Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

On a Quest for a Superior Windows Text Editor

Author:Micah Alpern
Posted:6/16/1999; 9:58:54 PM
Topic:On a Quest for a Superior Windows Text Editor
Msg #:7477
Prev/Next:7476 / 7478

Hi, I'm a recent Mac convert and I'm looking for a text editor to use on my Windows machine that can approach the level of excellence I've come to except from BBEdit. Notepad simple doesn't cut it (see list bellow). I thought I might ask the Scripting News community if they had any suggestions. The best I've found so far is Homesite, but even it falls short in some important respects. Here are a list of feature that I consider essential in any good text editor. I'd appreciate any suggestions people might have. Thanks.

Features I except in a Good Text Editor

(should be easy right? sure…)

1. A clean, elegant interface

If you close most of the optional windows, Homesite almost makes it
2. Syntax Coloring, for Perl, C, C++, Tcl/tk, Python, HTML, etc.

3. A nice line count feature

4. An integrated FTP client

I don’t care if it’s in the OS or a feature of the program, but I need to be able to access remote files on a Unix system without opening another program.

5. A really good find and replace feature

Must have regular expression support, search/replace across multiple files at once

6. Blink back closing parentheses when right bracket is typed

Critical for debugging programs

Homesite lacks this feature

7. A split screen option, nice for viewing disparate code on one screen at the same time

8. A good spell checker

9. Soft line wrap, on off

10. Convert spaces to taps and vice versa

(work around- could do with find/replace)

11. Optional Emacs key bindings

12. Scriptable

13. The ability to have more than one physical window open at a time

I can’t believe I have to put this on the list, but homesite can't do it. It uses file tabs, so can't have more than one open at once.

14. A nice compare function


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