Windows-based Text Editors

Question

Other than Notepad++, what text editor do you use to program in Windows?

score 56 · Answer 1 · edited Feb 08 '17 at 14:07

56

Another vote for gvim (about, download). I think once you learn the keystrokes to control it, you won't want to use anything else.

Plus, there is the added benefit of being able to use it on just about any platform, including the nice Windows port.

alt text

edited Feb 08 '17 at 14:07

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answered Aug 19 '08 at 00:25

Doug

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That's a nice color scheme. What is it? – Cristián Romo Mar 06 '10 at 01:49
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if only it wasn't that ugly – Kugel May 02 '10 at 21:09

score 33 · Answer 2 · edited Feb 08 '17 at 14:14

33

Sublime Text is amazing.

alt text

edited Feb 08 '17 at 14:14

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answered Aug 05 '09 at 12:52

samoz

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Thank you for this suggestion, just tried it and it's really sweet. – Skurmedel Nov 24 '09 at 17:09
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I've never heard of Sublime Text until I read this. Holy crap its unbelievable! Super customizable, Plugins written in Python, Textmate Code Snippets! Amazing text editor so far... – Jake Wilson Feb 17 '10 at 05:59
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This program is absolutely beautiful! A dark, easy on the eyes theme as default.. I'm in love.. – Acorn Apr 27 '10 at 21:55
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Looks really nice (love the dark theme)! – 3lectrologos Aug 30 '10 at 21:31
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I just fell in love with this editor. – TaylorOtwell Dec 31 '10 at 04:32
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This is the editor I've been dreaming of for Windows since TextMate ruined me for all others. Thank you! – mVChr Jan 27 '11 at 23:48
The minmap feature alone worth it – user Feb 27 '12 at 13:20

Cristian · Answer 3 · 2008-08-18T08:03:57.090

GNU Emacs is my preferred text editor and it works well on Windows (copy/paste actually works as expected) It's also available on all major platforms so you can reuse your knowledge if you jump around OSes like I tend to do.

I really like JEdit as well. It's a good text editor for code and random text. It's a nice middle ground between Notepad and Eclipse.

If you want something just a step above Notepad for quick, efficient editing I would recommend Notepad2. It's really useful when you replace the standard Notepad with this version. You continue to have a fast startup but the syntax highlighting is a real boon. I replace Notepad with Notepad2 on every one of my Windows machines.

score 20 · Answer 4 · edited Jun 23 '09 at 14:19

20

I use SciTE

edited Jun 23 '09 at 14:19

fretje

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answered Aug 18 '08 at 05:37

Thejesh GN

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+1, SciTE should be more common – Gabe Moothart Jun 23 '09 at 14:23
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Notepad++ and SciTE are actually both built on the same editor component: Scintilla. So, if you really like Notepad++, SciTE should feel familiar, just a little faster and with a few less features. – Alex Aug 18 '09 at 00:35

score 19 · Answer 5 · edited Jan 28 '09 at 09:18

19

UltraEdit is my second home. It is a great general purpose text editor.

edited Jan 28 '09 at 09:18

Stephen Denne

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answered Aug 18 '08 at 04:35

Jon Sagara

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Why, you can even download syntac highlighting for 6809 assembly language! – Ola Eldøy Oct 17 '08 at 05:28
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I love the block-selection function! Never seen that in any other editor yet :( – Karsten Jan 28 '09 at 09:26
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In Notepad++, hold down [alt] when you highlight text. – Johan Jan 28 '09 at 12:10
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You can Alt-select blocks in VS, ConTEXT, heck, even MS Word (good luck when using non-fixed fonts, though)! I'm sure there are plenty other editors supporting that. – Cristian Diaconescu Oct 07 '09 at 13:29
I think UltraEdit was among the first to actually recognize the importance of this feature, and promote it. But yeah, today everyone has it. – bzlm Nov 19 '09 at 08:09
I love UltraEdit. But it is a bit hard to create a custom theme for it. :( – wenbert Mar 25 '10 at 11:42
sublime text not only allows block selection, you can have infinite independent selections – lunixbochs Aug 12 '11 at 21:38

David A Gibson · Answer 6 · 2008-08-18T13:41:21.293

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I'm a massive fan of Notepad2 - it is so quick!

