Recs.
Updated
Sublime Text, while being a lightweight text editor, provides powerful IDE-like features, Python scripting, and the ability to customize every aspect of the editor itself, letting users code and refactor with speed and efficiency.
SpecsUpdate
Pros
Pro Functionality can be easily extended
Sublime Text uses TextMate's syntax declaration files to support new languages, has all its menus and keybindings generated from JSON files, and can be scripted to add new features using Python.
If Sublime Text doesn't support a desired language or feature, it's usually not long before someone implements it themselves - examples include the plugin package manager and the 'open in browser' command.
Pro Multi-line select and editing
Multiple cursors & column selection allow versatile ways of editing.
ctrl + d
will select the current word and each time the command is repeated add the next occurence of the word to the selection.
ctrl + click
or middle-mouse click
will place another cursor in the place that's clicked. Cursors can then be controlled together. This also allows selecting vertically.
Pro IDE features without the cruft
Sublime Text, while being lighter-weight than an IDE, still supports many IDE features.
- Text from the current file is used to provide autocomplete
- Project Support (folder browsing, scoped history, build-system declarations)
- Refactoring support is emulated through multi-select, project-wide find & replace, and regular expression search
- Syntax-aware selection and GoTo for quickly jumping to locations in the project
- Snippets & Macros
- A Python console for everything else
Pro Fully customizable
Sublime Text allows for all sorts of customization to help users change almost everything in the editor: Key Bindings, Menus, Snippets, Macros, Completions, and many more. Essentially, just about everything in Sublime Text is customizable with simple JSON files. This system gives the user flexibility as settings can be specified on a per-file type and per-project basis.
Cons
Con Proprietary
Unlike the Atom editor, Sublime Text protects and copyrights its code and is thus not the freedom-ware some would like it to be.
Although the developer and community that surround Sublime text are incredible supporters of open source, the fact that Sublime text is not open source, and that the development of it has slowed down incredibly, makes it difficult for the community to get involved in maintaining the project. Instead, due to the proprietary nature of Sublime, users are at the mercy of the developer's ability and desire to maintain the project.
Con Infrequent updates
Updates for Sublime Text have become almost nonexistent. Granted, it has been speculated that this is because the developer is currently working on other, more time consuming, projects, but the community as a whole still seems to be concerned that the project is approaching a state of abandonment - especially due to the increasingly popular competitor Atom.
Recommendations
Comments
Flagged Pros + Cons
Con Shareware
Many users tend to forget it, but it is a shareware, with a nag prompt reminding the user should pay for this software. It is not a problem (the company must have a source of income), but it is something to consider when most of the alternatives are free.