Kate is really a hidden gem. It’s so light weight and just gets out of the way. I’m now installing it everywhere—Linux, Mac, or Windows.

There is just one feature that Kate has that I really use a lot, but it is not on a convenient key binding, and that is the ability to filter the active text selection through a shell utility, or to capture the output of running a shell command. When I use Emacs, I use these commands a countless number of times every day, and they are both on default key bindings that are very easy to type.

I wish Kate would take this feature more seriously.