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Microsoft

Recommended Text Editors for Win32? 284

Posted by Cliff 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?"
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Recommended Text Editors for Win32? More

Recommended Text Editors for Win32?

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  • what's wrong with gvim? (Score:3, Informative)

    by bromba ( 538300 ) on Thursday July 25, 2002 @01:37AM (#3949592)
    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.

  • TextPad 32 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by km790816 ( 78280 ) <wqhq3gx02@@@sneakemail...com> on Thursday July 25, 2002 @01:37AM (#3949596)
    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 [textpad.com]

  • screw that *nix crap (Score:3, Interesting)

    by self assembled struc ( 62483 ) on Thursday July 25, 2002 @01:38AM (#3949600) Homepage
    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 [textedit.com]

    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.
    • Maybe if you think it's that good you should put your money where your mouth is and buy it?

    • Re:screw that *nix crap (Score:3, Informative)

      by DeadSea ( 69598 )
      Open directory project:
      Freeware text editors [dmoz.org], 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.


    • UltraEdit32 [ultraedit.com] is great.

    • but on windows use something that is designed for windows and not ported as an afterthought

      Why? This is text for godssake. This isn't a word processor.

      I admit, I'm a vi head. I've spent the time and effort involved in learning vi's nuances and find it to be extremely powerful. Whenever I have to use a Windows editor for anything more than the basics it's extremely annoying.

      Before I started using Unix and vi my favored editor was qedit in DOS. Nice editor for the time, albeit seriously memory limited. And I still have the install disks around somewhere... I think.

      The real question is, why should I use one editor on one OS, one editor on another, and a third editor on yet another? All this leads to is below optimal efficiency and experience on all three platforms. Hell of a lot better to decide on one editor that's available nearly universally and stick with it. Which is why I use vim. And install vim on any computer I own. Sure, if I wind up on someone else's Windows box I'll be stuck with Notepad, but I doubt I'll be doing extensive editing there, so it's doable. And on any Unix box I login to I'll have vi available, which is just a subset of vim.

      It may not have been a troll, but it was even less thought out than a lot of trolls I've seen here.
    • BBEdit is nice, but if you've learned emacs well and have a beautiful environment built up, nothing can compete with the Win32 version of Xemacs. Nothing is nearly as powerful.

  • Jedit (Score:4, Informative)

    by JumpSuit Boy ( 29166 ) on Thursday July 25, 2002 @01:38AM (#3949602) Homepage
    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.
    • Add my vote for jEdit too. Platform independant, feature rich, works like a champ, and it's free.

      Download, use, be happy.
    • I love JEdit, but one major, major thing keeps me from using it: horrible memory management. Like every other Java application, JEdit suffers from obscene memory bloat. It chews upwards of 20 megs right off the line, and eats more and more the longer it stays open. For someone like me, who often leaves an editor open for 20 hours straight while working on absolutely disgusting amounts of code, this is unbearable. After a typical day of coding with JEdit, it often ends up having consumed over 100 megabytes of precious, precious RAM.

      Sigh.

  • Development tools under Windows (Score:5, Funny)

    by eyepeepackets ( 33477 ) on Thursday July 25, 2002 @01:39AM (#3949605)
    "...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*

  • ultraedit (Score:5, Informative)

    by repoleved ( 569427 ) on Thursday July 25, 2002 @01:41AM (#3949614)
    WWW.ULTRAEDIT.COM

    • Re:ultraedit (Score:5, Informative)

      by erasmus_ ( 119185 ) on Thursday July 25, 2002 @09:16AM (#3950687)
      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 [ultraedit.com].
      • Tom's Intstructions:

        C:\WINNT>rename notepad.exe oldnotepad.exe
        C:\WINNT>rename ultraedit.exe notepad.exe
        You'd think this would work... but NOOOOO...
        Microsoft somehow automagically restores the notepad.exe file!!!!

