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Bare Bones Celebrates 10th Anniversary

An anonymous user writes, "Bare Bones, makers of BBEdit, 'celebrates 3650 days of saving your ass' (according to the new t-shirt) with the the BBEdit Anthology, a limited edition autographed CD with every final commercial release of BBEdit, plus the free versions as 'bonus tracks.' Liner notes are included." It's $250, comes with a BBEdit 7 license, and only 1,000 were produced. OK, the price is a little steep, but it's a collector's item. And the company is also offering a 10% discount on any product orders through June 30, so it is only $225! I still remember the first time I saw BBEdit, a Mac text editor, and I thought, "what, like a word processor?" Some things never change ...

26 of 81 comments (clear)

  1. Pricey by colonel.sys · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yes, BB is pretty cool. But:

    I had used the Lite version for quite a while and when they started charging for that, Hydra came along and made me switch (http://hydra.globalse.org) -- pretty cool program. Group-Editing with Rendezvous, freeware and such.

    Just waiting for Apple to get their Finder-FTP working with read/write!

    --
    We are all individualists!
    1. Re:Pricey by dogzilla · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I agree that BBEdit is getting a little pricey, but Hydra really isn't comparable to BBEdit yet. It has some cool features, and certainly shows a lot of promise, but comparing any current version of BBEdit to Hydra at this point just makes Hydra look like "My First Text Editor".

      I'd gladly consider an alternative to BBEdit (especially if someone could replicate the Allaire Homesite file-management and tabbed editing interface on the Mac (why is this so hard? Does noone else find it annoying to have 15 windows open at the same time?). If that alternative turns out to be Hydra, so much the better since I dig it's collaborative features. But right now Hydra's basically a one-trick pony - it's TextEdit with Rendezvous and syntax coloring. Seems to me it needs way more functionality before it can stand next to BBEdit (compare the two search/replace windows for a quick example of how far Hydra needs to go).

      --
      The crimes of eBay are a disgrace to it's pig latin heritage!
    2. Re:Pricey by kosibar · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The two features I find the most important in a text editor are FTP and tabbed editing. I often find that I have 10 windows open for one project, and a couple of windows for another project that a customer called me about and I'm waiting for a call back... gets to be a mess! (Especially when two of them are the same filename from a different site.)

      Having a separate window for each project I have open, then tabs for the individual files, would be absolutely perfect! Heck, I'd even pay the $250 ($225) to get that CD if it were the only way to get it. It's that valueable to me.

      Of course, the FTP features wouldn't mean much if Apple fixed their built-in FTP. The BBEdit FTP features are weak anyway - I can't even make a new folder in the browser. And I find that saving a file can be dreadfully slow sometimes, where Transmit can upload in the blink of an eye.

      I like BBEdit overall, though I tend to find the interface to be a little clumsy. It has some very useful text editing features, like zapping gremlins, hard wrapping text, changing case, etc. Things that every text editor should have.

      Rich

    3. Re:Pricey by Feral+Bueller · · Score: 2, Informative
      You can still get BBEdit Lite -- it's just harder to find:

      http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/vs_ Lite.shtml

      It's also stuck on Version 6.1 apparently.

      --
      - learn to swim.
    4. Re:Pricey by pudge · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I love using Interarchy for edit via FTP, especially now that it does SFTP. It has a feature to "Edit with BBEdit," and automatically saves changes when you save in BBEdit. Much nicer than using BBEdit's built-in FTP (which I used before this feature was added to Interarchy).

    5. Re:Pricey by kuwan · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Especially if someone could replicate the... tabbed editing interface on the Mac why is this so hard?

      It's not that it's hard to do, it's that it's not the Mac way to do it, it's the Windows way. I, for one, prefer this "Mac way" since I am usually editing more than one file at a time when I develop and I like to have two or three windows open side-by-side, rather than having to click on a tab to see another file. I like to be able to see more than one file at a time.

      This is how it's always been on the Mac an it's how I prefer it. This way is also in line with a spatial user interface (one window for every document, not one window for many documents) which may be one reason why many people prefer it.

    6. Re:Pricey by WeirdKid · · Score: 2, Informative

      $179 is quite high for this sort of thing. But it's got a loyal following from the early Mac days that will pay (or at least talk their bosses into paying). I wonder how many people would shell out the cash if it came out of their own pocket? I'm sure there are some who do, but not me. In this vein, it's a lot like IntelliJ or SlickEdit.

