BBEdit Testimonials
We say: “It doesn't suck.®” Here's what some of our devoted customers say:
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Dan Frakes Tech writer and journalist
What do you do? Senior editor, The Wirecutter.
When did you start using BBEdit? I don't recall the exact year, but I think it shipped on floppies. ;-) It was the early- or mid-90s.
What do you make? How does BBEdit help? These days, I use BBEdit mainly for writing articles. Despite its code-munging focus, it's the best tool for the way I write. From having multiple documents open in a single window, to code-syntax highlighting, to scores of tools for processing text, to AppleScript support, it helps me do my job faster and with less effort.
It's the best tool for the way I write…it helps me do my job faster and with less effort.
What's your favorite project that BBEdit has helped bring to life? I don't know about the most fun, but it's a good example of BBEdit being a better tool. Back in the late 90s, I was doing research and statistical work. The company I worked at had Windows desktops, but all the heavy number crunching was done on a Unix server. (We were working with massive U.S. Census data sets.) Everyone had to write their SAS programs in a text editor on their computer, then use an FTP client to upload each program to the server, then use a SAS client on their computer to run the program on the server. I got so frustrated with the horrible selection of text editors for Windows, and the multi-step process required every time I made the slightest change to a huge program, that I eventually brought my PowerBook into the office and used BBEdit. It was so much better than the text editors I'd found for Windows, and the built-in FTP functionality meant that I could save changes directly to the server. (Of course, it couldn't do anything about the fact that many of the programs took half an hour to run, only to fail at the end because I'd forgotten a semicolon...)
Which feature is your favorite? Sorry, I can't pick just one! I briefly mentioned some favorites above, but here's the longer answer:
- I write in Markdown and HTML/XML, and after using BBEdit for so many years, I have a difficult time using an editor that doesn't offer syntax coloring/highlighting.
- I frequently use the Find Differences feature to, for example, compare an article revision with the previous version.
- At Macworld, we use a number of BBEdit AppleScripts to process and clean up text for publication; these scripts rely heavily on BBEdit's grep searching.
- I love being able to open multiple documents in the same window, as well as the option to automatically restore your workspace when you launch BBEdit (a feature that predates Lion's Restore feature).
- The option to highlight the current line is one of those minor features that I really miss when I'm forced to use a different text editor or word processor.
