Atom (text editor)

Short description: Free and open-source text and source code editor

Atom

Atom with an open project on Windows 10

Developer(s)| GitHub (subsidiary of Microsoft)[1]
Initial release| February 26, 2014; 12 years ago (2014-02-26)[2]
Written in| CoffeeScript, JavaScript, Less, HTML (front-end/UI)
Operating system| macOS 10.9 or later, Windows 7 and later, and Linux[3]
Size| 87–180 MB
Available in| English
Type| Source code editor
License| MIT License (free software)[4][5]

Atom was a free and open-source text and source code editor for macOS, Linux, and Windows with support for plug-ins written in JavaScript, and embedded Git Control. Developed by GitHub, Atom was released on June 25, 2015.[6]

On June 8, 2022, GitHub announced Atom's end-of-life, occurring on December 15 of the same year, justifying its need "to prioritize technologies that enable the future of software development", specifically its GitHub Codespaces and Visual Studio Code, developed by Microsoft which had acquired Github in 2018.[7][8]

## Contents

* 1 Features
* 1.1 Packages
* 2 History
* 3 License
* 4 Privacy concerns
* 5 See also
* 6 References
* 7 External links

## Features

Atom was a "hackable" text editor, which means it was customizable using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.[9]

Atom was a desktop application built using web technologies.[10] It was based on the Electron framework, which was developed for that purpose, and hence was formerly called Atom Shell.[11] Electron is a framework that enables cross-platform desktop applications using Chromium and Node.js.[12][13]

Atom was initially written in CoffeeScript and Less, but much of it was converted to JavaScript before retirement.[14]

Atom used Tree-sitter to provide syntax highlighting for multiple programming languages and file formats.[15]

### Packages

Like most other configurable text editors, Atom enabled users to install third-party packages and themes to customize the features and looks of the editor. Packages could be installed, managed and published via Atom's package manager apm. All types of packages, including but not limited to: Syntactic highlighting support for languages other than the default, debuggers, etc. could have been installed via apm. [citation needed]

## History

Atom was developed in 2008 by GitHub founder Chris Wanstrath as a text editor using the Electron Framework (originally called Atom Shell), a framework designed as the base for Atom.[16]

Between May 2015 and December 2018,[17] Facebook developed Nuclide[18] and Atom IDE projects to turn Atom into an integrated development environment (IDE).[19][20][21][22]

In 2018 when Microsoft announced they would be acquiring GitHub, users expressed concern that Microsoft might discontinue Atom, as it competed with Microsoft's Visual Studio Code. The future GitHub CEO assured users that development and support for Atom would continue.[23] However, within four years, development ceased. On June 8, 2022, GitHub announced shutdown of Atom development and archival of all development repositories of Atom by December 15, 2022.[7]

Atom's founder, Nathan Sobo, announced that he was building the "spiritual successor" to Atom, titled Zed.[24][25][26] Unlike Atom, Zed would be written in Rust and not use the Electron framework.[27]

On January 30, 2023, GitHub announced a breach which exposed "a set of encrypted code signing certificates" some of which were used to sign Atom releases. GitHub advised users to downgrade to earlier versions of Atom signed with a different key.[28]

Following Atom's end-of-life, development continued on a community fork named Pulsar.[29]

## License

Atom was made fully open source in May 2014 under the MIT License, including its desktop framework Electron.[30]

## Privacy concerns

There was initially concern and discussion about two opt-out packages that report various data to external servers.[31][32][33][34][35] However, those packages became opt-in with a verbose dialog during the initial launch:[36]

* Metrics package: Prior to version 1.31.0, Atom reported usage information via Google Analytics, including a unique UUID v4 random identifier.[37] Since version 1.31.0, usage data was sent to GitHub's analytics pipeline directly.[38][39] Authors stated that they used analytics data to measure the performance and determine the most-used functions.[3] This feature could be disabled by the user by opening the Settings View, searching for the metrics package, and disabling it.[37]
* Exception-reporting package: Reported uncaught Atom exceptions to www.bugsnag.com.[40]

## See also

* List of text editors
* Comparison of text editors § Programming features
* Comparison of HTML editors
* List of formerly proprietary software