For quick simple editing of text for me it's close to perfect. It has syntax colouring for Xml and code and can be extended easily.

We use Dreamweaver and Visual Studio for larger coding efforts.

edited Aug 18 '08 at 13:41

answered Aug 18 '08 at 08:08

David A Gibson

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+1 for the Notepad2 mention. @MrBrutal - Can you explain "can be extended easily"? I once looked at adding syntax highlighting for an additional language to notepad2, but I remember that doing so looked non-trivial (involving a source-level addition and rebuild, IIRC). – Jon Schneider Oct 14 '08 at 03:25
Hi Joe, when I said extended easily, I was referring to the syntax formatting - adding new file types and modifying new ones. I didn't intend to mean extended the actual program, sorry if I gave you that impression. I think it's simplicity is key and I wouldn't want to extend the actual code! – David A Gibson Oct 20 '08 at 11:18

SCdF · Answer 7 · 2008-08-18T04:13:12.923

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Textpad is what I would use for random text editing (checking out HTML source, quick hackery, scripts and the like).

For actual Java development it's Eclipse all the way, although people tell me the IDEA is the cat's pyjamas.

edited Aug 18 '08 at 04:13

answered Aug 18 '08 at 04:07

SCdF

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You can't beat Textpad. I can even begin to estimate how much time I save using some of it's features like, "Find in Files", Block Select, Cut/copy bookmarked lines, Paste HTML, Scratch Macros, Clipboard, History, Clip Library, incremental find, and on and on. – bruceatk Nov 01 '09 at 02:01
It's a lovely editor but it's been basically abandoned since 2004. New releases since then are scarce and hardly fix a couple of bugs. – Álvaro González Apr 14 '10 at 10:23
Textpad for quick hackery is really really fast. I'd used regex, bookmarks with a 100Mb file more than one and was quite fast. In my opinion, its algorithms are really optimized and well chosen. – user347594 May 27 '10 at 01:09

score 13 · Answer 8 · answered Aug 18 '08 at 04:32

13

E-TextEditor

Is a bit buggy, but beats the pants off any other editors I've used due to it's using the Textmate bundle format (and the bundles) - also gets updated very regularly. I use it every day and would gladly purchase it again.

answered Aug 18 '08 at 04:32

Orion Edwards

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Way too buggy, even core operation like searching through a project don't work. Can't work that way – daniel Aug 19 '09 at 21:08

Ashwin Nanjappa · Answer 9 · 2008-08-22T01:21:23.823

Note that I primarily work in C/C++. For C/C++ code, I use Visual C++ Express Edition or Visual Studio Professional. For the little bit of Python I'm learning, I use the editor in the PythonWin IDE. (Mostly because it does a bit of code completion.) For everything else, I use GViM.

Tip:

After you install ViM on Windows, if you right-click on any file in Explorer, you see the Edit with Vim option in the right-click menu. This is very useful for peeking into and editing every kind of text file without having to bother about specific editors. GViM can understand most formats and thus displays them with syntax coloring. Get used to doing this and soon GViM becomes your defacto generic text editor on Windows. (Even replacing Notepad.)

score 9 · Answer 10 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:01

9

Thej already recommended it, but to elaborate:

SciTE - Free, has preset colouring for many languages, and it's multi-platform (Windows & Linux), and lightweight.

alt text http://scitedebug.luaforge.net/scite-debug.png

edited May 23 '17 at 12:01

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answered Aug 22 '08 at 02:18

Chris

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I don't know how user can use editor without fixed width font. – zeroDivisible Aug 12 '09 at 05:51

score 8 · Answer 11 · answered Aug 18 '08 at 04:13

8

gvim. I also use Dreamweaver for web stuff.

