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Recommended Text Editors for Win32?
Dave asks: "I must us a Windows machine at work where I do web development and system administration. I have been looking for a "decent" editor to use on Windows, but thus far have come up short. GVim doesn't do it for me, on linux it's fine, but on Windows it isn't the most stable thing around. I've also tried Windows versions of MicroEmacs and Vile. What do other Slashdot users develop in when they must use a Windows machine?"
Seriously. It's standard, it works well, and on Windows 2000 and later they finally removed that annoying 64KB text limit. Why use anything else?
This Ask Slashdot sounds to me like trolling against gvim. I use it extensively (didn't even bother with trying any emacs-life stuff for Win) under both WinMe and WinXP and it has never crashed on me and I even like it more than the Linux version. I use it for xml and java and html and a few other things. Never had any problem.
At work we have standardized on Jedit http://www.jedit.org . Good syntax coloring. Lots of plugins: cvs , regex testing , and ton of others. A good macro language.
Oh really?
i've been using the win32 version for years and years without a single problem. that aside, i'll recommend the following since you're doing development:
:O
ultraedit - www.ultraedit.com . even though i use vim more than anything, i keep it around for certain tasks and it's worth every penny. you didn't specify whether or not it had to be free...
cedit - cedit.sourceforge.net . free ultraedit clone attempt. i wouldn't know how it works, because it wouldn't run under xp
my advice is to try ultraedit, and a) if you like it and b) you're a cheap bastard, try cedit.
WWW.ULTRAEDIT.COM
Check out http://www.editplus.com/
By far the best text editor I have ever used. All of my development is done in this editor, since I have yet to find anything comparable in either BeOS or *BSD. It has syntax highlighting for virtually everything, and if it doesn't have what you want, you can add it very easily. And you can run arbitrary commands straight from the editor, such as compiling.
You want it, this thing has it.
The only drawback for all those free software nuts, it's shareware - free until you pay for it. But well worth the money, if you believe in that kind of thing.
If I was worried about Karma, I'd eat tofu.
very powerful, c-style macros, record keystrokes, language-specific settings/formattings, all the power of emacs but with a friendly (yet not dumbed-down) interface.
will interface with command-line compilers, also integrates with many IDEs to be the source editor, and respond to the IDE commands etc.
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
As an emacs user, I feel obliged to point out that xemacs is available for windows, and works quite well. It runs natively under windows, so you don't need to deal with cygwin or any of that (unless you want to, they do have a cygwin version available). And if you're a vi person, you can always run emacs in vi mode.
There's no sig like SIGSEG
I prefer ContTEXT.
It's a great editor for my needs. I do php, perl, html, c/c++, and Java in it. It has a modular syntax hilighter so you can create your own hilighting schemes and/or download existing ones. I also has syntax hilighting for my apache conf files.
It also has auto indenting, soft/hard tabs, programmable buttons/shorcuts based on file type. I set up one button for compiling, one for running, one for formatting, etc..
It supports CRLF, LF, and CR based text files so it works with every platform, and you can switch modes whenever you want.
I also enjoy the tabbed MDI setup, it works really well for me.
At least give this one a try, the worst that could happen is you don't like it ;-)
~higman
-- [insert sig here]
I'm a big fan of Code-Genie... customizable syntax highlighting and whatnot, quite nice.
unstable? never had it crash on me and i do most of my web develop ment with it. if im not telneted into my box from a remote site working on it..
ive never had a problem with Gvim on windows 2k. perhaps its the OS. or need a newer version of Gvim.
It comes with syntax highlighting for HTML, CSS, PHP, ASP, Perl, C/C++, Java, JavaScript and VBScript, plus you can get user-created "STX" files for many other languages, or write your own. Each token color can be easily configured from a pallete selection dialog.
My favorite feature though is the built in FTP (File Open/Save/Save As) system, which makes opening a file on a remote FTP server as seamless as opening a file on your local machine.
Here's a few other features which I felt seemed noteworthy:
Sorry, I guess I got carried away :) I really like this program though, and I've been using it for about three or four years now. It's probably the only program I've ever registered within 15 minutes of downloading :)
I don't like the default colors and font that come with it. I prefer dark backgrounds, so I always set the background to black, then let the lumance level of all the default syntax highlighting colors to "200". I also don't like the default variable-width font, as I prefer mono-spaced fonts, but I don't like Courier, so I set it to the windows "FixedSys" font. Once I've made these adjustments, EditPlus looks more like a UNIX terminal than a Visual* editor.