      When the freeware 6.1 version for OSX started getting crashy, I switched to JEdit. Ant and CVS integration, autocompletion, code refactoring, you-name-it plugins. It's cross platform and open source!

  2. BBEdit is great for writing HTML... by gdarklighter · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ...which is why I'll save the $250 for web hosting costs.

  3. BBedit going out with a bang? by jeeves99 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Web-design has evolved into its own art form. More and more webpages are popping up with elaborate layering schemes and graphical widgets. Toss in some php scripts and you've created a beautiful mess that one could never code by hand.

    Along this vein, does BBedit stand a chance any more? I for one have switched to Dreamweaver. When I need to edit the source, dreamweaver has a more than adequete color-schemed text interface.

    I admit this limited-CD release is a really cool idea, but it rings a little too loud as a final hurrah of an obsolete product.

    1. Re:BBedit going out with a bang? by pudge · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't think you understand BBEdit. BBEdit was a great program before it had any built-in HTML functionality, and it still used by many people who never, or rarely, use it to write HTML. I'd be surprised if most people who used it, used it primary for HTML. I highly doubt it.

      BBEdit is a fine program for people who want to code their HTML "by hand," but it is much better as a general developer's text editor, which is what it was before, and always will be.

    2. Re:BBedit going out with a bang? by michaelggreer · · Score: 4, Informative

      I've been coding my pages in xhtml and css, so the layout is separated from the content. When making JSPs for such pages, BBEdit has been wonderful, and Dreamweaver is useless. Dreamweaver is great for some kinds of pages, but is incredibly slow and buggy on the Mac. I mean, terrible. BBEdit just does what it claims, and I have used it since its inception.

    3. Re:BBedit going out with a bang? by jcbphi · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Some would argue that in the long run, when your beautiful mess isn't rendering properly and its time to debug your HTML+CSS+PHP+who-knows-what, you may regret not knowing the intricacies of your code.

      Having used Dreamweaver (and few other visual editors) in the past, I doubt its ability to create a working site that I could not create by hand. Sure it speeds a lot of things up a lot, but so does the HTML tag templates built into BBEdit

      While Dreamweaver does offer a window for editing source directly, I would never call it adequate. Just because you can edit text does not mean its a substitute for a full blown text editor. (Does anyone know if Dreamweaver can use an external editor? I don't remember.)

    4. Re:BBedit going out with a bang? by Arkham · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I do use BBEdit for HTML now and then, but 99% of the time I'm using it to write java, perl, python, or shell script. BBEdit is a multipurpose editor, and different people use it for different things.

      The "edit over ftp" feature is what keeps me using it. I know Windows tools like Visual SlickEdit offer these features, but I am so productive with BBEdit that it's hard to consider anything else.

      --
      - Vincit qui patitur.
    5. Re:BBedit going out with a bang? by Hawthorne01 · · Score: 2, Funny
      (Does anyone know if Dreamweaver can use an external editor? I don't remember.)

      Yes. And it's called BBEdit. ;-) .

      --
      "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
    6. Re:BBedit going out with a bang? by self+assembled+struc · · Score: 3, Informative

      Nor, do I think you work on a LOT of websites. I'm the senior web developer for the also-ran search engine, and without BBEdit and OS X, i'd scream.

      BBEdit lets you do GREP-based search and replace across multiple open files, files in a directory, has code clean up options and the such.

      I write all of my code in BBEdit, JS, CSS,XHTML, PHP, whatever...layers, multiple frames..whatever. It's still the best text editor i've ever used, bar none

    7. Re:BBedit going out with a bang? by raju1kabir · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Web-design has evolved into its own art form. More and more webpages are popping up with elaborate layering schemes and graphical widgets. Toss in some php scripts and you've created a beautiful mess that one could never code by hand.

      Not to be insulting, but the only people I know who don't code by hand are hacks who don't have to or aren't able to create complex, long-term maintainable sites.

      Doing it with the GUI just doesn't scale, once you get past the Photoshop/Imageready stage.

      --
      "Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
    8. Re:BBedit going out with a bang? by JJahn · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Never code by hand? I regularly do code complex websites using php and such by hand. Tried Dreamweaver but I couldn't stand it. Kind of a personal preference thing i think.

