BBEdit
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 BBEdit editing its own Wikipedia article |
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| Developer(s) | Bare Bones Software |
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| Stable release | 10.1[1] / October 5, 2011 |
| Operating system | Mac OS X |
| Type | Text editor |
| License | Proprietary |
| Website | BBEdit Website |
BBEdit is a proprietary text editor made by Bare Bones Software. It was originally developed for Macintosh System Software 6 and is now available for Mac OS X.
BBEdit is marketed under the trademark slogan, "It doesn't suck."[2]
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[edit] History
The first version of BBEdit was created as a "bare bones" text editor to serve as a "proof of concept"; the intention was to demonstrate the programming capabilities of an experimental version of Macintosh Pascal. The original prototypes of BBEdit used the TextEdit control available in versions of Mac OS of the time. The TextEdit control could not load files larger than 32K, but after the experimental Macintosh Pascal project was terminated, the demonstration program was reworked to use the text editing engine from THINK C and THINK Pascal; this engine was much faster and could read larger files. As such, BBEdit was the first freestanding text editor to use the "PE" editing engine that had been created for THINK C and THINK Pascal, and remains the only one (not including direct derivatives such as BBEdit Lite and TextWrangler).
Taking advantage of its then-unusual plugin support, third party developers started writing plug-ins to insert HTML code in 1994 to make composing web pages easier. In fact, the developers at Bare Bones Software first learned of the existence of HTML through users inquiring about these plug-ins and later bought the rights to the code from their author and included them as part of the standard BBEdit package. The tools were included as an optional palette in version 4, and were progressively more integrated, gaining their own menu in version 5.0.
BBEdit was available at no charge upon its initial release in 1991, but was commercialized in May 1993 with the release of version 2.5.[1]
At the same time, Bare Bones Software also made a less-featured version of BBEdit 2.5 called BBEdit Lite available at no cost. Bare Bones Software discontinued BBEdit Lite at version 6.1 and replaced it with TextWrangler, which was available for a fee, although significantly less than BBEdit. In 2005, TextWrangler 2.0 was released as freeware and subsequent versions continue to be distributed as such.[3]
BBEdit's creator code R*ch refers to Rich Siegel, one of Bare Bones Software's founders and the original author of BBEdit.
[edit] Features
BBEdit is designed for use by software developers and web designers.[2] It has native support for many programming languages and custom modules can be created by users to support any language. BBEdit is not a word processor, meaning it does not have text formatting or page layout features.
The application contains powerful multi-file text searching capabilities including strong support for Perl-compatible regular expressions. BBEdit allows easy previewing and built-in debugging of HTML and provides built-in prototypes for most HTML constructs. It also includes FTP and SFTP tools and integrates with code management systems. BBEdit shows differences between file versions and allows for the merging of changes. Support for version control, including CVS, Perforce, and Subversion is built in.[2]
A number of applications and developer tools provide direct support for using BBEdit as a third-party source code editor.
BBEdit supports the Open Scripting Architecture and can be scripted using AppleScript and other languages, as well as having the ability to execute AppleScripts itself.[4]
[edit] Language support
BBEdit supports syntax highlighting for a wide variety of popular computer languages. As of version 10.1, these include: ANSI C, C++, CSS, Fortran (through Fortran 95), HTML, Java, JavaScript, JSP, Lasso, Object Pascal, Objective-C, Objective-C++, Perl, PHP, Python, Rez, Ruby, Setext, SQL (including Transact-SQL, PL/SQL, MySQL, and PostgreSQL), Tcl, TeX, UNIX shell scripts, XML, and YAML. BBEdit's SDK allows users to develop additional language modules.[5]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Bare Bones Software (2011). "BBEdit 10.1 Release Notes". http://www.barebones.com/support/bbedit/arch_bbedit101.html. Retrieved 2011-10-11.
- ^ a b c Bare Bones Software (2008). "Bare Bones Software - BBEdit 9". http://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit/index.html. Retrieved 2008-09-20.
- ^ http://www.macworld.com/article/42147/2005/01/textwrangler.html
- ^ Bare Bones Software. "BBEdit’s Other Useful Features". http://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit/featuresmore.shtml. Retrieved 2007-09-03.
- ^ Bare Bones Software. "BBEdit’s Display Features". http://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit/featuresdisplay.shtml. Retrieved 2007-09-03.
