Atom 1.4

Atom is a text editor. Yet, it is not a text editor like others you can find out there, for it is specially developed to facilitate the work of software developers.

In this regard, this tool comes with plenty of productivity features.

Atom is developed on HTML, JavaScript, CSS and Node.js while Electron runs under the hood, which not only permits it to run smoothly on multiple platforms, but also allows using it to build cross-platform software. Moreover, this has the additional advantage of making Atom extremely customizable in terms of both appearance and features. In this regard, the editor’s interface can be personalized by editing the underlying CSS rules.

Atom is extremely tweakable and adjustable to your specific needs. The program itself is built on multiple packages running around a basic core. Thus, you can easily download and install more packages or develop your own if none of them can do exactly what you need. One of these packages is Teletype, intended for developers who are collaborating on the same project at a distance. It is also good that it lets you work with Git and GitHub directly.

As to productivity features, the editor supports working on multiple panes to compare code side by side. As most other similar tools, it allows finding and replacing a given word or character string. Besides, it lets you make your code easier to work with by folding the selected lines. Luckily, you do not need to memorize the whole syntax as it comes with automatic code completion.

In general, Atom has all it takes to become the favorite editor for many programmers. As seen above, its greatest asset is customizability. Compared with other similar editors, Atom may be slower to load because it is browser-based. Moreover, it uses more system resources. Fortunately, the product is opensource and available for anyone to use.