  4. Waiting For Apple FTP by ihatewinXP · · Score: 3, Insightful

    -Just waiting for Apple to get their Finder-FTP working with read/write!-

    Jesus Christ I should make that my sig! How in hell can Apple have a built in FTP client that wont say.....upload files or play nice with just about anyhting? For the love of god Apple, dont include things that dont work and are only going to irritate me (cough iCal 1.0 cough). Its hard to tout a feature only to say "yeah its great, i have a built in FTP client, seamless with the finder! whats that? does it work? well no, but its there!"

    I know this is mad offtopic but I banged my head against the finder ftp for too long to not add my 2 cents.

    --
    ---- The real Slashdot is still here. You just have to browse at -1 to read the comments.
  5. Re:3650, or 3652 by davesag · · Score: 3, Interesting
    1996 and 2000 are the only two leap years in the last 10 years, so yes it should be 3652 days of saving our arses,

    Now if BBEdit could only add langauge sensitive auto completion and contextual menu based x-reffing of java docs (you know crtl click on a method to open the java source it is defined in at that method) and add parsing of ant scripts such that the targets appear in the function list I'd be even happier and it would stop bastard eclipse users from taunting me.

    real mac java programmers use bbedit and the terminal after all.

    --
    I used to have a better sig than this, but I got tired of it
  6. Re:Question by jcbphi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The full version of BBEdit offers quite a lot over BBEdit Lite (which is not much more than a plain text editor). See BBEdit Feature List for a real list of features, but suffice to say BBEdit has enough to be a real coding environment (so long as auto-completion is not your bread and butter).

    As for BBEdit vs. vim, they really are two very different pieces of software. vim is quite a lot more powerful, and is infinitely more configurable. However, I find BBEdit offers a much easier environment to work in. Forgetting a command never involves looking through a help file or manpage, and for light jobs its simple enough for my mother to use.

    Also, BBEdit has always been the best text editor with a "Mac experience" (standard UI, file handing, etc). Without a cleaned up interface, vim and emacs are second class citizens in much of the Mac world, despite being much more powerful text editors. This alone was enough to make it a worthwhile pruchase for me (though I only paid the academic price).

  7. I have to disagree. by BoomerSooner · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I only use textpad on linux and windows (linux via wine) and the only editor I like on mac is dreamweaver. Granted you have to close all the extranious bs they have open but if you set it up as a text editor with syntax highlighting it works well.

    I code in jsp and asp primarily. I still prefer textpad to all other editors though. The cursor placement and block select modes I cannot live without (and it's only like $30).

    1. Re:I have to disagree. by ins0m · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You can get a lot of the same in vim, if you're willing to learn the keystrokes. I know visual block mode has saved my bacon many a time when tearing through extended sections of LISP or C.

      --
      Never attribute to Hanlon that which can be adequately attributed to Heinlein.
  8. Comes with Chocolat by WatertonMan · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Hey, not only did it come in the mail today, but it came with Chocolat with some exclusive chocolat from this Berkeley company. Great! Plus I didn't have to pay for it! (The folks at BBEdit sent it to me for free since we'd submitted some code *way* back)

  9. Edit by FTP by kosibar · · Score: 2, Informative

    Transmit has a similar feature, but I haven't looked into how it works yet. I think I'll have to take a look at that. Thanks for the tip!

    Still no tabs, though. :-(

  10. Re:Question by Phroggy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    As for BBEdit vs. vim, they really are two very different pieces of software. vim is quite a lot more powerful, and is infinitely more configurable.

    OK, follow-up question: in what ways is vim more powerful and more configurable than BBEdit? BBEdit has more features than I could ever think of, and is reasonably configurable (menus are very configurable, and you can make plugins and scripts for it). I don't use vim; what am I missing?

    --
    $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
    $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
  11. More than 10 years by h3 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Looking at the timeline, the 10 years refers to the commercial releases of BBEdit, which began in 1993 at v2.5x.

    I recall using it for a programming class in college ca. '89-'90, so it's been already a bit longer than that. Probably longer than some slashdotters have been around :p.

    I also remember reading the README that came with the original freeware BBEdit, where Rich proclaimed that BBEdit will always and forever be FREE (as in beer).

    For whatever that's worth.

    -h3