answered Aug 18 '08 at 04:13

icco

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score 8 · Answer 12 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

8

Notepad2

Syntax highlighting for html,c#,javascript,css,xml,sql,python,bat
Rectangular selection, regular expressions
Indentation, back/foreground customization

Downside: No tabbed windows.

edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

Community

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answered Aug 24 '08 at 22:45

user2752

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score 7 · Answer 13 · answered Aug 22 '08 at 03:02

I'll echo the others who have endorsed Emacs. I program every day on, at a bare minimum, OS X, Windows, and Linux. Having the same IDE on all three systems gives me an enormous productivity boost. That said, the vanilla version of GNU Emacs...well, it sucks. I'd strongly encourage you to try EmacsW32 instead. In much the way that Aquamacs makes an OS X-friendly version of Emacs, the EmacsW32 project makes Emacs out-of-the-box work just like a Windows text editor. Mind you, all of Emacs' power (and complexity) is there, but if you don't already have muscle memory built up, there's no reason not to use Ctrl-C/X/V as copy/cut/paste instead of M-w/C-k/C-y just to be cool. EmacsW32 also brings Windows-compliant open/save dialogs, sane CRLF file handling, and quite a bit more. If you've ever had an itch to try Emacs, give it a shot. You won't regret it.

score 6 · Answer 14 · answered Aug 18 '08 at 04:22

6

Not everybody uses Notepad++, it's not that good.

Crimson Editor

http://www.crimsoneditor.com/images/overview.gif

answered Aug 18 '08 at 04:22

Akira

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Hey, while you're living back in the mid-1990s, can you call my 22-year-old self and tell me to buy Netscape? – Robert S. Oct 07 '08 at 16:11
What's the problem with Notepad++? – Rad Jan 28 '09 at 10:00
CE has aged a bit but I still prefer it for PHP, CSS, and HTML editing. I tend toward the IDE when I'm doing VB. – Jun 23 '09 at 13:47
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Crimson isn't bad, in fact it has some features that others don't. The problem is that it hasn't been updated in FOREVER. (Ok, there was an update in 2008, but it was 2004 before that!) – Dashogun Jun 23 '09 at 13:53
The goggles! They do nothing! – bzlm Nov 19 '09 at 08:10
Yeah i used that for the longest time before i switched to n++, this brings back so many happy memories... – RCIX Jan 07 '10 at 23:57

score 6 · Answer 15 · answered Aug 18 '08 at 12:13

6

EditPlus is my editor of choice. All the features you'd need, and no more.

answered Aug 18 '08 at 12:13

izb

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score 6 · Answer 16 · answered Oct 07 '08 at 16:20

6

I use EDIT.COM for a lot of things, believe it or not. Old habits die hard.

answered Oct 07 '08 at 16:20

Robert S.

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score 6 · Answer 17 · answered Aug 22 '08 at 22:00

I know this is my own question but I came across this text editor Sublime Text and thought it was pretty sweet. There are a few features in it that i have never seen before. It has multiple line select ( lines that are not continuous ) and a birds eye view navigation. It's a little pricey but I am having fun playing with the free version.

score 5 · Answer 18 · answered Aug 18 '08 at 04:33

Commercial product (Windows): UltraEdit.

Freeware (Windows): Notepad++, PSPad.

Cross-Platform: JEdit. It's written in Java and runs on almost anything.

If you don't mind taking a performance hit under Windows, JEdit has some amazing capabilities. For native performance on that platform, I would go with one of the others. I tend to switch back and forth between Notepad++ and PSPad. Notepad++ probably edges it out for most tasks. It has section folding, which is very handy. However, you did ask about products other than that one.

score 4 · Answer 19 · answered Sep 22 '08 at 17:29

4

I hate to sound like a broken record, but Vim is my choice. It works the same way everywhere and you'd be hard pressed to find a more powerful editor.

answered Sep 22 '08 at 17:29

Jeremy Cantrell

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score 4 · Answer 20 · answered Sep 22 '08 at 17:34

4

I don't code much on Windows, but e text editor is my choice. As far as free editors go nothing beats Emacs.

answered Sep 22 '08 at 17:34

Vasil

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score 4 · Answer 21 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:29

4

I personally like ConTEXT.

