If you want a text editor which is as capable as Sublime Text but doesn’t cost a penny, then Atom is for you. Developed by the same minds which are behind the popular SVC service GitHub, Atom is an open-source software which is both modern and approachable and yet hackable to its core. When speaking about text editors and IDE’s there is always a never-ending debate among programmers which text editor/IDE is best. Well, the choice is always personal; I have seen people sticking with single editor/IDE and some people using 2 to 3 editors/IDE’s at a time. How to password protect lacie external hard drive. Installing Atom Text Editor: First, visit the official website of Atom from your favorite web browser. Now, click on the Download.deb button as marked in the screenshot below. Now, your browser should prompt you to download the Atom DEB package file. CHOOSING A TEXT EDITOR. There are a number of text editors to choose from. Atom and Sublime Text are two of the most popular text editors used by developers. Sublime Text has been the text editor of choice for many years. It is stable and reliable. Atom was released by GitHub after Sublime Text. It’s a fully customizable text editor.
A text editor is a tool that can handle text files. We may not feel like it but it’s one of the most important tools we all have used in one form or another. It’s especially true for programmers. Keeping the importance and necessity in mind, there are plenty of text editors you can find all over the internet.Linux is like a holy grail for text editors. No matter whatever distro you’re using, you’re almost guaranteed to have one or more pre-installed text editors. In this article, we’ll be checking out Atom, one of the finest text editors for everyone.
Atom on Linux Mint
Atom is a free and open-source text editor that’s cross-platform with tons of features like themes, packages, robust customization and of course, a very slick GUI. There is more to it, of course, and we’re going to experience it by ourselves.
Why wait? Let’s jump right into the installation of the Atom text editor on Linux Mint!
Installing Atom
Atom is quite a popular text editor. However, it’s not directly available from the official servers (yet). There are two methods we can follow to install the Atom text editor: using the official DEB package or, through the official APT repository.
Let’s get started!
Install Atom using the official DEB package
Let’s grab the official Atom DEB package. Go to this page.
Click the button labeled as “Download .deb”.
Download complete? It’s finally time to install the DEB package. I recommend installing a DEB package using APT so that it’ll take care of any dependencies by default.
First, let’s update the APT cache and install any package update (if available).
Now, install the DEB package.
Voila! Atom is ready to go!
Install Atom from Atom repo
This is probably the best way to go. In this method, we’ll be adding the official Atom repository in the list of APT sources. Any time you tell APT to update the system (for example, running apt update), you’ll automatically have the latest version of the Atom text editor. No need to manually check if there’s an update available.
First, we need the GPG key of the Atom official package repository. Run the following command to add it to your system. Here, wget will grab the GPG key file and the second part will perform the action using the file.
$ wget-qO - https://packagecloud.io/AtomEditor/atom/gpgkey |sudoapt-key add -
Now, let’s add the Atom package repository to the sources list of APT.
$ sudosh-c'echo 'deb [arch=amd64] https://packagecloud.io/AtomEditor/atom/any/
any main' > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/atom.list'
any main' > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/atom.list'
Tell APT to refresh its cache. APT should be able to access the Atom package repository and update the cache accordingly.
Finally, APT is ready to install Atom. To install the latest stable build of Atom, run the following command. Most of the time, this is what you want.
If you want to test out the beta build of Atom, then run the following one instead.
Using Atom text editor
Let’s have a look at the Atom text editor. Start Atom from the menu.
This is a welcome screen of Atom.
Here, I’ve grabbed a sample C++ code. Here’s how it looks with Atom.
This is just the default theme. Atom supports packages and themes to customize the experience. In simple, these are extensions to improve Atom. There are more than 8,000 packages on the official Atom package store.
There are two ways to handle Atom packages – using apm or directly through Atom. The apm is a wonderful command-line tool (just like APT, YUM, or PACMAN, etc.) to manage Atom packages. Generally, it comes with Atom by default.
Here’s how you’d manage Atom packages directly from the GUI. Go to Edit >> Preferences.
From the left panel, select “Packages”.
To manage the theme, check out the “Themes” tab.
Interested in a particular package? Grab it from the “Install” tab.
Go fish slots. For advanced users, certain keybinding can definitely speed up the task at hand. It can be treated as a trigger for a macro as well. To manage the keybinding, check out the “Keybindings” tab.
If there’s an update available to any package, it’ll show up in the “Updates” tab.
Final thoughts
Text editors have come really a long way. Atom is more than just a text editor. With the ability to enhance its power through packages, Atom can also be the perfect IDE for programmers. However, no matter how shiny and powerful a text editor is, it definitely doesn’t have the power of transforming someone suddenly a pro programmer. For that, one needs to learn more practice hard.
Interested in bash scripting? Scripting is not exactly equivalent to programming but it certainly holds tremendous power. Let’s check out this beginner’s guide to bash scripting. Use Atom on the journey to smoothen the path forward.
Enjoy!
Teletype for Atom
Great things happen when developers work together—from teaching and sharing knowledge to building better software. Speedy pc pro. How can i update my safari. Teletype for Atom makes collaborating on code just as easy as it is to code alone, right from your editor.
Share your workspace and edit code together in real time. To start collaborating, open Teletype in Atom and install the package.
GitHub for Atom
A text editor is at the core of a developer’s toolbox, but it doesn't usually work alone. Work with Git and GitHub directly from Atom with the GitHub package.
Create new branches, stage and commit, push and pull, resolve merge conflicts, view pull requests and more—all from within your editor. The GitHub package is already bundled with Atom, so you're ready to go!
Everything you would expect
Cross-platform editing
Atom works across operating systems. Use it on OS X, Windows, or Linux.
Built-in package manager
Search for and install new packages or create your own right from Atom.
Smart autocompletion
Atom helps you write code faster with a smart and flexible autocomplete.
File system browser
Easily browse and open a single file, a whole project, or multiple projects in one window.
Multiple panes
Split your Atom interface into multiple panes to compare and edit code across files.
Find and replace
Find, preview, and replace text as you type in a file or across all your projects.
Make it your editor
Packages
Choose from thousands of open source packages that add new features and functionality to Atom, or build a package from scratch and publish it for everyone else to use.
Themes
Atom comes pre-installed with four UI and eight syntax themes in both dark and light colors. Can't find what you're looking for? Install themes created by the Atom community or create your own.
Customization
It's easy to customize and style Atom. Tweak the look and feel of your UI with CSS/Less, and add major features with HTML and JavaScript.
See how to set up Atom
![Best text editor Best text editor](https://www.mdpi.com/computation/computation-03-00657/article_deploy/html/images/computation-03-00657-g001.png)
Under the hood
Atom is a desktop application built with HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and Node.js integration. It runs on Electron, a framework for building cross platform apps using web technologies.
Open source
Atom is open source. Be part of the Atom community or help improve your favorite text editor.
Keep in touch
Notepad++
GitHub | github.com/atom |
@AtomEditor | |
Chat | Slack |
Forum | Discuss |
Stuff | Atom Gear |
RSS Feed | Packages & Themes |