Inside Mac Games Volume 4 #5 & #6/IMG 37 MayJune 1996.iso/More Goodies/eZines/Tidbits/tidbits-327.etx

Text File | 1996-05-27 | 30KB | 602 lines

TidBITS#327/06-May-96
=====================

The big news this week involves licensing: Apple gets Java from
   Sun Microsystems and announces plans to integrate it into the
   Mac OS, and IBM gets the Mac OS from Apple. Also in this issue,
   information on Power Computing's new high-speed Macs, Tonya takes
   a look at the new HTML authoring tool PageSpinner, and Sean
   Peisert reviews a collection of tools almost everyone has to
   use: text editors.

This issue of TidBITS sponsored in part by:
* APS Technologies -- 800/443-4199 -- <[e-mail]>
   Makers of hard drives, tape drives, and neat SCSI accessories.
   For APS price lists, email: <[e-mail]>
* Northwest Nexus -- 206/455-3505 -- <http://www.halcyon.com/>
   Providing access to the global Internet. <[e-mail]>
* Power Computing -- 800/375-7693 -- <[e-mail]>
   Now shipping... The Award-Winning First MacOS Compatible!
   Press comments! <http://www.powercc.com/News/quotes.html>
* America Online -- 800/827-6364 -- <http://www.aol.com/>
   The world's largest provider of online services.
   Give Back to the Net -- <http://www.aol.com/give/>
* EarthLink Network -- 800/395-8425 -- <[e-mail]>
   Providers of direct Internet access for Macintosh users.
   For eWorld refugees: no setup fee! <http://www.earthlink.net/>
* DealBITS: New deals on Macs, tools, software, and more! <-- NEW!
   <http://www.tidbits.com/dealbits/> -- <[e-mail]>

Copyright 1990-1996 Adam & Tonya Engst. Details at end of issue.
   Information: <[e-mail]> Comments: <[e-mail]>
   ---------------------------------------------------------------

Topics:
    MailBITS/06-May-96
    Apple Licenses Java
    PageSpinner Spins Into View
    Text Editors - Getting Your ASCII In Gear

<ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/pub/tidbits/issues/1996/TidBITS#327_06-May-96.etx>


MailBITS/06-May-96
------------------
  Tonya and I are deep into working on the fourth edition of
  Internet Starter Kit for Macintosh, which means that we're likely
  to be less responsive to email for a while.

  If you're the author of a freely distributable freeware or
  shareware Internet program, I'd like to consider your program for
  inclusion on the CD that will come with the book. The same goes
  for commercial Internet programs with freely distributable demos.
  So, if you'd like to submit your program for inclusion on the CD,
  check out the Web form at:

<http://www.tidbits.com/iskm/cd_form/cd_submit_form.html>

  Similarly, if you are an Internet service provider (anywhere in
  the world) that supports PPP and would like to be included in the
  book and installer, send email to <[e-mail]>.
  We'll collect names and send out more information when we have a
  Web signup form posted. [ACE]


**IBM Gets Wide-Ranging Mac OS License** -- As noted in
  TidBITS-324_, IBM today announced an agreement with Apple allowing
  it to sell PowerPC processors along with a Mac OS sub-license to
  any manufacturer. As noted, IBM does not appear to plan to
  manufacture Mac clones, but instead to sell reference design
  specs, licenses, and logic components to other manufacturers who
  will make PowerPC Platform machines. Those manufacturers, in turn,
  can choose to develop Mac clones and license the Mac OS directly
  from IBM, without having to enter negotiations with Apple.
  Datatech (DTK) Enterprises and Tatung are expected to announce
  plans to sub-license the Mac OS from IBM; other manufacturers have
  already announced third-party products for the PowerPC platform
  that would help system manufacturers build Mac OS computers for
  the PowerPC Platform. Also, rumor has it that IBM plans to drop
  OS/2 in favor of the Mac OS. [GD]

<http://www.ibm.com/News/ls960506.html>


**PowerTower & PowerCenter** -- Power Computing announced two new
  lines of Mac clones last week, including a machine that qualifies
  as the fastest single-processor Mac available. The PowerTower line
  sports a PowerPC 604 processor running at a dizzying 166 or 180
  MHz in a mini-tower case with three PCI slots, a minimum of 16 MB
  of RAM, and four drive bays. The PowerCenter line features a 120,
  132, or 150 MHz PowerPC 604 in a low-profile (120 MHz) or desktop
  case, with three PCI slots and a minimum of 8 MB of RAM. Pricing
  for PowerTowers starts around $3,800, PowerCenters around $1,900.
  Tests so far show that the PowerTowers edge out Apple's high-end
  Power Mac 9500/150 by five to fifteen percent, even though they
  can't use memory interleaving, being based on the 7200 motherboard
  design (which is currently the only one that can crank a PowerPC
  604 above 150 MHz). As with previous models, Power Computing
  machines ship with a keyboard, a significant software bundle
  (including Speed Doubler on the PowerTowers), and a 30-day, money-
  back guarantee. [GD]

