TextMate Wishlist: Five features I wish TextMate had
I love TextMate. I've pretty much given up on IDEs in favor of TextMate's simple yet powerful code editing. I think I've written upwards of nine bundles, some of which are available at my GitHub repo. TextMate one of the few applications that is always running on my Mac.
But there are a few things that I wish TextMate had. Nope -- they're not the usual "I want more code completion" features. They're more generic requests; things that I imagine would improve my day-to-day workflow. <!--break-->
1. Ability to refine project search scope
My projects typically have the usual project directory structure, with doc/, src/, lib/, etc. When I'm searching a project, I'd like to be able to tell TextMate to only search, say, the src/ directory, not doc/, which is cluttered with API documentation that leads to false positives.
2. Split panes
Sometimes I really, really, really want to be able to see two different pieces of code at once. I would LOVE to have support for split panes in TextMate.
3. Syntax highlighting in the bundle editor
I like the bundle editor, but it would be nice to have syntax highlighting within the editor. It feels silly to copy and paste commands from the bundle editor to a normal editor window and then back again.
4. Vertical tabs
I would like to suggest that the following two things are true:
- Most software coding conventions still limit line lengths to substantially less columns than the standard display.
- Most software developers keep LOTS of tabs open at the same time.
I think that some of that extra vertical space could be well utilized with vertical tabs, which could then replace the horizontal tabs.
5. Full-screen mode
I know this sort of thing sparks a love-it-or-hate-it war, but sometimes I really like to use an app in full-screen mode to block out the noise of my desktop. I use OpenOffice this way. I use iTerm2 this way. I'd really like to use TextMate this way.
