GitHub's Ian Olsen is announcing today, February 8, 2017, the general availability of the Atom 1.14 open-source and multiplatform hackable text editor for all supported platforms, including GNU/Linux, macOS, and Microsoft Windows.

Launched exactly one month after the release of Atom 1.13, the new Atom 1.14 release does not appear to be a major milestone, as it only adds 64-bit installation support for Microsoft Windows operating systems, improved MRU tab traversal with a bunch of fixes, as well as large file performance across all platforms.

"A fundamental component of the text editor called the display layer has been redesigned to rely on a new data structure that is implemented in C++," said Ian Olsen, Engineering Manager at GitHub. "These changes enable Atom to open larger files more quickly while using much less memory. Improvements in this area are ongoing, so expect more in upcoming releases."

Back to the MRU tab traversal improvements, Atom 1.14 addresses an issue in the keyup handling that wasn't randomly changed by the MRU order, as expected, implements a new option in the settings of tabs package to force the CTRL+Shift+Tab and CTRL+Tab keyboard shortcuts do simple right and left traversal or MRU, and it now displays an MRU-ordered list of the tabs to visit during MRU traversals.

Atom 1.14 also revamps the bundled C# grammar, introduces the ability to avoid overlay movements, improved Find and Replace functionality to fast clear markers via a new marker layer API (Application Programming Interface), and reduces the impact of leaking Editor, Cursor, and Selection objects. For all the technical details, check out the full release notes.

Atom 1.15 promises to keep open any tab of any file

In the good tradition of a new Atom release, the next major version enters Beta stages of development. Yes, we're talking about Atom 1.15, which is now available as a Beta for public testing with features like more intuitive behavior when duplicating selections with multiple lines, support for keeping tabs opened on any file, no matter if it's empty or not, and the fact that it will display the mouse cursor by default at all times.

Atom 1.15 will also come with an updated APM (Atom Package Manager) component to honor system HTTP proxy settings, will support Node 6 or later when building the app, and promises to correctly handle removals from the Jump List on Microsoft Windows. You can download both Atom 1.14 and Atom 1.15 Beta for GNU/Linux, macOS, and Windows right now from our website or directly from the project's homepage.