I've been using BBEdit as my compare tool on macOS for a few years now, but recently noticed that it keeps opening a window that's maybe 90% of my screen's width and height. That might be useful on a large monitor, but my 13" MacBook Air felt especially cramped.

Welp, to change the default size of a window in BBEdit, you apparently use the menu! Feels very OS 9-. /nostalgia

From "BBEdit > New Window Size & Location > Set Default" on ArsTechnica:

When I began my search for how to set the default location for new windows in BBEdite, I was certain that to set this required a "write defaults" from the command line.

Not so -- no need for BBEdit Expert Preferences for this ... it's in the menu:

Menubar > Window > Save Default <type of> Window

The Save Default Window command stores the position and size of the front window in BBEditโ€™s preferences, and BBEdit will create all new windows of the same type with the stored position and size.

In my case, the "type of" is "Difference".

So, to be overly clear, first open a difference window, size and position it to taste, and then run the "Menubar > Window > Save Default Window" jive.

I'm sure I've mentioned I've been using BBEdit since the year of its birth (not sure exactly, but certainly in 1992. I still fondly remember [a few years later] using it in tandem with Transmit). I'd wandered away from BBEdit for years, using Ultra-Edit on Windows for a while, then VIm, Visual Studio, and a number of language-specific editors (sort of like (and including) PhpStorm), Coda (super briefly), Sublime Text, and now largely (and largely happily) VS Code crossplatform.

It's kinda neat to have a daily use for the "old grey lady" of text editing again and to continue not to be disappointed in its feature-set. BBEdit doesn't suck.

Labels: ,