UltraEdit makes the leap to Mac OS X
UltraEdit for Mac was officially released this month. A favorite of Windows developers, UltraEdit was first released in 1994 as one of the earliest "Notepad" replacement text editors for programmers on Windows.
When you use your computer for programming, you live in your text editor. Mac developers love TextMate's project management and plug-ins, BBEdit's built-in code validation, or its freeware sibling TextWrangler's fantastic find and replace. For web development, I use Coda with built in syntax highlighting, source code versioning and a CSS editing mode.
But for Windows users, switching from Windows to Mac has meant giving up a favorite Windows editor, which can feel disorienting. TUAW readers who switched from Windows have been wanting UltraEdit for years, some even running Windows in a VM (virtual machine) just for their text editor. Back in 2007, reader Jon Niola commented, "As a switcher, the app I miss most on Windows is UltraEdit ... I wrote to IDM (makers of UltraEdit) to ask them if they were ever going to port to OS X and ... it sounds like it is something they are headed towards eventually."
After 15 years, it's here.
UltraEdit for Mac is a true native Mac app using the OS X look and feel, but you can customize the interface to your preferences. I replaced the default Courier with Snow Leopard's Menlo, while switchers may prefer Microsoft's Consolas.
UltraEdit offers advanced find and replace functionality, such as column-based find and replace, both inside and across files. Unlike most editors that support searching only open files, UltraEdit will search directories and subdirectories, with support for regular expressions (Perl and Unix flavors). You can edit on remote FTP/SFTP servers with the built-in FTP client and FTP account manager. It even offers a built-in hex editor.
Developers who have to work across Mac, Windows and/or Linux will be especially happy about the multi-platform license with unlimited updates, so they can run UltraEdit on all three platforms and never pay for upgrades again.
"UltraEdit does just about everything I've ever wanted to do with an editor and now it does it natively on all platforms. That's pretty important for me because at home I mostly use Linux. On the road I mostly use OS X. I sometimes use VMs with Windows. Having an editor that works natively in all three environments is great," writes Tim Hall of the Oracle Base blog.
UltraEdit for Mac has been released as version 2.0, with most of the same features as the Windows version 16.x. There's also a Linux version at 1.2 released earlier this year, expected to reach feature parity this spring. The Mac development team is currently working on the next implementation of features and enhancements, with an aggressive update schedule planned for the beginning of 2011.
UltraEdit for Mac runs on all OS X systems 10.5 and later (Leopard and Snow Leopard), with support for Intel-based processors only. You can buy the Mac version for US$79 or a multi-platform license for $99.95, switch from a Windows version to Mac for $49.95, or upgrade the Windows version to multi-platform for $79.95. Though this is the first Mac release, UltraEdit for Mac was tested by nearly 4,500 beta testers, and new users get a 30 day free trial and a 100 percent money back guarantee.
You can download UltraEdit for Mac here.