        Here's a log
        (I put the time in the prompt so you can see that it took about 5 seconds for it to replace the file):
        C:\WINNT> set prompt=$t$p$g

        12:48:19.33C:\WINNT>rename notepad.exe bak.exe

        12:48:24.09C:\WINNT>dir notepad.exe
        Volume in drive C is CRAPTOP
        Volume Serial Number is E07E-7200

        Directory of C:\WINNT

        File Not Found

        12:48:26.37C:\WINNT>dir notepad.exe
        Volume in drive C is CRAPTOP
        Volume Serial Number is E07E-7200

        Directory of C:\WINNT

        File Not Found

        12:48:27.33C:\WINNT>dir notepad.exe
        Volume in drive C is CRAPTOP
        Volume Serial Number is E07E-7200

        Directory of C:\WINNT

        File Not Found

        12:48:28.29C:\WINNT>dir notepad.exe
        Volume in drive C is CRAPTOP
        Volume Serial Number is E07E-7200

        Directory of C:\WINNT

        12/07/1999 03:00a 50,960 notepad.exe
        1 File(s) 50,960 bytes
        0 Dir(s) 16,169,014,784 bytes free

        12:48:29.54C:\WINNT>

        How messed up is that?

        T

        • As I said, the zip comes with an instruction file, which you should probably read before ranting about it not working in this forum. Notepad.exe, and most other Windows system files, are subject to Windows File Protection [microsoft.com]. If you do not replace the file as indicated in the steps, Windows will try to restore the file because it assumes it has been maliciously deleted or infected. Try again, good luck.

        • Re:ultraedit (Score:3, Funny)

          by Qrlx ( 258924 )
          I'm not saying it's a good thing, but Windows File Protection can be overriden in the registry, and the whole concept is to prevent people, by which I mean users, from trying to see the Secret Message from Bill Gates that only shows up if you del *.dll in C:\Windows.

          Why is notepad a protected file? Hell, why is calc.exe a protected file? That's what I'd like to know.

    • Re:ultraedit (Score:3, Informative)

      by selan ( 234261 )
      Another ultraedit fan here. I think this is the only shareware app that I've ever paid for. When I used Windows I absolutely depended on it. Off the top of my head, here are some things that I liked about it:

      • tabbed editing windows
      • color coded syntax highlighting
      • regexp in search and replace
      • toggled hex editing
      • handles huge files easily (I once used it on a file (I think it was >1M) that was so big that it crashed Interdev--not that's it's so hard to crash Interdev, but ultraedit handled it beautifully)
      • etc, etc.
      • Same here. I've registered it twice, once to renew it for version 7. And I've used it to successfully edit binary files that were more than 500M, on an NT machine with only about 32 megs of ram.

        Now if Ian would just release a Unix version, I could get rid of this byzantine Emacs thing. Unfortunately nothing but Emacs can replace UE under Unix. Using Wine almost works, but then I'm out of luck on the Solaris boxen. :-)
      • I am pretty sure that Ultraedit is about the only shareware I have ever paid for as well...and its definately been well worth the money I paid for it...I am getting at least double the amount done that I used too..and the automatic .bak functionality has saved my ass more than once...the only feature I would love is being able to keep multiple revisions vms style....

  • EditPlus (Score:4, Informative)

    by elendel ( 229983 ) on Thursday July 25, 2002 @01:42AM (#3949621)
    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.

  • Multiedit for win32 (Score:3, Informative)

    by schmaltz ( 70977 ) on Thursday July 25, 2002 @01:43AM (#3949623)
    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.

  • Text editors... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by pb ( 1020 ) on Thursday July 25, 2002 @01:44AM (#3949627)
    My absolute favorite programming IDE ever was Borland Turbo Pascal 7.0; therefore, I'm a sucker for any editor written in TurboVision [sourceforge.net], like RHIDE [rhide.com] or SetEdit [sourceforge.net].

    DOS Edit is still pretty decent in the console; on the GUI side, NoteTab [notetab.com] is a notepad replacement on steroids (the "Light" version is free).

    If you download Cygwin [cygwin.com], you can compile almost any UNIX-y text editor you want, including my favorite--nano [nano-editor.org].

    And if all else fails, Ask Google [google.com]!
    • Heh. I used the Turbo C 2.0 IDE as a general purpose editor for years. It was nice, and the keystrokes were hard coded into my fingers. Eventually, QEdit replaced it as my textmode editor. I also used Sidekick's editor. All three were of the venerable and glorious WordStar lineage (Control K, command). I used WordStar on a Z80 enhanced Apple ][ running CP/M. I also used (5 Karma points to the person who can remember *this* editor) Magic Window to write a novella and many short stories.

      For Windows, I keep a copy of TextPad32 (textpad.com) around in my /pub/system/wbin directory (also burned on a CD), along with a copy of WinZip, ACDSee, and a baker's dozen of other good tools. It's great, and the version I use runs right from the .exe without installation. Not sure if that applies to the current versions.

      For *nix, I just started using Kate as a preferred editor, the first good GUI editor I've found for the platform. I lie slightly on the vi side, but also use emacs (and Joe and even pico) to edit stuff. Call me a polythestic editor user in the *nix editor jihad. I really have yet to find anything that *really* feels good, a la WordStar/Turbo C 2.0/QEdit for modern systems.

      I also used the built in editor in {COMMO} for awhile - thus showing that I will use whatever is handy... including cat > or COPY CON. :)

      --
      Evan

      • Have you not tried NEdit? It sounds like what you'd want in a UNIX GUI text editor...
      • If you like WordStar and QEdit editors, then you'll probably love JOE.
      • Then definitely check out RHIDE and SetEdit; all should know about the glory of Borland-style IDEs!

        I used the Control-K commands up through Turbo Pascal 5.5 or so; I'm sure that lives on, or something like it...
        And originally I was stuck with "edlin" and whatever built-in editors were in my programming tools (Turbo BASIC, Turbo Pascal, and later QBASIC and DOS Edit), and used "Leading Edge Word Processing" to write papers. I don't think I really had a stand-alone editor on my C64, but I did have a cheesy publishing program...
        And yeah I used COPY CON for batch files; didn't everyone?
        • I tried an early version of RHIDE quite awhile ago - I'll give it another shot. I haven't tried SetEdit (never even heard about it until this article).

          I used Leading Edge WP as well... remember Twin, the Lotus 123 clone? This article is like memory lane.

          As to the other two people who responded to me, I tried NEdit and didn't like it, and I do use Joe (in fact, I mentioned it in the original post).

          --
          Evan

          • I just downloaded and took a look at RHIDE. I can't help but feel *extremely* uncomfortable with a text editor that advises you to suid it as root. I understand that it came from a DOS world, and needs access to the video hardware, but that just... rubs me wrong.

            --
            Evan

            • I should probably warn you that RHIDE works *much* better under DOS; I didn't like the Linux port very much, although I think there are some patches out there to make it more stable.

              I haven't really tried SetEdit, but it looks good--I can only hope it's more stable...

  • PFE (Score:2, Insightful)

    by 'The '.$L3mm1ng ( 584224 )
    I use PFE, the Programmer's File Editor. It doesn't even have syntax highlighting, but it's light, fast, very configurable and the macro function rocks (Shift + F7, Do some stuff with Ctrl+Cursor or whatever you want, Ctrl + F7, repeat with F7).

    Regrettably it's out of development, though there still is a bug that sometimes occures: when editing, lines disappear and you should not save the file if that happens. But it does not happen very often.

    The Mode feature is not very intuitive, but once you figured out how it works, it allows you to switch things like line-indenting, wrapping, etc. based on the file type you are editing.

    http://www.lancs.ac.uk/people/cpaap/pfe/

    I don't use other editors because of the time to get used to them... and because of basic stuff like Ctrl+Cursor, where PFE stopps at far more characters than whitespace only. I need this a lot and most other editors don't do this.
    • This is my old stand-by edit I place on every box. I tend tto use an IDE, such as Jbuilder6 on Win boxes, but it I have to open a source file for a language that I don't have my IDE open I use PFE.

  • HomeSite and C++Builder (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Electrum ( 94638 ) <david@acz.org> on Thursday July 25, 2002 @01:56AM (#3949667) Homepage
    For anything web related (HTML, CSS, PHP) I use HomeSite [macromedia.com]. 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 [borland.com] is excellent. The syntax highlighting works well and the editor is amazingly fast. Works on files of literally any size with no slowdowns.
    • macromedia are still offering a standalone version of Homesite [macromedia.com] (version 5) but they probably won't for long.

      The official upgrade to Homesite 5 is Dreamweaver which has an editor bundled with it that is very similar to Homesite. Of course Dreamweaver is a lot more expensive than Homesite alone.

  • XEmacs (Score:5, Informative)

    by muon1183 ( 587316 ) <(muon1183) (at) (gmail.com)> on Thursday July 25, 2002 @01:56AM (#3949669) Homepage
    As an emacs user, I feel obliged to point out that xemacs [xemacs.org] 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.
  • I love UltraEdit.

    The hex editing mode is really nice, as is integration into the shell (right click on any file to edit it, text or binary!)

    UltraEdit Does a good job of syntax highlighting, and it has lots of options. It supports large files, is very fast, and not too heavy when it comes to resources.
    • I cast my vote for Ultra Edit as well... small program with a lot of power in the right places. Color syntax highlighting for the esoteric languages I use (user definable) and hex edit for those annoying files.

  • my personal favourte (Score:2, Informative)

    by Higman ( 83293 )

    I prefer ContTEXT [fixedsys.com].

    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

  • Code-Genie (Score:3, Informative)

    by ceejayoz ( 567949 ) <cj@ceejayoz.com> on Thursday July 25, 2002 @02:07AM (#3949700) Homepage Journal
    I'm a big fan of Code-Genie [code-genie.com]... customizable syntax highlighting and whatnot, quite nice.

  • Emacs forever! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by vsync64 ( 155958 ) <vsync@quadium.net> on Thursday July 25, 2002 @02:11AM (#3949713) Homepage
    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...

  • Gvim. (Score:3, Informative)

    by BenTheDewpendent ( 180527 ) <ben.junknstuff@net> on Thursday July 25, 2002 @02:17AM (#3949724) Homepage
    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.
    • Absolutely gVim. I've used Vim 5.8, 6.0, and 6.1 (the gVim executable, not the console versions) regularly on Windows 98SE, NT, and 2K (and Solaris, HP-UX, and Linux, too, both console and GUI versions). It's never so much as dropped a character.

      I have plenty of RAM on all the relevant systems (no less than 96M). If you've got less, try downloading SiSoft Sandra Standard [demon.co.uk], and check "Windows Memory Information" to see if you're running low.

      I also reboot my Windows 98SE system about once a day.-|

  • EditPlus (Score:4, Informative)

    by jafuser ( 112236 ) on Thursday July 25, 2002 @02:21AM (#3949738)
    I use EditPlus [editplus.com] 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 [pantherweb.org], 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.

  • http://www.textpad.com [textpad.com]. Cheap, powerful, fast, & very stable.

  • xemacs (Score:2, Informative)

    by ultrabot ( 200914 )
    xemacs. Version 21.4.6. Available as windows InstallShield. Editor of the gods.

    Bow

    Bow

  • Xemacs... (Score:3, Informative)

    by kuhneng ( 241514 ) on Thursday July 25, 2002 @02:48AM (#3949800) Homepage
    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.

  • Visual Slickedit (Score:5, Informative)

    by ebbe11 ( 121118 ) on Thursday July 25, 2002 @03:00AM (#3949822)
    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 [slickedit.com].
    Disclaimer: I use Slickedit eight hours a day but am in no other way affiliated with the company.

    • Re:Visual Slickedit (Score:3, Interesting)

      by mlc ( 16290 )
      I also like this software, even enough that it's possibly the only piece of commercial software I own and use (they have a Linux port, as well as port to many other Unices). Definitely worth the $99 student price.

      It's the only editor I could find that properly supports HTML/PHP as nicely as MSVC++ supports C++ (pop-up function help and other goodies). I also use it for Java, occasionally for C. When I had the misfortune of having to use Cold Fusion for a class once, it supported that too.

    • I also vote for Slickedit. It is by far the best text editor I've seen. It's worth every penny.

  • jEdit (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rjh ( 40933 ) <rjh@sixdemonbag.org> on Thursday July 25, 2002 @03:01AM (#3949824)
    jEdit (available here [jedit.org]) 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.
  • I use SlickEdit [slickedit.com]. There is a Visual SlickEdit product, which is a Windows app, but I actually prefer the version that runs in the Command Prompt (because when you exit it, you are right back in the command window so you can compile right then). Unfortunately I don't know if that version is still included with Visual SlickEdit (it used to be a separate product, then it was bundled for a while).

    As an added bonus you can tell yourself you are using a descendent of the very editor that was used by the actual developers of the early versions of NT!

    - adam

    • Unfortunately I don't know if that version is still included with Visual SlickEdit (it used to be a separate product, then it was bundled for a while).

      It isn't but since Slickedit has excellent facilities for building from within the editor, it isn't necessary to drop to a command window. Slickedit can grab the compiler output and show it in window where you can double-click on the error and have the code line in question shown in the editor.

      Basically Slickedit contains all the good features found in IDEs without being tied to specific language/compiler.

  • UltraEdit32 (Score:3, Informative)

    by Naikrovek ( 667 ) <jjohnson@ps g . com> on Thursday July 25, 2002 @03:25AM (#3949871)
    UltraEdit32 [ultraedit.com] 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

  • Textpad (Score:3, Informative)

    by CySurflex ( 564206 ) on Thursday July 25, 2002 @04:04AM (#3949945)
    Textpad from http://www.textpad.com [textpad.com]

    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 still best (Score:3, Informative)

    by Domini ( 103836 ) on Thursday July 25, 2002 @04:14AM (#3949975) Journal
    (G)VIM [vim.org] 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 used VIM and GVIM for ages, and would really like to see it being unstable. Which version? Beta perhaps?

    GVIM has not crashed on me once that I can remember, and I have used it solidly for years (on win32).

    I suggest trying it again, and this time configuring it properly. I have found that people spend zero time configuring GVIM, and then complain but spend hours playing around with settings in other editors.

    Perhaps take a look at my config [e.co.za]?

  • TextPad (Score:2, Insightful)

    by tsa ( 15680 )
    I use TextPad. See www.textpad.com. Believe me, Notepad sucks bigtime compared to this!
  • Notepad...

    When u put ur file on a *nix system, just run it through dos2unix...
  • ... it's the best programming editor which ever came under my fingers in 35 years.
  • Being a long time Emacs user, Emacs is the obvious choice for me. Btw, EShell [gci-net.com] (now part of GNU Emacs 21) makes a good work to bring a nice Un*x shell on the hosts not having one (i.e. useful if you don't have Cygwin at hand).

    I find also extremely useful the ability of Emacs (thanks to Ange-FTP) to edit files remotely: is is just as simple as opening ``/username@host:/remote/file/name'', and everything (dired and completion included) just works as if it was on a local filesystem, so I don't even have to move from my workstation...

    OTOH, for those who like having everyting and the sink but don't feel comfortable with Emacs, I'd say that JEdit [sourceforge.net] is surely the best choice for them: it is completely scriptable using BeanShell [beanshell.org], a Java-like scripting language, and has lots and lots of plugins for additional functionalities.

  • gvim rocks (Score:3, Informative)

    by smoon ( 16873 ) on Thursday July 25, 2002 @06:55AM (#3950257) Homepage
    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.
  • It's a good port; it has a proper installer, a native Win32 GUI, and it's fast.

    If it's unstable for you, try submitting a bug report; it's been rock solid for me since the early 6.0 beta's.

    What build did you get? I've stuck with a perfectly good 6.1 beta, but I've heard of some specific builds being dodgy. ATM it's at about patchlevel 90 past release, and I'm sure Bram and co will be very happy to look into any problems you have. Seriously; it should be solid as a rock even in Windows.
  • Joe's Own Editor:
    http://mitglied.lycos.de/tygs/bsd/editor.php

    Either in a PuTTY ssh session to my OpenBSD server,
    or natively compiled - for example, with the free
    Borland C++ 5.5 Command Line compilers.
  • When I first came on board, I had to learn Cold Fusion. The tools that we use for it are Dreamweaver(evil, evil) and Cold Fusion studio. CF Studio is just incredible, allowing coding and syntax highlighting in not just CF, but ASP, Perl, PHP and others. It can be extended using custom tags, and I love the keyboard shortcuts and custom shortcuts (click a button and it will surround whatever you have highlighted with whatever you want). While you can download a 30-day trial from Macromedia for free, the application itself costs money. But after trying homesite, GoLive, TextPad, Notepad and all the others, I love it.

  • Notepad - Here's why. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by FreeLinux ( 555387 ) on Thursday July 25, 2002 @09:24AM (#3950730)
    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.

    • Yeah, but notepad is unusable on NT4.

      Ctrl-F find? Doesn't work.
      Ctrl-S save? Doesn't work.
      Ctrl-B bold? Just joking.

      Seriously, though, it's not like there's a lot of "notepad skillz" to be transferring around. That said, I end up using notepad a fair bit.

