Today we are pushing out a new nightly build for the 2.0 alpha that changes the minimum OS requirement to start requiring Snow Leopard, this change was made after checking the current statistics for 2.0:

10.8 2.0%
10.7 86.7%
10.6 11.1%
10.5 0.2%

With such a small percentage on 10.5 it makes sense to drop its support. Moving forward we may decide that requiring Lion will be a reasonable tradeoff as it provides many underlying benefits we could take advantage of. The usage statistics will be monitored to determine the feasibility of this move.

Also to help answer many of the more commonly asked questions we've put together a FAQ about 2.0.

TextMate has always had completion and, as I've said before, it remains the best reason to wear out your ⎋ (esc) key. The idea is simple and I bet you are already familiar with it, but, just to recap, if I had this Ruby code:

class BoundingBox
  def initialize(min_x, min_y, max_x, max_y)
    @min_x = min_x
    @min_y = min_y

    @max_x = max_x
    @max_y = max_y
  end
end

I could later use completion to finish off this line:

class BoundingBox
  def max_x=(x)
    fail "max_x must be > min_x" unless @m‸
    # ...
  end
end

If I push ⎋ where my caret currently is (shown with ‸ above), TextMate will complete the variable reference to @max_y. It starts with @max_y, because that's the closest instance variable reference to my caret (from the bottom of initialize()), meaning it had a high chance to be what I was referring to. It's not really what I wanted though, so another press of ⎋ cycles me to the second choice of @max_x. That is what I want, so I add > and another @m. Then I can complete until I get @min_x (four presses of ⎋ or just one press of ⇧⎋ to go backwards, since it's the furthest reference from my caret).

In this article will discuss:

• Reasons to use completion
• Suffix completion
• Prefix completion
• Mid-word completion
• Intelligent scoped completion

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TextMate 1 allowed you to use variable references in Snippets and even to supply defaults or simple replacements for them. TextMate 2 expands a lot on what you can do with variable references and where you can use them.

In this article we will discuss:

• The syntax of TextMate 2's Format Strings
• Where you can use them
• The kinds of tricks these tools can help you accomplish

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TextMate is and will always be a modern GUI application. However, developers are often forced to walk in two worlds using both GUI and command-line tools. TextMate has always bridged the gap between these environments with its trusty command-line sidekick: mate.

In TextMate 2, mate has learned some new tricks. A new partner-in-crime has also been introduced: rmate.

In this article will discuss:

• How to install the upgraded mate
• mate's new features
• What rmate is
• The different ways to use rmate

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One of the features user have continually requested for TextMate is the ability to insert multiple carets. Allan, TextMate's developer, was always a little resistant to the idea because it seemed to require the use of a mouse and he's not a mouse guy. Well, he caved. You can now use a mouse to throw down multiple carets and then edit away.

In this article will discuss:

• Using multiple carets with the mouse
• Changes to column selection
• Using multiple carets with Find
• Using multiple carets with Copy and Paste

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Mads Hartmann Jensen has written a bundle which takes advantage of a new injection feature of language grammars to highlight what can be considered improper whitespace. Highlighting both trailing whitespace and mixed tab/space indentation it can also be limited to just one or the other.

(This bundle will only work with the 2.0 alpha.)

TextMate 2 isn't just about adding a ton of killer new features. It's also about throwing out what just plain didn't work. That means you can kiss the old project files goodbye.

Of course, you throw out bad ideas so you can replace them with good ideas.

Project files serve a couple of purposes in TextMate 1. One was to give you access to folders you commonly work with. That's now handled through TextMate 2's File Browser and we're going to talk a lot more about that in the future. Another purpose though was to support project level configuration. Configuration is a great idea, but the old interface was awkward and inflexible.

TextMate 2's new .tm_properties files address this need, similar to .git configuration files.

In this article we'll discuss:

• The various places TextMate 2 will look for configuration settings
• Examples of some settings you may wish to tweak
• Per file type configuration
• Dynamic project based configuration

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A great site has sprung up to provide a lot of helpful tips and tricks about the TextMate 2 alpha release. You can also follow them on Twitter for updates.

One of the new features in 2.0 is the ability to install new bundles directly from the app. You can see the list of available bundles by opening preferences and going to the Bundles tab. Bundles installed from here will be kept up-to-date automatically. In addition if you try to open a filetype without having the currect bundle TextMate will offer to install it if available.

Also listed are a variety of theme bundles, you can filter list by clicking 'Themes' in the top bar. The Themes bundle is installed by default and includes a collection of themes from 1.x.

For the duration of the alpha we have kept the support files separated so both versions can be run without affecting the other. This means you will have to manually move over your personal bundles and any bundles not available in the installer.