<http://www.powercc.com/>


**WebHead Update** -- No sooner do I write an article on recent
  Web browser updates (see TidBITS-326_) than it's, well, out-of-
  date. Netscape released version 2.02 or Navigator last week
  (primarily fixing security problems); NCSA released 3.0b2 of
  Mosaic, and beta 4 of Apple's Cyberdog is now available (if you
  have a Power Mac and OpenDoc). [GD]

<ftp://ftp.netscape.com/pub/navigator/2.02/mac/Netscape2.02Installer.hqx>
<ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Mosaic/Mac/NCSAMosaic30b2.hqx>
<http://cyberdog.apple.com/>


**Quicken 6 R7** -- Intuit has release R7 of Quicken 6.0 for
  Macintosh, which is supposed to address limitations of Quicken's
  online banking features and "a few" other problems reported by
  customers. The download ranges from 1.2 to 3.4 MB, depending which
  version you need. [GD]

<http://www.qfn.com/quicken/technical-support/quicken/releases/
qfm6-releases/>


Apple Licenses Java
-------------------
  by Geoff Duncan <[e-mail]>

  Apple announced last week it has licensed Sun's Java programming
  environment, joining the massive list of current Java licensees.
  Apple says it plans to integrate Java into its operating systems
  (including the Mac OS, the Newton, and Pippin) as well as in media
  and Internet technologies, including Cyberdog. Apple is not alone
  in planning to put Java into its operating systems: Novell,
  Microsoft, SGI, IBM, and others have announced similar strategies.
  One has to wonder what impact this announcement might have on
  developers currently bringing Java to the Macintosh, considering
  how long it will be before Java support is available directly from
  Apple.

<http://product.info.apple.com/pr/press.releases/1996/q3/
960430.pr.rel.java.html>

  As a cross-platform application technology, one of Java's
  nightmare scenarios is that it could cause all rules of interface
  and functionality to be thrown out, regardless of the client
  platform. (If you think Microsoft applications bend Apple's Human
  Interface Guidelines now, wait until you see Java-based
  applications from Microsoft and other vendors!) In response, a
  campaign is underway to convince Sun to integrate OpenDoc into
  Java as an interface library. OpenDoc is already a relatively
  mature technology (compared to Java), and was built with cross-
  platform interfaces and application design in mind. If you plan to
  do Java or OpenDoc development, the idea is worth checking out.
  [GD]

<http://summary.net/~breck/java-opendoc.html>


PageSpinner Spins Into View
---------------------------
  by Tonya Engst <[e-mail]>

  The world of shareware Web authoring tools recently gained a new
  member in the form of PageSpinner, a $25 shareware program from
  Optima System in Sweden. PageSpinner requires System 7 and wants
  1800K of application RAM. It works on any Mac with a 68020
  processor or better, but Optima System recommends a 68040 or
  PowerPC-based Mac for working with larger files. You'll also need
  a color or grayscale monitor, 640 by 400 pixels or larger. The
  current release of PageSpinner is 1.0.4, but I'm reviewing 1.1b1,
  which adds a number of features. 1.1b2 may be out by the time you
  read this article.

  You can download the latest version of PageSpinner from Optima
  System's Web site. The latest version may also be available on
  Info-Mac.

<http://www.algonet.se/~optima/pagespinner.html>
<ftp://mirrors.aol.com/pub/info-mac/text/html/page-spinner-104.hqx>

  PageSpinner resembles HTML Web Weaver/World Wide Web Weaver from
  Miracle Software, and strikes me as targeted at the same audience
  - people who don't need heavy-duty site management features, and
  who don't mind learning HTML but want help with tags and syntax. I
  also see these products as excellent starter tools for people
  learning HTML. (For more about Miracle Software's offerings, see
  TidBITS-317_).

