> how to disable highlighting than how to do line wrapping in the primitive app

In my 20+ years of casual TextEdit use, this has never come up. I turn windows wrapping on and off all the time, which is a simple option in the Format menu.

> Nothing, they'll try to do nothing. Sublime Text doesn't even have a package manager embedded.

I just downloaded Sublime Text. After indenting, it preserves that indentation level when I hit return. This is something I want in a code editor, like Sublime Text. This is something I do not want it a basic text editor, like Text Edit. Both are working as expected.

It did default to Plain Text, and didn't switch on me when I did something like adding a colon at the end of the line, so that was good.

For those who don't need all the power Sublime Text has to offer and just want to write simple text, I don't see the $99 price tag (or pop-ups to purchase) worth it.

> In my 20+ years of casual TextEdit use, this has never come up.

Ok, it came up in the 1- year here.

> I turn windows wrapping on and off all the time, which is a simple option in the Format menu.

How does this help? You can't have a non-wrapped line without an ugly hack from the link.

> preserves that indentation ... I do not want

So turn it off! It's configurable, as I said "Also, see the previous point ", unlike...

> Both are working as expected.

TextEdit is not working as expected, and I can't configure the behavior! I do need the tabulation to be preserved for various lists I create in plain text (ideally with a way to maintain the '-' or numeric prefix). I also need a convenient way to temporarily "hide" long lines without losing reading position (TextEdit moves the caret to the beginning of the window on changing the wrapping option) for a shorter "summary" view. A more visible non-flashing caret would also be nice (at least the flash is configurable via a hidden config) These are primitive affordances for plain (not code) text editing. Of course, there are non-primitive ones like multiple cursors, proper search etc.

> I don't see the $99 price tag (or pop-ups to purchase) worth it.

So pick a different text editor without a nag! You're positioning fixable annoyances as total blockers while ignoring unfixable annoyances in the primitive system app.