Bare Bones Software launches TextWrangler 4.5 with Retina support and more

Since the release of BBEdit 10.5 last fall, Bare Bones Software has been working on bringing some of its features -- including support for Retina displays -- to its free text editor, TextWrangler. Today, those efforts have resulted in the release of TextWrangler 4.5, still free and sporting a number of enhancements brought over from its for-pay sibling.

Retina support, Bare Bones tells us, was something users have been requesting since mere seconds after the announcement of the MacBook Pro with Retina display. As it turns out, implementing the feature is a fairly massive undertaking, requiring significant changes to large portions of TextWrangler's core -- all for something that non-Retina users will never see. Still, the work's been done, and Retina fans will definitely appreciate the results.

All users will see a refreshed document view, which borrows from the one introduced in BBEdit 10.5 and features a sidebar providing quick access to open and recently opened documents. Lion users can now run TextWrangler fullscreen, while everyone will get a new preferences screen, switchable color-coding schemes, file versioning using save points and a Go menu offering user-set navigation points through a history of document changes.

You can see the full list of enhancements at the Bare Bones site. TextWrangler 4.5 can be downloaded directly from the developer or via the Mac App Store.