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• To create a new file you can use the shortcut ⌥⌘N to create a new tab, when you save this tab it will default to the current or selected directory in the sidebar. Update: When providing the file name (in the save dialog) you can use brace expansion to create multiple files, e.g.: MyView.{mm,h}.
• The current release will submit non-anonymous crash reports so we can pinpoint problem areas in the alpha. This can be disabled in preferences if needed but it is a great help if you can leave it on.

Around the Web

• Ernie Miller give a good overview of how to use rmate to edit files on a remote server.
• David Lanham shows a detailed shot of the new icon he designed for us. Update: David has posted a comment about the process of coming up with the icon.

The excitement for a new version has been tremendous and today we’re finally able to repay the much appreciated loyalty and moral support from the community by releasing the first public alpha: TextMate 2.0 alpha (r8930).

It’s important to stress though that being an alpha release; it is not complete. It has reached a point where it may suit some early adopters and provide some relief to those who have been questioning TextMate’s future. For the time being, the alpha builds are only for people who already have a TextMate license and an Intel Mac.

Being a complete rewrite there are too many changes to sum up but here is an overview of notable changes since TextMate 1.5.10.

There are also many things that didn’t make it to this alpha, far too many to mention all of them, but a few deserves to be mentioned as they are likely to come up a lot in the coming days:

• Split views: Yes, I actually had this on the alpha milestone, I’m not overly excited about this feature myself, but I know it’s a very common request, so eventually it should find its way into the application.
• Full screen mode: This is mainly because we are hesitant to go Lion-only so we are holding back with “lionizing” TextMate till we feel confident we can fully drop backwards compatibility.
• Performance: Overall performance is fine, but there are still edge-cases that we haven’t looked into, for example the long lines issue which also exists in 1.x or opening files that exhaust TextMate’s memory space.
• Bundle editor: While a proof-of-concept bundle editor is included, it is provisional, has some flaws, and not how we envision the final bundle editor to be.
• Settings: Not everything in the Preferences window has an effect at the moment and several menu settings are not sticky, some even revert when switching tabs. Those can be set via .tm_properties — more about this in an upcoming post.

There has been a lot of speculation and trepidation about the future of TextMate recently, mostly about whether there will be another major release. Work on 2.0 began and while we wish it could have been completed faster we are very pleased with how it is turning out. Development has reached a point finally where we can make an announcement:

There will be a public alpha release this year, before Christmas, for registered users.

With Lion getting let loose around the world we have posted a list of the known issues to the wiki and will be keeping it updated if any more are found. We will release an update to correct the issues where possible once we believe that all of them have been found.

If you find any other issues please check the mailing list or contact us by email or on Twitter.

In a recent release of TextMate we moved away from our old tab switching shortcut to one more commonly used. After releasing this update however we discovered that not all TextMate users are using the US keymap ☺ so we decided to look closer at shortcuts supported in a variety of applications.

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Update 2010-11-18: r1623 is out, restoring the venerable key bindings.

Update 2010-11-14: Post about restoring ⇧⌥⇥ for shift left. Post about restoring interactive input functionality.

A long overdue maintenance update was released earlier today.

It mainly contains fixes but one change might not please users of European keyboard layouts:

Change next/previous file tab key equivalents to ⇧⌘[ and ⇧⌘].

The motivation behind the change is that Apple are using these keys both in Safari and Terminal (when using the English interface language).

If you dislike the change you can override it via System Preferences → Keyboard → Application Shortcuts.

I sent a note to the mailing list about gtm, version 1.0 of a grammar testing tool.

Apple has hardcoded the Finder to open files without extension in Terminal when they are executable and otherwise TextEdit.

Starting with Snow Leopard you can however use Michel Fortin’s Magic Launch ($14) to alter the behavior. It can also be configured to open the same file type with different applications based on location, content, or similar.

I got a letter asking me why I didn’t use the 1.0 model for developing 2.0, that is, released 1.0 when it reached “usable” and then incrementally improved it.

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Prior to r1509 TextMate had a very neat feature: you could run (⌘R) a piece of C, Ruby, Python, Shell Script, etc. and if the code (directly or indirectly) read from its standard input then a dialog would be shown prompting the user for input.

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I created a wiki page detailing Snow Leopard compatibility issues.

Presently two exist which have workarounds described on that page. I will release a new build shortly (that means, I planned to have it out by now ;) ) which incorporate these workarounds.

There are (or may be) issues with some of the bundle commands written in ruby (as Snow Leopard ships with ruby 1.8.7, which isn’t 100% backwards compatible). We will address these as we see them over the next weeks/months and updated versions should appear in the Subversion repository.

Before you Upgrade

If you do a clean install of Snow Leopard, make sure you have your TextMate license key handy! It can be requested from this page. If you have changed your email address since you bought the program then you can copy/paste the license key from the application by using the “Change License…” button in the dialog which appears when you select the TextMate → Registration… menu item.