What is new in Sublime Text 4?
Spoiler alert: not very much :)
Sublime Text has come a long way since its first release back in 2008. It is one of the most popular cross-platform source code editor on the market. Basically it is just fancy notepad, but it can be extended into powerful tool with plugins.
We needed to wait whole 5 years to get second version of this code editor, and another 4, for official stable release of Sublime Text 3, back in 2017. Now, it is 2021 and we got newly fresh and shiny Sublime Text 4.
Lets just dive in and check what did Sublime Text 4 brought to us.
- Apple Silicon and Linux ARM64
- Tab Multi-Select
- Context-Aware Auto Complete
- TS, JSX & TSX Support
- Improved syntax highlighting engine
- GPU Rendering
- Python API Update
Apple Silicon and Linux ARM64
First item on our list is actually not that surprising. Apple release fairly cheap laptops with ARM processors, and I believe that people at Sublime naturally assumed that developers will use those processors and that Apple will push those processors to the rest of the MacBook line. Apart from that, they also added support for Linux ARM64. Still, nothing special here, just a natural step forward.
Tab Multi-Select
Next on the list we have Tab Multi-Select. This is just a fancy name for keyboard + mouse click combination on file to open it in some split view. To be honest, this is something that I can live without it.
Context-Aware Auto Complete
In my honest opinion, auto complete in Sublime Text was always behind in regards to its competition (for example VSCode). They actually improved auto complete, so that now is aware of your “project”. Now, there is also option to click on Definition text in autocomplete that will guide you to definition of a method for example. Also, I think that I can go quicker to definition with keyboard shortcut instead of mouse click.
TS, JSX & TSX Support
Well, this one was also pretty obvious since JS is one of the most popular programming language. With Sublime Text 4, you get support for TS, JSX & TSX out of the box.
However, autocomplete for TS is not working as it should in my opinion. For example, check the following code:
const xs = [1, 2, [3, 4, 5, 6, 7], [8], 9].flat();
console.log(xs); // [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]However, when after the array I started typing flat(), autocomplete did not suggested me this method. So to be honest, I don’t know what support for TS are the mentioning :)
Improved syntax highlighting engine
I found some improvements with multi-line constructs, and after I saw that they wrote that memory usage has been reduced, I also check if this is true. Yes, memory usage was reduced, but not significantly.
GPU Rendering
Well, this is one feature that I like. I didn’t notice any issue on full hd monitor, however, on 4k and 8k, there is big difference in regard with previous version. It all look more natural, without any lag. Everything looks smooth, especially scrolling. Big thumbs up here.
Python API Update
If you did not know, Sublime is written in C++ and Python. It has Python application programming interface (API). Python got quite a few version bumps since the last release, so naturally, Sublime also decided to bump Python version. This will come useful for plugins, however, I did not noticed any improvements yet. We will probably need to wait for plugins to be also updated to Python 3.8? Probably.
Also, be aware that because of adding Python 3.8, Sublime Text does no longer support OS X 10.7, 10.8 & Windows XP & Windows Vista.
Verdict
Except from GPU rendering and refreshed UI I did not find any of the new feature useful. Maybe I am a little biased since I like to do most if not all of the things with keyboard (and no, I am not a Vim power user :)). If you are already using Sublime Text, then sure, upgrade to version 4, but I do not see any pros to switch to Sublime Text 4 from any of the existing editor (like Atom, Visual Studio Code,…). If you are using something other than Sublime Text, then, stay on it. But of course, this is just one mans opinion. Use the tool that helps you stay production and that you feel most comfortable with it.
