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Last post Author Topic: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor  (Read 77701 times)

mrainey

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Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor
« Reply #50 on: November 06, 2010, 04:23 PM »
Has anybody worked with SciTE?  It looks to be an open-source text editor with syntax highlighting, regex, column mode, code folding, and lots of other stuff for programmers.

http://www.scintilla.org/SciTE.html
 
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Tuxman

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Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor
« Reply #51 on: November 06, 2010, 04:31 PM »
SciTE is quite the same as Notepad++, right?

f0dder

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Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor
« Reply #52 on: November 07, 2010, 04:57 AM »
SciTE is quite the same as Notepad++, right?
No.

They both used the Scintilla edit control (SciTE can be thought of as the "demo text editor around Scintilla"), whereas np++ is a completely different editor "shell". Haven't checked up on SciTE for a while, but last time I checked np++ definitely had the better feature set.
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Jibz

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Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor
« Reply #53 on: November 07, 2010, 05:53 AM »
There are a few decent editors out there based on Scintilla. Atm I am using Notepad++ for more heavy editing and Notepad2 (thanks app) as my "press F4 to quickly edit a single file from TC" editor. I even have it set up to close when I press Esc :-*.

Since it doesn't support tabs it is not for heavy editing, but as a fast text editor I think it has almost the perfect feature set .. only two things I miss are smart highlighting and an option to make backspace unindent.

Tuxman

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Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor
« Reply #54 on: November 07, 2010, 08:39 AM »
f0dder: Ah, thanks. I thought the engine would make the machine.  :)
(Haven't tried SciTE for a while either.)

fenixproductions

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Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor
« Reply #55 on: November 08, 2010, 01:56 PM »
Does anyone know of a multi-line editor (lightweight ofcourse) to assist in this little feature?
Or perhaps a plugin?
-Jammo the OrganizedFellow (November 06, 2010, 12:36 PM)

Default Notepad++ installation should have TextFX plugin and:
  • Ctrl+A
  • menu TextFX -> TextFX Edit -> Delete Blank Lines

hulkbuster

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Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor
« Reply #56 on: November 09, 2010, 11:05 AM »
I too use PSPad/Notepad++/AllMyNotes Organizer( that was given as a Giveaway last time:)
Might want to take a look at HippoEDIT 1.49 at Giveawayoftheday [Here: ] [Direct Download ]

CHEERS:)
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superboyac

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Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor
« Reply #57 on: November 09, 2010, 02:26 PM »
I would encourage all to buy the $15 hippoedit sale today.  It's one of those little developers that seems to do things the right way.  And I normally will buy anything remotely interesting under $20 because i feel that is a very good price for most utilities we use.  I find it to be a good balance between the extremes of freeware and $50+ shareware.  Anything above $20 makes me think twice, and anything below I'm willing to give a shot.

rjbull

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Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor
« Reply #58 on: November 10, 2010, 04:17 PM »
HippoEDIT's nice.  I'm just waiting for it to have some kind of macros, and ones I can cope with; don't want to have to learn a whole programming language.

I used to use it at work - back when I had a job - for saving text from the Web.  I always wanted to save as plain text.  If the clip was unicode, when I went to save it, HippoEDIT would ask me whether I wanted it converted to plain text.  Very convenient.
« Last Edit: November 10, 2010, 04:19 PM by rjbull »

superboyac

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Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor
« Reply #59 on: November 10, 2010, 04:59 PM »
HippoEDIT's nice.  I'm just waiting for it to have some kind of macros, and ones I can cope with; don't want to have to learn a whole programming language.

I used to use it at work - back when I had a job - for saving text from the Web.  I always wanted to save as plain text.  If the clip was unicode, when I went to save it, HippoEDIT would ask me whether I wanted it converted to plain text.  Very convenient.
Yeah, it definitely needs work.  But I like the way it's been developed so far.  My favorite editor up to this point is Editpad Pro.  2nd favorite is EmEditor.  3rd is Ultraedit.  4th is Notepad++.  Each one has a specialty for me.  Emeditor is the fastest.  Editpad is the best overall.  Ultraedit can do the most.  Notepad++ is the best of the free ones.

NigelH

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Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor
« Reply #60 on: November 10, 2010, 06:57 PM »
I really like HippoEDIT - it helped me sort out some complicated multi-platform ifdef stuff. I was quite impressed.
However, I don't use it as my main editor (EditPad Pro) as I had continuous context switching delays when editing files on SMB shares.
Perhaps there are configuration settings that could mitigate that problem, but I didn't pursue it.

