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Atom For Linux

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A hackable, cross-platform, open-source and highly customizable text editor for the 21s century, created by GitHub. #Text Editor  #Code Editor  #Write Code  #Editor  #Code  #Text  

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Choosing a text/code editor for your future projects may seem like a straightforward task until you get into the nitty-gritty aspects of what makes the perfect editor in the first place.

While there's no easy answer to what may be the best code editor out there (especially considering the number of good editors out there such as Sublime, Visual Studio Code, Vim, etc.), there's one app that's difficult to ignore. That app is called Atom.

Marketed as "a hackable text editor for the 21st Century," Atom came into existence in 2014. It's built by GitHub using the Electron framework, arguably the leading technology when it comes to creating state-of-the-art web technologies. Atom is built using HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and features Node.js integration.

It's a text/code editor that allows cross-platform editing, meaning that it works on all three major Windows, macOS, and Linux (and all other Linux-based distributions as well).

One massive advantage of Atom is the fact that it was specifically developed to integrate with Git and GitHub. What this means is that you can access all your GitHub projects and packages, create new branches, stage, and commit, view pull requests, resolve merge conflicts, as well as push and pull changes directly within Atom.

Part of the reason is the way it works with GitHub and Git flawlessly. However, Atom has way more to offer than just that. For instance, Atom works with a wide range of programming languages including the most popular ones such as Ruby, Java, JavaScript, CSS, Python, R, and so forth.

Atom boasts a smart autocompletion engine that helps you boost your productivity while writing code, a multi-pane layout, as well as a file system browser (that's more capable than it looks, as it allows you to work on multiple projects in the same window).

The Find and Replace feature is ubiquitous in most code editors, and it also contributes towards making Atom one of the best apps of this sort.

Another reason why Atom is so popular is because of its unique flexibility. This is an open-source editor that's designed to be hackable up to the point where you can make it your own.

Atom has a built-in package manager, as well as one of the most impressive package libraries out there (as expected, all packages are extracted directly from GitHub itself). At the time of writing, Atom boasts a gigantic 9.122 package library.

That's not all. In terms of customization, you can use one of the few pre-installed UI and syntax themes. If they're not to your liking, simply install some built by the community or even build your own.

Speaking of building "stuff" for Atom, you can fully customize the way Atom's UI looks using CSS and Less, and also add new features from scratch with the help of HTML and JavaScript.

As with all things, Atom is not perfect. Since it's built with Electron, it's no surprise that Atom may feel a bit sluggish at times.

For example, when opening a big project file, or switching between multiple tabs in fast succession. However, performance has come a long way since it was first released a couple of years ago, and even the present small niggles are not (or shouldn't be) a dealbreaker.

Atom is an amazing open-source product, and one with advantages that clearly outshine its limited set of drawbacks. It's fast, scalable, it has incredible flexibility, easy-to-install packages, and a sublime integration with Git and GitHub.

What's new in Atom 1.63.1:

  • atom/atom#25709 - Fix File -> Open… menu on macOS
Read the full changelog
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Atom 1.63.1

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  runs on:
Linux
  filename:
atom-amd64.deb
  7 screenshots:
Atom - Atom boasts a dark, gray-themed GUIAtom - You can customize a plethora of features and functions directly from the Prefences sectionAtom - You can boost your productivity while writing code by setting up the editorAtom - screenshot #4Atom - screenshot #5Atom - screenshot #6Atom - screenshot #7
  main category:
Text Editing&Processing
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