  PageSpinner introduces some new features and ideas I haven't seen
  often (or at all) in other Web authoring programs. In particular,
  whenever a tagging command appears on a menu or in a dialog, an
  icon next to each tag not part of HTML 2.0 indicates whether the
  tag comes from HTML 3.0 or Netscape. PageSpinner also comes with a
  number of handy templates, which you can select and preview in the
  New Document dialog box. This nicely done dialog helps you set up
  background and text colors, background tiling, and more.

  PageSpinner has a toolbar, but - unlike many of today's action-
  packed toolbars - it includes blank space between groups of
  reasonably large buttons, making it easier to use than most. More
  interestingly, PageSpinner offers an HTML Assistant floating
  window that you can optionally leave open. The HTML Assistant can
  assist you with about twenty tasks, including making links,
  creating tables, and setting up form interfaces.

  Each HTML Assistant task comes with an Example button. Clicking
  the button presents you with the HTML Examples dialog, which
  offers a number of mini-templates for elements like lists and
  tables. (For some tasks, such as tables, it offers multiple
  templates; for others, such as forms, it offers none.) You can
  preview the templates visually and as HTML code, and copy the code
  from the Example dialog into your document. What's so great about
  HTML Assistant and HTML Examples is that they help you figure out
  not only what commands are in the program but also how to employ
  them effectively. In this way, PageSpinner pushes people up the
  HTML learning curve.

  Another common limitation of PageSpinner-like Web authoring tools
  is a 32K file size limit; PageSpinner supports larger files.

  Like many Web authoring tools, PageSpinner shows text and HTML
  tags in its document window. The text shows with some
  representation as to how it will appear on the Web (headings look
  big, bold text appears bold, etc.). Tags appear in a dark gray
  color, making them easy to distinguish from text. You can set the
  default font and size for both tags and text.

  Unlike a number of similar Web authoring tools, PageSpinner's tags
  are discrete objects - they never look the same as body text. You
  can set PageSpinner so tags may be edited, so tags may be edited
  but not deleted, or so tags may not be modified in any way. If you
  type tags of your own into PageSpinner, it recognizes and converts
  them into discrete tag objects.

  Similarly, if you open a non-PageSpinner-native HTML document, you
  can issue the Restyle command to convert your tags to PageSpinner
  tags. The Restyle command also works on PageMill documents brought
  into PageSpinner via the program's new PageMill conversion
  feature. The PageMill conversion offers some flexibility for
  correcting <BR>-related problems, but it won't "pretty print" text
  (align it nicely). (Adobe plans to fix the <BR> problem in
  PageMill 2.0, due out in July; see TidBITS-325_.)

  PageSpinner 1.1b1 sports improved and useful table features both
  for creating tables from scratch and for converting tab-delimited
  text. (If you do make a table in the Assistant, use the Table menu
  to add additional tags or to modify the table!) The new version
  also now supports relative links and handles anchoring correctly.

  To access PageSpinner's documentation, you use its Apple Guide,
  available via the Help menu. The documentation is well-written,
  but I'd like to see it expanded even more. I'd also like to see
  additional HTML examples - I was recently delving into the world
  of HTML forms and would have appreciated a few examples.

  I haven't completely covered every aspect of PageSpinner - at the
  rate it's improvements spin out, the program is difficult to pin
  down. Also, I've neglected PageSpinner's Find/Replace, Web Tools
  menu, and several other helpful features. Hopefully, you have the
  idea that it's not a perfect program, but has much to offer in
  both unique features and a feature set for people who want to
  dabble with HTML or who want a program to boost them up the HTML
  learning curve.


Text Editors - Getting Your ASCII In Gear
-----------------------------------------
  by Sean Peisert <[e-mail]>

  Many Macintosh users are only vaguely familiar with text editors,
  since SimpleText opens our text documents and we configure our
  machines with control panels and thus rarely need to edit
  configuration files. Even so, the explosion of the online world
  has created a strong demand for tools to read and edit text-only
  (ASCII) documents, since ASCII is the standard for most online
  written material, from news postings and email to ReadMe files,
  FAQs, and HTML.

  You can open text files in a word processor, and for a lot of
  people that's fine. However, text editors are often a more
  effective alternative. Text editors bear some resemblance to word
  processors (they let you create, read, and edit documents), but
  they aren't primarily concerned with fonts, graphics, special
  characters, margins, or printed output. Instead, they're designed
  to let you manipulate text files in useful ways.

