BBEdit is one of the best known text editing applications for the Mac. It's essentially a premium version of TextWrangler; it shares many of the same features, but offers some additional upgrades for a fee. Both applications are published by Bare Bones.
Like TextWrangler, BBEdit is versatile enough to support novice coders and experienced programmers, and it's a great application to have installed - just in case. With multiple clipboards, multiple undos and configurable shortcuts, BBEdit yields impressive results and aids very efficient coding.
Compared to TextWrangler, BBEdit is better for producing standards-compliant code, since it can validate HTML 4.01 through version 5, and XTHTML 1.0 and 1.1. It also adds a convenient Scratchpad for note taking, making it easy to jot down snippets of code, and also offers user defined clippings.
Other benefits include:
- Built in support for Subversion and Perforce.
- Integration with Apple Automator.
- Batch processing of text transformations across multiple files.
- Support for Exuberant Ctags for source code navigation.
- A very reasonable price tag of $49.95.
If you already use TextWrangler, BBEdit is a logical upgrade with a number of additional bonus features that make it well worth your cash.
