Bicycle For Your Mind
Caret Hits Version 2 and Sprouts a Command Palette
Caret icon
It is fun to see a product which I am interested in grow up. Caret, the cross-platform markdown based text editor is growing up. It is up to version 2.0.6 and significant changes have happened since the last time I wrote about it.
I am going to highlight a few of these changes.
Font Preferences
Caret Font Preferences
Caret lets you use your own font, including proportional fonts. It lets you tweak the font size, the line height and the line width in your document.
Multiple Cursors
Like Sublime Text 3, Caret lets you use multiple cursors (⌘+D) to edit text in your document. You have the ability to choose multiple occurrences of a word by selecting the word and typing ⌘+⌃+G. You can then edit the multiple instances of the same word all at once.
Multiple cursors seem gimmicky at first but you get used to it and it is a useful addition to your text editing skills.
Command Palette
Caret Command Palette
⌘+⇧+P gives you the command palette. It is another feature borrowed from Sublime Text. All the commands supported by the program are accessible through the command palette. You don't have to remember the keyboard commands anymore. Invoke the command palette and start typing out the command and fuzzy search will narrow it down to the one you are looking for. Makes using Caret easy. The keyboard commands do show up at the right of the command and you are better off learning the ones you use regularly.
Tweak Your Keyboard Shortcuts
Caret Keyboard Shortcuts
You have the ability to change or assign any keyboard shortcut to any command you want. Caret gives you the ability to customize your use of the editor and use any keyboard shortcut you are familiar with. I love it. I can standardize on the keyboard shortcuts I use across programs and that makes my use of Caret more efficient. Learn once. Use everywhere.
Miscellaneous Improvements
- The file handling features have been improved. Caret lets you rename, delete, copy and paste files in the directory tree. You can even open the file in the Finder if you so choose.
- There is inline rendering of math expressions.
- Editing command additions like add selection above/below, command to split selection into lines, command to duplicate line, command to delete line.
- Added support for column selection. Hold down the ⌥ key and drag.
- If you have a URL in the clipboard, highlighting a word and pressing ⌘+K, now gives you a markdown link.
There are many more. Caret is growing up to be useful.
Price Increase
Along with all of these improvements has come an increase in the price of the product. It is now $25.
Conclusion
I am not interested in the cross-platform nature of Caret, but if that is important to you, then Caret is a great solution. For the Mac user, Caret is growing up to be a formidable contender in the space for minimalistic markdown based text editors.
I recommend it heartily.
macosxguru at the gmail thingie