  This article provides an overview of good, commonly available text
  editing tools. All these editors are top-notch programs, though
  some may suit your purposes better than others. Just because an
  editor is not included doesn't mean it isn't good, just that we
  didn't have space to include it. Similarly, this article doesn't
  cover two popular "monsters" of text editing - Alpha and the
  commercial version of BBEdit - which deserve reviews unto
  themselves.


**Things to Look For** -- When selecting text-processing tools,
  there are some factors to keep in mind. The first is whether the
  program can open files larger than 32K. This limit is the one of
  the main deficiencies of Apple's SimpleText, and though it isn't a
  problem for some files, many FAQs and other online documents are
  larger than 32K. All the programs here can open files larger than
  32K.

  One complaint about older text editors was a lack of support for
  "soft wrapping." No more - all of the editors here support soft
  wrapping, which is what most word processors do. (When a line of
  text reaches a margin or other preset limit, the program moves
  remaining text to the next line without altering the string of
  characters.) Hard wrapping, conversely, inserts a carriage return
  at the end of each visible line, breaking the lines "by force."
  Most email, news postings, and other online documents (including
  TidBITS issues) must use hard wrapping.

  Different operating systems (Unix, DOS, and Mac OS) end hard
  wrapped lines differently. By default, the Mac uses a carriage
  return, Unix uses a linefeed character, and DOS uses both. Each of
  these editors deals differently with line wrapping and converting
  a file from one method to another; you'll want to select a tool
  that meets your needs.


**BBEdit Lite 3.5.1**, a freeware editor, is the smaller cousin of
  Bare Bones Software's BBEdit 3.5.1, a commercial text editor.
  Originally designed for programmers, BBEdit has evolved
  significantly over the years. BBEdit has now split into two
  programs (one commercial and one freeware). The differences
  between BBEdit 3.5.1 and Lite 3.5.1 are covered extensively in the
  ReadMe file distributed with BBEdit Lite.

<http://www.barebones.com/>

  BBEdit Lite lacks features many other editors have these days -
  such as drag & drop - and it's not scriptable. The newest
  incarnation of BBEdit Lite, however, supports soft wrapping and
  contains some Power Mac-native code. BBEdit Lite is one of the
  fastest editors around - its launching speed has to be seen to be
  believed, taking a mere three seconds to open a 900K file. (I used
  a Power Mac 6100/60AV, with plenty of RAM, System 7.5.3, and
  Connectix's Speed Emulator from Speed Doubler for my tests, with
  Power Mac-native or fat versions of programs whenever possible.)
  This blazing speed is four to six times faster than some of the
  other editors reviewed here.

  BBEdit Lite has a small disk footprint, takes up a meager amount
  of RAM, and is Apple event-aware, so it can be used in conjunction
  with an application like Anarchie to view text documents. BBEdit
  Lite does not integrate directly as an editor for programming
  environments such as CodeWarrior or Symantec C++.

  BBEdit Lite achieves its light RAM footprint by using system
  memory. If you open a document which would exceed BBEdit Lite's
  allocated memory, it asks the system for memory outside of BBEdit
  Lite's application partition. (Many applications do similar things
  with sounds or QuickTime.) If the memory is available, BBEdit will
  open the file without difficulty, so you can keep BBEdit's memory
  partition small and still work with large files.

  BBEdit Lite is not devoid of cool features. Its powerful search
  engine supports grep expressions and multi-file searches. (In
  addition to searching for words, grep lets you search for complex
  patterns. Typical search engines can only look for words or
  phrases.) BBEdit Lite has a "balance" feature that identifies
  unbalanced sets of parentheses, braces, and quotes (handy for
  programmers and HTML writers).

  Much of BBEdit Lite's power is built into BBEdit extensions. These
  extensions don't go in your System Folder; instead, you install
  them in a special folder provided by BBEdit and then choose them
  from a menu within BBEdit. Extensions have been written for a wide
  variety of tasks, such as HTML composition, inserting the date or
  time, sorting lines, and speaking text. These extensions make
  BBEdit Lite a more powerful tool than it first appears.

<ftp://mirror.aol.com/pub/info-mac/text/bbe/>


**Emacs** -- This port of GNU Emacs from Cornell University is
  exactly what you would expect from the GNU Emacs editor.

<ftp://ftp.cs.cornell.edu/pub/parmet/>

  GNU Emacs is a widely-distributed text editor originally developed
  by the Free Software Foundation, with ports available for the
  Macintosh and PC, along with most flavors of Unix and other
  operating systems. Emacs uses "modes" which alter the keystroke
  bindings (what commands are "bound" to particular keys) and the
  way the editor functions. Modes are available for C programming,
  HTML authoring, standard text editing and many other purposes.
  This modularity makes Emacs one of the most versatile editors
  available.

