why does TextEdit suck so much?

Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
why does TextEdit suck so much?



a simple text editor should not be this stupid.



i want it to do simple things and do them correctly, intuitively...



and it doesn't.





this is just so wrong.



to have something this basic end up being this obfuscated

is a disgrace.
[Deleted User]
«13

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 48
    I reckon it's pretty good. Sure is much better than Notepad or Wordpad or Simple Text for that matter. Do you have any examples of what seems to be troubling you so much?
  • Reply 2 of 48
    That's a really constructive post there, bluesigns.



    I think TextEdit is fantastic. I use it for writing all of my reports and papers. I use it for code editing. I use it as a scratchpad for ideas (I think Stickies is ugly). The text looks great, it integrates perfectly with all services, drag-and-drop is a godsend, on Panther it reads and writes natively to Microsoft doc format (good for those idiot professors who think everyone owns Office), it's fast, it's lightweight, and best of all it's free.



    For slightly heavier jobs where I want syntax-highlighting when editing code, I switch over to the TextEdit-like app SubEthaEdit (formerly Hydra).
  • Reply 3 of 48
    pscatespscates Posts: 5,847member
    Even though I have Appleworks AND Office v.X, anytime I need to write or jot something down, I immediately go for the little TextEdit icon in my Dock.



    I think it's wonderful: small, quick, simple. After Safari, Mail and iTunes EASILY my most-used Apple-created app. I dig it the most.



    What, SPECIFICALLY, are you upset about, bluesigns? Maybe someone can help if you explain what the problem is.
  • Reply 4 of 48
    dwsdws Posts: 108member
    I think that bluesigns is really off the mark (especially since he didn't bother to mention what he thinks is so terrible about TextEdit).



    In my view, TextEdit is incredible. This is one of the first and best examples of Cocoa programming to come from Apple. The source code has been included with each release of the developer's tools. Coders have used it as the template upon which has been built many of the Cocoa apps that populate the market. TextEdit has helped to teach Cocoa to many budding programmers (and helped experienced programmers make the transition). For this reason alone, TextEdit has huge historical importance.



    Also, it's a great little text editor!!!



    Bluesigns is a twit.
  • Reply 5 of 48
    lucaluca Posts: 3,833member
    TextEdit is great for notes. I always open it up when I want to jot down a note really quick. I never use Stickies.



    However, if you want to do a web page, it sucks. I tried doing some HTML with it once... believe me, don't try. It tries to "help" you by formatting everything to be WYSIWYG, but then I can't get the coding back. If I'm working on a web page, and I write some stuff down in TextEdit and then open the HTML file with Safari, it's fine, but the next time I open TextEdit, it doesn't open up as HTML code but rather as formatted text. So every time I want to change something, I have to go to the web page, view the source, and download the source to modify. It gets VERY aggrivating!



    But as a simple notepad type thing, it's great. I use Word, AppleWorks, or OpenOffice for any writing that requires a significant amount of formatting though.



    EDIT: Hey dws you're in Minneapolis too? Cool. I'm in a library computer lab on the U of M campus right now.
  • Reply 6 of 48
    airslufairsluf Posts: 1,861member
    Kickaha and Amorph couldn't moderate themselves out of a paper bag. Abdicate responsibility and succumb to idiocy. Two years of letting a member make personal attacks against others, then stepping aside when someone won't put up with it. Not only that but go ahead and shut down my posting priviledges but not the one making the attacks. Not even the common decency to abide by their warning (afer three days of absorbing personal attacks with no mods in sight), just shut my posting down and then say it might happen later if a certian line is crossed. Bullshit flag is flying, I won't abide by lying and coddling of liars who go off-site, create accounts differing in a single letter from my handle with the express purpose to decieve and then claim here that I did it. Everyone be warned, kim kap sol is a lying, deceitful poster.



    Now I guess they should have banned me rather than just shut off posting priviledges, because kickaha and Amorph definitely aren't going to like being called to task when they thought they had it all ignored *cough* *cough* I mean under control. Just a couple o' tools.



    Don't worry, as soon as my work resetting my posts is done I'll disappear forever.
  • Reply 7 of 48
    baumanbauman Posts: 1,248member
    It's simple, straightforward, and without any clunk that gets in the way. I just discovered how wonderful it is... in the page layout view, it has everything I need to write a project, and in the plain text it's perfect for coding.



