TextMate News

Anything vaguely related to TextMate and macOS.

Getting More Bundles

There are 124 bundles for TextMate where only 36 are included by default. Until recently, the way to get more bundles has been to install subversion and then do a checkout of the bundles needed (from the shell.)

Now there is a much easier way: the GetBundle bundle by Sebastian Gräßl. All you need to do is download and double click it to get an “Install Bundle” command which you can invoke from inside TextMate (hint: use ⌃⌘T and enter “install”.)

There is also an “Update all Bundles” command which you can use to update your custom installed bundles to the latest version. A future version of the bundle is likely to offer a launchd Daemon that you can install to have updating taken care of automatically.

All bundles installed via the GetBundle end up in ~/Library/Application Support/TextMate/Pristine Copy/Bundles.

For troubleshooting you can use the TextMate mailing list.

categories Bundles

65 Comments

hey ! pretty cool !

Very nice!

I just added the AutoUpdater! Juhu!

Excellent work, this is sweet!

So where does it pull them from? The SVN repository?

What would make this even sweeter is a small summary of what that bundle does before we download it!

Sweet, it has GROWL integration!

@Brian: Yes, it pulls from the macromates SVN Repository. Allan just told me that a description of bundles is planned. so if it is finnished i’ll add this too, so you know what you get :)

Sebastian: Great news, I’ll be looking forward to using this instead of daily doing “svn up” :)

Ohhh god ! thanks !!!

The plugin is installed, but not a dang thing happens when I try to “Install Bundle” or “Install AutoUpdater” or “Remove AutoUpdater”.

Textmate 1.5.3 (1202), OS X 10.4.7, Build 8J2135, iMac 2GHz Intel

@Paul: try creating a new document and then running the commands.

@Sebastian: do you specify the Growl theme when sending the Growl notification? It shows up with the default blue bubble theme and not the theme I have set to use system-wide. Also, would it be possible to filter already installed bundles from the list of bundles to install?

Great work!

@al3x: it isn’t Growl, it’s CocoaDialog which is shipped with TextMate. I’ll investigate in this to make it more TM like

Hi there. Thanks for this lovely plugin. Just one question, probably i am doing something wrong, but i can see a lot more bundles accessing directly the SVN repository than the list given with Install Bundle.

thegoldenaura: The bundles already included with TextMate are not shown in the pop-up dialog.

al3x: Installed Bundles now get exlcuded from the list :)

Allan Odgaard: Ok, thanks. Probably Sebastian also answered my question indirectly, because i could not see the Python bundle because i already had installed it before manually. Thanks

23 August 2006

by Eric Barstad

The first time I tried it, I saw the pop-up window and was able to download the XHTML bundle. Since then, like Paul above, nothing happens (besides the spinning beach ball) when I click “Install Bundles”. I don’t have svn installed, but that wouldn’t really explain why it worked before…

TextMate 1.5.1 OS X 10.4.7

Eric Barstad: if you want to use bundles from the repository I’d strongly encourage you to upgrade to TM 1.5.3.

As for nothing happening: it might just be the time it takes to update the Support folder — currently I do not think there is any progress indicator for that. Alternatively it might be that the pop-up got “lost” behind the TM windows. You can always press ⌃C or ⌘. to abort the currently running command, though best to figure out why it is running.

As for the XHTML bundle: this one is pretty old and unmaintained, the HTML bundle is better even for strict XHTML.

24 August 2006

by Eric Barstad

Thanks, Allan! Upgrading TextMate seems to have solved the problem.

One question I do have is, in TextMate’s current state, how do I maintain my customizations to particular bundles like HTML and CSS and not fall behind the official bundles released by Macromates? Currently, from what I can tell, when you customize a bundle it creates a copy in ~/Library/Application Support/TextMate/Bundles and TextMate bundle updates are ignored in subsequent releases, in favor of the user-modified bundle.

