Hello,

This is my first post and I have a question.

I’m a front end / web developer and occasionally I look for editor alternatives and I read a lot of good reviews about sublime text 2. in multiple forums when some debate about editors was going on, sublime was mentioned a lot and was almost allways “in top 3 editors”.

Sublime is not free like a lot other free editor alternatives, because of that I didn’t tried it for a long time. Anyway … a year back I finaly installed sublime to my PC to check this awesome editor. First impression was ok, and also after few times I’d used it in a project performed quite well. Editor is fast and has some good qualities… but… I didn’t see a real benefit over my old edior which is 70$ worth.

I use editor for: CSS with SASS, HTML, JS, PHP and MySql… For “html / css / js” coding and quick php updates I use Notepad++ (or Geany on linux) and for larger PHP projects I use Netbeans.

I’ve done a project in CodeIgniter using Sublime text 2 and in that time I didn’t see “sublime potential” or some very good reason to spend 70$ on text editor. Don’t get me wrong, price isn’t too high… I just can do any job with Notepad++ or Netbeans which are both free. I checked out few tutotrials for sublime and use it once in a while for the past year, but I see it like “just another editor”.

Please someone give me some keypoints and reasons, why is sublime worth buying it and use over other free alternatives, because Clearly I missed something here.

What I need in editor:

• Good color coding
• Good management of opened windows
• Good search
• Autocomplete for various programming languages
• Index of all functions in current view.
  … ect

Thanx

Hi theuros,

Whether it’s worth it or not is a completely personal opinion. There are a number of plugins for ST (and other editors as well) to make editing in your language of choice easier, faster, and more convenient. Most of these are free or offer a free trial. Unfortunately, I’m not a front end / web developer, so I can’t offer any specific recommendations (though I’m sure others will be able to). The nice thing about ST is the free version doesn’t actually limit your editing capabilities, you just get a pop up from time to time.

As for your must have points, I feel like ST meets all the requirements (though sometimes in a limited capacity without additional plugins).

• Color coding is based on TextMate language definitions and a theme file.
• Unsure what you mean by window management. To me, management at a window level is not related to the editor itself, but the window manager for your system. If you mean view/tab management, the GoTo functionality is useful (ctrl+p on windows super+p on mac)
• Good search is also kind of vague to me, but ST has a search functionality like many other editors.
• Auto complete is not intelligent by default as it well prompt from almost every token in your source files. There are of course ways to enhance this through plugins such as SublimeCodeIntel
• All the functions in the view can be navigated to using the GoTo Anything prompt. Simply enter “@” in the prompt or use ctrl+r or super+r

Some common benefits of ST can be found at scotch.io/bar-talk/best-of-subli … d-settings. There are a number of other posts on the forum as well as on other blogs (google search), so I won’t list them all.

As I said before, it’s a completely personal opinion. Try the editor out along with some plugins and decide for yourself if it’s “worth it”. I’d also recommend trying ST3 as some plugins are not ST2 compatible and it is the latest version. If you feel it’s worth it, then purchase it. I also feel that periodically using it will not yield very good results. Though I don’t feel the learning curve is as steep as say VIM or Emacs, some of the gains in productivity come from shortcuts, keybindings, etc becoming muscle memory. If you’re having to constantly stop and think about what to do next, then it’ll likely feel slower than an editor you are familiar with.

In terms of why pay, I think it’s important to remember that jon (the developer) and kari (on support) spend their timing developing a product for us to use. If you feel it’s enhancing your development experience, it is worth supporting them. After all, I’m sure as a fellow developer, you would appreciate being paid for the work you do. Also keep in mind that the NetBeans is an Oracle product. So although you aren’t paying for the editor, those developers are being compensated for the work they do. As an open source project, Notepad++ is developed by a community of developers. Because they find it worthwhile, they may be working on it in addition to another job. One can also donate to the project, though I don’t know how that is handled. With that being said it’s probably also worth reiterating that ST doesn’t actually force you to purchase a license, though it will nag you about it.

Thanx for your reply.

I know that SE meets more or less all points mentioned. I just wanted to point out that I didn’t saw any real benefit over free editors. If anyone has some recommendations what plugins to install to get better experience I will appreciate it.

By “window managemen” I ment opened documents. SE is good at this with groups and columns… I just miss the ability to enlarge the focused view automatically.

I installed SE3 and I’ll give it a try more deeply… and maybe I will see some benefits over free alternatives. Anway … if I’ll start using it in weekly basis, then I’ll buy it for sure.

Sublime Text’s biggest advantage is it’s extensability and the plugin ecosystem available for it. Notepad++ feels archaic in comparison now that I’ve used it so much. If there’s any editor out there worth looking at aside from Sublime it’d be Atom and then the standbys Vim and Emacs.

Atom is bloatware. Based on a web browser, seriously?

GVim has quite a different taste than Sublime Text; but I’ve been trying to simulate most of Sublime Text’s features in Emacs during the past few months. (Learning Lisp the hard way.) While I surely can’t simulate the same look and feel, I’d consider GNU Emacs to be a decent alternative to Sublime Text. (Plus, it’s highly unlikely to “die” before Sublime Text does.)

