
Several non-editing windows also gain improved interfaces and capabilities. (When I jokingly suggested to Rich Siegel of Bare Bones that the default should be green text on black to match monochrome monitors of the early 1980s, he wryly demurred, noting that he wasn’t a pre-teen anymore.) And because it’s apparently what new users expect, the BBEdit Dark color scheme is now the factory default for those getting started with BBEdit, although anyone can change that in the Text Colors preference pane. Dark color schemes now color the sidebar and other chrome to match, rather than just the editing window. Contextual menus now even include services!Īlthough BBEdit 12 looks and works as it always has for the most part, Bare Bones modernized and improved specific parts of the interface. For instance, BBEdit can now take advantage of intrinsic macOS features like Split View, and some controls now rely on system versions rather than custom implementations. That’s work that users seldom see, but there are a few improvements that you might notice.

That history means that a great deal of thought went into the changes for last week’s release of BBEdit 12, the most significant update since BBEdit 11 came out in 2014.Īs with any product that has been around for 25 years, there was a lot of old code in BBEdit, and one of the primary goals for BBEdit 12 was to modernize its code base. A major interface overhaul might be fun or seem necessary, but if it prevents users from getting their work done, even temporarily, it’s problematic.įew apps have been around as long as Bare Bones Software’s BBEdit, which has been the best-known text editor on the Mac since it was first released in 1992. That’s especially true for productivity apps that diehard users rely on all day, every day - it’s vital that changes avoid causing confusion. The longer an app has been around, the harder it is to update because there are only so many changes that make sense. Modernized BBEdit 12 Manipulates Columnar Data and More #1643: New Mac mini and MacBook Pro models, new second-gen HomePod, security-focused OS updates, industry layoffs.#1644: Explaining Mastodon and the Fediverse, HomePod Software 16.3 and tvOS 16.3, GoTo breach.#1645: AirPlay iPhone to Mac for remote video, Siri learns to restart iPhones, Apple's Q1 2023 financials.
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1647: Focus-caused notification issues, site-specific browser examples, virtualizing Windows on M-series Macs.