## References

1. ↑ "Microsoft's 'future CEO of GitHub' speaks out on Atom, keeping GitHub independent and more". ZDNet. https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsofts-future-ceo-of-github-speaks-out-on-atom-keeping-github-independent-and-more/.
2. ↑ "Introducing Atom". Atom. 26 February 2014. http://blog.atom.io/2014/02/26/introducing-atom.html.
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "FAQ". Atom. https://atom.io/faq.
4. ↑ Henry, Alan (8 May 2014). "Atom, the Text Editor from GitHub, Goes Free and Open-Source". Lifehacker. http://lifehacker.com/atom-the-text-editor-from-github-goes-free-and-open-s-1573153208.
5. ↑ Lardinois, Frederic (6 May 2014). "GitHub Open Sources Its Atom Text Editor". TechCrunch. https://techcrunch.com/2014/05/06/github-open-sources-its-atom-text-editor/.
6. ↑ Ogle, Ben (25 June 2015). "Atom 1.0". http://blog.atom.io/2015/06/25/atom-1-0.html.
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Sunsetting Atom" (in en-US). 2022-06-08. https://github.blog/2022-06-08-sunsetting-atom/.
8. ↑ Wiggers, Kyle (8 June 2022). "GitHub sunsets Atom, the software dev environment it launched in 2011" (in English). https://techcrunch.com/2022/06/08/github-sunsets-atom-the-software-dev-environment-it-launched-in-2011/. "GitHub today announced that it will sunset Atom"
9. ↑ "Getting started with Atom". https://www.codecademy.com/articles/f1-text-editors.
10. ↑ "Getting Started: Why Atom". Atom project. https://atom.io/docs/latest/getting-started-why-atom#the-native-web. "[...] we didn't build Atom as a traditional web application. Instead, Atom was a specialized variant of Chromium designed to be a text editor rather than a web browser. Every Atom window is essentially a locally-rendered web page."
11. ↑ "Atom Shell is now Electron". Atom. https://electron.atom.io/blog/2015/04/23/electron.
12. ↑ "Atom GitHub Page". https://github.com/atom/atom.
13. ↑ "Electron GitHub Page". https://github.com/atom/electron.
14. ↑ "Hacking Atom: Tools of the Trade". http://flight-manual.atom.io/hacking-atom/sections/tools-of-the-trade/.
15. ↑ Brunsfeld, Max (2018-10-31). "Atom understands your code better than ever before" (in en-US). https://github.blog/2018-10-31-atoms-new-parsing-system/.
16. ↑ Metz, Cade. "GitHub Atom's Code-Editor Nerds Take Over Their Universe" (in en-US). Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. https://www.wired.com/2015/06/github-atoms-code-editor-nerds-take-universe/.
17. ↑ "Facebook retires Nuclide extension". 12 December 2018. https://blog.atom.io/2018/12/12/facebook-retires-nuclide-extension.html.
18. ↑ "Retiring the Nuclide Open Source Project". https://nuclide.io/.
19. ↑ "Atom IDE". https://ide.atom.io/.
20. ↑ "Nuclide". https://nuclide.io/.
21. ↑ "Juno, the Interactive Development Environment". http://junolab.org/.
22. ↑ "PlatformIO IDE: The next-generation integrated development environment for IoT". http://platformio.org/platformio-ide.
23. ↑ "GitHub’s new CEO promises to save Atom post-Microsoft acquisition". https://thenextweb.com/news/githubs-new-ceo-promises-to-save-atom-post-microsoft-acquisition.
24. ↑ Sobo, Nathan. "Sunsetting Atom". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31668426.
25. ↑ Nathan Sobo [@nathansobo]. "As Atom's sun sets, Zed's sun is rising. We're not done here.". https://twitter.com/nathansobo/status/1534565356131393537. Missing or empty `|date=` (help)
26. ↑ Eastman, David (2023-04-08). "Zed: A New Multiplayer Code Editor from the Creators of Atom" (in en-US). https://thenewstack.io/zed-a-new-multiplayer-code-editor-from-the-creators-of-atom/.
27. ↑ "Built in Rust". https://zed.dev/tech.
28. ↑ Goodin, Dan (2023-01-30). "GitHub says hackers cloned code-signing certificates in breached repository" (in en-us). https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/01/github-says-hackers-cloned-code-signing-certificates-in-breached-repository/.
29. ↑ "Pulsar: A Community-Led Open Source Code Editor to Continue the Legacy of Atom" (in en). 2022-12-15. https://news.itsfoss.com/pulsar-editor/.
30. ↑ "Atom Is Now Open Source". Atom. 6 May 2014. http://blog.atom.io/2014/05/06/atom-is-now-open-source.html.
31. ↑ "Have metrics disabled by default, or completely removed". GitHub. https://github.com/atom/atom/issues/4966.
32. ↑ "Collecting Metrics in Atom Core". Atom. https://discuss.atom.io/t/collecting-metrics-in-atom-core/14178/32.
33. ↑ "Communicate plan on how to modify metrics to be opt-in now that 1.0 is released". GitHub Atom. https://github.com/atom/metrics/issues/52.
34. ↑ "should be disableable during install". Atom. https://github.com/atom/metrics/issues/55.
35. ↑ "Should be disabled by default". Atom. https://github.com/atom/metrics/issues/16.
36. ↑ "Send telemetry only with consent by damieng · Pull Request #66 · atom/metrics". https://github.com/atom/metrics/pull/66.
37. ↑ 37.0 37.1 "atom/metrics: A package to collect metrics". https://github.com/atom/metrics.
38. ↑ "atom/atom" (in en). https://github.com/atom/atom/releases/tag/v1.31.0.
39. ↑ "RIP Google Analytics by annthurium · Pull Request #100 · atom/metrics" (in en). https://github.com/atom/metrics/pull/100.
40. ↑ "exception-reporting". Atom. https://atom.io/packages/exception-reporting.

## External links

* v
* t
* e

HTML editors

* Web design

Open-source|

* Aptana
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* Bluefish
* CudaText
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| CodeMirror-based|

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|

Mozilla Composer-based|

* BlueGriffon

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* FlashDevelop
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* Ace
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Freeware|

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* TextWrangler

Commercial
software|

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* Adobe Dreamweaver
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|

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Discontinued|

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* Frame-IT!
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JavaScript

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People|

* Douglas Crockford
* Brendan Eich
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