From: David Empson on
John <jwolf6589(a)NOSPAMgmail.com> wrote:

> Been using TextWrangler and its quite nice. Is BBEdit much nicer?

The basic user interface is identical. BBEdit adds a lot more features.
(TextWrangler is a cut-down version of BBEdit with those extra features
removed.)

Most of the extra features are related to programming, such as syntax
colouring (recognising keywords in programming languages) and
integration with version control systems like CVS or Subversion.

BBEdit also adds a lot of features for web authoring (HTML and CSS).

Have a look at the BareBones web site. Near the bottom of this page is a
"TextWrangler vs. BBEdit vs. BBEdit Lite" heading, with links to three
other pages that summarise BBEdit's advantages over TextWrangler.

http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/

[Note: followups to comp.sys.mac.apps only as this isn't a "system"
question.]
--
David Empson
dempson(a)actrix.gen.nz
From: Erik Richard Sørensen on

John wrote:
> Been using TextWrangler and its quite nice. Is BBEdit much nicer? What
> are your views on it? I think how TextWrangler can open my HTML file and
> save directly to the server in a selected directory so I dont have to
> spend the time to open my FTP client. This is something that both
> Komposer and Sea Monkey are weak in.

Well, John, I think it's how one would define it. - Textwrangler is the
free and limited version of BBEdit - or maybe better, - Textwrangler is
the successor of BBEdit Lite 6.x.

You can read and write HTML in both BBEdit and Textwrangler, you can add
all the many plug-ins around to Textwrangler as well as to BBEdit, but
not all of those plug-ins will work in Textwrangler - only in BBEdit.
You can use quite many of the old carbonized plug-ins with BBEdit, but
these plug-ins won't work with Textwrangler.

And here the 'funny' thing comes in - quite many of those carbonized
plug-ins also work with the BBEdit Lite 6.x, and that's why I've kept
using the BBEdit Lite as long as possible, because those plug-ins work
in both the OS 9.x and OS X version of BBEdit Lie 6, so it is not
necessary to take care neither which plaform you're working on. - But if
you use Textwrangler on OS X and BBEdit Lite on an older OS 9.2.2, which
I do regularely, you cannot be sure that a Textwrangler document - even
if it's been saved in HTML will open 100% kcorrectly in BBEdit Lite for
OS 9.x.... - I do have the full BBEdit 8.5, but I have stopped upgrading
it, since I don't use it that much anymore - only a bit for editing some
compiled string files when I'm translating applications from English to
Danish.

Else when just translating HTML documents I mostly now use the SeaMonkey
2.x Composer, and this works very fine - also because you can set your
own font and size when working WYSIWYG in the Composer but without
risking to change the _real_ used font and size in the HTML document.

I'm not sure whether I understand your problems with SeaMonkey Composer
or not. - I don't have any problems saving HTML - or other of the
built-in formats - over a network to quite another computer on that
network, so if it's this you mean, there are no problems doing that.

But if you mean to save a HTML file _directly_ to an active webpage by
using a plug-in like "Save to Web" (BBEdit plug-in) to a webpage on an
online server hosted outside your place - and therefore also not
connected to your local network, it isnot possible with Textwrangler or
SeaMonkey Composer. - I have this plug-in somewhere for BBEdit, but the
compouter, where it is, is out of work for the moment, so I can't even
try it if it'll work with BBEdit 8.5, but if I remember right, it is a
carbonized plug-in, so it should be possible - at least on OS X
10.2.8-10.4.11.

But when this said, I will not recommend to save directly to an active
webpage, unless the page is built to have this feature. It might corrupt
the whole page and the webpage saved to could simply break down. So it's
always best to save to a local folder containing the whole page and
thereafter upload the full 'webpage' to replace the existing one.

So if it's the last few features you're looking for...well, I don't
think it's worth the money spent on BBEdit 9.x. But if it's because you
want to really make things easier, faster and more automated throuygh
plug-ins, BBEdit is the best tool, but the learning curve using BBEdit
is somewhat steep. - So if I were you, I'd keep on using and learning
first of all Textwrangler and use that one combined with SeaMonkey
Composer, since the Composer does have the full true WYSIWYG read/write,
which Textwrangler doesnot have.

Cheers, Erik Richard

--
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Erik Richard Sørensen, Member of ADC, <mac-manNOSP(a)Mstofanet.dk>
NisusWriter - The Future In Multilingual Text Processing - www.nisus.com
OpenOffice.org - The Modern Productivity Solution - www.openoffice.org
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