Sublime Text 2 - code folding text editor

Posted by jaslar
Jan 9, 2015 at 06:09 PM

There’s lots to like here.

- It’s free. I like open source.
- Its implementation of extensions is far easier to wrap your head around than Sublime Text’s. Brackets feels less complex generally (thanks to your suggestion to download it without Extract options, which I appreciate). I just had to click on extension manager, type the words I wanted, and click to install. The new functions immediately appeared in the program—no close and restart (which was necessary in Sublime Text).
- It was easier to fiddle with display settings (hide line numbers, expand the font size): menu options rather than preference files.
- It has, like all good code editors, I imagine, lots of great search options, including the ability to search across several active files.
- It was easy to grab the writer enhancements I was looking for: word count (although it becomes a menu option rather than a live update), markdown preview, and spell check (although this one is a little hinky - turning it on led to some unpredictable suggestions as I typed, and turning it off required “clearing markers”).
- Its implementation of code folding is much better than Sublime Text’s. Brackets’ folding automatically follows heading structure: anything subordinate to the current level is automatically tagged with the little tilty-arrow icon, which works just as you’d hope. On the other hand, code folding isn’t quite outlining. If you fold text, then try to move it folded, you’re only moving that line; you have to be careful about correctly selecting to the beginning of the next section. And there are some little display glitches with code folding in Brackets: sometimes the tilty-arrow gets stuck in one direction (even though it still works) or disappears altogether (although clicking in that area still toggles the display).
- The markdown extension is ... mixed. Markdown generally isn’t as accommodating as the Sublime Text implementation: in Brackets, you have to manually insert hypens and numbers in lists, for instance. The extension gives a resizable preview window at the bottom of the screen, which is handy. But you wouldn’t want to leave it running all the time while writing - the updates make the whole editing screen flicker. But it’s not hard to toggle on and off.
- Brackets has no navigation by structure - jump to a particular heading or show only headings at a certain level.

What I was after was a clean, markdown editor with preview and code folding. Brackets will certainly do all that, and it was much easier to set up than Sublime Text. Both of them are cross-platform (on the desktop, anyhow). And I think Brackets looks a little better, too. On the whole, a pretty interesting offering. Thanks for calling my attention to it.