On the occasions I've considered switching to Linux, EditPlus is probably one of the few things holding me back from doing so.
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xemacs. Version 21.4.6. Available as windows InstallShield. Editor of the gods.
Bow
Bow
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
Easy to use (menus and buttons until you learn the keystrokes).
The Installshield installer the folks at www.xemacs.org provide gives you a very capable editor without any painful configuration. Default editing modes are pre-bound to most common file formats.
- Superb source code browser. The main reason why I bought Slickedit.
- Runs on most OS'es including Linux and OS/390(!).
- C-like macro-language
- The people at Slickedit are very responsive if you're having trouble. This includes support as well as sales.
Cons:- It costs money. A single user license is $299 in USA and Canada, $329 everywhere else.
- No Mac version.
See more at www.slickedit.com.Disclaimer: I use Slickedit eight hours a day but am in no other way affiliated with the company.
My opinion? See above.
UltraEdit32 does it for me.
Support for HUGE files, thousands of files open simultaneously, regex search & replace, interactive function listing, syntax highlighting, split window with synchronized scrolling, search & replace in multiple files (with regexes), find in multiple files (like grep), htmltidy built-in, column editing mode, converts to and from dos, mac and unix line endings, hex editing mode, and lots and lots of other stuff.
definately worth a look.
jeremiah
Mentioned twice before but I figured I'd add my bit:
1. Regular expression "replace" - very useful
2. opens (very) large files quickly
3. I actually paid the shareware fee - for those that know me that should say something...
4. Hex mode
Also, not a text editor but a very usefull addition to your toolset is "EasyDiff" and "EasyDiff Pro", which is a powerhouse of text and file system comparisons.
CySurflex
(G)VIM is still the best generic editor by far in my opinion. It can edit huge files (I've corrected codec tags in 700Mb AVIs), it's fast, and it integrates quite well in the windows environment. And it's (totally) free.
Well, that depends on the type of editing you do. If it's coding, then VIM is the best - if not, then it's a toss-up.
Its syntax hilighting, code-folding and command-based editing modes make it ideal... and once you press 'i' and have the backspace=2 option set, it's basically the same as textpad32/notepad/ultraedit.
PS: VIM is NOT vi! vi was written for a different era. I prefer Emacs over vi, but not over VIM.
Also, I do prefer the native IDEs when I code in Delphi, Visual C++, Python (here I use Boa-constructor instead of (g)VIM)
I've been using gvim for at least 5 years on windows (NT, 2k, XP) and never had _one_ crash.
If you don't like the *vi type editors, Xemacs or Gnu emacs work flawlessly on win32 as well. Xemacs is a lot easier to set up (e.g.: getting the Java development environment JDE working), but perhaps you want to use Gnu emacs for political reasons...
If you want something more windows-centric NOTEPAD.EXE has always been pretty reliable, if a bit slow on large files.
"But actually trying to use m4 as a general-purpose langage would be deeply perverse" --ESR
Freeware text editors, mostly for Windows.
Know of any more? Submit the URL and I'll take care of them.
Find any on that list that are are no longer free? Email me or update the URL and I'll take care of it.
metapad is my notepad replacement. Small, fast, keyboard shortcuts for save, search, etc, unlimited file sizes. Free as in beer. Excellent.
NT Emacs is awesome. I use it on my windows boxes, and aside from some unix-ish features like command-prompt interaction, it is quite stable and mature. It even has decent integration with the shell, letting you (for instance) drag files into the emacs window to be opened.
I don't know what killer features gvim has that you use, but I assure you they're all there.
Well there's a great list of editors on PHP.net at http://213.155.159.67/phpeditors/index.php that you might find helpful. The list gives the webpage, platform, license, and reader comments for each one.
As a web developer who is almost always using Windows, lately I've used Homesite (costs a bunch), 1st Page 2000 (just like Homesite but free) and Crimson Editor. They all work fine for anything I've needed to do.
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.