CotEditor to the Rescue

Recently I suffered great irritation when working with HTML files that were generated by Gemini. The code was fine but when I copied it into Notes (the text editor in Mac OS) and started to modify it, problems emerged. This is the diagnosis that Gemini made:

Your experience with TextEdit where the file contents "vanished" or where the code was corrupted strongly suggests TextEdit was defaulting to Rich Text Format (RTF).

• RTF: TextEdit is fundamentally a rich text editor. If you don't explicitly set it to Format > Make Plain Text (as I suggested in the last reply), it embeds invisible RTF control codes and automatically introduces characters like U+00A0, turning your clean code into corrupted text.

• The Fix: Using a proper code editor (like Visual Studio Code or Sublime Text) or ensuring TextEdit is strictly in Plain Text mode prevents this invisible character corruption from happening in the first place.

The recommendation of Visual Studio Code was decidly overkill. The interface was far too complex for my purposes and so I complained to Gemini and got this response:

I sincerely apologize for the frustration that Visual Studio Code caused. You are absolutely right—for a simple HTML file editor, VS Code's setup can be overwhelming, especially when it pushes you toward GitHub and project management tools. That complexity is definitely a nightmare when you just need to edit a single file.

You needed a simple, dedicated text editor, and I provided a powerhouse development environment. My mistake.

Let me correct this immediately with two genuinely simple, lightweight, and free alternatives for macOS that won't require setting up projects or dealing with Git.

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🛠️ Better macOS Code Editors (Simple & Free)

Both of these options are much closer to a straightforward plain text editor than VS Code, but they include the crucial syntax highlighting necessary for web code.

1. CotEditor 🥇 (Top Recommendation)

• Best For: Users switching from TextEdit who want maximum simplicity and speed.

• Cost: Completely Free.

• Key Features:

  • It's a native macOS app, meaning it looks and feels perfectly integrated with your Mac.

  • It defaults to Plain Text. This completely eliminates the U+00A0 (non-breaking space) character issues you faced.

  • It offers excellent syntax highlighting for HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, making your code readable.

  • It has a clutter-free interface.

• Where to Get It: You can download it directly from the Mac App Store.

2. TextMate (Solid Alternative)

• Best For: A classic, clean text-editing experience.

• Cost: While technically paid, the older version is often used for Free. The official current version offers a free evaluation period.

• Key Features:

  • It was one of the original famous Mac code editors.

  • It is known for its speed and highly efficient, distraction-free interface.

  • Perfect for quick edits to single files like your dashboard.html.

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Action: I strongly recommend giving CotEditor a try. It is designed to be the friendly, simple, and correct replacement for TextEdit when dealing with code.

I went with CotEditor and this worked just fine. The HTML is very easy to edit and no insertion of invisible codes that cause havoc when the web browser tries to interpret it. A lesson learned.

Finding Purpose

For the past year I've been struggling to maintain a sense of purpose. I felt after ten years of retirement that I'd run out steam, that I'd lost momentum. However, it occurred to me only recently that I can ride the current AI wave and keep myself motivated and constantly challenged. The Creatine supplements that I've been taking over the past month or so seem to be kick-started my brain, dispelled my brain fog and mild depression and given me a new lease on life.

Given my existing reliance on the Google ecosystem, it's only natural to focus on Gemini and not be distracted too much by other AI alternatives. To that end I've availed myself of a free month of Gemini Pro with the option to continue on a paid plan after December 21st at a cost of about A$35 per month. It's probably money well spent if I decide to step up my involvement in AI.

So far my use of Gemini has been rather modest. I've created a HTML launch pad for apps and websites in the Chrome browser, I've used NotebookLM to create audio and video overviews of sources and I've played around with Nano Bananas as reported earlier. Here is a table that Gemini generated to highlight the differences between the free and paid versions.

Feature	Gemini (Free)	Gemini Advanced (Paid)
Core Model	Gemini 2.5 Flash (Optimized for speed and low latency)	Gemini 2.5 Pro / 3.0 Pro Preview (The "Thinking" models with high reasoning capabilities)
Context Window	32k Tokens (Approx. 50 pages of text. Good for a single chapter.)	1 Million Tokens (Approx. 1,500 pages. Upload entire codebases, huge PDFs, or hours of video.)
Deep Research	Limited Access (~5 reports/month. Uses the "Fast" model for surface-level web synthesis.)	Full Access (~20–50 reports/month. Uses "Deep Think" to browse dozens of sites, synthesizing a 5,000-word report.)
Image Gen ("Nano Banana")	Nano Banana (Standard) (~15–20 images/day. Standard resolution. Good for quick visualization.)	Nano Banana Pro (Gemini 3 Image) (~1,000 images/day. High-fidelity, text-rendering capable, 4K upscaling.)
NotebookLM	Standard (Limit of 50 sources per notebook. Standard audio overview duration.)	NotebookLM Plus (Included. 5x higher source limits, extended Audio Overviews, and "Deep Dive" study guides.)
Daily Rate Limits	Dynamic / Low (Approx. 50–100 complex queries/day before you are throttled or switched to a smaller model.)	High Priority (Approx. 1,000+ complex queries/day. No throttling during peak hours.)
Coding & Python	Basic Execution (Can run simple snippets. Good for one-off scripts.)	Asynchronous Agent (Can run persistent Python sessions to solve multi-step math/data problems or edit complex files.)
Eco-system	Chat Only (You must copy-paste text into Docs or Gmail manually.)	Integrated (Workspace) (Gemini lives inside Docs, Gmail, and Slides. "Rewrite this email," "Create a slide deck from this Doc".)
Data Privacy	Training Mode (Your chats may be used to train models unless you disable it.)	Enterprise-Grade (Your data is not used to train the models. Crucial for proprietary work.)

Gemini went on to say this:

The "Switch" Verdict

If you are on the fence, here is the brutal truth about why you would upgrade:

1. You hit the "Stupid" Wall: The Free version (Flash) is fast, but it hallucinates on complex tasks. If you ask for a specific citation or a complex coding refactor, Flash often guesses. Advanced (Pro/Ultra) actually thinks (using chain-of-thought processing) before answering.

2. The "Deep Research" Killer Feature: If you have ever spent 3 hours Googling to write a report, the paid Deep Research feature does that 3 hours of work in 5 minutes. It visits 40+ websites, reads them, and compiles a sourced report. The free version gives you a "lite" taste (5/month), but the paid version is a daily workflow tool.

3. "Nano Banana" is not a toy: The free image generator is for fun. The paid Nano Banana Pro (Gemini 3 Image) handles text correctly (e.g., generating a cafe sign that actually says "Coffee" and not "Cofefe") and follows strict brand guidelines, which is essential if you are using this for work.