I've been using the beta version of Nova for a few weeks now and I've almost used my trial period for the 1.0.
As a TypeScript developer, if someone made me choose between paying $99 for the actually-free VS Code, or buy Nova, I would by VS Code without hesitation.
Before it began getting long in the tooth I was a big Coda fan. On the whole I like VS Code but I do suffer the occasional runaway process so I am open-minded to a new editor from Panic.
Nova is faster than VS Code, but barely. I like the default rainbow indentation, though I'm sure there's a VSC plugin for that. The contextual spell-checking is excellent and I know it's a better experience than any VSC plugin.
But this thing can't even auto-format a comment block. You can't set format-specific options (so for instance no line-wrapping on only Markdown/MDX files).
The default editing experience is lightweight, and that's a good thing. But the plugin story is dire. Plugins like ESLint and Prettier crash constantly, requiring an app restart. Prettier has a format-on-save behaviour that seems to format after save on some file types. Typescript cmd-click definitions are broken, cmd-click import filepaths are broken.
It's not a bad effort but it speaks to how much ground they have to cover to get within the same galaxy as the VS Code experience. I genuinely think it'll be years before they can charge for this with a straight face.
As a TypeScript developer, if someone made me choose between paying $99 for the actually-free VS Code, or buy Nova, I would by VS Code without hesitation.
Before it began getting long in the tooth I was a big Coda fan. On the whole I like VS Code but I do suffer the occasional runaway process so I am open-minded to a new editor from Panic.
Nova is faster than VS Code, but barely. I like the default rainbow indentation, though I'm sure there's a VSC plugin for that. The contextual spell-checking is excellent and I know it's a better experience than any VSC plugin.
But this thing can't even auto-format a comment block. You can't set format-specific options (so for instance no line-wrapping on only Markdown/MDX files).
The default editing experience is lightweight, and that's a good thing. But the plugin story is dire. Plugins like ESLint and Prettier crash constantly, requiring an app restart. Prettier has a format-on-save behaviour that seems to format after save on some file types. Typescript cmd-click definitions are broken, cmd-click import filepaths are broken.
It's not a bad effort but it speaks to how much ground they have to cover to get within the same galaxy as the VS Code experience. I genuinely think it'll be years before they can charge for this with a straight face.