  This Mac version of Emacs doesn't require special keystrokes for
  basic use, but the keystroke bindings are what makes Emacs so
  powerful. Using Emacs to full advantage means memorizing over a
  hundred keystrokes, but you can learn along the way. This Mac
  version contains everything from the text editor mode of Unix
  Emacs (except email, news, and shell capabilities) and adds a few
  extra features. By default, text windows are light grey, making
  long hours in front of the monitor a little less tedious on the
  eyes. (All the colors used in the program can be edited.) Like
  most of the editors reviewed here, Emacs transparently supports
  Unix, DOS, and Mac ASCII formats. Since normal Emacs requires the
  use of "control" and "meta" modifier keys, Mac Emacs let you
  assign any modifier key to the role of control or meta.

  Emacs's performance can be astounding. As a test, I tried
  replacing 2,088 occurrences of "from" with "to" in my 900K
  outgoing mail file. Emacs found and replaced all occurrences in 1
  second, BBEdit Lite in 9 seconds, Plaintext in 62 seconds, Style
  in 3.5 minutes, and Tex-Edit Plus in 4 minutes and 45 seconds.

  Regrettably, in the end Mac Emacs's Unix roots make it non-
  graphical and hard to learn. For instance, an Emacs window doesn't
  have a scrollbar, and doesn't allow text selection with the mouse.
  Emacs will interface with CodeWarrior, which is great for
  programmers who grew up using Emacs on Unix systems. The current
  version of Emacs for the Mac aligns itself with version 18.59 on
  the Unix side. The current version on the Unix side is version
  19.x. The author of the Mac port has said that he would like to do
  a version 19.x port but we shouldn't expect anything soon.

  [Alpha, a large, sophisticated text editor not reviewed here, also
  offers a lot of Emacs's functionality. -Geoff]

<ftp://www.cs.umd.edu/pub/faculty/keleher/Alpha/>


**Plaintext 1.6.1** is a freeware text editor written by
  neurobiology professor Mel Park in his spare time. Plaintext's
  fortes are its simplicity and the variety of conversion options
  for text files from different platforms.

<ftp://nb.utmem.edu/pub/plaintext/>

  Plaintext has a few features distinguishing it from most other
  editors. First, Plaintext supports bookmarks. If you're working
  with a particularly long document and want to remember where you
  were reading or note an important passage, you can set a mark. You
  can jump quickly to any mark by selecting it from the Mark menu,
  and a file can contain a large number of marks. Plaintext contains
  column editing that enables you to select a vertical column, and
  Plaintext supports a small command-line language.

  Plaintext's command-line commands are mostly Unix commands (find,
  ls, pwd, and cat, among others) which the author implemented out
  of respect for the power of the MPW shell (MPW stands for
  Macintosh Programmer's Workshop; it's a programming environment
  from Apple with Unix-like features.) These simple commands
  (activated by typing them and pressing Enter rather than Return)
  have less overhead than menus and dialog boxes and make Plaintext
  a smaller, sleeker application. Most of these commands are also
  available via the menu bar.

  Plaintext has been updated several times recently, fixing bugs and
  adding a few features. Plaintext has a mostly full Apple event
  implementation but does not have an AppleScript dictionary.
  Plaintext supports drag & drop - a feature BBEdit Lite lacks - and
  Park has said he plans to add full AppleScript support and
  possibly have it support OpenDoc in the future.


**SaintEdit** is a $10 shareware editor that Craig Marciniak
  introduced in 1992 and updated to version 1.5b13 recently. After
  two years of relative hibernation, however, SaintEdit is about to
  revive itself in an enhanced 2.0 version. The new version is based
  on the WASTE engine and will feature a spelling checker, improved
  interface, AppleScript support, and drag & drop, as well as
  extensive conversion and find and replace options, Text-to-Speech
  support, and HTML macros. Craig has promised a public beta
  shortly.

<ftp://mirror.aol.com/pub/info-mac/text/saint-edit-15b13.hqx>


**Style 1.4**, a $10 shareware tool by Marco Piovanelli. Termed a
  "styled text editor," Style supports different fonts, text styles
  (like bold), font sizes, colors, and text alignment. It also
  supports embedded sounds and graphics. Style can read and create
  SimpleText documents (with styles intact), and SimpleText can read
  Style documents (with styles intact) provided the document is
  saved as text rather than in native Style format. Style uses
  Marco's WASTE text engine which lets Style handle documents larger
  than 32K and helps give it the ability to use different languages
  via WorldScript - a definite boon for creating documents in
  languages such as Japanese or Russian.