A lot of people gave their suggestions for favourite text editor here:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10238/text-editor-or-ide#10391

edited May 23 '17 at 10:29

Community

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answered Aug 18 '08 at 04:30

Christian Hagelid

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I used to use ConTEXT a lot, I can definitely vouch for it too. Great to see that it's open source these days. – user116170 Jul 23 '09 at 18:34

score 4 · Answer 22 · answered Aug 18 '08 at 04:36

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I have used UltraEdit for years... If I'm working on a project I prefer to use a real IDE, but nothing beats it for quickly making changes to source files, or especially for those small PHP projects where you're just hacking away anyway. The killer feature for me is the compare functionality.

answered Aug 18 '08 at 04:36

The How-To Geek

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One of my biggest gripes with UE's (otherwise excellent) compare functonalitet is the inability to 1) compare modified files 2) compare purely in-buffer only files. At least, the latter problem exists in the latest UE, whereas earlier versions of UE had this ability. – Svend Jun 23 '09 at 13:37

score 4 · Answer 23 · answered Aug 18 '08 at 05:01

4

I strictly use jEdit.

answered Aug 18 '08 at 05:01

Christopher Mahan

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score 4 · Answer 24 · answered Aug 18 '08 at 12:44

4

My personal favorite is EditPad Pro. Not because it is superior in any way, but because it was the one I started to use.

answered Aug 18 '08 at 12:44

Espen Herseth Halvorsen

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I moved from Textpad to Editpadpro and I'll never look back. I do miss find in files though :( – Toby Allen Jan 19 '10 at 01:16
Oh, but it is superior in the way of regular expression support (to mention just one thing). Toby is right about find in files, though - JGsoft has a different tool for this: RegexBuddy (which anybody who processes text needs anyway) or even PowerGREP. – Tim Pietzcker Jan 27 '10 at 13:59

score 4 · Answer 25 · answered Aug 18 '08 at 12:47

4

UltraEdit it my favorite text editor. Too bad I have to pay for it. You can't beat the ability to highlight vertically vs. horizontally.

answered Aug 18 '08 at 12:47

No doubt, column mode is awesome. – Anthony Potts Sep 29 '08 at 20:18
Note that the ability to do a "block select" exists in a lot of text editors, usually implemented as Alt+drag. It's also a context-menu option in Textpad. – J c Oct 30 '08 at 13:26

score 4 · Answer 26 · answered Aug 19 '08 at 00:52

Textpad replaces notepad for me. I couldn't live without it. Some key features that I use with Textpad are:

Find in files (along with open all, replace all, save all, close all).
Block Select (along with copy/paste of a column).
Clip Library
Syntax highlighting
Ability to attach externals tools (compilers, etc.) and capture the output to a window.

I use Eclipse for Java, Visual Studio for C++, C#, and VB.NET, JellyFish Pro for PowerBasic, I still use Visual Studio 6 for Classic VB, and I use TextPad for perl, python, Powershell, vbscript, SQL, HTML, and batch files.

score 3 · Answer 27 · answered Jun 23 '09 at 13:13

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certainly sublimetext. it is the best text editor on windows i've ever seen.

answered Jun 23 '09 at 13:13

score 3 · Answer 28 · answered Jun 23 '09 at 13:18

3

edit.com edit.com http://cloud.anyhub.net/0-edit-com.png

answered Jun 23 '09 at 13:18

score 3 · Answer 29 · answered Sep 29 '08 at 20:09

As you can see, asking about a preferred editor will get you a lot of responses. For me: UltraEdit - robust: Notepad++ - lightweight

Also tend to use the IDE that comes with various tools (e.g. VB, C#, etc.)

