Best Text Editor For C Programming Mac

There is no shortage of options for text editors geared towards developers on the Mac, but TextMate is our top pick. It wins out thanks to its massive programming language syntax support, helpful code snippets, expandability, and integration with the OS X terminal.

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For Loop C Programming
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TextMate

Platform: Mac OS X
Price: Free!
Download Page

Programming editors, also known as source code editors, are text editors that are specifically designed for programmers or developers for writing the source code of an application or a program. Most of these editors are built with useful features, which may include colour syntax highlighting, auto. Atom Text Editor is new but advanced text editor for Mac. It has already proven itself to be powerful. The tool is a free and open source text editor for Mac OS. Notable features of the tool are the fuzzy search of text, multiple pane support for editing, file system browser and code folding.

Features

Column Selections and Column Typing
Expand Trigger Words to Code Blocks With Tab-able Placeholders
Support for Darcs, Perforce, SVK, and Subversion
Works As External Editor for (s)ftp Programs

A group of established developers has a discount program (not a bundle) for a bunch of writing and organizing applications that have LONG histories on the Mac and are especially suited to writers and academics; all have 25% off (although all I believe also offer substantial education discounts too I believe).

Note: This feature list is borrowed from the TextMate site and the links will take you directly to TextMate's pages containing more info on each feature.

Where It Excels

TextMate is excellent. It's as simple as you need it to be, providing only a single window for editing a single document, or it can expand to handling a large file structure. It supports syntax highlighting for practically any programming language you can think of, plus it contains code snippets. These things can be expanded by downloading third-party add-ons. TextMate has great code organization features. It updates frequently enough that you feel taken care of but not so frequently you want to smack it in the face (like with Evernote). You can even use TextMate as your text editor in the terminal with the command mate. If you're looking for a WYSISYG editor, TextMate—and this entire category—is not for you. If you just want to write code in a great editor, you've come to the right app.

Where It Falls Short

Organizing the files you're currently working on could be a little more user-friendly, as it can be a little bit tedious if you don't open your entire work folder immediately at launch. The undo history is so detailed that you can find yourself pressing Command+Z a lot just to get back to the place you wanted. Generally it's just faster to retype it. Overall, though, there's very little to complain about. At one point we complained about its $58 price tag, but now that TextMate is open-source and free it's got almost everything going for it.

The Competition

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It's impossible to avoid mentioning SublimeText because it's so similar. It has almost the same support for language syntax as TextMate, and even has a Windows version as well (which is where the app originated, but that Mac version is still very Mac-like). Honestly, whether you use Sublime Text or TextMate is really going to come down to preference. They're both excellent and both, perhaps, a bit too expensive. They also both come with trials, so you can check them both out and decide for yourself.

For Loop C Programming

But maybe you're someone who doesn't want to pay for their programming-friendly text editor. If that's you, there are a couple of other alternatives that don't cost a thing. First, TextWrangler is a capable option with a loyal user base (if they haven't already upgraded to its big brother BBEdit), but it's a little low on capabilities and has an interface that feels pretty dated. Alternatively, there's Fraise (the successor to Smultron), which is another free, capable, but not-as-amazing-as-TextMate (and Sublime Text) text editor.

Best Text Editor For Linux

The other free option that's probably most like TextMate (and Sublime Text, for that matter) is Kod. It supports over 65 languages, is remarkably fast and lightweight, and only comes with one real disadvantage: it's in its early stages of development. When I checked it out earlier this year, however, it was pretty solid. Kod is very much worth a look, even if it hasn't been around for quite as long as the others.

Lifehacker's App Directory is a new and growing directory of recommendations for the best applications and tools in a number of given categories.