Text editor Mac developers should strive to provide features that make typing faster and easier. This is a very useful feature when your documents contain the same text in several places or when you need to add something to a document that already exists somewhere else in the same file. The feature is usually available on the Menu bar. Other editors allow you to specify exactly what is being searched for and/or replaced. Some editors allow you to specify which words in a file should be searched for and which are replaced by using regular expressions (for example, instead of at). The find-and-replace functionality can be used with a single file or with multiple files simultaneously. Many text editors let you search for words or phrases in several files at once, then select the ones that match your search. Find and Replace Functionality on Multiple Files and Folder Directories using text editor Mac You want to comfortably read one line at a time. This feature is important because if you have long lines of text, you don’t want to have to scroll back and forth to see all the lines. This feature allows you to fit columns, so they are wide enough for comfortable reading but not so wide that they are wider than your window size. Some text editors allow you to set the width of columns in your file. Other editors require that you select the section(s) first and then press this shortcut key. Some editors allow you to fold or collapse entire sections by pressing keyboard shortcuts. If your text editor doesn’t have this feature, look for another one.įolding can be done on a per-section basis or across all sections in the file at once. If you’ve ever tried to edit a long document by yourself, you know how hard it is to see the whole thing at once and what a relief it is when the text wraps to the next line automatically. Folding/Collapsing Large Sections with text editor MacĪ text editor that folds text sections automatically is a big help when working on a long document. You can set it to any value between 1 and 12 spaces. The default indentation level is 4 spaces.
In Mac OS X, Apple’s TextEdit program uses a two-level indention system. There are also advanced features that let you define indentation levels based on columns or rows so that your programming style can be preserved even if you change the default indentation level. Most text editors let you set the indentation by either entering an integer value or by clicking on a tab button next to an entry field.
If you don’t have indentation default settings, it will be very difficult to see the difference between a code block and the rest of the text in that file. It allows you to clearly distinguish between code blocks and text in the same file. Indentation is one of the most important features of a text editor.
In this article, we will see each of these features in-depth and how to use the text editor you’ve chosen for your Mac. After all, they are a must for any modern text editor.
Full Unicode support (most modern text editors have Unicode support) Copy and paste selected text, across multiple files or multiple project folder directoriesġ4. Color/bold/italic/underline options in any of the text files that you create or editġ3. A full-featured HTML support, with tags and style sheets, and also inline style supportġ2. Customizable syntax highlighting (as per your choice)ġ1. Built-in support for templates to save time on repetitive tasks (such as form letters) or to control style (such as numbered lists) easilyġ0. Spell checking of text files in all cases (including foreign languages) and real-time spell checking when you type somethingĩ. moving or copying all the files in a documents folder directory)ħ. Tab-completion, auto-completion, word completion, and word selectionĦ. Find and replace functionality that works on multiple files at onceĥ. Columns that can be switched manually or automaticallyĤ. Indentation by default so that you can clearly distinguish between code blocksģ. Here are some features and tools that a powerful text editor should have:ġ.