Sunday, August 9, 2026
The long and winding road back to Sublime Text
In the Newsonaut colophon, I list VS Code with the caveat: “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”
This is a line from The Godfather Part III where Michael Corleone expresses his frustrations over being unable to get out of the mafia. It was also parodied in The Sopranos. It’s sort of the way I feel about VS Code. I would like to switch, but there is always something pulling me back.
The reason I want out is because even with all the AI bloat turned off, it is still slow to load. I have no problem with using AI as a coding helper (never for writing!), but I want it kept separate.
My bar for a code editor is actually quite low, but still hard to meet.
- Multi-cursor support
- Emmet
- City Lights theme
Insisting on a particular theme might seem a bit shallow, but I can’t help it. I like what I like. City Lights was released by Yummygum nine years ago for VS Code, Sublime Text and the now-defunct Atom. It shows up as an option in Zed, but doesn’t look anything like the original. It’s also an option in Pulsar, a fork of Atom, but throws errors when you try to use it.
Back in the day, I was a big fan of BBEdit, but once I discovered multi-cursors, there was no turning back. BBEdit has added lots of major features over the years, but not the one I want.
That leaves Sublime Text, which checks all three boxes. So what held me back? I couldn’t make package control work.
In order to have Emmet and City Lights, you need to add packages. And the best way to add packages is with package control. I could not make it work, and concluded that it wasn’t worth the frustration of trying to make it work.
So yesterday, inspired by David Bushell’s post, and with the power of Claude, I finally found the answer. And it all starts with what I thought was the website for package control. Turns out it has been abandoned by the guy who created it, and no one seems to know how to get rid of it. To make matters worse, it links to an outdated version of package control that doesn’t work on some computers, including mine.
Sublime HQ has come to the rescue with a new site. This is fine, but there is no download for package control at this site. For that you need to go to Github.
Someone going by the handle deathaxe has updated package control so that it now works on my iMac. Thank you, deathaxe!
I guess that’s also fine, but the Github page still points people to the old package control site with the out-of-date version of package control.
It’s enough to make your head spin, but I’m glad to say that I am now able to make Sublime Text work the way I like. If all goes well over the next few weeks, I’ll finally be able to update that colophon.
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