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The Hidden Magic in TextMate

2010-09-02 07:00
TextMate has become an essential part of my development arsenal over the last few years. When you first open up the application, you may be wondering what all the fuss is about- at first glance it looks like any other text editor. The true beauty of TextMate is the plethora of bundles, add-ons, keyboard shortcuts and tab triggers available. I 8217;m going to go through some of my top tips on how to get the most from TextMate and increase your development productivity. Tip 1: Find Your Perfect Theme Getting yourself hooked up with the right theme is essential to a good days development. There is a huge amount out there catering for virtually every taste, so make sure to hunt around for one thatв s right for you. Personally I have two themes that really hit the right spot for me: Clouds Clouds Midnight - Two delightful themes especially good for the PHP developer inside you. It comes in two flavors - dark and light, both with strong bold colors that help you work on without getting dreary eyed. IR Black IR White - This is my go too when Iв m cracking on with some Ruby work. Again in dark and light versions with fantastic syntax colors. Youв ll also find a nice terminal modification for the theme around too. Theme choice is very much down to preference and what youв ve been used to before, so when you find the right one for you youв ll know. Make sure to search around and give a few a go, but these two are in my mind a great place to start! Tip 2: Have the Right Plugins TextMate comes with a great stockpile of neat features out the box but there are a few things youв ll probably think are missing. Here are a few that Iв d call essential to get: MissingDrawer (Resurrected) - One gripe I had with TextMate from the start was the side drawer- mainly because it wasnв t a drawer at all. This plug-in solved my woes. This plug-in is a must for any serious developer. AckMate - As the name suggests, this allows you to run ack within TextMate. TextMate comes with a regular project search, but this is much, much faster when you just want to do a bulk find for something. ReMate - Now this plug-in wonв t be useful to everyone, but it certainly is for me. If you work on a network mount in the office youв ll find that every time you switch in and out of TextMate your project refreshes and lags, causing you to wait a few seconds before you can do anything again. This plug-in de-activates the automatic refresh and helps save your sanity from going under! Tip 3: Get the Best Bundles Bundles are small add-ons that do great things. If TextMate doesnв t default support a language that you work in (HAML SASS are prime examples) then you can be darn sure thereв s a bundle for it out there somewhere. Bundles add syntax coloring, shortcuts and tab triggers to make your development as fast as it can be. HAML SASS Bundles - These are perhaps the most common bundles to be installed. If you work in HAML SASS youв ll want these badly. GIT Bundle - If you use GIT for your versi...
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