The Demise of BBEdit Lite

Bare Bones software, makers of excellent Mac software, have retired the free BBedit Lite text editor. I initially learned to create HTML files using BBedit Lite, which was a truly “bare bones” text editor, with no HTML tools per se but excellent tools for working with ASCII files. I’ve long since upgraded to BBEdit, now at version 7.0.2 with all sorts of nifty tools for HTML and CSS, and Perl and just about everything else you’d want, as well as great ASCII and Unicode tools.

BBEdit lite was retired today in deference to Bare Bone’s latest product, TextWrangler, which features a reduced feature compared to BBEdit, and a reduced price, at $49.00. I’ve not looked at TextWrangler yet (I will) but I’m very disappointed in Bare Bones’ decision to drop BBEdit Lite. I am sure TextWrangler is nifty, but it’s too much money for me to ask students to pay while they learn to write HTML. BBEdit lite was perfect for that, and better than than Apple’s SimpleText. BBedit “Pro” as it used to be called is fabulous, but not really affordable or appropriate for my students. I’ll look around for something else since I wanted to use BBEdit Lite next quarter.

Arachnophilia, my preferred free tool for writing HTML on Windows is now a Java app; I’ll keep on eye on it to see when it starts being Mac friendly. Dorie Smith has a list of “Budget Web Software” here, though it’s a bit out of date, it’s still useful. Then there was a long discussion of HTML editors for beginners a while ago up at MacInTouch. But BBedit Lite really was perfect for teaching, and I’m disappointed by Bare Bones decision to drop it, though I understand their reasons.

Updated here.