OSX text editor

Our recommendation

On Mac OS, we suggest the TextWrangler text editor. You'll have to first download it, then install it.

To download TextWrangler:

• Click this link and download the disk image file
• The file will expand into an application called TextWrangler.
• Open Finder from the bar at the bottom.

To install TextWrangler:

• Start Finder
• On the left side of the Finder, under "Places", click on "Applications".
• Drag the TextWrangler icon to any blank space in that window.

To run TextWrangler:

• Start Finder
• On the left side of the Finder, under "Places", click on "Applications".
• In the middle column, scroll down to to find TextWrangler.
• Double-click TextWrangler to launch the editor.

Configure TextWrangler to indent with spaces

• Start up TextWrangler, and click TextWrangler -> Preferences dropdown. This will pop up a preferences window.
• Click on the "Editor defaults" tab.
• Check the "Auto-expand tabs" checkbox.
• Set "tab width" to 4 (if it is not already).
• Close the Preferences window.

That's it! Now, you can hit tab to indent your code, and that indentation will actually be made of spaces. This change will help you use spaces consistently, so that Python doesn't get confused about whitespace.

Success!

Now you have an editor that you can use to open any text file, including Python programs.