It's not that I have to choose it manually the first time which bothers me, but that TextMate FORGETS the settings sometimes. So files that have been already saved in the correct encoding are misinterpreted by TextMate to use UTF8.
Also, the other part of the problem seems to be that TextMate assumes that UTF8 is used when it's not sure which encoding the file uses instead of respecting the settings in the prefs.
I am having the same problem. Even though I have the encoding set to something other than UTF8 in the preferences, and to use that with existing files, it keeps opening the files in UTF8. It's definitely an annoying bug.
I'm a big fan of TextMate :-)
Ditto!
Regards,
Aparajita www.aparajitaworld.com
"If you dare to fail, you are bound to succeed." - Sri Chinmoy | www.srichinmoylibrary.com