In this episode, David and Katie explore the use of more powerful text editors, like TextMate and BBEdit, in a writing workflow with guest, Brett Terpstra.
Links of note
Brett’s Site
Text Expander Snippet Repository
Byword
Marked
Scrivener
nvALT
TextMate
BBEdit
Brett on TUAW
Why Markdown
TE-Snippets
Blogsmith Bundle
Markdown Service Tools
Espresso 2
MPU 37 – Markdown Show
MPU 5 – Word Processing Show
Multi-Platform is a Feature
TextMate Get Bundles Bundle
VIM Tutorial
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Isn’t Apple doing the same thing that Microsoft did with .docx? Pages is proprietary, and nothing can read it but Pages. Isn’t that correct?
Great show, guys! A couple things:
- During the feedback section, somebody said that Dropbox doesn’t do versioning. This is incorrect: by default, Dropbox keeps old versions of your files for 30 days before dumping them, but if you purchase the Pack-Rat feature add-on (which is a freaking screaming deal), you get versions of all of your files going to back for as long as you’ve had Pack-Rat.
- Die to the wool Vim user here. I love TextMate’s OS integration and how Mac-ish it felt, but I can’t get past how poorly it navigates text compared to Vim (something I think Brett mentioned during the show).
As always, love the show – keep it up EM-PEE-DUB.
If you are looking for an environment for plain text editing (and processing) you can make work exactly as you want… and expand as you want: try *GNU Emacs*! http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/
I am not a programmer – but a lawyer – and I use Emacs for years now nearly every day, most of the tim ein Emacs org-mode: http://orgmode.org/. There is also a markdown mode available: http://jblevins.org/projects/markdown-mode/
on every discussion about text editors there has to be the emacs guy. this comment feed, by definition, is now complete.
great show btw. a very nice editor, which I discovered just rescently, is vico (vicoapp.com) essentially it is a VIM derivat, but it uses all the textmate bundles. and it is actively developed. it is not feature complete, but really good.
No Emacs? Sacrilege!
Real programmers use Emacs.
In your feedback section you read some feedback from a listener that said that using the Exchange setup will only sync your Personal calendar over to your iOS device. While it’s true that when you set it up you’ll only get the Personal calendar, you can go to http://m.google.com/sync on your device and choose which calendars you want to sync over. The only catch is that the colors of the calendars don’t sync over, so you’ll have one color on Google Calendar and another on your iOS device. If you have only one iOS device, once you set up all your calendars I suggest going back to Google Calendar and switching the colors for the web interface to match those that your iOS device picked – this makes it easy to go back and forth.
@sebastian: there may be a reason for this.
Emacs IS a really good editor – and much more. Of course there are many other good editors out there. For many users emacs may not be a good choice. But I am sure there are users that would love emacs. So i think emacs should be mentioned in a discussion about text editors.
Where is the link to David’s speaking engagement in Petaluma?
Great show. I’ve also borrowed much from Brett to enhance the Markdown experience. I am now convinced that my current efficient use of Byword and Marked is perfect for my needs, and TextMate or BBEdit are unnecessary. I have TextWrangler, but rarely open.
I always learn productivity tips from your podcasts and listen to most several times. Please do not descend to the pedestrian, non-tech, boring talk show style or newsy chats found in many other 5by5 casts.
Hi Guys – great show, I’m a fan.
On the subject of simple note which costs quite a lot to use if you don’t want the ads I have Plaintext which cost £1.50 not to have the ads and have it syncing with Dropbox which Notational Velocity links to! Text notes everywhere for next to nothing. By the way it was the show that put me on to Notational Velocity, so a big thank you for that.
I have been a textmate user for a number of years now for a number of years like Brett and have put a significant amount of effort into customizing it to my own needs. I recently found a text editor called Sublime Text which is compatible with many of the textmate snippets and language definitions as well as being very customizable. I have only been with it about a month but I am very impressed. It also has some new views, in particular something called “distraction-free mode” that mimics what lion does with many applications. I will add the caveat that this editor is more “bare-bones” than textmate even was as there is no preference dialog, just text files that control all settings.
It is currently in beta but I have had no problems with stability and, as the beta implies, is actively being developed in the open.
