For those who may be unaware, Text Edit also handles plain text.
Format -> Make Plain Text
Or if you want that as your default:
TextEdit -> Settings -> Format -> Plain Text
I’ve seen many people giving presentations claim that Apple doesn’t ship and plain text editor and tell people to download one to make a basic edit. So I spread this information every time I have the excuse.
Plus, plain text will likely outlive RTF. My RTF files from high school are trash now. I don’t know if it was from disk corruption or changes over the last 25 years, but they’ve been lost to time.
> My RTF files from high school are trash now. I don’t know if it was from disk corruption or changes over the last 25 years, but they’ve been lost to time.
It's a simple format. Put them in a hex editor and you should be able to extract the text.
>The best way to reclaim our digital experiences, though, might be to stick with the likes of TextEdit, software that is unable to do anything except follow our commands.
TextEdit has actually become super buggy since Apple switched to TextKit 2. There are now so many drawing and editing glitches, it's frustrating. I've switched over to using BBEdit for a lot of plain text editing that I used to do in TextEdit.
Ackchyually, TextEdit now has built-in AI as any other native macOS textview control if Apple Intelligence is turned on. It even autocompletes your sentences.
It also likes to save to iCloud by default if you're signed in.
Everyone making recommendations for other apps is missing the fact that the article is aimed at non-techies who aren't going to fire up a terminal or go searching for a plain-text, non-stylized text editor. TextEdit can save as plain text as other posters note, but most non-techies want a word processor where they can change fonts and font styles.
While I do like TextEdit, I prefer Bean (https://www.bean-osx.com/Bean.html), which has been my quick word processor of choice on the Mac since the Tiger days.
Well said, and anyone who cares enough about text editing enough to notice is the kind of user capable of finding one (and probably having opinions on their favourite one, so apple couldn’t please everyone with a text editor anyway).
<this comment doesn't really add anything, but thought I'd share anyways for whatever reason>
I forgot the editor (maybe TextMate?) that was in vogue during the peak of the Ruby on Rails era, but there was such a feeling of magic to using what was a fairly basic editor that still had syntax highlighting.
Was this feeling of magic purely because I was younger? Or perhaps we did peak in terms of the ergonomics of human-controlling-machine without too many aids?
Fighter pilots used to fly with skill and instincts, but now are assisted by all sorts of high tech equipment that has removed much of the "flying skill" and replaced it with "equipment skill". It's not that fighter pilots are worse now. I'm sure they are better at achieving the outcomes desired, while commanding much more complex equipment. But the perhaps the art of flying is less emphasized.
In the same way, perhaps the era of software engineering is changing too?
I used to edit a news-stand magazine: every article that went into the magazine was subbed with TextEdit. All my daily notes are in TextEdit. My todo lists are in TextEdit. If I'm writing longform for the web I draft in TextEdit and then copy and paste.
It's just so immediate. Write, save. WYSIWYG formatting in the way the Mac has always done it.
The author says "It doesn’t redesign its interface without warning, the way Spotify does". I think it changed its interface once, c. 2005. Before then you could just have a window with no chrome whatsoever, just a blank slate to write in. Now you can't get rid of the formatting bar - the one with the typeface, size, bold/italics/underline. That pissed me off for a while. But compared to the ongoing hurt of 25 years of a broken spatial Finder, I can cope with it.
Long before I got into programming I would pop into windows notepad whenever I wanted to type something for myself. The bare window is oddly comforting and helps me get into a flow state of writing, brainstorming, or whatever.
I heard on newer windows versions it has copilot though which is crazy to me...
P.S. The statement is radically wrong, not at all "a pretty reasonable fairly non-technical reduction for the average New Yorker reader" -- a large fraction of whom have either used a command line or written code of some sort, and know that these are two different things. Even if using a line editor like old ed, one is not entering code at the command-line prompt, and in any case the code does not go "directly to the machine" (long ago I actually did load code directly into the machine via console switches). And consider that the context here is discussion of a text editor! But some people seem compelled to defend and rationalize any statement that is challenged, no matter how valid the challenge or absurd and intellectually dishonest the rationalization--it's some sort of bizarre white-knighting.
This is like "HTML isn't code" again. For non-technical readers, there is their own language, and there is "code" - a bespoke language used solely to instruct machines. If you can't type to the machine in your own language (eg like you can to a chatbot) then you're using code. "The machine" is the device on the desk.
"ls" is code. You type it into the machine's keyboard, and it understands your code and performs that instruction. The statement is not "radically" wrong, it's an oversimplification that both communicates correctly to the lay reader, and to the proficient reader who understands the nuances and why they're irrelevant here.
TE, like all (most?) of Apples apps manage documents for you. They auto save, auto version, etc. I love the paradigm. I love how painless it works for me. I love not having to decide anything when the app closes (say during a restart), or even during a crash. Just hit close, everything goes away, and comes back when you open again.
