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My policy is, until I see a text editor as good as TextEdit on another operating system, I won't even consider a comparison between the two. You forgot

by jpd 18y ago

My policy is, until I see a text editor as good as TextEdit on another operating system, I won't even consider a comparison between the two. You forgot to mention your first axiom: 1) Nothing is as good as TextMate. Be realistic here: VI(M), Notepad++, and Emacs are all great text editors.

unalone 18y ago
Sorry - I was referring to non code-focused editors. The great thing about TextEdit is that it looks like Notepad when I launch it, and yet it has incredible support for design, typography, layout, and positioning. I can write most school papers in it, but it still looks and feels ultrasimple. TextMate does some awesome stuff, from what I've heard, but it's much more focused on coding. TextEdit is more general-purpose, which is why it's my standard. Until another OS spends as much time making a kickass all-purpose editor, it probably hasn't got the level of detail that I want in my operating system.
- jpd 18y ago
  Oh, woops! Misread TextEdit for TextMate! That said, I find that Wordpad is a fantastic simplistic tool for creating school papers. For Linux I tend to use the slightly more complex (yet still very clean) LyX.
  - unalone 18y ago
    Wordpad is really good, but it lacks the wow factor of TextEdit (which I'm slightly addicted to). I've never used LyX; forgive me if this is a dumb question, but is it available for Ubuntu? I might boot up a virtual machine and give it a try if so.
    - sharkbrainguy 18y ago
      Sure is, it's in the repo so "sudo apt-get install lyx" should grab it. It's also available for Windows/OS X so you might be better off just trying it on your primary OS. http://www.lyx.org/ http://www.lyx.org/ I don't think you're going to find the kind of simplicity you enjoy in TextEdit though. Personally I use text-editors e.g. vim, for every kind of writing I do, code or not. Plaintext formats like http://eleanor.rubyforge.org/ http://eleanor.rubyforge.org/ (for screenplays) and Taskpaper (for planning/todo lists) are really helpful for this sort of thing.
- noamsml 17y ago
  TextEdit isn't a text editor; it's a rich text editor.

by jpd 18y ago

unalone 18y ago

Sorry - I was referring to non code-focused editors. The great thing about TextEdit is that it looks like Notepad when I launch it, and yet it has incredible support for design, typography, layout, and positioning. I can write most school papers in it, but it still looks and feels ultrasimple. TextMate does some awesome stuff, from what I've heard, but it's much more focused on coding. TextEdit is more general-purpose, which is why it's my standard. Until another OS spends as much time making a kickass all-purpose editor, it probably hasn't got the level of detail that I want in my operating system.

jpd 18y ago
Oh, woops! Misread TextEdit for TextMate! That said, I find that Wordpad is a fantastic simplistic tool for creating school papers. For Linux I tend to use the slightly more complex (yet still very clean) LyX.
- unalone 18y ago
  Wordpad is really good, but it lacks the wow factor of TextEdit (which I'm slightly addicted to). I've never used LyX; forgive me if this is a dumb question, but is it available for Ubuntu? I might boot up a virtual machine and give it a try if so.
  - sharkbrainguy 18y ago
    Sure is, it's in the repo so "sudo apt-get install lyx" should grab it. It's also available for Windows/OS X so you might be better off just trying it on your primary OS. http://www.lyx.org/ http://www.lyx.org/ I don't think you're going to find the kind of simplicity you enjoy in TextEdit though. Personally I use text-editors e.g. vim, for every kind of writing I do, code or not. Plaintext formats like http://eleanor.rubyforge.org/ http://eleanor.rubyforge.org/ (for screenplays) and Taskpaper (for planning/todo lists) are really helpful for this sort of thing.
noamsml 17y ago
TextEdit isn't a text editor; it's a rich text editor.