Runestone Text Editor

I used to really like this editor. I've been using the free version for a few months now, and it's a nice, cozy, "no frills" alternative to Apple Notes. It's the closest thing to having NotePad++ on my machine as I can get, and I've been enjoying the features I do use. However, I recently updated to iPadOS 18 and, since then, the app has been kind of laggy and sluggish. Prior to getting iPadOS 18, the app would open quietly and go straight to the file selection menu. Now, however, it opens to this screen with a blown-up icon scrolling vertically upward, hangs there and lags my iPad for a couple of seconds, and then opens the file selection menu on the bottom half of the screen rather than the entire screen. This makes me not want to use this particular app, anymore, since I can no longer quickly hop in, jot something down, and hop out. I have no real complaints beyond that. It crashes on occasion when deleting, undoing, or redoing… but that's more acceptable than this new startup sequence. I really dislike it that much.

I’ve tried so many text editors from Coda for iOS to Koder to Textastic. They’ve all been “ok”, but the problem I kept coming down to was the syntax highlighting. I’m a web developer and I use Atom on Mac every single day. I discovered this app and the syntax highlighting looked pretty good, but then I found where you can create your own theme and I immediately bought Premium and got to work replicating Atoms theme I use. I got it 90% of the way there and I’m in love. I’ve wanted this for years. THANK YOU. If I could ask for anything it would be tabs for multiple files open at once and maybe a tree view on the left to browse files and folder structure, but other than that I LOVE IT.

A good text editor is like a freshly sharpened chef’s knife. It just FEELS good to use, and it makes you happy. You know what a dull knife feels like and you can appreciate the perfect slicing motion you get from using the right tool for the job. Runestone is the right tool for text editing. It’s gorgeous, powerful enough to tackle editing huge files, and simple enough to jot down some quick notes or whip up a blog post for your static site. Combine this app with a git client, an SSH client, and you can manage your home software stack on the go. Finally, there’s not enough space here to say nice things about the developer, so I’ll leave it at - he’s incredibly thoughtful and responsive. If you have feedback on the app, hit him up on Twitter. Thanks Simon, for dedicating so much time to making this amazing app!!