But, the best advice is to pick a decent editor and learn it thoroughly. You will be spending a whole lot of time using it. So, the better you know it, the more time it will save you in the long run.

score 3 · Answer 30 · answered Aug 20 '08 at 08:05

3

Notepad2, apart from Notepad++

answered Aug 20 '08 at 08:05

Imran

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score 3 · Answer 31 · answered Aug 20 '08 at 08:10

3

Visual Studio, notepad2, notepad++.

answered Aug 20 '08 at 08:10

Malik Daud Ahmad Khokhar

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score 3 · Answer 32 · answered Aug 20 '08 at 08:13

Visual Studio for .Net development. Currently working with VS2008, but seems to be not quite finished yet. 2005 is probably the most stable and complete. Anything else for that would seem quite futile for .Net development

I use e-TextEditor for most other things. It covers most of the topics above including syntax highlighting, multi-select/edit, column select, TextMate bundles for auto-complete.

score 3 · Answer 33 · answered Jan 22 '09 at 17:16

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VIM on CYGWIN, Textpad, Notepad, and various IDEs ( Eclipse, MS VS C++, MS VS VB6, etc)

answered Jan 22 '09 at 17:16

rlb.usa

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Why use Vim with CYGWIN when a Windows implementation is available anyway? – Auguste Mar 12 '10 at 02:42

score 3 · Answer 34 · answered Jan 28 '09 at 09:22

Vim is the default for me and when I'm in Visual Studio, I use ViEmu and Resharper.

Except for a few hick-ups it really ends up with the best of three worlds. I can use Vim commands, Visual Studio short cuts works as well, and Resharper just adds a bunch of useful features for Visual Studio.

score 2 · Answer 35 · answered Aug 18 '08 at 12:28

2

Another vote for Textpad here. I tried Notepad++, but was annoyed that it didn't notify me when an open file had been updated (which is a pain when looking at active log files).

answered Aug 18 '08 at 12:28

Notepad++ notifies me when an open file has been updated; the pain is that it only does it when I switch away from and then back to Notepad++. – Jacob Krall Sep 29 '08 at 04:00

score 2 · Answer 36 · answered Oct 07 '08 at 16:09

For free, for quick edits: Notepad2

But the shareware program Textpad is still my favourite. Some key features:

You can download syntax files for just about every language, or make your own.
You can load hundreds of files into it and apply regular expression search and replace across all of them.
It has a fast and effective built in file searcher.
It is very hard to crash it. And it can remember as many undo states as you like.
You can create keystroke macros

score 2 · Answer 37 · answered Jan 12 '10 at 15:33

GVIM (www.vim.org) because it's free (donation-ware), cross platform, widely available, efficient, extensible, network enabled, and open source.

VIM Features (not an extensive list) *

Ability to apply actions across all buffers
Autocommands
Block modification
Code Completion Code
Highlighting (and methods for adding your own syntax with REGEX)
Colorschemes
DIFF
Folding
Indenting/Formatting Key Mapping
Macros Marks
Modal Editing
Project Management (Project Plugin)
Registers (local, global, etc)
Regular Expressions
Scriptable Snippets (Templating)
Spell Checker
Tagging
Text-Objects

I suggest learning the basics from Derek Wyatt's VI/Vim Page (http://www.derekwyatt.org/), tutorial pages, and adding to your skill set on as you go.

Suggested PLUGINS

Project
XPT Templates
Minibufexpl
MRU
Calendar
NerdTree -Taglist

score 2 · Answer 38 · answered Oct 07 '10 at 15:35

2

Geany is an excellent text editor: lightweight and feature-rich

answered Oct 07 '10 at 15:35

CharlesB

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score 2 · Answer 39 · answered Jan 28 '09 at 09:18

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I'm another vim user, but what I actually do is I use Visual Studio with viEmu (basically lets you use vim commands in Visual Studio) and it's the best! Visual Studio is a great IDE, and vim is a great text editor, and this allows me to use both.