The only way to update the bundle is to revert to default and then re-customize any bundles you may have modified. This is a tedious process and should be simplified (or made more intuitive). I’d like to see a feature in TextMate where it would snapshot your customizations during a bundle update then give you the option of copy/pasting your changes into the new bundle (or auto merging, if possible).

Glenn Batuyong: It copies only the actual item you customize, and not only that, it creates a .tmDelta file which contains only what you actually changed.

For example if you change the name, scope selector, key equivalent, or similar for a default item, only that single change is recorded in ~/Library.

However, should you make changes to a language grammar, you are forking the entire grammar, since automatic merging would be non-trivial. For that reason it is suggested to instead “subclass” language grammars by creating a new language grammar which include the one you want to customize — this is however not always possible (depends on the existing grammar and which changes you want to make)

Well, that’s good news… It’s just that IMO, this should have been integral part of TextMate eons ago. Bundles are the core of TextMate’s versatility and power. Thus, their download, installing, uninstalling, version checking, updating etc. should have been one of the most integrated and polished parts of the program.

That bein said, thanks to Sebastian for finally stepping up and doing something about it. And thanks to Allan for making the best program to land on my Mac in years - even with all the shortcomings.

@zzen: I think it wasn’t integrated in TM because it is a text editor for developers which know how to use SVN so it wasn’t a big deal. But for a while now more and more people also non developers use TextMate and also people who don’t know how to use SVN. when i started to develop the bundle i also had only a basic knowledg about SVN.

this is definetely the quicker way to install bundles.

I too have the problem where the install bundle command does nothing. Update bundles seems to work, or claims it does. But even with a new document open, nothing happens when I select install bundle, even letting it sit for 15 minutes. What else could be wrong?

I found the problem - two problems, actually.

1) The support checkout failed without specifying username and password.

2) The path to subversion was incorrect. I installed subversion using darwinports, and getbundle couldn’t find it at the specified location.

The download link for the GetBundle bundle by Sebastian Grässle does not work. It seems to be that his webpage is currently down.

I would appreciate if macromates could offer the bundle for download or if the broken link could be fixed.

Kind regards, Cornelia

Ditto. The GetBundle link is down. Someone please help!

The homepage is online again. You can download the the .zip file from here: http://validcode.net/stuff/textmate-getbundle-bundle

Thanks!

Best regards, Cornelia

Nope - link is still broken as of November 5th. Perhaps you could provide a mirror or encourage the Textmate folks to host it for you?

a little sleuthing and I found the bundle hidden deep in the new blog: http://me.validcode.net/2006/11/7/textmate-getbundle-bundle

enjoy

I am a bit confused about the interaction between getbundle and svn bundles. Until now, I had been using getbundle only for non-default bundles. So then I tried to use SVN to get the latest latex bundle and put it into /Library/Application Support/TextMate/Bundles/Latex.tmbundle. But that doesn’t seem to be recognized. Does getbundle somehow override the svn location?

His site is down again!!!

Does anybody mirror this thing? It’s becoming annoying…

The site is still down…

16 March 2007

by Daryl Spitzer

I found http://validcode.net/2006/11/7/textmate-getbundle-bundle

The site has gone away again. Is there any other place that’s sort of reliable?

I think I can grab a copy off my powerbook’s installation, but what about people coming to Textmate afresh?

26 October 2007

by Anonymous

No go here with TM 1.5.7 - the bundles menu bar item stays focussed for a short second after selecting “Install Bundle” but no dialog pops up.

12 December 2007

by Anonymous

http://projects.validcode.net/getbundle

I am having the same problem as some of the above posters: When I click get bundle nothing happens, even if I have a document open. Any ideas?

Still not working.

I also have this problem.

Doesn’t work for me either. Neither does his weblog (looking at individual posts gives a 500 error). Perhaps validcode was a poor choice of names for the website ;)

Install Bundle not working with 1.5.7 (1455). Show Bundles shows the window and bundle list but selecting a bundle and hitting install does nothing.

