule. And people expect editors to be involved at anything beyond a fleeting level in online outlets?

mmahemoff 8y ago

This AMP link is barely readable on PC - this is the regular URL: https://www.macworld.com/article/3327502/macs/mac-indy-apps-thrived-for-more-than-25-years.html https://www.macworld.com/article/3327502/macs/mac-indy-apps-...

jetrink 8y ago
Why do these amp pages not automatically redirect on desktop? They are becoming a plague.

NelsonMinar 8y ago

How many of these fit in the Mac App Store with its sandbox restrictions?

yardie 8y ago
I know BBEdit, GraphicConverter, and Fetch use some system hooks to integrate with Finder. I've never used PCalc and can't think of a reason it wouldn't work in a sandbox.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
bayindirh 8y ago
Most of the BBEdit can fit, however some functionality will be lost. Similarly, Fetch can fit. If Forklift, Cyberduck, Transmit and DaisyDisk can fit into the AppStore model with minimal losses, Fetch can too. However there's always a distinct beauty to an application which is downloaded independently and can run on a platform without restrictions. BBEdit has a very distinct feeling to it. It's fast, compact and packed with lots and lots of features. It's fitting into the definition of well distilled and developed application.
neurobashing 8y ago
Apple engaged with Panic and Bare Bones to get them back into the MAS after they left.

theonemind 8y ago

I started using BBEdit in the last few years, and mostly prefer it. I used emacs and vim for a couple of years each, so it's not because I haven't seen/used "better" editors. I think using only AppleScript as a scripting language really holds it back from a broader audience, and personally, I just don't script it, although I do use the option to run scripts on my text from menus, etc. (Any language, Python, perl, whatever.)

thaumaturgy 8y ago

Notably absent from this list is Ambrosia (https://www.ambrosiasw.com/ https://www.ambrosiasw.com/) and Panic (https://panic.com/ https://panic.com/). BBEdit was my first "real" text editor, maybe along about 93 or 94. When it came out, it was far, far ahead of any other similar tools on either platform. It introduced a lot of future programmers to regular expressions -- whether that was a blessing or a curse might be debatable.

porphyrogene 8y ago
I tried to make a purchase from Ambrosia last night and it appears that their payment and fulfillment systems are inoperative. I had heard that was the case but I was being optimistic. They may have gone defunct without warning at some point in 2018.
- username223 8y ago
  Sadly, it looks like https://www.ambrosiasw.com/ https://www.ambrosiasw.com/ is now defunct. "They tried to kill it with a forklift..."
- naravara 8y ago
  Well, guess I’m never recovering my license key for “Escape Velocity: Nova” then Captain Hector take the wheel!
- mminer 8y ago
  It’ll be a shame to lose gems like Escape Velocity. I know several people (myself included) have asked about acquiring the rights to the games but received no reply. It appears Ambrosia is indeed defunct.
  - phaedryx 8y ago
    You may be interested in https://endless-sky.github.io/ https://endless-sky.github.io/
- LiNeXT 8y ago

lostgame 8y ago

No mention of Panic here - they’re definitely the first group I think of when I think quality indie Mac software.

setpatchaddress 8y ago
Too recent. Panic was very late 90’s, IIRC.

makecheck 8y ago

I’ve maintained my Mac project for 20 years for free (despite paying $99/year these days) and I can say quite a bit about the experience. It is a tremendous amount of work, far more than most people would imagine, just to keep up (i.e. zero features, just keeping the code base in sync with the platform). I ported the entire code base from System-6-style to Mac OS 8, complete with fancy Appearance support and a lot of different callback mechanisms and other OS features of the day. I ported networking code away from deprecated layers. I ported from 68K to PowerPC, to Intel 32-bit, and now 64-bit is required. I ported file management code multiple times to entirely different APIs. I added tons of Objective-C. I migrated compilers from MPW, to CodeWarrior, to GCC, to LLVM. I replaced, painstakingly, thousands of lines of Carbon-style code with entirely different Cocoa idioms. I redesigned interfaces that were once described by Rez input files, to use Interface Builder (multiple times, as IB kept changing). I added code-signing. I split a single-application architecture into sub-processes with OS services. And these are just things I can pick off the top of my head; I am sure there are many more. Again, this is just to keep the damn code working as a nice modern app, before you even add work to make it do whatever it’s supposed to do. Also, in every single case, it is noteworthy that the OS features I worked so hard to adopt were eventually thrown out by Apple anyway. This means I fully expect 10 years from now that even today’s code isn’t going to “last”. Some of the changes were particularly insulting, I would add, since Apple at the time made bold statements about those APIs being “the future”, and such; for instance, after completely redesigning an application to use the Mac HIToolbox “properly” in every possible way, it really hurt when Apple just decided they didn’t give a damn about Carbon to the point where it wouldn’t even compile anymore a few releases back. I am fine with this because this is the kind of thing I like to work on. I do wish though that more people would realize how much effort software maintenance really is. Unfortunately, a heck of a lot is hidden behind simple-looking UIs and most programs will be a lot more effort to build than they appear to be.

nikanj 8y ago
This is why I love being a Windows programmer. Microsoft really does take backward compatibility seriously, and the last breakage worth mentioning happened when Vista started to enforce roles and permissions.

asix66 8y ago

I understand people like BBEdit, and this article is more than just about the popular editor. FWIW, I tried it, but for me, BBEdit just can’t “defeat” vim, even on mac. Vim is now 27yrs, and actively maintained, and once learned, its power is unmatched imho. As for graphics conversion, I’ve never used the app mentioned in the article, rather always turned to netpbm, which is available in homebrew on mac. Still. Much respect for developers sticking to, and maintaining their well liked apps for the long haul.

ErneX 8y ago

Rogue Amoeba is another one https://rogueamoeba.com/ https://rogueamoeba.com/

b3b0p 8y ago

Another I fondly remember is Red Sweater: https://red-sweater.com https://red-sweater.com

dev_19 8y ago

I love BBEdit to death because it is the exact opposite of what things like Atom and VSCode stand for. A lightweight, bomb proof text editor that can scroll through 100k+ line documents without a sweat.

torstenvl 8y ago

Like many, I really appreciate the role that BBEdit has played on the Mac. There's just one thing about it that really gets on my nerves, and that's the fact that auto-indent... doesn't.

oblib 8y ago

Hmmm... I just noticed my name is listed under "unindicted co-conspirators" in the "About BBEDit" menu box on version 11.6.8. I'm pretty sure that's not me, unless it's a "easter egg" trick that shows a registered user's name in there. They did, however, add a feature I requested in BBEdit 7.0 (rectangular text selections) which I still find kind of astounding and use almost daily. I don't remember exactly when I first bought BBEdit, but it was in the mid-late `90s so it's been more than 20 years I've been depending on it. Honestly, BBEdit is the main reason I still use a Mac. I'd switch to Linux in a heartbeat if BBEDit made a version to run on it.