Brackets is a modern open source editor with several extremely interesting features. For example, when used in combination with Adobe Creative Cloud Extract (=preview) it can read design data such as colors, types, histories etc. Directly from a PSD file and transform it into minimalistic, correct CSS code. UltraEdit is a powerful HTML and Code editor available for Mac, Windows, and Linux. It comes with a built-in file comparison utility, autocompletion, advanced layout, multi-tab, multi-pane editors, and syntax highlighting for the most popular programming languages.
Whether you’re a self-confessed script kiddie or black hat, a hobby programmer or professional coder, you need to have an app that’s up to the task. If you choose to do your programming on a Mac rather than a PC, below is a list of the best code editing apps that could be mustered.
Test them out, see which one suits you, and dive on into the sublimely mathematical, perfectly logical world of Mac-based coding.
1. Vim
The number one choice for probably the majority of programmers these days, Vim is the most complete code-editing tool around. It uses much less memory than its rivals, it’s open source, and can be used remotely via SSH.
Related: 3 Useful VIM Editor Tips and Tricks for Advanced Users
That’s not all. Vim works on all Unix platforms (so Windows and Linux as well), and is brimming with keyboard shortcuts that make writing long chunks of code a cinch. It may seem like a lot to take in, but all the shortcuts are designed to be memorable (so d for ‘delete,’ obviously), making Vim rather accessible.
With its vast community churning out a constant procession of plug-ins and add-ons, Vim is a vast, flexible tool that can be used for many of the most popular coding environments (C, Python, you name it).
It’s number one for a reason.
2. Atom
Atom is a fantastic code editor for users of all skill levels. Whether you want to tweak source code or play around with packages, you can do so here. It has a great collaboration tool in the form of Teletype, which lets you seamlessly work on code with fellow users.
Brackets Code Editor For Mac
You can work in the universal hosting service GitHub from directly within Atom too, doing every function from creating new branches to pushing and pulling code requests. Beyond that, Atom is filled with quality-of-life features like autocomplete, a robust search tool and file browser, and a powerful package manager.
On the downside, Atom is fairly memory-intensive, particularly when handling large files, so be sure that your computer is up to the task RAM-wise before jumping in.
3. Sublime Text
One of the best and simplest coding tools ever available to Mac users. Sublime Text is a notepad-like application that lets you write your code, highlight certain parts using its various syntax detecting algorithms and so on. The app has a number of features including Goto Anything, Multiple Selections, Command Palette, etc. If you think the other apps or things are distracting you while doing your coding work, then you can enable the distraction-free writing mode. It disables everything except for the area where you write your code.
Sublime Text is not free, though you can download the free trial version and it never seem to expires. Nevertheless, if you use and love Sublime Text, it is always good to purchase the license and support the development.
The app is available for Mac, Windows and Linux.
4. BBEdit
This is yet another nice tool for coding programs. BBEdit says it does not suck, and that probably means something good for the coders. The app has a nice interface identical to Sublime Text. The app seems to be inclined towards those who do a lot of HTML coding, and maybe that is why there are a number of options to manipulate webpages in the app. It contains FTP and SFTP support, so there is no issue with uploading your files to your server as soon as you are done writing them. Sounds cool, huh?
5. TextMate
Do you have a load of coding work that needs to be done in a short span of time? TextMate is available to help you out. The app makes coding much easier on your Mac than ever with a number of features it comes preloaded with. Syntax highlighting, Multiple Tabs, and Search and Replace are some of the salient features of the app. If you missed closing a bracket, that happens most of the time you are coding; it completes it automatically for you. So the next time you write a program, there is much less of a chance that it will have errors.
6. Brackets
What is it that you use most often while writing code? Yes, you are right. It is brackets. Brackets by Adobe brings a powerful tool for you to code the next big thing. The app is actually built for HTML coders who build hundreds of webpages a day, or maybe even more. It highlights the syntax making it easier for you to find your code blocks and errors and comes with a Live HTML Development that shows the output of your code without having you save or refresh the page. That is really something cool about this app, isn’t it?
7. Textastic
Textastic for Mac is a simple, yet faster, coding tool that delivers what it promises. With features like Auto Completion, it auto-completes some of your code that you would otherwise have to do yourself, saving you some time that you could use to do something else. While most of the other features remain the same as the apps above, it includes a new feature called iCloud syncing. Movavi video editor 12. What it does is let you sync your code across your various Mac machines so that you can pick up where you left off easily.
Conclusion
Coding has become a part of many people’s lives these days, and the apps above should help to get it done more quickly and more efficiently.
This article was first published in March 2014 and was updated in June 2019.
Image credit: Closeup coding on screen by oatawa/Shutterstock
Are you looking for a web editor to createor design a website? This page lists free HTML editors, Web editors,WYSIWYG (ie, 'What You See Is What You Get')editors, web site builders, as well as specialized editors optimized for Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)or even the numerous web scripting languages such as PHP, Perl, Java, JavaScript, ASP, etc.