The support folder’s version string in r1455 contains a trailing M which breaks GetBundle.

See this message for a workaround.

http://projects.validcode.net/getbundle is down, anyone know where can I get the GetBundles bundle?

I’ve uploaded a version to http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=1fe449c934f20050986eca91a54c91a79718333b36fcdcf0

Hope this doesn’t hurt any copyright laws :)

Marco Gomes from Brazil

Mirror: http://www.fileqube.com/file/lqTaOF137034

Chad: Thanks!

Here’s another mirror (no hoops to jump through; it’s a direct download).

http://is.gd/4Bhf

Another mirror just in case. http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=149d6b7b6619162ad2db6fb9a8902bda

Another mirror, just because more is plenty: http://www.nobless.se/GetBundle.tmbundle.zip

I would say the bundle needs to be hosted on textmates site, and in svn, which isn’t working. Otherwise it’s a run-around, i’ll tell you. I like the bundle thanks. Used to work, now I have the same problems, and am trying to overcome them. …SUcces, by deleting all textmate, macromate preference files, and its application support, then reinstalling from scratch. Possibly the trouble could be isolated more, i did try removing the main preferences, and the applicaiton support, but alone, they failed to get the result.

Best wishes all, for the new year ahead.

It is being hosted here. But also a new bundle is being worked on here.

Allan (and Hans-Jörg): thanks for picking this up and refactoring. One minor concern: the new bundle is named “GetBundles” while the old was “GetBundle” (singular). This will make it possible for someone to have both installed (and confuse themselves nicely). Had you considered naming the new bundle “GetBundle” so it would properly trample the old one?

For everyone having problems, checkout (with subversion) the new GetBundles linked to by Allan above to ~/Application Support/TextMate/Bundles/.

It works much better than the old GetBundle.

A quick note to Håkan’s tip on installing via SVN: you’ll need to prepend your ~/Library directory to that path, i.e., install to: “~/Library/Application Support/TextMate/Bundles”

A detail which I could only find in a german blog post: you have to change the address of the svn repository.

In the Bundle Editor edit “Install Bundle” and in the bundle itself (~/Library/Application Support/TextMate/Bundles/GetBundle.tmbundle/Support) edit “show_bundles.rb”. Replace: http://svn.textmate.org/trunk/Bundles with: http://svn.textmate.org/trunk/

05 May 2009

by Dave Gallagher

Here’s how I installed it (May, 2009). Open Terminal and run:

svn checkout http://svn.textmate.org/trunk/Review/Bundles/ $HOME/Desktop/textmate-temp

This dumps everything into a “textmate-temp” directory, appearing on your desktop. Open the folder.

Double-click “GetBundles.tmbundle” to install it into TextMate. You can delete “textmate-temp” once finished.

Open TextMate and make sure you’re editing something (GetBundles menu will be grayed out otherwise). You can launch GetBundles here:

Bundles -> GetBundles -> Get Bundles

It’ll hit the server, populate a list of available bundles. Pick what you want, press “Install Bundles” and you’re golden.

18 May 2009

by Aaron

Thanks so much Dave. Your post was a huge help to someone like me who uses Textmate but isn’t actually a programmer.

I second that Dave, many thanks..

Instead of checking everything out, you can: cd ~/Desktop svn co http://svn.textmate.org/trunk/Review/Bundles/GetBundles.tmbundle/

Oops. Line breaks didn’t work. You could put this all on one line:

cd ~/Desktop && svn co http://svn.textmate.org/trunk/Review/Bundles/GetBundles.tmbundle/

oh no, the link to ‘GetBundle bundle by Sebastian’ doesn’t work anymore

I have no idea how to get this working. Are there detailed instructions anywhere?

Just go to GitHub. All sources for GetBundle are there: http://github.com/textmate/getbundle.tmbundle/tree/master

Dave’s 5/5/09 comment worked for me, and apparently several others. Thanks, Dave. Fantastic.