  Style supports some great technologies, like XTND, drag & drop,
  and Internet Config; in addition, Style is a fat binary and
  supports AppleScript recording. Style uses a memory management
  scheme similar to BBEdit and Tex-Edit Plus, where temporary memory
  is used when no space is available in Style's memory partition.

  Some extra niceties of Style are a Window menu, smart quotes,
  auto-indent, a basic find and replace feature, linefeed
  translation, extensive scripting capabilities, and a special
  scripting menu to which Command keys can be assigned. Simply drop
  an AppleScript into the Style Script folder and the script appears
  as a menu item. Style comes with several sample scripts and
  droplets.

<ftp://mirror.aol.com/pub/info-mac/text/style-141.hqx>


**Tex-Edit Plus 1.7.0**, by Tom Bender, is a $10 shareware editor
  which feels like a nicely enhanced SimpleText with a good blend of
  features found in both Plaintext and SimpleText. The current
  version is Power Mac native, uses the WASTE engine, and boasts
  large speed improvements. A Japanese version of Tex-Edit Plus 1.7
  is available, and a French version should appear soon.

<ftp://mirror.aol.com/pub/info-mac/text/tex-edit-plus-17.hqx>
<ftp://members.aol.com/tombb/>

  Like Plaintext, Tex-Edit Plus enables conversion of Mac, Unix, and
  DOS text  files. A nice find and replace utility provides an easy
  means to manipulate tabs, carriage returns, and other special
  characters. The Modify Document menu contains some wonderfully
  useful conversion utilities, including converting curly and
  straight quotes, ellipses, dashes, spaces, and other special
  characters often used with word processors or desktop publishing
  programs.

  Tex-Edit Plus has a huge Sound menu with options for speaking text
  and recording sound. Although all of the text editors reviewed can
  use different fonts to view documents, Tex-Edit Plus supports
  multiple fonts, sizes, and styles in one document, more like
  SimpleText, Style, or a typical word processor. The author
  comments that one of Tex-Edit Plus's bonuses is its ability to
  open SimpleText documents and display their formatting (including
  inline graphics), something none of the other editors quite do.
  Tex-Edit Plus also opens read-only SimpleText files.

  Other useful features include inserting the date or time, going to
  any specified line number, drag & drop support, and text
  justification. One annoying caveat: Shift-Delete does a forward
  delete, and there doesn't appear to a way to turn this feature
  off. Otherwise the program appears to be squeaky clean. Tex-Edit
  Plus also uses temporary memory, like BBEdit Lite and Style, to
  open very large files instead of requiring the user to give more
  memory to the program and re-launch.

  The author says a new version will be available in the near future
  which will show invisible characters and support AppleScript
  recording and QuickDraw GX.


**Conclusions** -- Which editor you use depends largely on your
  purposes. To create text files with graphics or multiple fonts,
  sizes or styles (like SimpleText ReadMe files), Tex-Edit Plus and
  Style are the only way to go - no other editors support these
  features. Style's fortes are undoubtedly its Script menu, the
  ability to command-click URLs (helped out by Internet Config), and
  the WorldScript-savvy WASTE engine. Tex-Edit Plus has a few extra
  niceties, such as a better (although slow) search and replace,
  sounds embedded in documents, and more translation options.

  If you have no need to create files with graphics or multiple font
  sizes, consider BBEdit Lite, Plaintext, or Emacs. BBEdit Lite is a
  small, fast, elegant text editor, and its superb interface and
  reliability make it an excellent tool for programming, HTML
  editing, composing ASCII text, or simply viewing existing
  documents. Bare Bone's decision to include soft-wrapping in BBEdit
  Lite has made it a much more multi-purpose text editor, satisfying
  the demands of most anyone. Despite the fact BBEdit Lite is not
  fully (or even mostly) Power Mac native, it's still fast - much
  faster than the fully native Plaintext.

  If you need extensive conversion capabilities not covered in
  BBEdit Lite's extensions or text conversions, Plaintext is a good
  choice. Plaintext doesn't have the extensive feature sets of other
  editors, but it's a solid program. Emacs is wildly different from
  any of the other editors; though I can't recommend Emacs to novice
  Mac users or the general public, though anyone used to the Unix
  version will find it an excellent port.


$$

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