Try Out This New Free Mac Text Editor [Review]

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20111110-tincta-icon.jpg

New on the Mac App Store is Tincta, a text editor for coders and writers. It’s small, lightweight, fast – and free.

The single window layout lists open files in a panel on the left. The preferences are simple and basic. This is an application that’s still very much feeling its way into the big wide world.

Tincta for OS X

That doesn’t mean that it’s incapable, though. Tincta comes with support for 70 programming languages, line numbering, and a nice search-and-replace tool. It’s been written from scratch, no third-party code included.

Not everything’s there just yet. No full screen mode (not even of the system-wide Lion variety), and changes to text colors have to be made manually – you can’t save a color scheme, or import one from elsewhere.

Also, although the app launches in an instant, I did occasionally notice just a tiny amount of sluggishness while writing and editing. It wasn’t a big problem, though.

The basic version costs nothing. There’s a Pro version on offer for a few dollars, which adds features such as split views, scripting support, a snippet manager and built-in file browser.

It’s always great to see a newcomer on the scene, so keep your eye on future updates. The “keep it simple” approach is always appealing, as is the use of an octopus for an icon.

[xrr rating=60%]

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