Tabbed Editors for OS X?

Posted on by Ashley Bischoff

Though I’m thoroughly enjoying my PowerBook, I’m not yet as productive on it as on my Windows box. It’s just a few niggling apps for which I haven’t yet found equivalents. And, at the top of the list is an editor.

I don’t need much in an editor — one with a tabbed interface along with syntax highlighting for HTML/CSS would be fine. Multiple undo/redo would be even better. But, I can’t find such an editor for OS X. Sure, on Windows, there would be several from which to choose — TextPad is probably the benchmark editor in this category and Crimson Editor (what I use) is freeware but just as good.

I’ve used tabbed editors on Windows for years and I’ve found them very handy. I often have four or five documents open at once — a couple CSS files, perhaps a JavaScript file or two, and a few HTML documents — and having a separate window for each document just feels clumsy to me. They invariably overlap and the filenames in their titlebars end up underneath each other. With tabs, I can see each filename easily and switch between files quickly.

When I first started looking for software for my PowerBook (before it even arrived, even), I penciled-in SubEthaEdit (formerly Hydra) as an interim editor. SubEthaEdit is a freeware editor with syntax highlighting and (as a bonus) Rendezvous support. But, it still didn’t have tabs for multiple documents.

Since finding SubEthaEdit, I’ve searched for other suitable editors, but I couldn’t find even one freeware editor with a tabbed interface. So, for a lack of other options, I figured that I may need to consider shareware/commercial editors as well. In that vein, I went to VersionTracker to peruse their HTML Tools section. I checked every app — shareware or otherwise — I couldn’t find even one with a tabbed interface :-/.

Some may claim that tabs are against Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines, but even Safari supports tabs (however, Apple does frown upon MDI interfaces). So, are tabbed interfaces a new thing to the Mac world or is there some mystical tabbed-editor that’s just been eluding me?

28 thoughts on “Tabbed Editors for OS X?”

  4. I went through the same thing when I switched to Linux… I had the hardest time finding a good tabbed editor with syntax highlighting, because I was limiting my search too narrowly to interfaces with “tabs”. I finally noticed that Kate, which ships standard with KDE, has a great multi-document interface (plus syntax highlighting and plenty other perks), but it uses a listbox instead of tabs. Once I got used to that small difference, I actually prefer the listbox now.

    So… AFAIK Kate doesn’t run on Mac, but maybe you could try expanding your search to types of MDIs other than tabs and come up with something just as good or better.

  5. Alex,

    I see a reoccuring problem: you’re trying to control you powerbook. They don’t take kindly to this. See, linux and unix you need to control. Windows you just need to beat into submission. You must, however, work with your mac to achieve greater happiness and productivity.

  6. Hey there! I’ll agree that BBEdit is a great program, but it could really use the tabs feature. I would absolutely trade my “self-respect” for that. I’ll check back here soon, please post if you find such an editor.

  8. OS X ships with an editor that can use one window for multiple files, it’s not exactly like tabs but you can switch between multiple loaded documents using cmd+opt+left & right. It also has a nifty feature where you can split the view to see two or more files at once, or even multiple views of the same file. It really is a lovely programmers text editor if that’s all you choose to use it for.

    It comes on the developer tools CD. It’s called “Project Builder” or “Xcode”.

  9. Recently I found Smultron at Sourceforge. It features vertical tabs like a sidebar, syntax coloring and code snippets.

    After two minutes of testing it overtopped Subethaedit (for my purposes).

  10. Not exactly tabs, but the project window in TacoHTML has a list of the files in a project and lets you switch between them rather easily.

    Color coded, batch find/replace, cool taco logo…. :D

    http://tacosw.com

  11. oh, btw, cmd grave/tilde (right next to the left shift on the iBook keyboard) will cycle (tab) through open windows….

  13. jext supports tabbed browsing and syntax highlighting. the problem is that is not really an os x application, it is java. it runs fine on os x but it is not an app file unless you get an older version. so you have to have the jre and run jext.jar

    http://www.jext.org

  14. i assume none of you are reading this thread anymore, but just in case i found the supreme editor in jedit. jedit.org

  15. I would probably buy a Mac if I could find a tabbed text editor. My text editor is the most used program.

  17. Belated though this may be, I’d just like to say thanks for your post and the following comments. I too found myself in the market for a tabbed browser and spent too much time randomly googling before finding this page. I’ve found three potential programs in no time flat!

    Thanks and keep up the good work guys.

  19. Last version of BBedit supports tabs, and also supports http/ftp access to files… and there’s a demo version!

    http://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit/new.shtml

    And of course, you can set the command key equivalent you want to go forward and backward between windows in the same application. Just check Keyboard Shortcuts in the Keyboard and Mouse panel in System Preferences…

  21. Thanks for the Smultron link!!

    I just bought a PB15 but just couldn’t find an modern editor for OS X.

    This is perfect.

  22. thank you for a great page that’s googleable! I like Smultron but now I realize that the “other jedit” the Japanese one, has “tabs” inside one file, which is what I really wanted: http://www.artman21.net/product/JeditX/newfeature_E.html

    I’d like a tabbed editor, but I especially need one that’s Word-compatible, and JeditX/Japanese is (Hey, maybe he renamed it because I showed him the other Jedit) (It used to be just Jedit).
    Anne M

  26. BBedit is a very wonderful editor, very powerful and feature rich. But, it also costs $200. I don’t see that as a reasonable price for a text editor. It does now support multiple files in one window using the file list on a side drawer. It also allows opening and saving of remote files via ftp. But the price…

    A reasonable alternative for someone looking for tabs and ftp access might be to use the Smultron editor, which seems simple ans well made, in conjunction with Transmit. Transmit is an ftp app that allows you to open remote files in a local editor. When you use the save command in that local editor, Transmit will save the file to its remote location.

  27. NVU is a Free and Open Source tabbed text editor with many other features. It can be downloaded from http://www.nvu.com. It is released under the Mozilla Public License. gedit is the best tabbed text editor of all time but the darwinports installation is currently broken and the fink installation is not straightforward. Hopefully they will port it so that it can be installed on the mac more easily. Running Linux under Parallels Desktop on an Intel Mac successfully allows the use of gedit. Hopefully the gnome and kde desktops will be ported to Tiger soon so mac users won’t be stuck with cocoa software- it’s nuts.

  28. Does anyone know of a Rexx-friendly Xedit style editor for OS X? Anyone coming from an IBM mainframe will know what I mean.
    At the moment I’m using Kedit under Parallels Desktop (running XP), but I know there’s no chance of Kedit being ported – Kent Downs has retired.
    THE (The Hessling Editor) in Unix is no good. Too clunky, too painful to install, too many dependancies which are also clunky.

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