Basics

BBEdit is a text editor with lots of features that make it ideal for editing any sort of code, words, or even web pages. The languages BBEdit supports natively include:

  • ActionScript
  • ANSI C
  • C++
  • CSS
  • EditorConfig
  • Fortran
  • Fortran 9x
  • Git commit note
  • Grep Replace Pattern
  • Grep Search Pattern
  • HTML
  • INI File
  • Java
  • JavaScript
  • JSON
  • JSP
  • Lasso
  • Log File
  • Lua
  • Make
  • Markdown
  • Object Pascal
  • Objective-C
  • Objective-C++
  • Perforce Specification
  • Perl
  • PHP
  • PHP in HTML
  • Python
  • Rez
  • Ruby
  • Ruby in HTML
  • SCSS
  • Setext
  • Shell worksheet
  • Software Package Notes
  • SQL (Generic)
  • SQL (MS Transact)
  • SQL (MySQL)
  • SQL (PL/SQL)
  • SQL (PostgreSQL)
  • Strings File
  • Tcl
  • TeX
  • Text File
  • Textile
  • UNIX man page
  • Unix Shell Script
  • VBScript
  • VectorScript
  • Verilog HDL
  • VHDL
  • XML
  • YAML

In addition, dozens more languages are supported in Codeless Language Modules which are enumerated both on this site and on the official Bare Bones web site.

BBEdit’s customer support is legendary. Questions can be answered in BBEdit’s Help Book or the extensive manual (both available under the BBEdit Help menu), by sending email to support@barebones.com (they answer all their emails!), and you can even get helpful pointers on Twitter at @bbedit.

Here are some of the built-in text processing actions that BBEdit can do natively (many allow grep matching):

  • Zap gremlins
  • Process duplicate lines
  • Process lines containing
  • Exchange characters
  • Change case
  • Hard wrap
  • Add line breaks
  • Remove line breaks
  • Educate quotes
  • Straighten quotes
  • Add/Remove line numbers
  • Prefix/Suffix lines
  • Sort lines
  • Increase/Decrease quote level
  • Strip quotes
  • Entab/Detab
  • Normalize line endings

It’s also fully scriptable with Applescript, and works directly with the native Perl, Python, and Ruby environments provided by Mac OS X. It also supports similar integration with shell scripts and any other Unix scripting language.