The editors are separated into two sections: the WYSIWYG Web Editors / Site Buildersallow you to design your website using a What You See Is What You Get interface — somewhat like a wordprocessorwhere you can see what your page will look like (mostly) as you type; andSiteBuilders that allow you to design your site from pre-packaged templates. If you don't knowwhat HTML, CSS, JavaScript,PHP or Perl are, this may be what you're looking for, since the software will give you a visual interface thatyou can use to develop your site.
The other section lists the Free HTML Editorswhich are basically ASCII text editors with additional features that make it easier for youto code pages for the web. Very often, this includes syntax highlighting for the HTML/CSS elements(and perhaps also for PHP, Perl, JavaScript, ASP, Java elements as well). If you write your pages using 'raw' HTML,or if you plan to learnHTML, these are the editors you will want to check. You may also want to look at theFree Programming Editors and ASCII Text Editors page, which lists moreeditors that can be used to edit / create HTML web pages. My decision of whether to put an editor on that page orthis page is sometimes arbitrary, so it's best to look at both pages to see if you can find what you want there.
Finally, if you're completely new to creating websites, I strongly recommend that you readHow to Create / Start a Website:The Beginner's A-Z Guide. There's a lot more to making a site than using a web editor, and this articleshows you how to do it in plain English.
Related Pages
- Free Text Search and Replace Utilities - make those pesky tasks more pleasant
- Free Resource Editors, Compilers and Icon Editors - create icons for your website's favicon icon.
- Free Fonts for Programmers, Webmasters and Designers - get a good font for your editor
Skip to: [ Free HTML Editors ] [ Free WYSIWYG Web Editors and Site Builders ]
Free WYSIWYG Web Editors and Website Builders
The formerly commercial Microsoft Expression Web 4 is now available for free. This is a fully-featured web editor, possiblycomparable withAdobe Dreamweaverin terms of number of features, although it does not seem to be quite as popular.Besides letting you create websitesusing a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) visual interface, you can also code directly in HTML and CSS, as well as use PHP,JavaScript, ASP.NET and ASP.NET AJAX from within the editor. Note though that this software has been discontinued, and you aregetting the final version of the program. There will be no future versions. And before you ask, even though the downloadablefile has a filename like 'Web_Trial.exe', it's actually the full version, and not a trial or demo as its name suggests. Youcan find out how to design a site using this editor with the free onlineExpression Web Tutorial.
Mac Text Editor
BlueGriffon is a WYSIWYG web editor created by the author of the Nvu web editor software (as well as the bulk ofits derivative, KompoZer 0.7.10). Since it uses the modern Firefox web rendering engine, it should be able to handlemodern HTMLand CSS code correctly unlike the older Nvu and KompoZer 0.7.10 software, allowingyou to use such code and see the results displayed accurately in the editor. Besides support for HTML 4, HTML 5, XHTML 1,CSS 3, it also supports SVG, and MathML. The editor has a plug-in architecture so you may also be able to findadd-ins that extend the functionality of the program. Languages supported include English, German, French, Czech,Dutch, Finnish, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, both Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Spanish, Slovenian, Polishand Swedish (and possibly others by the time you read this). The program runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Itis open source. You can find a free onlineBlueGriffon Tutorialon thesitewizard.com.
KompoZer is a WYSIWYG web editor that allows you to build websites in an easy way, using a visual interface.KompoZer 0.7.10 (the currently released version at the time I write this) is essentially an updated version of Nvuwith bug fixes. You can learn how to create a website using KompoZer with thesitewizard.com's tutorialHow to Design andPublish Your Website with KompoZer.
Seamonkey, the web browser suite from Mozilla, comes with a WYSIWYG web editor that allows you to quickly codeweb pages using a wordprocessor-like interface. For more information, please read thedetailedreview of the Mozilla Composer onthesitewizard.com. You can also finda comprehensive tutorial onHowto Design and Publish Your Website with Mozilla Composer there.
Amaya is an open source browser and WYSIWYG web authoring environment that purports to allowits users to develop web pages without knowing anything about HTML or CSS. You can create yourpages and view them using this software. It supports CSS, HTML, XHTML, MathML 2.0 (which allows you to browse and write web pages containingmathematical symbols), etc. There are versions for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. A moredetailed review of this editor can be found in the article:Review of Amaya: W3C's Free WYSIWYG Web Authoring Environment.
This WYSIWYG web editor and site builder features drag and drop website layouts, site management tools, a built-inFTP facility topublish (upload) your web pages,a photo gallery, a form builder, rollover images,support for Flash and Quicktime, an e-commerce tool, etc. A free online tutorial for a slightly different (commercial) versionof the software, NetObjectsFusion 11 Tutorial can be found on thesitewizard.com.
