By Jason Snell
January 9, 2024 3:44 PM PT
BBEdit 15 adds ChatGPT support
Two and a half years after BBEdit received its last major update, Bare Bones Software has updated the venerable Mac text editor to version 15.0.
The big new feature is the addition of support for ChatGPT via the same Worksheet interface BBEdit has used to interact with a command-line shell for many years. Like a Shell Worksheet, a ChatGPT Worksheet is an interactive BBEdit document: It looks like a regular text window (because it is one!), but when you type a command and press a hotkey (it’s Enter by default), that command is sent directly to ChatGPT, and the result appears right below it in the same document.
It’s a clever way for BBEdit to dip its toe into the large language model waters without implementing a Copilot-like code helper within documents themselves. Now, BBEdit users can toggle between a GPT worksheet and other documents, copying and pasting as needed, without leaving the app. I’ve used it a few times already, and it sure beats having to navigate to OpenAI’s website in order to grab some quick prototype code.
The new Cheat Sheets feature provides interactive floating palettes that can teach custom commands. For example, the Markdown Cheat Sheet not only shows various forms of Markdown but if you click on any of the examples, they’ll be automatically inserted into your document. They’re reminiscent of BBEdit’s Clippings feature, and unsurprisingly, one of the included Cheat Sheets contains all the placeholders used in building a BBEdit Clipping.
There’s also a new Minimap view, which lets you see a large thumbnail of a very long document, highlighting the portion that’s currently visible. You can navigate anywhere in a document by clicking on the Minimap. This feature will be useful for visually oriented users who need to navigate through very long documents.
As usual, there are dozens (Bare Bones says 200!) of new features in the lengthy release notes, including the addition of a grep pattern validity indicator in the Find window (so you don’t have to click before realizing you left off a parenthesis!), a big interface revision to the simple and powerful Text Factory in-app automation system, quick access to comparing different versions of the current document, a revamp of Project Settings so that they’re no longer modal, and improved Accessibility compatibility including Voiceover, Full Keyboard Access, and third-party utilities that rely on the Accessibility system such as Grammarly.
Every time there’s a new version of BBEdit, I’m inspired by the creativity that continues to flourish in a product that’s more than 30 years old. But there’s still more to do! The app’s support for Shortcuts is still quite meager, for example.
A new license for BBEdit 15 is $60, with upgrades from version 14 costing $30 and from earlier versions costing $40.
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