sublime-text (1)

Sublime Text Editor 2 Review 2015: The Best Code Editor

Sublime Text 2 is a modern code editor targeted at professional who want to get the most out of their work. The idea of using a text editor or an IDE is a heated topic and can land you in a virtual fight with your fellow programmers. But, understanding how the choice of tools and programming language affect your programming productivity and confidence is important.

Today, we will review one of the most popular text editors out there, the Sublime Text 2.

You may also like

Sublime Text Editor 2 Review 2015: The Best Code Editor

Sublime Text comes with tons of features and we will go through some of those features, one by one. So, why wait? let’s start now!

Constant UI over different Systems

The first feature that I noticed is the same UI over different systems/OS including Mac OS, Windows, and Linux. According to the developers, the software uses a custom cross-platform UI framework, which enables the whole software to render seamlessly over different operating systems.

Simplistic Design: Extremely Persuasive

Programmers choose text editor for one sole reason, simplicity and Sublime text 2 is one prime example of using simplicity. But, Sublime text offers great power under the most simplistic outlook.

Most of the features of Sublime text comes with the support of Sublime Text packages.

Tons of Programming language support

Love Ruby, Python, JavaScript, Scala, X, Y, Z or any new programming language? Sublime Text 2 have all covered. Doesn’t have the programming language you love. You can download the support for the programming language through the package manager support.

Each of the programming languages supports code color and code completion, further enhancing your capability to rule them all.

The Powerful Minimap

1-sublime-text

Sublime Text has a powerful minimap on the right-hand side of the interface for quick navigation of code. The minimap works extremely well with large codes. For example, if your code is 1000 lines long; the side-panel will show the minimap, enabling you to jump to the different section of the code anything with ease and accuracy.

A slight practice with the minimap will enable you to jump to the code you are looking for in just 2-3 clicks. Not bad at all.

Sublime Text is heavily configured to use the keyboard shortcuts and using the mouse on the minimap can slow you down.

You can find a list of sublime text shortcuts here.

The GoTo Anything

cntlp

Sublime Text is giving power to the programmer and if you are working on many projects at the same time, shuffling between files and projects could be the normal norm.

The text editor provides all the necessary functionalities to open up the required file in just few button mashing.

The GoTo function can be triggered using just Ctrl + P and then typing the name of the file. You can trigger more advanced searching using @ for jumping to symbols or # for searching within the file. Furthermore, you can eventually go to any line using the : symbol.

Inbuilt Snippets and AutoComplete

Snippets can really improve the productivity of any programmer and I am not surprised for the fact that Sublime comes with auto-complete/snippets like many other text editors or IDE already have. Writing code is much faster due to auto-complete and you can use snippets(such as HTML snippets) to get started with your coding projects. Does save a lot of time.

Excellent Documentation and Community

Any good text editor is backed by two things; Documentation and the community surrounding the software. In the case of Sublime Text, both are true.

You can grab hold of sublime text 2 documentation here. And, if you wish to grab hold of the community, just go to their forums to understand what I am pointing at. Problems are generally resolved way faster than you can anticipate. The community is also friendly in helping each other use the beneficial packages and resolving an issue regarding their usage.

Distraction Free Mode

Coding is an art, which requires complete concentration and if you love distraction free coding then you won’t be disappointed by the Sublime Text. The sublime text comes with the distraction-free mode that enables you to code without any UI distraction. Furthermore, you can incrementally change the distraction-free mode and find an optimal configuration that only works with you.

Extreme Customization

The text editor is highly customizable and you can virtually configure anything you want to. With customization done through simple JSON files, you can easily configure menus, macros, completions, key bindings and much more.

The use of configuration file is helpful as you can configure the text editor according to each project and suppress the global configuration.

Command Palette

Want to run small commands on your code? Then, Sublime text also offers common functions such as sorting, changing the syntax, indentation and other settings on the fly.

Complete Feature List

  • Bracket highlighting for better control.
  • Syntax highlighting for many languages with such as Ruby, Python and others and comes with XML support.
  • Rich key binding language supported.
  • Multiple selections: Simplify many tasks that used to require macros or regular expression
  • Sublime Text supports Auto-complete
  • Complete support for text mode.
  • Minimap: Focus on what you need.
  • Snippets
  • Supports Full-Screen Mode
  • Build tool integration
  • Multiple color schemes, with several included, and many more available for download
  • Spell check for advanced users
  • Bracket matching for no bracket errors
  • Python plugins with a rich API
  • Supports Aut0-Save, in case of power loss.
  • Rich selection of editing commands, including indenting / unindenting, paragraph reformatting, line joining and much more
  • Side by side multi-pane editing
  • Automatic build on save
  • Regular expression search and replace
  • Column select
  • Fully customizable key bindings, menus and toolbar
  • Bookmarks: Makes navigating through long files a breeze
  • Incremental find as you type
  • WinSCP integration for editing remote files via SCP and FTP
  • Repeat last action
  • Macros

Wrap Up

Sublime Text is one of the modern text editors a programmer can have. With so many features, it is easy to get lost, but in the end, the programmer can easily leverage the power of the sublime text to its advantage. The code completion, minimap, support for all the language and snippets make it a sweet deal at only $70.

If you think, you can afford Sublime Text, then the editor is for you. A modern text editor for a decent price indeed!

So, what you think about Sublime Text as a code editor? Comment below and let us know!

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *