Good Web Development Environments with UTF-8 Support?

A Pride of Lyings asks: "I'm having a devil of a time finding a good editor or IDE aimed at HTML/XHTML/CSS/JavaScript/JSP/XML that meets the following criteria: CVS integration (VSS integration would be nice but not required); stellar UTF-8 support (internationalization is a big big deal now); correctly recognizes and highlights HTML, JSP, JS, and CSS within a single file; does some rudimentary auto-completion; is easily configurable; runs on Win2k (oy vey); supports bookmarks of various kinds; supports code collapsing; and affordable. I'm at a loss and rather fatigued from kicking all of these tires, so I'm throwing it open to you: what do you use for your front-end work? What makes it good?"

Comments

Vi Improved (VIM)

[metacosm]

Vim is great because it has folding, autocomplete, abbreviations, macros, objects, modes, regular expressions, window splitting, multiple buffers, session, network editing, file explorer and lets you keep your hands on home row!

It also supports every single feature you have requested, and a ton you didn't, and has consistant highlight, feel across all langauges and platforms -- it is wonderful!

VSS integration plugin: http://vim.sourceforge.net/scripts/script.php?scri pt_id=29

CVS integration plugin: http://vim.sourceforge.net/scripts/script.php?scri pt_id=58

Word (and Sentence/Phrase) Completion is built in, but if you want it to work when you hit tab use: http://vim.sourceforge.net/scripts/script.php?scri pt_id=182

http://vim.org -- get it now!

Emacs?

[dakkar]

Emacs 21, with the addition of the Mule-UCS package, can edit and display files in most encodings, including UTF-8 and UTF-16, containing characters from all of the Basic Multilingual Plane (display depends on available fonts).

For multi-language syntax highlighting, you can look at the Multiple Major Modes package.

For XML support, you need the psgml package (a recent one).

And, of course, you have speedy navigation (i-menu and speedbar), code collapse (outline and similar modes), CVS integration (pl-cvs and vc), bookmarks (including frame/window configurations, via registers and bookmarks), and it's free (GNU).

Oh, and it does run on Win32.

Cream (for Vim)

[digitect]

Indeed Vim rocks! Not only does it have blinding speed, but with some effort, it can be made to do almost anything. I'll respond specifically to each feature requested:

• aimed at HTML/XHTML/CSS/JavaScript/JSP/XML -- Vim recognizes over 375 languages
• CVS integration -- Available
• stellar UTF-8 support -- Yes, plus at least 35 other encodings
• correctly recognizes and highlights HTML, JSP, JS, and CSS within a single file -- No, not yet. This gets discussed on the lists often though.
• does some rudimentary auto-completion -- Yes, far beyond rudimentary
• is easily configurable -- Yes, perhaps even too configurable
• runs on Win2k (oy vey) -- Yes, plus Unix, BSD, Apple, Amiga, OS/2, and others
• supports bookmarks of various kinds -- Yes
• supports code collapsing -- Yes, called folding, even supports nested
• affordable -- Can't beat Free! Even better, you can donate to a great cause .

However...

...although other posters have already pointed out various scripts you can add to give you the features you want, you can also try my pre-assembled package of scripts for Vim, Cream. It makes Vim keyboard shortcuts nearly CUA-compliant (Ctrl/Alt/Shift + letter) and otherwise masquerades Vim as a more familiar feeling power text editor. Most long-time Vim users barely recognize it, but Apple/Windows users will find it much more familiar than the sometimes cryptic Vim.