Bean is a text editor that can save and open in a useful set of formats.
Bean is a text editor that can save and open in a useful set of formats: bean, rtf, rtfd, doc, docx, odt, and webarchive.
With its attractive icon, simple title, and straightforward interface, Bean fits right in with Apple's application aesthetic. Although the primary and obvious features one would expect in a text editor - save, print, find, and font tools - are lined up in an application menu ribbon, there are many more capabilities one might not expect to find outside a fully-featured text editor: detailed formatting controls, template text insertion, style-based copy-and-paste, and window-splitting. Also, rather than setting the default save to be its own .bean format, as some alternative text editors do in an ill-fated attempt to monopolize control over your documents (or, granted, perhaps to preserve application-specific formatting), it defaults to .rtfd, a default which is, of course, customizable from Bean's Preferences dialog window.
Pros
- Lightweight and agile, a nice compromise between TextEdit and Word
- Distraction-free fullscreen mode
Cons
- No longer actively developed
- Limited control over pictures and pasted content
It is pretty simple, probably too simple for a text editor. But it serves its minor purpose.
Of course, I understand this program wasn't developed as a potential competitor of Microsoft word or Libre Office; i certainly agree that you shouldn't expect a breath-taking functionality from a freeware program; that's surely clear that when it comes down to the layout and not to the contents of a text, you'd better turn to commercial editors. But come on, why should I want to download a text editor with a feature set little more than that of Notebook? I just see no point in installing this program on my computer, as I am not likely to use it instead of its more decent counterpart.