My TextEdit opens with 47 documents, cleverly named "Untitled" to "Untitled 47". Some of those are most certainly years old. TE is my computer scratch paper, and things just, well, linger.
These files "do not exist" on my computer, they're in Apples document enclave. That's OK. I know where they are.
For those on Mac with Linux leaning, BBEdit in free mode will endlessly please you with all the great text stuff it can do and it's excellent UI. What a great program.
All I need is notepad and paint, but I work on a Mac and daily drive a Gnome so I use TextEdit/gedit and GIMP. LibreOffice for presentations and spreadsheets, the few that I create.
This feels like a bit of a nothing article jumping on the bandwagon of “ai bad sentiment = clicks”. Even though I agree with “ai bad” a lot, this feels like very lazy writing. It makes no attempt to understand why others might prefer or even rely upon features in their text editors. It’s just “this is simple and therefore I like it”. I mean, good for them! But doesn’t make for an interesting article at all. It’s basically like someone writing a whole article about saying “I like writing on paper”. Ok?
34 comments
[ 6.1 ms ] story [ 70.1 ms ] threadPlus, plain text will likely outlive RTF. My RTF files from high school are trash now. I don’t know if it was from disk corruption or changes over the last 25 years, but they’ve been lost to time.
It's a simple format. Put them in a hex editor and you should be able to extract the text.
It's open source, fully Mac native, no Electron, fast, and small. I use it almost every hour of every day.
An empty TexEdit window with a non-dirty buffer should just disappear upon close.
But I'm ready to learn otherwise from the HN commentariat.
Man, if he only knew...
Does Apple make any professional, polished, sophisticated apps? It’s their hardware and OS, but apps?
No this is not a joke. Notepad has a giant always-present Copilot button now
It also likes to save to iCloud by default if you're signed in.
While I do like TextEdit, I prefer Bean (https://www.bean-osx.com/Bean.html), which has been my quick word processor of choice on the Mac since the Tiger days.
I forgot the editor (maybe TextMate?) that was in vogue during the peak of the Ruby on Rails era, but there was such a feeling of magic to using what was a fairly basic editor that still had syntax highlighting.
Was this feeling of magic purely because I was younger? Or perhaps we did peak in terms of the ergonomics of human-controlling-machine without too many aids?
Fighter pilots used to fly with skill and instincts, but now are assisted by all sorts of high tech equipment that has removed much of the "flying skill" and replaced it with "equipment skill". It's not that fighter pilots are worse now. I'm sure they are better at achieving the outcomes desired, while commanding much more complex equipment. But the perhaps the art of flying is less emphasized.
In the same way, perhaps the era of software engineering is changing too?
I used to edit a news-stand magazine: every article that went into the magazine was subbed with TextEdit. All my daily notes are in TextEdit. My todo lists are in TextEdit. If I'm writing longform for the web I draft in TextEdit and then copy and paste.
It's just so immediate. Write, save. WYSIWYG formatting in the way the Mac has always done it.
The author says "It doesn’t redesign its interface without warning, the way Spotify does". I think it changed its interface once, c. 2005. Before then you could just have a window with no chrome whatsoever, just a blank slate to write in. Now you can't get rid of the formatting bar - the one with the typeface, size, bold/italics/underline. That pissed me off for a while. But compared to the ongoing hurt of 25 years of a broken spatial Finder, I can cope with it.
Thank you, whoever in Apple maintains TextEdit.
I heard on newer windows versions it has copilot though which is crazy to me...
LOL. I stopped reading there ... but I'll read the comments here with interest.
"ls" is code. You type it into the machine's keyboard, and it understands your code and performs that instruction. The statement is not "radically" wrong, it's an oversimplification that both communicates correctly to the lay reader, and to the proficient reader who understands the nuances and why they're irrelevant here.
https://superuser.com/questions/80896/how-to-disable-line-wr...
Opinions there:
> I don't think textedit is designed to be much more than demoware.
Mostly I use apple notes, though.
TE, like all (most?) of Apples apps manage documents for you. They auto save, auto version, etc. I love the paradigm. I love how painless it works for me. I love not having to decide anything when the app closes (say during a restart), or even during a crash. Just hit close, everything goes away, and comes back when you open again.
My TextEdit opens with 47 documents, cleverly named "Untitled" to "Untitled 47". Some of those are most certainly years old. TE is my computer scratch paper, and things just, well, linger.
These files "do not exist" on my computer, they're in Apples document enclave. That's OK. I know where they are.
Plaintext only, no RTF.
Good programmers support for many languages.
No syntax highlighting, but I love it for taking notes and maintaining my .plan files. The simple TUI interface is oddly calming
[0] https://github.com/microsoft/edit
[1] https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/pull/225837
A total nothing burger here.