Texpad is my editor of choice for OSX.
Thus the review is somewhat biased, not because someone pays me, but because of how much I love this software.
I started using texpad back in version 1.2 and it was nice but not really worth every penny.
Then I had the chance to get in contact with the developers.
And here the magic happened. They are simply the best developer ever. They respond really fast, they do take care of your problems and so on. This is something every developer should do especially for paid software, yet rarely happens.
Texpad has recently hit version 1.3 brining new features and bug fixes thus making it worth every penny.
Now on the review.
1)Interface.
I like minimalism, it's no secret. Texpad UI is minimalist and thus I really love it. It's not as bare and ugly as the one of texshop, neither crowded and ugly as the one of texwork or texmaker.
Also texpad as its own error console split in two part, the upper translates in human readable language the errors found and the lower part is the default log of the tex engine.
Lastly texpad has its own outline on the left , with beautiful monochrome icons for section, chapters and so on. It is beautiful and it doesn't distract from the writing.
Everything in the interface is really polished and consistent also I think that the single window interface is just right for writing with latex especially in a widescreen world.
2)features
Texpad has mostly all the basic features of a LaTex editor.
It also support pdf<->source sync by a click on the pdf to highlight the source and cmd+click on the source to go the relevant sentence in the pdf.
It has also a very useful auto-completion feature which comes in very handy because it can autofill the \ref{} and \cite{} commands.
As for typesetting it supports XeTex, LaTex, pdfLaTex and pLatex.
It has also syntax highlighting.
3)Integration
Texpad feels as native as ever on osx lion.
Not only the icon, and the interface are really native-feeling but also the fullscreen support and the life-saving autosave(apple calls it Version)feature of osx Lion.
It also support looking up word directly in the built in dictionary of osx both in the source view or in the pdf.
4)Future
at valletta ventures (their site ) no one ever sleeps.
Version 1.3.1 wil be out with
- Supports the Biber engine as well as the Bibtex engine
- Many fixes to the makeindex typeset chain, including an option for typesetting with both makeindex and bibtex.
- Improved support for VoiceOver
and later version 1.4 will support global search, also in included document in your main latex document file.
Available on the Mac App Store. (paid app)