[quote=“theuros”]Hello,
I’ve done a project in CodeIgniter using Sublime text 2 and in that time I didn’t see “sublime potential” or some very good reason to spend 70$ on text editor. Don’t get me wrong, price isn’t too high… I just can do any job with Notepad++ or Netbeans which are both free. I checked out few tutotrials for sublime and use it once in a while for the past year, but I see it like “just another editor”.
Thanx[/quote]

I’m a customer as 70 bucks isn’t that much.

However, I have a love/hate relationship with Sublime. It’s nice when it works, but there’s also some weird bugs and since I don’t have the code I can’t fix it and thus have to wait until jps does it (and he doesn’t seem to read the issue tracker, alas.)

Not everything can be fixed with python plugins.

Unless ST is open sourced, I might actually switch back to jedit. Just as fast, just as extensible and open source. It’s not as pretty, but I no longer care.

Take a look at the plugin called Origami. It will allow you to set percentages to resize panels to as you change focus. So you can automatically make the current focus bigger than the other panels.

[quote=“stikker”]
Unless ST is open sourced, I might actually switch back to jedit. Just as fast, just as extensible and open source. It’s not as pretty, but I no longer care.[/quote]

I googled jedit out of curiosity. This is the first screenshot on their website:
jedit.org/index.php?page=screenshot&image=36

[quote=“quodlibet”]

[quote=“stikker”]
Unless ST is open sourced, I might actually switch back to jedit. Just as fast, just as extensible and open source. It’s not as pretty, but I no longer care.[/quote]

I googled jedit out of curiosity. This is the first screenshot on their website:
jedit.org/index.php?page=screenshot&image=36[/quote]

And here’s the second:
jedit.org/index.php?page=screenshot&image=35

What’s your point?

I agree it’s not as pretty as ST, but it’s more extensible and even faster for large files. And the fact that I have the source makes me think about going back.

NOTE: I’d like to add that I’d still pay 70 bucks for ST if it was open source/commercial dual licensed, and most fans would I imagine.

Don’t mind me, I was just being flippant.

Though for my uses – web design and creative writing – I prefer a subtler UI.

I’m not thinking of abandoning Sublime – too fond of it, despite its warts – but if I was, I’d make another attempt at Vim.

Cheers,
Alex

Edit: typo

On the subject of jEdit, I was a long time user of jEdit (over a decade in fact), and at one time hosted the official FTP site (before Slava moved the repository and releases to Sourceforge). In fact I still install it on my computers, especially windows machines. But, I haven’t fired it up to edit text in years. Part of that was the performance in a virtual machine or via remote desktop. There was a noticeable lag in typing when I was working in those types of environments, so I went in search of editors that were more “native”.

I have no problems with performance in virtual machines. jedit is also considerably faster than sublime on large files.

jEdit is ugly once you try to change the theme.

Last few days I used ST3 more often and I can see some of great features, but still … is not worth the price.

in my opinion, if the price was 40 $, I and a lot more other people would buy it without hesitation…

[quote=“theuros”]Last few days I used ST3 more often and I can see some of great features, but still … is not worth the price.

in my opinion, if the price was 40 $, I and a lot more other people would buy it without hesitation…[/quote]

I’m sorry, the price probably is not going to change.

[quote=“theuros”]Last few days I used ST3 more often and I can see some of great features, but still … is not worth the price.

in my opinion, if the price was 40 $, I and a lot more other people would buy it without hesitation…[/quote]

There are developer tools that are in the multi-hundred or thousand range. $70 is a very low price for something you will use every day.

You are, of course, entitled to your opinion but my opinion is that you are mistaken.

The difference between $40 and $70 is not really meaningful for someone who has $40 to spend on a text editor.

As you point out, there are a bunch of editors out there that are competent for free. To put my hand in my pocket for any money is a big decision. Once I have my wallet out I am not going to be swayed much by the difference between $40 and $70.

For me, in my spoilt 1st world existence, the difference is not meaningful. When I bought ST2 it was less than $50 ($48 maybe?) and people were then suggesting $20 as a better price. If $30 matters to people (and it does to a lot of people) then $40 or $20 is still a huge hurdle and not meaningfully different to $48 or $70.

To put things in perspective, I have spent something like $170 worth of billable time reading and commenting on just this forum in the last 24 hours. Worth every cent, in my opinion, but not free and way more cost than the suggested change in the price of ST or even the full price of ST. That calculation is not the same for everyone.

Sublime text is a great editor, but if I were you, I’d only pay if development would pick up again. Otherwise you’d be throwing money at a dead product.

How many updates in which time period are required for you to not call a software “dead”?

This is bizarre. Not only has there been a bunch of updates recently (not all of them welcome to my taste) but it is a text editor.

What innovation do you want in a text editor? It helps you work with text. What is the new killer feature you are expecting to be delivered?

If jps never released another change and ST kept working on upcoming OS releases what would make it dead? TextMate stalled for years and yet remained and remains a very fine editor.

Last point, is $70 really an amount of money that requires you to see it as an investment where you have to consider the amortised value over a period of years? If it is then have a long hard think of learning vim or emacs instead because they are truly great and absolutley free tools. If $70 is not really that big a deal for you when you take a deep breath, count to 10, and think about it, then get over yourself, relax a bit more and let yourself enjoy things that make you smile and give back to those who help you smile. Life’s too short to stress over the little things.