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What are some useful TextMate features?

Asked 2008-08-29T02:03:34.070
21

I noticed that many people here use TextMate for coding on OS X. I've recently started using it, and although I like its minimalistic interface, it makes it harder to stumble upon cool features if you don't know what you're looking for.

So, what feature have you found most helpful for coding (mainly in Python)? Are there any third-party bundles I should know about, besides what's included?

python macos text-editor textmate
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I mention some in a review on Boagworld, I find the snippets, project manager, columnar editing (hold down option while selecting stuff or push it after having selected stuff) and CSS scopes for syntax.

answered 2008-08-30T20:03:18.010
3

For me the best features are:

  • Projects - I know every IDE under the sun has this but TextMate makes this useful for all sorts of editing and text processing tasks, and moreover makes navigating around these projects easy without ever lifting your hands from the keyboard. This is huge for Rails or Grails projects or large programming projects with many modules.
  • The excellent syntax highlighting and 'snippets' for myriad languages and tools
  • The excellent scripting language support (Being able to evaluate chunks of Ruby and the like with a single key chord)
  • The built in Blogging bundle is superb. I now use TextMate exclusively for all my blog posts.
  • Columnar editing
  • The ability to use just about any language or tool to extend TextMate, Ruby, Perl, shell, name your poison.
  • An excellent mix of great Aqua GUI support and excellent command line support through the mate and commands, for instance making it easy and pleasant to use TextMate as your default editor for your SCM.
answered 2008-10-29T20:24:25.780

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