Textastic

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Search for the perfect iOS text editor.

The most popular programming text editor out there is Visual Studio Code, for good reason. I preferred Atom, sadly left out to wither before the mast by it’s cruel captains.

By a long way my favourite text editor since my earliest days of the Mac has been the indubitable BBEdit. BBEdit is excellent. Just a shame they don’t make a version for iPad, I’ve suggested to the developers more than once, I’d accept a hobbled version but it’s still a ‘No’!

Having tried just about everything on the AppStore which vaguely waves a hand at being a text editor and up to now none have come close. I’m writing this on iA Writer, not really a text editor but a text writer.

Having been disappointed all round. I recently stumbled upon Textastic. Available for both iOS and MacOS this seems to do the job just fine. Some of the interface elements and workflows surrounding file handling take a bit of getting used to but the look and feel and functionality are just great.

It looks good and works fast and accurately. I was recently sent an Autocue script which even BBEdit refused to open saying it was a binary file (even though it shouldn’t have been), Textastic just displayed it and gave me the opportunity to save out a new clean version and I was off. Not many people ‘get’ text editors, if it’s not in Word then they don’t understand why you’d need one as well as their cumudgenely word processor, I never did really understand that silly nomenclature.

I’ve not tried the MacOS version but I’d assume it has the same quality and function. Writing, coding, file transfers just the ticket and no annoying subscription. What’s not to like?

Textastic