answered Jan 28 '09 at 09:18

Ray Hidayat

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score 1 · Answer 40 · edited Jul 22 '09 at 20:21

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TextMate on Mac OSX for everything besides ObjC/Cocoa (use XCode for that). The bundles are great and support pretty much every language I came across so far.
GVim on Windows and Linux, and maybe sometimes OSX if I feel like it :). For C/Python thats all I need.
For Flash/AS there is pretty much only FlexBuilder I guess. Even though I don't really care for Eclipse otherwise.

edited Jul 22 '09 at 20:21

p.campbell

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answered Jun 23 '09 at 14:21

Sideshowcoder

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score 1 · Answer 41 · answered Jul 23 '09 at 18:31

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As long as Notepad++ exists I don't really want to use anything else. On linux I just use vi.

answered Jul 23 '09 at 18:31

djangofan

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score 1 · Answer 42 · answered Aug 18 '08 at 04:10

I've always found Visual Studio to be outstanding for code editing. I still think it's pretty much the gold standard for code editing (but I'd love to be proven wrong).

Beyond that, I've used JCreator for Java editing. Of course, I've used notepad for basic stuff. I've used a lot of other text editors as well, but none that I can really recommend.

score 1 · Answer 43 · answered Aug 18 '08 at 04:19

1

going for the easy answer. emacs

answered Aug 18 '08 at 04:19

Ben McNiel

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score 1 · Answer 44 · answered Aug 18 '08 at 05:27

I'm attempting to switch to the Code::Blocks IDE for all of my C/C++ editing, but have used Visual Studio 2003, and Programmer's Notepad 2 for C/C++ projects. For Python, I currently use IDLE, but have been looking for something else that has a horozontal scroll bar.

score 1 · Answer 45 · answered Aug 19 '08 at 00:18

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I'm a big fan of EditPlus, mainly for its smooth built in ftp open/save functionality. Crimson Editor has this too but that feature seems to be unstable from time to time.

answered Aug 19 '08 at 00:18

Factor Mystic

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Nathan Osman · Answer 46 · 2010-03-19T22:16:12.820

I certainly recommend PowerPad if for no other reason than that I wrote it.

Here are some of the wonderful features you will find in it: (Use the latest beta to get all of these)

Multi-tab interface
Powerful scripting language based on Python
Unlimited undo
Syntax highlighting & auto-indent
Support for opening and editing files over FTP
Ability to open UTF-8 and UTF-16 encoded files

The scripts currently available enable you to...

Perform RegEx searches
Lookup the current selection on Google, Wikipedia, etc.
Encode/decode base64 data

I realise this question is specifically for Windows, but I should point out that PowerPad is available for Linux too.

score 1 · Answer 47 · edited Jul 22 '09 at 20:24

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UltraEdit for me. there might be better out there, but it would take me too long to learn it as well as ultra edit that i'd lose any potential roi while learning. that's probably the key ... as someone a few posts above says pick one and learn to be proficient with it. the payoffs will be huge. if you're fickle and switch, you won't learn it well enough to get benefits from it.

-don

edited Jul 22 '09 at 20:24

p.campbell

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answered Oct 17 '08 at 19:15

Don Dickinson

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score 1 · Answer 48 · answered Aug 22 '08 at 03:05

1

@MrBrutal I love Notepad2 as well. The only problem is it's lame with large files. :(

answered Aug 22 '08 at 03:05

xanadont

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score 1 · Answer 49 · answered Jan 28 '09 at 09:22

1

Notepad++

and RJ TextEd alt text http://www.rj-texted.se/bilder/mainsync-100.png

answered Jan 28 '09 at 09:22

Natrium

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score 0 · Answer 50 · answered Jun 23 '09 at 13:25

Code is not text. It's Code

If you're using a text editor to edit your source code, you're doing yourself an incredible disservice. I mean yeah, it's nice that Notepad++ can do some rudimentary color-coding for you, but really why are you wasting your time like this?

