Neat Trick with QuickCursor, SSH, ViM and TextMate

• ~200 words • 0.7 minute read

If you're like me and find yourself needing to SSH into servers on a daily basis but occasionally wish you could edit things in TextMate instead of vim simply because those macros and shortcuts are hard-coded into your muscle memory, this trick might be for you.

The three apps you'll need:

It's really quite simple. With QuickCursor you can use your favorite text editor in any application via a keyboard shortcut. All you have to do is:

  • SSH into your server
  • Start editing the file in vim
  • Launch TextMate via the QuickCursor shortcut.
  • Make your edits, save, close and your new text is loaded into vim!

Maybe that should have been an obvious process, but it was a real eureka moment when I realized I could do this. Up until this point I've mostly used it to quickly format emails and things, but this little trick suddenly makes it a much more useful tool for me.

Totally worth the $4.99.