Need a good basic text editor

[turtle]

So I'm having a hard time finding a basic text editor that will let me save the file with what ever extension I want. I want to be able to open up a .command file and not have formatting crap thrown in. I'm kinda looking for something like vi without having to open Terminal. There are so many things that I want to be able to do a quick edit that opening the file in DreamWeaver seems overkill.

So what's a good (free if possible) basic text editor that doesn't care what extension you give it? Bonus if there is a Mac App store link though I don't care that much.

[Brad]

I'm kinda looking for something like vi without having to open Terminal.
http://code.google.com/p/macvim/ ?

There are so many things that I want to be able to do a quick edit that opening the file in DreamWeaver seems overkill.
Change the default app in Finder?

So what's a good (free if possible) basic text editor that doesn't care what extension you give it? Bonus if there is a Mac App store link though I don't care that much.
TextEdit doesn't care about the extension. Exactly what problems has it been giving you?

Though, I've been using Sublime Text 2 (http://www.sublimetext.com/2) a lot lately (not free, but just nagware for now).

[torifile]

I hear good things about Text Wrangler (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/textwrangler/id404010395?mt=12). I sprung for BBEdit a while back and I've been very happy.

[Wyatt]

I love Text Wrangler. It's free, so give it a shot!

[turtle]

TextEdit adds formatting to my documents. This doesn't do well when writing scripts. Plus, if I open a plain document I can't just save it as plain text. Maybe I can and haven't figured it out, but why am I having to put that much effort into writing a plain text file/shell script? I did install MacVim and it works well.

I'll check out Sublime Text and Text Wrangler too. Thanks for the input guys.

Edit: Hmmm..... so I was able to save as plain text and it had no formatting... with TextEdit. Maybe I missed something last time I tried.

[Capella]

Edit: Hmmm..... so I was able to save as plain text and it had no formatting... with TextEdit. Maybe I missed something last time I tried.

By default it's in RTF mode, which doesn't save unformatted texts, but can be switched to pure txt via menu or I believe cmd+shift+T.

[Ryan]

MacVim with the Janus extensions.

https://github.com/carlhuda/janus

:eek: Add in the vim-LaTeX extensions and you've got my environment for last 18 months. So lightweight but so much power.

If you're using MacVim, somewhere out there is a far prettier icon. I found it awhile ago so I don't remember the source but it's a necessity IMO.

[Brad]

By default it's in RTF mode, which doesn't save unformatted texts, but can be switched to pure txt via menu or I believe cmd+shift+T.
Yep, exactly.

Also, you can change the default behavior in Preferences: New Document: Format: Plain Text. While you're in there, you might as well change the horrid default plain text font too. ;) I use Menlo Regular 12 as the plain text font in Terminal and my various editors.

[Brad]

I love Text Wrangler. It's free, so give it a shot!
I've never been sold on Text Wrangler or BBEdit. Something about the look and feel always makes me think I'm stuck in a transitionary Carbon half-OS9-half-OSX app that doesn't feel like ever made the jump. I just tried the latest version and, yeah, a lot of things just feel "off" to me. :\

[ezkcdude]

I've been using TextWrangler forever. Trying out TextMate now, though.

[tomoe]

I love vim. Has an initial learning curve while you get comfortable with its different modes and keybindings, but after that it's fantastic. Pretty much the only text editor I bother with at this point.