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Comment by burriko | Hacker News Reader

I think most Mac users (okay, i'm generalising) have become used to their software looking good. There are already many editors for OS X that have simple, elegant interfaces and that follow Mac interface guidelines. e.g. Textmate, Coda, Espresso, even Xcode and MacVim to a point.

In my opinion Ultraedit for Mac is ugly and looks like what it is, a port of some Windows software. I'm sure it's a fantastically powerful editor and this might seem shallow, but this is enough to stop me from using it. If I'm going to stare at an interface all day it needs to be visually pleasing.

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If you can't turn off that top toolbar, it's a no-go for me from the start. Using up ~10% of extremely valuable real estate for buttons that you should have memorized the keyboard shortcuts for? No thanks.

In general it appears to be very wasteful of screen real estate, and to be poorly thought out from a UE perspective. Buttons and fonts are bigger than they need to. There's some extremely quizzical usage of padding, as well.

Usually that rounded rectangle in the top right hides the top toolbar and I would expect the same behavior in this case.

"UltraEdit for Mac also accommodates the selection of predefined toolbars for macros, scripting, search, and user defined toolbars. You can of course choose whether or not to display them."

I hope that means the top one too.

I am looking at a picture of Textmate. I don't really consider that "good looking". I use MacVim. I don't really consider that "good looking" either. It is a first shot at getting UE to the Mac. I am hoping that means they will be open to suggestions. I have signed up for the beta and I will certainly be letting them know when things aren't Mac "like".

I'm sure part of the reason for this is an increase in their clients asking for a Mac port. A Windows user moving to Mac might like to keep the things he's used to if he can. Having more than one test editor isn't a bad thing for the Mac. Having software ported over just makes the transition easier for those that want to move over. It's a good thing. =)

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