TOKYO (MacHouse) – One reason why we abandoned Mac software development last October is that Apple, Inc. has destroyed TextEdit, Mac default text editor, with introduction of OS X 10.7 Lion. Without a good text editor, software development will be very difficult. Why do we say TextEdit is useless? 1. You will be prompted for confirmation when you attempt to edit existing RTF files. => Unnecessary loss of a few seconds… (See Screenshot 1.) Why do you need Apple’s permission to edit files of your own? We have no clue. 2. It’s a Sandboxed application. So it can crash and freeze unexpectedly. You really don’t want to keep TextEdit and Preview running at the same time. 3. The version of TextEdit that comes with OS X Lion doesn’t support case-sensitive Find/Replace. Oh, boy… That’s a death sentence for software developers. 4. The top tool buttons (font menu, style menu, text size menu…) are so tiny that some people can’t even see what they are. Of course, Apple won’t develop software such that even your grandma can easily use it. 4. If you close a document by pressing the Red button at the top-left corner or quit the application while editing, TextEdit will save changes without prompting you for confirmation. In sum, TextEdit is a nightmare application that everybody should avoid using.

Screenshot 1

Screenshot 2

Anyway, the second software title we introduce today is called TextZilla. It’s a simple text editor. There is a rich text editor called WordPad that comes with Windows OS. We hardly use WordPad because it lacks some basic features. What’s missing with it? It won’t let you open multiple documents. And TextZilla can handle multiple documents. However, TextZilla is far from replacing WordPad. TextZilla should be regarded as a quick solution to typing up something, editing several lines of code quickly. And there are some features with TextZilla that WordPad and NotePad doesn’t have. For example, with TextZilla, you have easy access to ASCII characters.

This software title is currently distributed as a freeware title as it’s still in beta. You can use it without limitations till August 1, 2012. It’s been tested for Windows 7 64-bit.

Click on the button for more information on TextZilla.






TextZilla is a product of MacHouse.
Windows is a product of Microsoft Corporation.