  • If you can stand the resource usage (and really, if you are used to Emacs, you have absolutely no excuse :p), try jEdit (www.jedit.org [jedit.org]). It is an editor written in Java, and it is excellent. It is extensible with plugins, and is scriptable (but you don't have to use/see any of this if you don't want). It has powerful syntax highlighting, abbreviation/auto expansion, built in file browser, integration with Ant, etc.
  • If it's a quick and dirty text manipulation, web page, whatever, I'll use Notepad. (Which on NT4 and W2k Server handles BIG files)

    If its honest to goodness Word processing, I'll use Microsoft Word 97. (No, I'll NEVER upgrade)

    If it's a program, that's why Delphi 5.0 exists.

    If I need really tricky manipulation, I'll write a program to do it.

    --Mike--

  • In addition to XEmacs as others have mentioned, you can also get an Emacs for Window straight from the Gnu's mouth.

    http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/windows/ntemac s. html

    The binary install is a zip file, which you unzip and then add the bin directory to your path.

    Also, I highly recommend adding your favorite text editor to Windows Explorer's "Send To" menu, by creating a shortcut in the Send To directory in your Profile directory. This way you can edit files that are associated with other apps without needed to break the file associations.

  • metapad (Score:3, Informative)

    by nocent ( 71113 ) on Thursday July 25, 2002 @11:44AM (#3951569)
    metapad [welcome.to] is my notepad replacement. Small, fast, keyboard shortcuts for save, search, etc, unlimited file sizes. Free as in beer. Excellent.
  • I use and recommend OmlettePad EX [omlettesoft.com], because I wrote it myself.

    Think of all the things your current editor does that are really cool, and chances are, OmlettePad EX doesn't have them.

  • NT Emacs is stable, mature, and featureful (Score:4, Informative)

    by Tom7 ( 102298 ) on Thursday July 25, 2002 @12:09PM (#3951759) Homepage Journal
    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.
  • I use textpad, or tknotepad, depending on what you want to do. Textpad is at http://textpad.com/. It has an ascii table, can edit multiple files with tabs, copy, paste, etc, also with indenting, syntax highlightening, macros, diff, and lots more. I use it mainly for the syntax highlightening. It is not 'free', but you can download it and it just give you an annoying message when it starts and sometimes when you save. I like it a lot.

    TkNotePad is something I wrote and it is just a basic text editor like notpad, but it has unlimited undo / redo and a better find / replace.

  • http://www.emsps.com/oldtools/borland.htm

    Ware your brief!

  • VIM (Score:2)

    by Etyenne ( 4915 )
    www.vim.org

    I can't believe peoples recommend emacs ! (humor impaired -> this is a joke)
  • For the quick edit (eg notepad stuff) nothing beats Metapad [liquidninja.com]

    For the bigger project stuff it's either JEdit [jedit.org] or XEmacs [xemacs.org]. Both are stable, cross platform and loaded with features. I'm still trying to decide which one I like best. ;-)

  • Here's a list (Score:3, Informative)

    by hether ( 101201 ) on Thursday July 25, 2002 @02:20PM (#3952640)
    Well there's a great list of editors on PHP.net at http://213.155.159.67/phpeditors/index.php [213.155.159.67] 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 [macromedia.com] (costs a bunch), 1st Page 2000 [evrsoft.com] (just like Homesite but free) and Crimson Editor [crimsoneditor.com]. They all work fine for anything I've needed to do.
  • ...and it's written in Java, so you can get used to one nice graphical editor for all your java-capable os's.

    http://www.jedit.org/
  • in my opinion.

    It's FAST, VERY light (my executable is 150K), full with features, configurable pretty much for everything, contains a macro language that lets you create new commands, and has EVERYTHING without becoming bloated.

    The only downside is that it's a commercial non-free program. But it's worth every single penny, I say.

    Go to Semware [semware.com], and download the trial version [semware.com]. I can't speak for others, but I love it a lot. When using Windows*, TSE-Pro and 4DOS/4NT are the two programs I use most.

    By the way: Notepad is HIDEOUS. It might be standard, yes, but it's so primitive it becomes heavily restrictive. I carry around with me a diskette with my personal vital tools, text editor included, so I can skip the pain of using notepad on other people's computers.

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