I was quite happy with BBEdit. Happier than I ever was with n++, but I never really got into n++ very much

Same here. I've been using BBEdit on the Mac for 20 years now. I suspect BBEdit on the Mac and vi(m) in the terminal will be the only editors I'll ever need.

What does Notepad++ do for you that TextMate or Sublime doesn't?

* The search and replace is a lot better. I can double click a word, CTRL+f, and the search box will contain the word that was clicked. Textmate doesn't auto fill the search box.

* n++ has good replacing when using new lines like \n. And regex.

* n++ column select is very good

* n++ makes it easier to create a new tab

* In n++ when I double click a word, all instances of that are highlighted. Not so in TextMate

* MacOS has a system-wide feature that does this better than N++: Select a word, command-e, and the selected word goes to the "search pasteboard" or whatever it's called. It fills the search box, and also primes command-g (find next/prev) It works with other search features really well, and is cross-app.

* TextMate has amazing regex support. I replace multi-line stuff all the time. Best i've found.

* TM column select is most likely just as good, and it has multi-select (non-column based multi-selection). (I don't know the in's and outs of n++ to comment)

* TM uses the usual command-t for something else, but command-option-n isn't too bad for a new tab.

* command-e to prime selection, then option-command-f to selects all. These are real multi-selections not just highlights, so you can edit-all, copy-paste, etc.

ive been using macos for decades and have never heard of command-e - super nice, thank you for mentioning it.

Seems you are not very familiar with TextMate.

For TextMate, cmd+E, cmd+F then the selection is in the search box. Or, you don't even have to open the search box with cmd+F, just cmd+G to next selection or cmd+opt+F to multi-cursor edit all occurrences.

The regex in TextMate is also very powerful (the unicode support is more powerful). New lines can be matched with \n. Another way is to select new line and repeat the cmd+E trick.

TextMate column selection is even better: you can enter column select mode simply by pressing opt. It is in fact multi-cursor editing, many editing commands like completion / copy / paste can work for each row individually.

Cmd+N or ctrl+cmd+N in TextMate.

The last one, not in TextMate. Though cmd+E then cmd+opt+F can highlight and start multi-edit on all instances of the word.

> Textmate doesn't auto fill the search box

Not sure how it works exactly with Textmate, but for most Mac editors, you double click a word, cmd-E to place the word in the search box, then cmd-G to find again. This saves time because you never see the find dialog and can start searching immediately. I only use cmd-F if I need to fiddle with the find settings. Replacing is just as simple, shift-cmd-E to place selected word in the replace field, cmd-T to replace and find again.

Add this to Sublime's preferences:

    "find_selected_text": true

I believe all of this is present in SublimeText

Yes, but I find it a lot more difficult to use. n++ seems very natural for me.

I'm in a similar camp to yours. I've used tonnes of text editors across Windows / Mac / Linux, and Notepad++ was simply the best amongst all of them.

TextMate comes closest on the Mac which is why it's my primary GUI editor, but I still miss being able to do all the stuff that just came "naturally" in Notepad++.

Also, running Notepad++ in Wine just doesn't feel the same.

TextMate has always had regexp support in find/replace, FYI.