A good IDE like VS.NET + Resharper will background-compile your code on the fly, allowing you to do things you would never expect to be possible if you hadn't see it happen before your eyes. Navigate to actual usages. Import dependencies automatically. Refactor your code at a keyclick. It's just that good. And it's not expensive.

I mean look. This is your job. This is the one piece of software you'll be interacting with all day long every day of your working life. Why are you playing around with freeware garbage? Get the best IDE that money can buy for your niche. It will make you better at what you do.

score 0 · Answer 51 · edited Jul 22 '09 at 20:21

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Editpad is useful in Windows

edited Jul 22 '09 at 20:21

p.campbell

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answered Jun 23 '09 at 13:39

joe

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score 0 · Answer 52 · answered Jun 23 '09 at 14:09

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gVim is by far my favorite. Notepad++ is ok, but I'm half as productive without my vim keybindings.

answered Jun 23 '09 at 14:09

codefly

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score 0 · Answer 53 · answered Sep 22 '08 at 16:06

0

Column mode in UltraEdit is fantastic.

answered Sep 22 '08 at 16:06

JK.

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score 0 · Answer 54 · answered Sep 22 '08 at 17:26

Another vote for EditPlus. It's a great tool for manually massaging data with column select, macros, and very powerful regex search/replace. Works well with large files. Nice for coding as well with community supplied syntax and autocomplete files.

score 0 · Answer 55 · answered Jul 22 '09 at 20:25

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I use Scite as it is highly customizable, however, I really like DrScheme for working with Scheme. It would be nice to have something similar for Python and Ruby.

answered Jul 22 '09 at 20:25

akway

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score 0 · Answer 56 · answered Aug 18 '08 at 05:04

I mostly just use Notepad++, but I like BabelPad when I need to open a file in a unicode path or when I need to have more control over unicode stuff.

I like EditPlus too. You can save a file as a template and create a new instance of it under the file menu. It's also pretty fast at loading moderately large files.

JEDIT would be my favorite, but it's just too slow when editing even slightly big files.

I can't say I'm 100% happy with Notepad++, but it bugs me the least, so...

RobotCaleb · Answer 57 · 2008-08-18T06:21:58.437

@Derek Park

I also use VS for most of my coding needs, but use Notepad++ for all other plain text files. I was disappointed by VS one time when it failed to open a 500 meg text file that I was hoping to change a few characters in. Seeing as it has support for viewing files in hex (ie. binary data) I was hoping that it would do a better job with large files. It seemed to want to load the whole file rather than the relevant data. Maybe I was just expecting too much from it. (Note: I wasn't able to open the file in NP++, either.)

Edit - My mistake. I didn't mean to imply that Notepad++ successfully opened the file. I don't remember what I used to fix that, actually.

score 0 · Answer 58 · answered Aug 18 '08 at 06:11

@_l0ser

I also use VS for most of my coding needs, but use Notepad++ for all other plain text files. I was disappointed by VS one time when it failed to open a 500 meg text file that I was hoping to change a few characters in. Seeing as it has support for viewing files in hex (ie. binary data) I was hoping that it would do a better job with large files. It seemed to want to load the whole file rather than the relevant data. Maybe I was just expecting too much from it.

If Notepad++ will open a 500meg file usably, that's a definite plus for Notepad++. Every editor I've tried to open a file that large in just thrashed and/or froze until I killed it.

score 0 · Answer 59 · answered Aug 18 '08 at 13:19

Notepad++ is probably the one I use the most, though I use GVIM whenever I need to do repetitive changes.

We got a company license for UltraEdit recently, and it seems to work quite well as well. I've been using that for doing quick edits to java or C++ code when I didn't have the full IDE running and didn't want to wait for it to open up.

score 0 · Answer 60 · edited Jul 22 '09 at 20:25

0

Xemacs -- works with any language on a lot of platforms incuding Windows. has good support for windows conventions.

