Sublime Forum

Is Sublime Text the best editor in the world?

#1

I’ve been using Linux for over 12 years (and before that I used Windows for more than that), but I did not use Sublime Text actively. I used Xed and Bluefish, that was good for everything except changing a few lines in many files simultaneously - at that it would get stuck. Recently I decided to give Sublime a try, and it was mostly OK, except that misses some very needed shortcuts, like changing the case. I also really hate that it opens my yesterday files when I start it in the morning. Why, who enabled this weird functionality by default?!

But today it spoiled all my work! I needed to search for 2 lines in 44 files and replace them with 3 lines. At first it seemed to do what I want - I changed the lines and saved all files through the File menu, though it’s strange that there is no shortcut for that. But then it started all of a sudden asking strange questions - if I wanted to save changes in 120 files. Which 120 lines??! I started checking what it was talking about, and found that it all by itself opened files from another (backup) directory and started editing them. Then it frightened me with 1000 of edits that it was going to insert into 120 files. I started looking through the edits and found that it implemented my search and replace into all lines in many files!

This kind of thing happened to me for the first time in my life. I don’t mind buying a license for a good editor, but Sublime Text as it is today seems to me overly complicated, inconvenient (no needed shortcuts - it relies on interface), and it obviously went the Microsoft way to automate what I did not ask it to automate and to not let me have what I want. And today it made thousand of errors replacing what I did not order it to replace in files I did not want to edit.

Finally I was lucky to find a compressed backup (which I might not have), and that saved my day.

I’ve so many times seen that somebody would write that Sublime Text is the best editor in the world - that now I’m quite surprised. Would you guys still say that Sublime Text is the best editor in the world?

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#2

except that misses some very needed shortcuts, like changing the case

In the menu: Edit > Convert Case > Upper Case and Lower Case have shortcuts on all operating systems.

I also really hate that it opens my yesterday files when I start it in the morning. Why, who enabled this weird functionality by default?!

You can disable this feature using the "hot_exit" setting, eg: "hot_exit": "disabled". It’s enabled by default because it’s preferred by lots of people. Not sure why you’d find it weird to continue in the morning where your left stuff yesterday.

But today it spoiled all my work! I needed to search for 2 lines in 44 files and replace them with 3 lines. At first it seemed to do what I want - I changed the lines and saved all files through the File menu, though it’s strange that there is no shortcut for that. But then it started all of a sudden asking strange questions - if I wanted to save changes in 120 files. Which 120 lines??! I started checking what it was talking about, and found that it all by itself opened files from another (backup) directory and started editing them. Then it frightened me with 1000 of edits that it was going to insert into 120 files. I started looking through the edits and found that it implemented my search and replace into all lines in many files!

Sounds like you’re doing a replace using “Find in Files” (ctrl+shift+f). If you don’t specify anything in the “Where” field ST will search in all open files and folders, so if you have folders open in the side-bar those will all be searched. When ST does a replace it first prompts you with the amount of files and then opens all found files and performs the replacement without saving, letting you confirm the replacements yourself.

My guess is that you didn’t specify what files/folders to search in the “Where” field and then clicked “Replace” on the prompt to change 120 files, so 120 files were opened with the requested replacement.

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#3

Briefly, after several years of using it daily (and trying Emacs, vim, neovim, helix, VSCodium meanwhile), I still say that ST is the best editor in the world.

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