Whenever I start Atom, either by itself if I want to start from a blank file, or by opening a file, I have a left pane with the file navigation.
How to prevent the left pane from being open in the first place? I would like to start just with the text editor and the pane hidden.
View > Toggle Tree View
yes, but I’m talking about when Atom opens up. I would like it to open (whether empty, or with a file) without the tree view open. I would like to have it hidden by default.
I understand it’s used a lot by developers but I’m not using it in that context at all, my use case is just a simple text editor / viewer so I don’t want the tree view… at all 
Then disable it. apm disable tree-view