What is your weapon of choice when it comes to text editor? Oldschool vim or action packed IDE? In my opinion, SublimeText fits perfectly in the middle.

Disclaimer: All the shortcuts in the following article are Linux friendly and they might differ on macOS. Please keep that in mind. Most of the times the difference will be switching ctrl to cmd , however, if you will encounter any problems — feel free to write it down in the comments section and I’ll be happy to help.

Why Sublime?

It’s easy — you open it and it’s ready to use. Even though a number of options are countless Sublime’s entry level is very low. Comparing to advanced IDEs or simple (haha) vim, it might not instantly give you everything they do, but it will provide you with the basics and grow with your needs.

It’s fast — hell yeah it is! As a Ruby developer I tried JetBrains RubyMine. The romance was very brief as RM came, took all my RAM and left me brokenhearted. Atom was my another mistress, but the bigger the project was, the longer it took to open. It came to a point when I could make myself a cup of coffee while waiting for Atom to finish loading. All in all, I ended up coming back as prodigal son to Sublime.

It’s customizable — hundreds of themes? Checked. Want to write everything in Comic Sans? Feel free. Need brainfuck support? Checked. Color scheme not bright enough? Take another one with higher saturation — again — there are hundreds. We will get to that later, but the possibilities are endless.

So how to start?

Control your package

Plenty of features awaits you in packages. And what’s the first package you should get? Package Manager of course! Here you will find instructions on how to install it.

How does it work? After installation press ctrl + shift + p and start typing install — autocomplete will suggest Package Control — Install Package. Press enter and embrace over 1800 ready-to-go plugins.

* Apparently, there is also an option to install Package Manager directly from Sublime itself. Press ctrl + shift + p and choose Install Package Manager option. I did not test this solution, but it sounds convenient.

Make it fabulous!