Pulsar version 1 for the first time released on Thursday, 15 December 2022 is the official successor to the free/open source Atom Editor software. Its slogan now says "A Community-led Hyper-Hackable Text Editor". The release date of Pulsar matches exactly the date of the discontinuation date of Atom like a seed sprouting a new tree right after an old tree died in a forest. It is available for all major operating systems namely GNU/Linux, MacOS and Windows. Currently, Pulsar is still under rapid development by the community and here we at Ubuntu Buzz want to convey the message to all computer users to try Pulsar and, if you can, help with the software development.

(Pulsar running on Ubuntu 20.04)

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About Pulsar

Pulsar is a community-led hyper-hackable text editor based on Atom, built with Node.js / Electron technologies, and licensed under an MIT license. Its official website is pulsar-edit.dev.

Features

• Cross-platform
• Free/libre open source software (MIT License)
• Built-in package manager
• Extensible with packages
• Smart autocompletion
• File system browser
• Multiple panes
• Find and replace
• Compatible to Atom

Release Video

Pulsar team publishes a video by DistroTube entitled "Announcing The Pulsar Text Editor (Formerly Atom)" on their blog a few days before releasing the official version 1.100. 

Similar Software

• Atom (discontinued)
• Visual Studio Code *
• Sublime Text *
• Lapce
• Netbeans
• Eclipse
• GNU Emacs
• Vim

*) Proprietary software, not a free/open source software.

Community Reception

Hacker News (80+ comments)

Reddit (90+ comments)

Slashdot (20+ comments)

How To Install

On Ubuntu, Pulsar can be downloaded from Download Page, then used without installing it to the system by using AppImage version for GNU/Linux. Alternative packages available.

On Windows, see Download Page and get the EXE installer.

On MacOS, see also Download Page and get the DMG package. 

How To Use

Download the AppImage version -> you will download a file named pulsar-xyz.appimage -> double-click the appimage file -> Pulsar Editor runs like any normal applications -> if it does not run, repeat this after giving 'executable' properties to the appimage file.

To use it, create a new project -> create a new file -> save it with an extension suitable to your programming language -> start writing code -> the rest is the same as using any other text editor like Notepad++ or Emacs. 

 (Pulsar editing and live previewing a Markdown text document)

How To Add Package

Pulsar is compatible to Atom.io packages, the third-party extensions that can extend the functionalities of Pulsar. To add a package, go to Packages menu -> Open Package Manager -> the manager will open within a panel in the window -> open Install section -> type the name of package you want, for example, atom-clock -> click Install under the package name you find -> package installed. Please note that as for today, Pulsar support to packages are still very limited.