    I truly do love it... especially since I discovered that Cocoa apps have full emacs key bindings.
  • Reply 8 of 48
    aquaticaquatic Posts: 5,602member
    No it does suck. It is a bastard. Why doesn't it have a WYSIWYG font menu, size control menu, B U I buttons, and other toolbar stuff, like Word does? it's a pain in the ass to go into the menu or call up the Font panel which takes a whole minute to open if it hasn't been opened recently. It better get a good GUI overhaul in Panther and be more Word like. That along with reading .doc files will make it bitchin though.
  • Reply 9 of 48
    jlljll Posts: 2,713member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Aquatic

    Why doesn't it have a WYSIWYG font menu



    Because that's not part of Aqua, Cocoa, Mac OS X or whatever.





    Quote:

    Originally posted by Aquatic

    , size control menu, B U I buttons, and other toolbar stuff, like Word does? it's a pain in the ass to go into the menu or call up the Font panel which takes a whole minute to open if it hasn't been opened recently. It better get a good GUI overhaul in Panther and be more Word like. That along with reading .doc files will make it bitchin though.



    TextEdit is - tadaa - a text editor, not a word processor, and it's main purpose is to show the text features available in Cocoa.
  • Reply 10 of 48
    Quote:

    Originally posted by JLL

    TextEdit is - tadaa - a text editor, not a word processor, and it's main purpose is to show the text features available in Cocoa.



    JLL is right on the money.



    It sounds like some people's expectations are way off-base if they expect TextEdit to be an competitor with everything-and-the-kitchen-sink word processors like Microsoft Office.
  • Reply 11 of 48
    Quote:

    Originally posted by bluesigns

    why does TextEdit suck so much?



    a simple text editor should not be this stupid.



    i want it to do simple things and do them correctly, intuitively...



    and it doesn't.





    this is just so wrong.



    to have something this basic end up being this obfuscated

    is a disgrace.




    Get http://www.apple.com/downloads/macos...bethaedit.html



    Rendezvous enabled!





  • Reply 12 of 48
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Wait, wait, wait...



    Quote:

    It better get a good GUI overhaul,



    Quote:

    be more Word like.



    You surely couldn't have meant both of these thoughts since they're mutually exclusive and contradictory...
  • Reply 13 of 48
    buonrottobuonrotto Posts: 6,368member
    I must be the only person on Earth who likes the font panel. Maybe it would be nice to choose to have the font panel display names in their font style. That, and have more formatting from within the panel, rather than going from panel to Format menu for some stuff. I think the Panther font panel addresses a lot of that though. Finally, a customizable text toolbar for the Cocoa apps that implement it would be nice. I think Panther's text toolbar still has a fixed layout.
  • Reply 14 of 48
    i have 11,000+ simpletext documents that i can't edit even a comma or semicolon without having to save the document WITH A DIFFERENT NAME !?!



    that's ridiculous.



    therefore it's essentially incompatible with SimpleText

    which is ridiculous that Apple couldn't have their own text editor be compatible with their own text editor.



    that is a flat-out, ground floor failure in my book.



    if i can't count on seamless migration of the *simplest of my documents how can i have any confidence in the more complex issues?





    you can't save a text document as ".html" ?



    that's absolutely ridiculous.
  • Reply 15 of 48
    ast3r3xast3r3x Posts: 5,012member
    I know it's not a word processor...but I wish it were easier to manipulate text. Wish there was a floating window to change alignment, font, size...you know that type of stuff.
  • Reply 16 of 48
    jwilljwill Posts: 209member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by bluesigns

    i have 11,000+ simpletext documents that i can't edit even a comma or semicolon without having to save the document WITH A DIFFERENT NAME !?!



    that's ridiculous.



    therefore it's essentially incompatible with SimpleText

    which is ridiculous that Apple couldn't have their own text editor be compatible with their own text editor.



    that is a flat-out, ground floor failure in my book.



    if i can't count on seamless migration of the *simplest of my documents how can i have any confidence in the more complex issues?





    you can't save a text document as ".html" ?



    that's absolutely ridiculous.




    I don't know about the .html format part (it would be good if it saved for HTML but I use SubEthaEdit for that. For Simple Text documents, I use Tex-Edit Plus. I use TextEdit as a quick note jotter. This year in school, I'll try to use TextEdit for writing my papers.



