It’s been five years that I’ve been using Textmate.  Although I really like it, I am just too annoyed by the few bugs and UI issues it has.  The features are not unique enough for me to continue to work around the problems.

Before Textmate I used VIM.  I have used VIM since the late 90′s.  When I was using Linux as my desktop, I used GVIM.  It worked really well.  But after moving to the Mac platform in 2001 I wanted something more Mac like.  I continued to use VIM until Textmate came out.

A few of the problems with switching away from Textmate is the awesome Project Drawer (enhanced to a sidebar with a plugin).  It makes working on my projects much easier because I can see the whole directory structure.  It is also nice because it does not save project files all over the place.  You can launch it from the command line, pointing to a directory, and it will load all the files in that folder into the project drawer.  It’s just so perfect and simple.

Fast forward to today.  I’ve been back on VIM for the past month.  MacVIM actually.  It’s more Mac like than the old version that I used, but it still has a ways to go.  Specifically NerdTree.  It’s a project drawer plugin.  I really don’t like it.  It works, but I still just don’t like it.  I see that others feel the same way.  So much so that someone has taken on a project to build a real project drawer for MacVIM.  I can’t wait.

There is another project being worked on right now called VICO.  It’s a brand new editor using VIM style editing and commands mixed with Textmate plugins.  It’s really nice.  I will definitely switch to it when it starts to be more stable.

So, today, I say byby to Textmate.  It’s been really awesome.  I kinda wish you didn’t go stale while your creator builds the next version.