Trellian WebPAGE is a free WYSIWYG web editor with a drag and drop interface, a previewscreen that allows you to see your page under three common screen widths (640, 800 and1024), built-in FTP uploader, table creation wizard, form creation tool, etc. It alsohas a syntax highlighting HTML editor for people who may want to switch to the HTML modefor some fine tuning.
[Update: Nvu has been discontinued. The author of the software has moved on to developBlueGriffon, whichis also a free web editor. Beware of scam sites pretending to be the Nvu website and askingfor donations for continued development. As mentioned, the real author is no longer working on Nvu but onBlueGriffon.]
Nvu is a WYSIWYG editor that is designed to make the creation of web sites as easy for novices as it isusing commercial web editors likeDreamWeaver.It is based on the Mozilla Composer web editor (see elsewhere on this page) and includes new features that will eventuallymake its way back into Mozilla Composer. This open source editor is available for Linux and Windows. You can find a tutorial onHow to Design and Publish Your Website with Nvu onthesitewizard.com. There is also a longer review of Nvu available.
Free HTML Editors / ASCII Text Web Editors
HAPedit is useful for people who develop both dynamic and static web pages. It providessyntax highlighting for HTML, ASP, PHP, JavaScript; provides a project manager; featurescode completion, an SQL console, FTP manager, PHP code 'compilation', integrated PHP help,brace matching, search and replace with regular expressions, statistics on your page(ie, rendered size, images, links, etc), and so on. This is a Windows program.
This is the freeware sibling of the commercial Standard and Pro versions. It is a generaltext editor that has lots of features, including a useful 'Clipbook' facility that hasnumerous HTML editing conveniences. Its commercial cousin Notepad Pro comes withsyntax highlighting. (Note: to get the free version, go to the 'Download' page and look for 'Notetab Light'.)
This editor comes with built-in FTP facility, making it possible for you to author yourweb page and publish it without leaving the editor. It has a spell-checker, aninternal browser view mode that is able to show your HTML changes as you type,a global search and replace facility across all open documents, built-in tutorial on HTML,JavaScript, frames; etc. There are apparently two versions available - the older one runson Windows systems, the newer one is written in Java and is apparently cross-platform.
PSPad is a full featured text editor that you can use to edit HTML, PHP, Perl, JavaScript, C, etc. It even hasbuilt-in facilities allowing you to edit binary files. There is project support, the ability to directly editfiles via FTP on your server, a macro recorder, search and replace in files, text comparison (differences betweentwo files with the differences highlighted in colour), syntax highlighting, spell checking, internal HTML previewusing IE and Mozilla, integrated HTML TIDY (forvalidating HTML code and fixing them),code explorer for Pascal, HTML, PHP, XML (etc), matched bracket highlighting, etc.
Notepad++ is a source code text editor with syntax highlighting (C, C++, Java, C#, HTML, PHP, JavaScript, ASP, SQL, Objective-C, etc),multiple document handling using tabs, auto-completion of keywords (customizable), regular expressions in the search and replacefunction, macro recording and playback, brace and indent highlighting, collapsing and expanding of sections of code (to zoom in and out ofpieces of code such as to provide an outline overview of your text/code), etc.
Quanta Plus is a Linux HTML editor for KDE. It contains an assortment of features such assyntax highlighting, easy configuration of toolbars, site uploading facility, the abilityto update a site from CVS (with a plugin), document structure tree, etc.
Free Code Editor For Mac
From the announcement by one of their development team: 'Bluefish is aprogrammer's HTML editor, designed to save the experienced webmastersome keystrokes. It features a multiple file editor, multiple toolbars,custom menus, image and thumbnail dialogs, open from the web, CSS dialogs, PHP, SSI andRXML support, HTML validation and lots of wizards.' I've seen a lot of good things saidabout this editor by other webmasters. Bluefish runs on Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris,Tru64/Alpha, NetBSD, OpenBSD, HP-UX and Mac OSX.
Html Editor For Mac
This is a free code editor with syntax highlighting support for PHP, JavaScript, HTML and CSS. It has support for autocompletion of HTML tags,attributes and closing tags; an HTML code inspector; a CSS autocomplete facility supporting style property names and values; JavaScript autocompletethat supports keywords, DOM elements and properties; PHP autocomplete that support standard PHP and user's classes, variables, functions, constants,keywords, etc; a PHP debugger; SQL autocomplete; context sensitive help; class view; browser preview; project manager; and so on. This isa Windows program.
May 17, 2017 There are many free DJI Video Editing software on both Windows and Mac. If you are Mac users, just have a reference at those 5 best free Mac video editing software: iMovie, blender, Avidemux, ZS4 Video Editor, HyperEngine-AV, etc. Html editor for mac.
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