Recs.
Updated
Sublime Text, while being a lightweight text editor, provides powerful IDE-like features, Python scripting, and the ability to customize every aspect of the editor itself, letting users code and refactor with speed and efficiency.
SpecsUpdate
Pros
Pro Lightweight
Sublime Text is very lightweight by default. Customization occurs on the fly thanks to Package Control.
Pro Multi-line select and editing
Multiple cursors and column selection allows for versatile ways of editing.ctrl + d
will select the current word and each time the command is repeated, it adds the next occurrence of the word to the selection.ctrl + click
or middle-mouse click
will place another cursor in the place that's clicked. Cursors can then be controlled together. This also permits selecting vertically.ctrl + shift + l
will place a cursor on every highlighted line.
Pro Functionality can be easily extended
Sublime Text uses TextMate's syntax declaration files to support new languages, it has all its menus and keybindings generated from JSON files, and it can be scripted to add new features using Python.
If Sublime Text doesn't support a desired language or feature, it's usually not long before someone implements it themselves - examples include the plugin package manager and the 'open in browser' command.
Pro Beginner-friendly
When you start using Sublime Text, it doesn't drown you in keyboard shortcuts or non-intuitive use-concepts. However, high-level functionality can still be easily accessed when the need for it arises.
Pro Fully customizable
Sublime Text allows for all sorts of customization to help users change almost everything in the editor: Key Bindings, Menus, Snippets, Macros, Completions, and many more. Essentially, just about everything in Sublime Text is customizable with simple JSON files. This system gives the user flexibility as settings can be specified on a per-file type and per-project basis.
Pro IDE features without the cruft
Sublime Text, while being lighter-weight than an IDE, still supports many IDE features.
- Text from the current file is used to provide autocomplete.
- Project Support (folder browsing, scoped history, build-system declarations).
- Refactoring support is emulated through multi-select, project-wide find and replace, and regular expression search.
- Syntax-aware selection and GoTo for quickly jumping to locations in the project.
- Snippets and Macros.
- A Python console for everything else.
Pro Functionalities
With lot of functionalities, where other editor even not think to provide.
Cons
Con Proprietary
Sublime Text protects and copyrights its code and is thus not the freedom-ware some would like it to be.
Con Loading big files on Windows is slow
Here's a rough comparison: a 70 MB file takes about 2 seconds to load in Notepad++, whereas the same file in ST3 takes over 10 seconds to load.
Con No toolbar
Sublime Text is more focused on keyboard users, meaning it doesn't come with a tool bar. Even plugins can't toggle bookmarks using the mouse.
Con Often crashes due to poor quality plugins
Some plugins are quite buggy, meaning that installing many can become quite a problem regarding stability.
Recommendations
Comments
Flagged Pros + Cons
Con Shareware
Many users tend to forget it, but it is a shareware, with a nag prompt reminding the user should pay for this software. It is not a problem (the company must have a source of income), but it is something to consider when most of the alternatives are free.
Con Nagware
It periodically nags the user to pay money for a license that buys the user remarkably little, relative to other editors.
Out of Date Pros + Cons
Con Infrequent updates
Updates to the app have come to an average of every 6 months.
Con No default package manager
Sublime Text doesn't have a default package manager. Instead, users have to install a free third-party solution to manage add-ons.