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Add to SafariWhen comparing nvALT vs aText, the Slant community recommends nvALT for most people. In the question“What are the best power user tools for macOS?” nvALT is ranked 34th while aText is ranked 49th. The most important reason people chose nvALT is:
nvALT has a simple text box at the top (similar to that of a web browser) and when you start typing inside it, nvALT immediately displays a drop-down box of all the notes that contain the text you are searching for. The more you type, the more the search is narrowed down.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Powerful search syntax
nvALT has a simple text box at the top (similar to that of a web browser) and when you start typing inside it, nvALT immediately displays a drop-down box of all the notes that contain the text you are searching for. The more you type, the more the search is narrowed down.
Pro Lightweight
Pro Free
Pro MultiMarkdown 3 support
Has built-in support for MultiMarkdown 3.
Pro Powerful note-taking features
nvALT is not only used for simple text editing but also as a powerful tool for taking notes, TODOs, phone numbers and every other piece of information that can be stored in a plain-text file.
This is because nvALT is not designed only as a tool to write text, but also as a powerful search and organize tool for plain-text files.
Pro Right to Left support
Pro No Update
Pro A snippet can be expanded to plain or styled text and include pictures
Pro Has built-in snippets for common typos
Pro Cheaper than competition
$4.99, cheaper than textExpander ($35)
Pro Compatible with TextExpander snippets
TextExpander snippets can be imported into aText
Pro Works with VMs
Pro Imports from most alternative text expansion apps
aText can import data from TextExpander, TypeIt4Me, SpellCatcherX, Automaton and CSV file.
Pro Has common HTML & JS snippets built-in
Pro Snippets can include editable fields
Pro Data can be synced through cloud storage services
Pro Snippets can include a wide variety of variables
Possible variables include date, time, other snippets, clipboard content, etc.
Cons
Con Not very powerful as far as text editing goes
nvALT's strength is its search feature. It has some basic text-editing features such as cut, paste, find-and-replace and so on. But it doesn't have any advanced text manipulation features available in other editors.
Con Frequent crashes in MacOS Sierra
aText crashes frequently, and the developer is unresponsive. Not clear if app is supported or under current development: last update was in 11/15; last post to aText Facebook page 10/15.
Con Doesn't work in Mojave
The current version, with no issues. In fact, I've never had any issue with it with Mojave, so I assume when Mojave was released, aText was already up to date for it.
Con Long time no update
Seems to be abandoned.