Oh, and for those of you that this affects, it is cross-platform and with a bit of dropbox magic, can be a great cross-platform editing tool that syncs all your settings across any of your machines!
Given the length of the podcast, I expected you to cover more scenarios for usage of text editors. For instance did you mention Scrivener a few times but only to then move back to whatever else was being discussed. In fact, the only take-aways (I found) were (1) byword is great (2) bbedit is complicated (3) may or may not get future updates.
Perhaps next time have people who have actual work done with other editors and in different scenarios?
By the way, got to your show through the 5by5 network, and you’re probably my second favourite podcast there already!
Hello. I am looking for a desktop mind mapping app. Any suggestions? There are a few in the app store which look nice, but a ton out on the web, for business and open for free, but I need help choosing. Anyone have any suggestions or leads in a direction? I prefer to have OPML support, because I already have IthoughtsHD on my iPhone(and possibly future iPad) which supports OMPL export. Thanks again! Any suggestions on good communities where I can ask questions like this?
“For instance did you mention Scrivener a few times but only to then move back to whatever else was being discussed.”
In fairness, Scrivener really isn’t a text editor. It’s a tool for organizing writing projects that, also allows you to write, but it’s not something you’d pull out to do some work on a text file.
I’m sorry to make my first comment on MPU even a bit critical, since I’m a recent convert who’s benefited enormously from the podcasts. BUT I guess I was thinking there would be more about the actual features of TextMate and BBEdit, rather than just talking about how complicated they are.
To be sure there was a fair amount on TextMate bundles and plugins, but otherwise I didn’t hear much beyond the fact that you can get matching brackets or quotation marks with the high-end editors. I know — and am very much in tune with — David’s angle of considering these from a writer’s rather than a coder’s perspective, but aren’t there *any* other features that might make a writer’s life easier? I’m thinking navigation of complex documents, multiple viewing panes, and so on.
I’m really not writing from knowledge here, since I haven’t yet used either TextMate or BBEdit much at all. (Which is why I was really looking forward to this episode.) But I’ve heard hints here and there about searching and navigation and editing tricks that made me wonder why this sort of thing didn’t get more (or any?) coverage. I guess I mean more specific coverage, as in “here’s how you open, view, and work with a file in TextMate. Here’s how it’s different from TextEdit. And here’s how BBEdit does it differently still.” And so on.
Anyway thanks guys. Apologies again for sniveling because heaven help me I love your show!
TextMate has posted a new entry to their blog; http://blog.macromates.com/
It’s a short entry, but this is the most important part:
“There will be a public alpha release this year, before Christmas, for registered users.”
I’ve been enjoying your podcasts, but I’m curious why the only lady geek in the Mac Universe appears to be Katie. With the sole exception of your Macworld episodes, the only woman on the show has been Katie! I’ve enjoyed listening to guys like Brett, but doesn’t take a Y chromosome to be a Mac geek.
Along those same lines, I’d love to hear about the workflows of people who aren’t bloggers or programmers. I happen to be a scientist, but how about some of your lawyer friends, or some business people? I guess I’m asking for some more variety. I know it’s out there.
Come on over to the nosillacast podcast at http://www.podfeet.com. Plenty of women geeks there, Mac and otherwise.
Big fan of the show, too many ideas, programs, & workflows have been inspired by the show. The first show that I listened to was the the original markdown show. I was an early convert to the txt workflow.
As a practicing attorney, much of my writing eventually finds it way to a word processor for paper printing. While, my field will likely never completely permit me to cut the MS Word cord (or even Pages, OpenOffice, etc). I would like to remove as much noise as possible from my workflow. As a result I am increasingly interested in a LaTeX project. Essentially my printed written work is merely a rather consistent set of headings, subheadings, etc. Does anyone have any insight as to how to set a LaTeX “template” or “style sheet” – I’m certain this nomenclasure is incorrect – which could translate a MMD or MD txt file. Has anyone attempted to take the Word Processor compeletly out of the equation?
Hi, David and Katie,
Love the show.
David, I am confused over when you use ByWord, Scrivener, Pages, etc. What specifically do you gain with ByWord versus Pages? Maybe a show on writing software and how different ones benefit different workflows would be valuable.
Thanks for everything!