Long-Delayed TextMate 2 Arrives as Public Alpha
In 2004, a developer by the name of Allan Odgaard released a new text-editor by the name of TextMate. Over the next few years, the application became extremely popular with coders because of a number of powerful features, including extensive customization, macros, and much more.
TextMate 2.0 was originally announced in 2006, and three years later Odgaard wrote in a blog post that he was still hard at work on TextMate 2 and it was 90 percent complete. He hoped that "an alpha version will be ready before too long, but I can’t make any promises about dates." Time passed, and Wired named TextMate 2 to it's year-end vaporware list in 2009, along with StarCraft II and the US release of Spotify.
TextMate 2.0 has finally been released to the public in the form of a public alpha -- typically the development milestone that precedes beta.
The excitement for a new version has been tremendous and today we’re finally able to repay the much appreciated loyalty and moral support from the community by releasing the first public alpha: TextMate 2.0 alpha (r8930).
It’s important to stress though that being an alpha release; it is not complete. It has reached a point where it may suit some early adopters and provide some relief to those who have been questioning TextMate’s future. For the time being, the alpha builds are only for people who already have a TextMate license and an Intel Mac.
Being a complete rewrite there are too many changes to sum up but here is an overview of notable changes since TextMate 1.5.10.
TextMate is available for €39 (just over $50 at current exchange rates) from the MacroMates website.
Top Rated Comments
(View all)
How is this front page worthy? It has NOTHING to do with Apple.
TextMate is Mac-only and has a cult following.
Edit: I haven't been to macrumors in a while, but I clicked through to read the rest of this article when I saw it on the RSS feed.
What's with all the hatred and vitriol? Is that what this site has become? Geez...
I routinely read news sites where I'm not interested in every single story they publish, but I don't resort to personal insults against the editors or the subjects of the news articles. I just skip the articles that don't interest me.
TextMate hasn't been updated in a long time, but I happily use it every single day because it's fast and stable and the bundle system allows me to add just about any feature that I'm missing.
How is this front page worthy? It has NOTHING to do with Apple.
Sure it does. Textmate is a Apple only text editor popular with developers.
Probably the only editor that sets the internet on fire (considering a lot of twitter feeds are abundant with TM2 news from people I think would never shout out about text editors of all things).
Also, cool that people need to be looked down upon in this forum just because they're not using the "hardcore" stuff (whatever that means), e.g. full IDEs and vi...
Wait, it's not cool at all. 'Stupid' is what I meant to write.
A text editor is a fantastic tool for alot of people. It could be for simple "text crunching" if your terminal-fu is a bit rusty or non-existent (like in my case). Even if it's just a companion to a fullblown IDE (I guess?).
I even feel it's a tool my university (read: all universities) should promote to researchers (linguistics in my case), whether it's for controlling 'R', writing papers in latex, notes (in markdown perhaps) or word crunching (it's nice to have grep etc inside of the app to me). Or what ever language they use for coding experiments.
As for Textmate, the snippet editor in particular was something even an almost non-coder like myself got my head around and used to great effect (but I honestly don't know what other text editors offer in that area). Then there were all the little things which I could sort out without digging in config files.
In the alpha I notice some coding font choices mess up line height when mixed with Japanese in-line. Don't know if that goes for other non-latin langugages as well.
I'm currently using Sublime Text 2 (learning it, rather). But no doubt I'll make a foolish TM2 purchase, whenever it's golden.
I feel more comfortable, having a more fully developed GUI next to the text editor area, combined with good keyboard bindings/macros. Mostly html/latex in my case but so what?
Next up: why *you* should like the color green better than blue (hint: for no other reason that I don't agree with your color choice - which of course does not affect me. But this being the internet and all...).
The christmas turkey seems to come stuffed with vitriol on MR. Luckily, we have non-stuffed christmas ham where I live.
Then it belongs on the Mac section. Nothing amazing here. This is like Page 3 news. Arn and Eric at least know how to run this site.. Jordan, no offense, but this isn't your personal blog. No one really gives a damn about your iCard mishaps, and this still isn't directly related to Apple. Just some lazy dev got off his ass and finished coding the app.
How about you start you own website? Then, you can decide what should and should not be front page material.
[ Read All Comments ]
Accessory maker Moshi has released a new ultra-thin plastic shell protective case for the 11" and 13" MacBook Air models. This type of plastic case tends to be especially popular among...
Blizzard Entertainment said this week that it sold more than 3.5 million copies of Diablo III on launch day, setting the record for fastest-selling PC game. The company also sold 1.2 million copies...
Hard drive maker Seagate has announced it will purchase data storage device maker LaCie for roughly $186 million.
The company plans to buy the controlling stake owned by Philippe Spruch,...
Intuit has upgraded the iOS app for its Mint personal finance tool with two new "most-requested" features that should keep users from ever having to go to the Mint.com website. Until now,...
Wired points to a recent Technology Review interview with IBM chief information officer Jeanette Horan highlighting the issues of the "bring your own device" trend in which employees choose...
