Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Recommended Text Editors for Win32?

Posted by Cliff on from the vi-emacs-and-notepad.exe-are-not-valid-choices dept.

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?"

12 of 277 comments (clear)

  1. TextPad 32 by km790816 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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...
  2. Jedit by JumpSuit+Boy · · Score: 4, Informative

    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?
  3. Development tools under Windows by eyepeepackets · · Score: 5, Funny

    "...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!
  4. ultraedit by repoleved · · Score: 5, Informative

    WWW.ULTRAEDIT.COM

    1. Re:ultraedit by erasmus_ · · Score: 5, Informative

      In addition to joining the other posts in praising this awesome text editor, I'm surprised no one has pointed out the helpful ability it has to replace the system Notepad program. Although other programs may have it, this is the only I've seen that gives you an executable to launch itself when someone specifically invokes Notepad instead of honoring your .txt or whatever file association. Easy instructions are in notepad.zip on their downloads page.

      --
      Please subscribe to see the more insightful version of th
  5. EditPlus by elendel · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.
  6. Text editors... by pb · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.
  7. XEmacs by muon1183 · · Score: 5, Informative

    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
  8. Emacs forever! by vsync64 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I use Emacs on *nix, Mac, and Windows. It works fine everywhere, which means 1 set of keybindings to remember, 1 macro language to learn, and 1 configuration to share between machines.

    One editor to rule them all, one editor to find them...

    --
    TO BUY A NEW CAR WOULD MAKE YOU SEXUALLY ATTRACTIVE.
  9. EditPlus by jafuser · · Score: 4, Informative
    I use EditPlus for everything that involves text.

    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:

    • Regular-expression like search and replace (across one or all open documents)
    • Group files into "projects", which are saved in the config and easily accessible by a "Project" menu at any time.
    • Keyboard macro recording/playback/save ability
    • ASCII chart reference
    • Document templates
    • User-configurable tools
    • On-screen document selector tabs (for quicking jumping between open documents)
    • Can make whitespace chars visible
    • Fullscreen mode
    • Spellchecker
    • IE integration for quick previews
    • Box select/insert/overwrite
    • Reformat paragraphs
    • Monitor clipboard
    • HTML entity conversion
    • Cliptext palette
    • Function list generation
    • Line sort with options for de-dupe, case sensistivity, ascending/descending, start at column, ascii order
    • Split views
    • PC,Unix,Mac EOL modes
    • On-screen line numbers with each line
    • Print Preview (option to include line numbers)
    • All program functions can be reassigned to different keyboard combinations
    • User-configurable toolbar

    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
  10. Visual Slickedit by ebbe11 · · Score: 5, Informative
    Pros:
    • 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.
  11. NT Emacs is stable, mature, and featureful by Tom7 · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.