    It should be able to read simple text files, however.
  • Reply 17 of 48
    jbljbl Posts: 555member
    I think you are a troll so I am not sure why I am replying. I guess in the hope that you are just confused and I can actually help you out.



    Quote:

    Originally posted by bluesigns

    i have 11,000+ simpletext documents that i can't edit even a comma or semicolon without having to save the document WITH A DIFFERENT NAME !?!





    Have you even tried this? If I drag a SimpleText document onto TextEdit, it opens. I can change whatever commas or semicolons (or any other text) I want and then I type command-S and it is saved. Same name. It doesn't even require that I change the extension. I don't know, maybe there are some extensions or characters it doesn't like, but I have never had this problem before and I just tested it out with a few old SimpleText documents and it works fine.



    Quote:

    Originally posted by bluesigns

    you can't save a text document as ".html" ?



    Again did you actually try this? Just type foobar.html into the save as dialog box. TextEdit responds with a dialog box saying "Document name foobar.html already seems to have an extension. Append '.txt' anyway?" Your choices are "append" "don't append" and "cancel". Just click "don't append" and your file is saved as foobar.html. Just try it and quit whining.
  • Reply 18 of 48
    jwilljwill Posts: 209member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by JBL

    Again did you actually try this? Just type foobar.html into the save as dialog box. TextEdit responds with a dialog box saying "Document name foobar.html already seems to have an extension. Append '.txt' anyway?" Your choices are "append" "don't append" and "cancel". Just click "don't append" and your file is saved as foobar.html. Just try it and quit whining.



    I just tried it to see for myself. It doesn't put html tags in it (unless it's not supposed to). In Appleworks, it does, so I'm thinking that it should in TextEdit too. It wouldn't though.



    Yes, this does get your file saved as an html file. But you already need to have it saved. What he wants, I'm thinking, is an option that says "Save as HTML..." and does that for you.
  • Reply 19 of 48
    have i tried it ?



    yes, on both accounts i've "tried it".





    if you open a simpletext document and edit it at all in TextEdit you are forced into essentially doing a "save as". even if you name it exactly the same thing as it was named before - it creates an entirely new document in addition to your old one and both now live in that folder.



    this may not be a big deal with 1 file but when you're dealing with thousands of them it is a significant document management problem.



    BUT that's not the only problem with it...



    try accessing that new document over a network that has both OSX and OS9 machines running on it. try to open that newly "saved" file from one of the OS9 machines using SimpleText.



    NOT SO FAST! that file is no longer readable by Simpletext so anyone one of the OS9 machines is S.O.L.!



    delightful.





    re: the html thing - again yes, i've "tried it".



    make a new TextEdit document. write some markup in there. save it as html [ the annoying un-appended way].



    now...TRY REOPENING that ".html" file that you just created with TextEdit - with TextEdit.



    what you see is this weird rtf-like assemblage of rectangles and other goodies. everything, that is, except for the markup you just wrote.



    yes, you could open it in IE or Safari but so what. i want to reopen the document in the application that i just created it in and add one comma...

    but no.
  • Reply 20 of 48
    jwilljwill Posts: 209member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by bluesigns

    have i tried it ?



    yes, on both accounts i've "tried it".





    if you open a simpletext document and edit it at all in TextEdit you are forced into essentially doing a "save as". even if you name it exactly the same thing as it was named before - it creates an entirely new document in addition to your old one and both now live in that folder.



    this may not be a big deal with 1 file but when you're dealing with thousands of them it is a significant document management problem.



    BUT that's not the only problem with it...



    try accessing that new document over a network that has both OSX and OS9 machines running on it. try to open that newly "saved" file from one of the OS9 machines using SimpleText.



    NOT SO FAST! that file is no longer readable by Simpletext so anyone one of the OS9 machines is S.O.L.!



    delightful.





    re: the html thing - again yes, i've "tried it".



    make a new TextEdit document. write some markup in there. save it as html [ the annoying un-appended way].



    now...TRY REOPENING that ".html" file that you just created with TextEdit - with TextEdit.



    what you see is this weird rtf-like assemblage of rectangles and other goodies. everything, that is, except for the markup you just wrote.



    yes, you could open it in IE or Safari but so what. i want to reopen the document in the application that i just created it in and add one comma...

    but no.




    Supplement TextEdit with SubEthaEdit (on VT or MacUpdate). You'll be content after that. TextEdit IS more powerful than Simpletext, be aware of that. However, there are those little problems in it.
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