Atom (text editor)


Atom is a free and open-source text and source code editor for macOS, Linux, and Microsoft Windows with support for plug-ins written in Node.js, and embedded Git Control, developed by GitHub. Atom is a desktop application built using web technologies. Most of the extending packages have free software licenses and are community-built and maintained. Atom is based on Electron, a framework that enables cross-platform desktop applications using Chromium and Node.js. It is written in CoffeeScript and Less.
Atom was released from beta, as version 1.0, on 25 June 2015. Its developers call it a "hackable text editor for the 21st Century".
It is fully customizable in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

History

It was able to be used as an integrated development environment, until that feature was 'retired' in December 2018.

Packages

Like most other configurable text editors, Atom enables users to install third-party packages and themes to customize the features and looks of the editor. Packages can be installed, managed and published via Atom's package manager apm.

Programming language support

Atom's default packages can apply syntax highlighting for the following programming languages and file formats:

License

Initially, extension packages for Atom and anything not part of Atom's core were released under an open-source license. On 6 May 2014, the rest of Atom, including the core application, its package manager, as well as its desktop framework Electron, were released as free and open-source software under the MIT License.

Privacy

There was initially concern and discussion about two opt-out packages that report various data to external servers.
However, those packages are now opt-in with a verbose dialog at the initial launch: