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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?"
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.
I love this editor.
Adds itself to the context menu in explorer so you can open anything in it.
Supports huge files.
Color codes C++, Java, etc.
Handles indenting and word-wrap well.
Has an 'always on top' feature.
Easy to asign file associations from the UI.
http://www.textpad.com
A speech...
honestly this is not a troll
but on windows use something that is designed for windows and not ported as an afterthought.
when i have to use a pc to edit (i mainly use bbedit on os x, which is by far and large the best editor i have EVER used) i use textedit
yeah, it's shareware, but it's not disabled in anyway and the only shareware part is that once in a thousand saves you get a dialogue that says "register or not" and the not button isn't time delayed or any of that crap, you click "not now" and it shuts up like a good piece of software.
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?
"...What do other Slashdot users develop in when they must use a Windows machine?"
First I develop a migrane, then I use lots of tequila. Works every time.
*comf*
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
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
My absolute favorite programming IDE ever was Borland Turbo Pascal 7.0; therefore, I'm a sucker for any editor written in TurboVision, like RHIDE or SetEdit.
DOS Edit is still pretty decent in the console; on the GUI side, NoteTab is a notepad replacement on steroids (the "Light" version is free).
If you download Cygwin, you can compile almost any UNIX-y text editor you want, including my favorite--nano.
And if all else fails, Ask Google!
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
For anything web related (HTML, CSS, PHP) I use HomeSite. It works. Great editor, nice syntax highlighting, lots of nice features. I haven't found anything even remotely comparable for Linux, unfortunately. For C/C++, C++Builder is excellent. The syntax highlighting works well and the editor is amazingly fast. Works on files of literally any size with no slowdowns.
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'm a big fan of Code-Genie... customizable syntax highlighting and whatnot, quite nice.
One editor to rule them all, one editor to find them...
TO BUY A NEW CAR WOULD MAKE YOU SEXUALLY ATTRACTIVE.
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.
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
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.
jEdit (available here) is available anywhere there's a reasonably recent Java2 runtime. On Windows with J2SDK1.4, I've noticed that it takes a fair bit of time to load up, but once loaded it's acceptably snappy--it's never going to win points for speed, but it manages to not be noticeably and/or annoyingly slow, which is good.
It has bindings for something like 50 different languages, from Ada to SQL and every-other-thing in between. I have been exceptionally pleased with jEdit so far, at least on Win32. On UNIX, jEdit is a little slower, to the point where it enters noticeably and annoyingly slow, but it's still a defensible choice.
If you do a lot of crossplatform work (I do) and want to keep your basic work environment the same in both environments, you can do an awful lot worse than jEdit.
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
BAH! You kids and your fancy editors.
In my day we used edlin AND WE LIKED IT!
Beta sux! Join the Slashcott! http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4760465&cid=46173047
I use notepad. Lots of people do. But, the reason may not be what you think it is.
So many people use Notepad for the same reason that so many people use Vi. The simple reason is that you can find it on *every* system. If you work in a Windows shop you will likely be working on other machines than your own. These other machines will not have your favorite "SlickEditor" but, they will have Notepad. Regardless of whether the machine is 95/98/NT/2000/XP notepad will be there. The same holds true with Vi. If you work in a *nix environment, you can be assured that whatever machine you use will have Vi. They may or may not have GEdit or Kwrite or even Emacs but, Vi wil be there.
Of course, if you use only Notepad and then go to a *nix system, you'll have a hell of a time with Vi.
Real men only use Edlin.
Pussy. I always used copy con and got it right the first time. :)
What'dya mean there's no BLINK tag!?
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.