When comparing Kakoune vs Write!, the Slant community recommends Kakoune for most people. In the question“What are the best text editors for UNIX-like systems?” Kakoune is ranked 9th while Write! is ranked 22nd. The most important reason people chose Kakoune is:
Kakoune first started as a rewrite from scratch of vim, but then ended up being another text editor altogether. So it's inspired in a lot of ways from vim.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Will be familiar to vim users
Kakoune first started as a rewrite from scratch of vim, but then ended up being another text editor altogether. So it's inspired in a lot of ways from vim.
Pro More modern than vim
Pro Good UNIX citizen
It follows the UNIX philosophy by doing one thing well (text editing) and interfaces nicely with other CLI tools.
Pro Text selection mechanism
Kakoune works on selections, which are oriented, inclusive range of characters, selections have an anchor and a cursor character. Most commands move both of them, except when extending selection where the anchor character stays fixed and the cursor one moves around.
Pro Very expressive
Kakoune provides a very expressive set of commands, including various objects selection (paragraph, blocks, words), alignment support, conditional selection filtering...
This set of command is expressive enough to implement all the provided auto indentation logic.
Pro Actively developed and supported
Pro Self-documenting
A helper pops up when typing commands.
Pro Simpler and more consistent than Vim
Some keys select, other keys operate on the selections. Shift
is used to extend the selection, alt
is used for alternative behavior, e.g. reverse the search direction. No inconsistencies like Y
which means yy
and not y$
in Vim.
Pro Allows easily switching between working on multiple files
Write! has tabs at the top and a tree view on the left that allows quickly switching between different files.
Pro Interface doesn't get in the way of work
The interface is minimal, when it's windowed there are no buttons or toolbars, so it doesn't distract from work. When it's in fullscreen, there's just text, no interface at all.
Pro Endless undo/redo
Write! uses a file format that saves all versions of a document. Meaning even if the app is closed and then opened up again, Write! can restore any previous version of the document.
Pro Can double as a to-do list app
Write! has a to-do list mode that allows creating lists of items in groups (tabs) that can be ticked off when completed.
Pro Picks up where you left off next time you start the app
Write! saves the state that it's in when closed and restores that state when opened. You can pick up working on documents in the exact same place you left off - same documents open, same cursor placement, etc.
Cons
Con Small community
Con No real Windows support
Will compile under CygWin.
Con Default bindings do not play nice with OS X (Alt+???)
Con Written in C++
Con You need to login to the App, and it reconnects to their server
There is no offline use.
Con Not free
There are free markdown editors for windows, this is not one of them.
Con Needs better folder document management like Ulysses
Con Needs nested folders
Con Bad MarkDown features
Not worth $20, the markdown editor sucks.
Con In beta
The app is not yet complete. A lot of the promised functionality is not yet implemented.