Freeware

Smultron: The Text Editor with the Strange Icon

By EAN ⋅ July 27, 2007 ⋅  Email this Post ⋅  Print this Post ⋅ Post a Comment

Developer: Peter Borg
Version: 3.1.2
Download it Here.

I’m a simple guy who likes to use programs that are nicely laid out and come with all of the functionality that I need. Nothing more. So when I first downloaded Smultron on a recommendation I wasn’t real sure what to expect. Not to sound superficial, but the strange strawberry icon really threw me. That was before I started the program for the first time.

Needless to say, the program itself was not what I expected - and that was a good thing in this case. And I am happy to tell you that the weird strawberry icon has absolutely nothing to do with the inside of the program.

Developer Peter Borg really went for the minimalist look when designing the interface for Smultron. The buttons here are few and far between, leaving the user to navigate through arm’s length cascading menus and hot key shortcuts galore in order to do anything effectively. This lack of a usable user interface is really my biggest complaint against the program. All of the functionality is there - it’s just hard to get to.

The text editing works wonderfully though, as it should. I can really see that this is where most of the design went into. The typing is smooth, poorly spelled words are automatically underlined (no grammar check though) and it formats the text exactly like I want it to. Smultron will even color the text differently depending on what kind of code you are using, although the differentiation between code is not as well defined as it is on some other programs.

As far as updates go, Peter Borg is all over them. Honestly, I have never seen a program get so many updates so quickly. There would be a new update waiting for me practically every time I started Smultron up. Absolutely amazing, and great to see a small time developer care so much about his product.

Having coded a few websites and JavaScript programs with Smultron, I can honestly say that I really enjoyed using it. While it is not quite as powerful as some of its competition - I can’t complain because Smultron is completely free of charge. And I do love free programs.

Smultron is a great program, and I highly recommend it. I just wish there was a version available for other operating systems. For now though, it’s OS X only.

Try it for yourself.

- Eric Norton