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Comment by danaris

1 month ago

OK; you got me. I was insufficiently prepared for pedantry. Let's add another couple of critical points:

- Must be a GUI application.

- Must integrate at least somewhat reasonably with the platform's keyboard shortcuts and similar, not have its own entire way of doing things that needs 6 years to learn.

Not pedantry; just responding to your "genuine" desire for suggestions. My mistake, I guess.

BBEdit is great, but if you need to learn something new anyway, or if being tied to macOS is ever going to be a concern, emacs or vim are equally-capable and cross-platform options.

You can learn 90% of everything you will ever need in a week or two. You will never need to switch editors again. It's a great trade, all things considered.

  • I've used both emacs and vim before. Long enough to actually know how.

    I don't like using them. (I know, this may come as a shock to a diehard advocate.)

    I like GUI text editors much better.

    But also: How do vim and emacs do with these points from my requirements?

    > - that keeps its list of open files in a sidebar, vertically, rather than in tabs, across the top

    > - that can transparently open & save files over SFTP

    To the best of my recollection, they don't do either of those. Which, if true, means that even your initial "genuine" response not actually in good faith, because I did say I wanted one that did all of those.

    ...So maybe keep your snide remarks and scare-quotes to yourself?

    • You're awfully condescending for someone who started out claiming to be genuine.

      That sucks. Good luck out there.

      (responding to your edits, for the possible benefit of any readers who are genuinely interested...)

      Both emacs and vim can do side panels, and remote editing.