I have used a long list of code editors over the years, ranging from notepad on windows to Espresso on mac, to textmate and Sublime Text. Ultimately, SublimeText 2 came out in front because it is so simple to use and so exceptionally customizable.

With a field as broad as development, every individual's personal preferences can yeild varying effects on speed and productivity. I research quite a bit about improving my workflow and have built my SublimeText preference file up to be a pretty solid starting point for most people.

Favorite Snippets

Close_windows_when_empty — Closes the whole window if there are only empty tabs open when you hit cmd + w. 

    
"close_windows_when_empty": true

Color_scheme — Set a path to use a custom downloaded theme like . 

    
"color_scheme": "Packages/Appealr Color Scheme/appealr-color-scheme.tmTheme"

Folder_exclude_patterns — Set up folder exclusion for commonly used directories in your projects. 

    
"folder_exclude_patterns": [
  ".git",
  ".bundle",
  ".sass-cache",
  ".svn",
  ".hg"
]

Font_ — Set type preferences for readability. Obviously, a monospaced font like would be best. 

    
"font_face": "Source Code Pro",
"font_size": 12.0

Highlight_line — Highlights the currently selected line based on styles in your theme. Incredibly useful if you use . 

    
"highlight_line": true

Highlight_modified_tabs — Another theme-based preference, but still useful. If you have multiple tabs open, one with un-saved changes will be highlighted. 

    
"highlight_modified_tabs": true

Match_ — On creation of an opening bracket/brace/etc, a closing one is inserted. 

    
"match_brackets": true,
"match_brackets_angle": true,
"match_brackets_braces": true,
"match_brackets_content": true,
"match_brackets_square": true,

Scroll_ — Allows you to scroll past the end of a file, which is necessary, especially if you hate extra empty lines at the end of a file like I do. Scroll speed to 2 is also helpful if you're impatient with large files. 

    
"scroll_past_end": true,
"scroll_speed": 2,

Translate_tabs_to_spaces — Simple. Add this. And if you're still using tabs in your code, quit it. 

    
"translate_tabs_to_spaces": true

Complete Preferences:

The is available on GitHub. My is also available on GitHub.

  
{
  "bold_folder_labels": true,
  "caret_style": "phase",
  "close_windows_when_empty": true,
  "color_scheme": "Packages/Appealr Color Scheme/appealr-color-scheme.tmTheme",
  "draw_indent_guides": true,
  "draw_white_space": "selection",
  "file_exclude_patterns":
  [
    ".DS_Store",
    "*.lib",
    "*.log"
  ],
  "folder_exclude_patterns":
  [
    ".git",
    ".bundle",
    ".sass-cache",
    ".svn",
    ".hg"
  ],
  "font_face": "Source Code Pro",
  "font_size": 12.0,
  "highlight_line": true,
  "highlight_modified_tabs": true,
  "ignored_packages":
  [
    "Vintage",
    "SublimeLinter"
  ],
  "line_padding_bottom": 3,
  "line_padding_top": 3,
  "match_brackets": true,
  "match_brackets_angle": true,
  "match_brackets_braces": true,
  "match_brackets_content": true,
  "match_brackets_square": true,
  "open_files_in_new_window": false,
  "remember_open_files": true,
  "remember_open_folders": true,
  "scroll_past_end": true,
  "scroll_speed": 2,
  "show_full_path": true,
  "tab_size": 2,
  "theme": "Nil.sublime-theme",
  "translate_tabs_to_spaces": true,
  "use_simple_full_screen": true,
  "wide_caret": true,
  "word_wrap": true
}