Long-Delayed TextMate 2 Arrives as Public Alpha

textmatelogoIn 2004, a developer by the name of Allan Odgaard released a new text-editor by the name of TextMate. Over the next few years, the application became extremely popular with coders because of a number of powerful features, including extensive customization, macros, and much more.

TextMate 2.0 was originally announced in 2006, and three years later Odgaard wrote in a blog post that he was still hard at work on TextMate 2 and it was 90 percent complete. He hoped that "an alpha version will be ready before too long, but I can’t make any promises about dates." Time passed, and Wired named TextMate 2 to it's year-end vaporware list in 2009, along with StarCraft II and the US release of Spotify.

TextMate 2.0 has finally been released to the public in the form of a public alpha -- typically the development milestone that precedes beta.

The excitement for a new version has been tremendous and today we’re finally able to repay the much appreciated loyalty and moral support from the community by releasing the first public alpha: TextMate 2.0 alpha (r8930).

It’s important to stress though that being an alpha release; it is not complete. It has reached a point where it may suit some early adopters and provide some relief to those who have been questioning TextMate’s future. For the time being, the alpha builds are only for people who already have a TextMate license and an Intel Mac.

Being a complete rewrite there are too many changes to sum up but here is an overview of notable changes since TextMate 1.5.10.

The TextMate 2.0 alpha is only for current TextMate license holders and will only work on Intel Macs.

TextMate is available for €39 (just over $50 at current exchange rates) from the MacroMates website.

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Top Rated Comments

savar Avatar
172 months ago
How is this front page worthy? It has NOTHING to do with Apple.
TextMate is Mac-only and has a cult following.

Edit: I haven't been to macrumors in a while, but I clicked through to read the rest of this article when I saw it on the RSS feed.

What's with all the hatred and vitriol? Is that what this site has become? Geez...

I routinely read news sites where I'm not interested in every single story they publish, but I don't resort to personal insults against the editors or the subjects of the news articles. I just skip the articles that don't interest me.

TextMate hasn't been updated in a long time, but I happily use it every single day because it's fast and stable and the bundle system allows me to add just about any feature that I'm missing.
Score: 17 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ckelley Avatar
172 months ago
I love how some of you guys think you run this site. It's so cute.
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
nokq Avatar
172 months ago
How is this front page worthy? It has NOTHING to do with Apple.

Sure it does. Textmate is a Apple only text editor popular with developers.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Raptor235 Avatar
172 months ago
hell has frozen over!
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Anaemik Avatar
172 months ago
I for one am really excited by this news, and fully approve of its inclusion on the front page. People whine too much around here.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
LittleChief Avatar
172 months ago
PowerBook G5 Next Tuesday? (Sorry!!)
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)