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I would love for there to be a Mac equivalent of Notepad++ (i.e. Scintilla). I miss that editor every day. The Mac world has many advantages, but in terms of

I would love for there to be a Mac equivalent of Notepad++ (i.e. Scintilla). I miss that editor every day. The Mac world has many advantages, but in terms of text editors all your options are either: 1. Electron-based, and take forever to launch (even if they are "fast for an Electron app"). 2. Little to no plugin ecosystem whatever. No Vim mode, etc (yes there's Vim itself, but that's not a great choice for a GUI window editor). 3. Commercial, and costs nearly as much as a full-blown IDE. Notepad++ was (is) pretty much perfect. Sadly, its default look-and-feel is "light mode" and "Courier New", rather than dark mode and Menlo/Consolas, so I don't think it even exists for the newer crowd.

madduci 4y ago
What about Sublime Text? It's always been fast and have lots of plugins
indymike 4y ago
The answer used to be TextWrangler. I'm not sure how BBEdit 14 is.
- thibautg 4y ago
  I really like Notepad++ on Windows but BBEdit Free Mode does the job for me on macOS.
thinkingemote 4y ago
Take a look at Geany https://www.geany.org/ https://www.geany.org/ which uses scintilla under the hood and is blisteringly fast and lightweight and plugin friendly as well as FOSS.
- 2devnull 4y ago
  I don’t understand why geany isn’t more popular.
  - Octoth0rpe 4y ago
    IMO on macos, geany feels more alien than electron-based editors (vscode, etc). I think this is because it sort of falls into an uncanny valley of UI where it's _almost_ native looking, but noticeably different; whereas electron-based editors don't even try and so are less jarring. Geany is definitely my fav editor on linux though.
    - 2devnull 4y ago
      That’s probably the reason. Most Mac users stick to Macs exclusively, whereas Linux and windows users are more likely to use both windows and *nix so having a single cross platform editor, besides vim/emacs, is useful.
    - seabrookmx 4y ago
      Geany uses GTK on all platforms which means it only really looks "native" in Gnome based Linux distro.
- mixmastamyk 4y ago
  I use it on Mac and happy with it. Very few integration issues for a nonnative app. I usually hide the message window and apply my custom dark theme.
CharlesW 4y ago
> 1. Electron-based, and take forever to launch (even if they are "fast for an Electron app"). FWIW, I just tried this with VSCode and I was looking at previously-only files 1.5s later. I believe new installs/updates take a bit longer. Maybe this has gotten better since the last time you tried it? A rollup of interesting Mac text editor options: BBEdit (core functionality free), CodeEdit (open source), CotEditor (open source), Geany (open source, hat tip to thinkingemote), Nova, Sublime Text, TextMate, UltraEdit. Wikipedia has a full list at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:MacOS_text_editors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:MacOS_text_editors.
- lost_tourist 4y ago
  I just leave it running all the time and it launches a new window basically instantly lol
2devnull 4y ago
> Sadly, its default look-and-feel is "light mode" and "Courier New", rather than dark mode and Menlo/Consolas That is precisely why I like it as a secondary editor. That and because scintilla based editors (there are many besides notepad++ which are cross platform) are really good at handling large text files like cSv and the like.
jray 4y ago
CotEditor Tincta textmate
Khaine 4y ago
Have you tried CotEditor?
mdp2021 4y ago
The Scintilla library works on MacOS and the SciTE implementation is available https://www.scintilla.org/SciTE-OSX.html https://www.scintilla.org/SciTE-OSX.html
jacekm 4y ago
Try Lite XL: https://lite-xl.com/ https://lite-xl.com/
Avshalom 4y ago
You could look at https://orbitalquark.github.io/textadept/ https://orbitalquark.github.io/textadept/ https://github.com/orbitalquark/textadept/wiki https://github.com/orbitalquark/textadept/wiki
- wink 4y ago
  +1 for TextAdept, it's been my Notepad++ replacement on Linux for quite some time.
29athrowaway 4y ago
notepadqq
- mrtweetyhack 4y ago
  [dead]

madduci 4y ago

What about Sublime Text? It's always been fast and have lots of plugins

indymike 4y ago

The answer used to be TextWrangler. I'm not sure how BBEdit 14 is.

thibautg 4y ago
I really like Notepad++ on Windows but BBEdit Free Mode does the job for me on macOS.

thinkingemote 4y ago

Take a look at Geany https://www.geany.org/ https://www.geany.org/ which uses scintilla under the hood and is blisteringly fast and lightweight and plugin friendly as well as FOSS.

2devnull 4y ago
I don’t understand why geany isn’t more popular.
- Octoth0rpe 4y ago
  IMO on macos, geany feels more alien than electron-based editors (vscode, etc). I think this is because it sort of falls into an uncanny valley of UI where it's _almost_ native looking, but noticeably different; whereas electron-based editors don't even try and so are less jarring. Geany is definitely my fav editor on linux though.
  - 2devnull 4y ago
    That’s probably the reason. Most Mac users stick to Macs exclusively, whereas Linux and windows users are more likely to use both windows and *nix so having a single cross platform editor, besides vim/emacs, is useful.
  - seabrookmx 4y ago
    Geany uses GTK on all platforms which means it only really looks "native" in Gnome based Linux distro.
mixmastamyk 4y ago
I use it on Mac and happy with it. Very few integration issues for a nonnative app. I usually hide the message window and apply my custom dark theme.

CharlesW 4y ago

> 1. Electron-based, and take forever to launch (even if they are "fast for an Electron app"). FWIW, I just tried this with VSCode and I was looking at previously-only files 1.5s later. I believe new installs/updates take a bit longer. Maybe this has gotten better since the last time you tried it? A rollup of interesting Mac text editor options: BBEdit (core functionality free), CodeEdit (open source), CotEditor (open source), Geany (open source, hat tip to thinkingemote), Nova, Sublime Text, TextMate, UltraEdit. Wikipedia has a full list at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:MacOS_text_editors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:MacOS_text_editors.

lost_tourist 4y ago
I just leave it running all the time and it launches a new window basically instantly lol

2devnull 4y ago

> Sadly, its default look-and-feel is "light mode" and "Courier New", rather than dark mode and Menlo/Consolas That is precisely why I like it as a secondary editor. That and because scintilla based editors (there are many besides notepad++ which are cross platform) are really good at handling large text files like cSv and the like.

jray 4y ago

CotEditor Tincta textmate

Khaine 4y ago

Have you tried CotEditor?

mdp2021 4y ago

The Scintilla library works on MacOS and the SciTE implementation is available https://www.scintilla.org/SciTE-OSX.html https://www.scintilla.org/SciTE-OSX.html

jacekm 4y ago

Try Lite XL: https://lite-xl.com/ https://lite-xl.com/

Avshalom 4y ago

You could look at https://orbitalquark.github.io/textadept/ https://orbitalquark.github.io/textadept/ https://github.com/orbitalquark/textadept/wiki https://github.com/orbitalquark/textadept/wiki

wink 4y ago
+1 for TextAdept, it's been my Notepad++ replacement on Linux for quite some time.

29athrowaway 4y ago

notepadqq

mrtweetyhack 4y ago
[dead]