TextWrangler is a text editor

Text editor

A text editor is a type of program used for editing plain text files.Text editors are often provided with operating systems or software development packages, and can be used to change configuration files and programming language source code....

 for Mac OS X

Mac OS X

Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...

 from Bare Bones Software

Bare Bones Software

Bare Bones Software is a Bedford, Massachusetts, USA software company developing software tools for the Apple Macintosh platform. The company is best known for its BBEdit text editor, marketed under the registered trademark "It doesn't suck," and has been mentioned as a "Top-Tier Mac developer" by...

. It was originally a commercial product, but (beginning with version 2.0) has become the freeware

Freeware

Freeware is computer software that is available for use at no cost or for an optional fee, but usually with one or more restricted usage rights. Freeware is in contrast to commercial software, which is typically sold for profit, but might be distributed for a business or commercial purpose in the...

 alternative to their flagship editor, BBEdit

BBEdit

BBEdit is a proprietary text editor made by Bare Bones Software. It was originally developed for Macintosh System Software 6 and is now available for Mac OS X.BBEdit is marketed under the trademark slogan, "It doesn't suck."-History:...

, and the successor to their previous freeware editor, BBEdit Lite

BBEdit Lite

BBEdit Lite is a freeware text editor by Bare Bones Software, created as a low-cost, stripped-down or "lightweight" version of their flagship product BBEdit. BBEdit Lite had many of the same features as BBEdit such as regular expressions, a plug-in architecture and the same text editing engine...

.

Like BBEdit, TextWrangler is not a word processor

Word processor

A word processor is a computer application used for the production of any sort of printable material....

 and so lacks formatting and style options — it is limited to editing and manipulation of plain text

Plain text

In computing, plain text is the contents of an ordinary sequential file readable as textual material without much processing, usually opposed to formatted text....

, but while this limits desktop publications, it allows for much greater power and flexibility editing text. TextWrangler has features common to most programming text editors, such as syntax highlighting

Syntax highlighting

Syntax highlighting is a feature of some text editors that display text—especially source code—in different colors and fonts according to the category of terms. This feature eases writing in a structured language such as a programming language or a markup language as both structures and...

 for various programming languages, a find and replace function, spell check, and file comparison

File comparison

File comparison in computing compares the contents of computer files, finding their common contents and their differences. The result of the comparison may be presented in a graphic user interface or as part of larger tasks in networks, file systems, or revision control.Some widely-used file...

. But TextWrangler also includes extensive scripting support using AppleScript

AppleScript

AppleScript is a scripting language created by Apple Inc. and built into Macintosh operating systems since System 7. The term "AppleScript" may refer to the scripting system itself, or to particular scripts that are written in the AppleScript language....

, Python

Python (programming language)

Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language whose design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python claims to "[combine] remarkable power with very clear syntax", and its standard library is large and comprehensive...

, Perl

Perl

Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular...

, Shell script

Shell script

A shell script is a script written for the shell, or command line interpreter, of an operating system. It is often considered a simple domain-specific programming language...

s, and BBEdit's native Text Factories. TextWrangler's find and replace allows the use of regular expression

Regular expression

In computing, a regular expression provides a concise and flexible means for "matching" strings of text, such as particular characters, words, or patterns of characters. Abbreviations for "regular expression" include "regex" and "regexp"...

s. Python, Perl, and shell scripts can be run directly in the program. TextWrangler also provides numerous options for reformatting text.

Like some other Mac editors, TextWrangler can read and save files in various encodings, including Unicode

Unicode

Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...

 (various encodings), ASCII

ASCII

The American Standard Code for Information Interchange is a character-encoding scheme based on the ordering of the English alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment, and other devices that use text...

, Latin-1

ISO/IEC 8859-1

ISO/IEC 8859-1:1998, Information technology — 8-bit single-byte coded graphic character sets — Part 1: Latin alphabet No. 1, is part of the ISO/IEC 8859 series of ASCII-based standard character encodings, first edition published in 1987. It is informally referred to as Latin-1. It is generally...

 and Latin-9

ISO/IEC 8859-15

ISO/IEC 8859-15:1999, Information technology — 8-bit single-byte coded graphic character sets — Part 15: Latin alphabet No. 9, is part of the ISO/IEC 8859 series of ASCII-based standard character encodings, first edition published in 1999. It is informally referred to as Latin-9...

.

TextWrangler is intended for use by programmer

Programmer

A programmer, computer programmer or coder is someone who writes computer software. The term computer programmer can refer to a specialist in one area of computer programming or to a generalist who writes code for many kinds of software. One who practices or professes a formal approach to...

s, web design

Web design

Web design is the process of planning and creating a website. Text, images, digital media and interactive elements are used by web designers to produce the page seen on the web browser...

ers, and others who spend time reading and writing source code

Source code

In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...

.

External links

• TextWrangler Homepage
• BBEdit Comparison Chart
• TextWrangler 2.0: Text Editor Gains Features, Now Free of Charge by Andrew T. Laurence, Macworld. Mar 21, 2005.
• TextWrangler aims to set the standard for text editors by Jim Dalrymple, Macworld. Jan 18, 2005.
• Troubleshooting Tools: TextWrangler 2 by Dan Frakes, MacFixIt. Sep 2005.
• TextWrangler: now free, and better than ever by Giles Turnbull, O'Reilly Mac DevCenter Blog. Jan 11, 2005.