Meet TextMate
When I started at Zappos.com last year and began using a MacBook and OS X for the first time, I was introduced to TextMate. Being a noob at the whole Apple thing, I had no idea which applications to use for development. On Windows I had always used TextPad. However, given that at Zappos my alternate text editor choice was Vim, I immediately opted for TextMate. Since then, we have become more than just acquaintances – we’ve become friends.
Keyboard shortcuts ftw
Now, I should probably forewarn you and say upfront that I am a keyboard shortcut whore. I love them. The less I have to use my mouse or trackpad, the better. So you can imagine how difficult things were for me the first few weeks when I switched from PC to Mac. I know I could have hacked my keyboard to recognize ctrl instead of cmd, but I was determined to be a true Apple convert. On top of that, a lot of the keyboard shortcuts I had learned in TextPad were different in TextMate. So, one of the first things I did was look up some keyboard shortcut cheat sheets.
For you super nerds, there’s also a TextMate keyboard shortcuts background image available for your desktop.
Make it pretty
I also had to make TextMate pretty. I wasn’t a fan of the default color schemes, so I looked around until I found one I loved, although there are a lot of user-submitted themes available.
Now, make it better
Probably my favorite TextMate find is a keyboard shortcut hack that brings your cursor to the first non-space character on a line.
Gotta love improved efficiency.