Let you access sqlplus and other command line SQL environments for POSTGRESQL, MYSQL

edited Jul 22 '09 at 20:25

p.campbell

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answered Sep 29 '08 at 20:14

anjanb

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score 0 · Answer 61 · answered Aug 22 '08 at 02:20

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How about developing your own text editor? You can own your own editor with priceless experience.

answered Aug 22 '08 at 02:20

popopome

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score 0 · Answer 62 · answered Aug 22 '08 at 02:56

0

gvim with lots of useful plugins, i.e. taglist, c-syntax, matchit, vcscommand, bufexplorer and many more. gvim is also nice in conjunction with file manager Total Commander where F4 invokes gvim to edit the file under the cursor.

answered Aug 22 '08 at 02:56

cschol

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score 0 · Answer 63 · answered Sep 04 '08 at 16:25

0

The Delphi 7 IDE for Delphi projects
VS2005 for .net projects
Notepad for any quick stuff (I know it sucks, but it's quick)

answered Sep 04 '08 at 16:25

Jeff Cuscutis

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Please, Please, Please go and download Notepad++ or one of the many many other free texteditors, you will there realise how much Notepad sucks and how quick it isnt. – Toby Allen Jan 19 '10 at 01:19
I've started using Notepad++ and I like it, but I still use Notepad for some simple stuff. It's too easy not to use. – Jeff Cuscutis Jan 26 '10 at 19:08

score 0 · Answer 64 · answered Jan 27 '11 at 02:35

Chiming in a long time later, I use TotalEdit.

There was zero learning curve. Nice clean interface with the Project Explorer on the left and tabbed, syntax-highlighted code files on the right. It was simple to adjust the toolbars a little to include my most common commands. I also upgraded for $10 to the version that lets you search within directories and not just files. Very pleased.

score 0 · Answer 65 · answered Jan 28 '09 at 09:14

0

I use Netbeans for my Ruby development and SciTE for quick edits.

answered Jan 28 '09 at 09:14

score 0 · Answer 66 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

0

I'm a fan of PS Pad

Although there are really no text editors on windows that have everything that I want.

edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

Community

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answered Jan 28 '09 at 09:56

Mike Hamer

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score 0 · Answer 67 · answered Jan 28 '09 at 10:12

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IntelliJ is the best Javascript one I've found

Most of these on wikipedia do what the other one does. Ultraedit, Notepad++ are the best of that bunch in my view.

For zero thrills notepad improvement metapad is good.

answered Jan 28 '09 at 10:12

Chris S

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score 0 · Answer 68 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:33

Someone suggeste SCITE above. I'm surprised that -- so far as I can see -- no one ever mentioned an editor which (I believe) uses the SCITE "engine": Programmer's Notepad (a.k.a. PNotepad) -- or if they did, I missed it!* It's well worth having a good look at (click on thumb for full-size):

PNotepad 2.2 screenshot http://i54.tinypic.com/hv0zyu_th.png

I use it beside Notepad++, but I also use AkelPad for very quick things: it's the fastest editor I've got, faster even than Notepad2, I think, and has some very useful plugins. (But they are slightly different tools.)

* Update: I did miss it: it was mentioned before in 2008. It's a much improved coding editor since then!

jussij · Answer 69 · 2008-10-10T05:51:20.033

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The Zeus editor/IDE is full of programming features, yet it still feels snappy. It also does a good impersonation of the old Brief editor.

alt text http://www.zeusedit.com/images/lookmain.png

edited Oct 10 '08 at 05:51

answered Sep 17 '08 at 02:37

jussij

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score 0 · Answer 70 · edited Jul 22 '09 at 20:23

0

jEdit
notepad++
Netbeans for Ruby development

edited Jul 22 '09 at 20:23

p.campbell

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answered May 20 '09 at 19:48

score -1 · Answer 71 · answered Mar 06 '10 at 01:13

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No Eclipse in the list !!!

answered Mar 06 '10 at 01:13

Rachel

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Windows-based Text Editors

71 Answers71

Notepad2

Crimson Editor

Linked