I was also an UltraEdit fan at one point, but post V12, it really just became too lethargic.
For quick & dirty editing, it's Notepad++ mainly - sometimes Notepad2 or SciTE.

Tuxman

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Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor
« Reply #61 on: November 10, 2010, 07:46 PM »
UltraEdit has some text display glitches for me.  :huh:
A pity, as I'm like "well, let's try some other editor than Notepad++ as my Vim fallback" right now, and UE does what it should.
(At least it does way better than e and InType and whatever they are called.)

So - still no way out.  :)

(n.b.: PSPad tends to be slooooooow on my system, so... whyever.)

f0dder

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Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor
« Reply #62 on: November 11, 2010, 03:14 AM »
Tuxman, what's your issue with E?

Haven't played much with it, but I like their (blog post about) branching undo system :)
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ecaradec

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Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor
« Reply #63 on: November 11, 2010, 06:16 AM »
Here is my own experience with text editors :

Any editor you choose will have shortcomings. Unlike many I think that VS is a good text editor. Most people who dismay it often doesn't even know it at all : it has macros, auto indenting, uppercase as a shortcuts, excellent tag navigation, and a very nice command line (my favorite command is 'of' which open any file in the project by it's name ).

I don't like it for php, javascript and web stuff in general : so I use VIM then. The editing stuff in VIM are incredibly superior to VS. It has a very simple extension system which means lot's of plugins. The modal behavior is what really makes VIM powerful, because that way you have many more free keys for shortcuts. What I use the most : vertical selection, vertical edition, switching files with ease, macros, grep with quickfind window, 'go file' to follow includes. I often google for one liner for sorting lines, deleting stuff under some special cases. The default configuration of VIM is very bad although, it's only good if you're going to use it to edit one file at a time. I switched to VIM because I wanted to have a pure text editor where everything was accessible without the mouse. I find that hunt and pick with the mouse is not very efficient.

It has a price though : My coworkers often makes fun of me because I have shortcuts for absolutly everything (thanks to FARR ;)...

I tried emacs, but I don't like it, it's just an editor with really weird and long to type commands and you have a learn a whole ecosystem to use it truely. The shortcuts doesn't make sense to me either. I tried several times, I can't use it. It has some good thing still : it can open really huge files with syntax coloration without lag (vim lag horribly ), it can fold big files and store fragments into other files transparently, it has more powerful plugins too.

VIM is really my favorite for php, javascript and ruby. VS is my favorite for anything C++, C#. As anything, some things aren't done in the same way of all editors, you have to adapt your style. I also tried various scintilla editors (they often offer too few functionnalities beyond just the scintillarea control ), E (way too java and slow ), notepad2 and notepad++ (nice, but not as good as VIM ).

Only VIM, emacs and VS can filter and open file by their name only by using keyboard (that's the function I care the most about ) and this is what mattered to me in the end.

It reminds me of the classical learning curve of text editors  : http://blogs.msdn.co...learning-curves.aspx
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« Last Edit: November 11, 2010, 06:44 AM by ecaradec »

Tuxman

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Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor
« Reply #64 on: November 11, 2010, 06:29 AM »
Tuxman, what's your issue with E?
All these "TextMate-style" text editors are very similar to each other. A small set of features, and the only "superior" feature is the ability to use bundles, oh well... (also, e uses Cygwin for implementing that! Ridiculous.)

Maybe I haven't quite found the "wow" of it yet, but I'll try some other day.
Probably.

Full ACK @ ecaradec.  :)

NigelH

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Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor
« Reply #65 on: November 11, 2010, 08:57 AM »
For Emacs  fans  ... or not   :-\

Tuxman

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Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor
« Reply #66 on: November 11, 2010, 05:01 PM »
I already knew that.  :P

Oh, and BTW, as we are not talking about "free" editors anymore anyway:
Has anyone checked out this yummy editor?

For what I see, it rocks.

 :-*

If it wasn't so pricey ...

Jibz

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Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor
« Reply #67 on: November 12, 2010, 12:41 AM »
$275 with an additional $100 for one year of upgrades? .. nearly choked on my coffee :D.

Tuxman

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Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor
« Reply #68 on: November 12, 2010, 04:25 AM »
Well, Directory Opus does not do it so different, right?  ;D

rjbull

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Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor
« Reply #69 on: November 14, 2010, 10:58 AM »
My favorite editor up to this point is Editpad Pro.  2nd favorite is EmEditor.  3rd is Ultraedit.  4th is Notepad++.  Each one has a specialty for me.  Emeditor is the fastest.  Editpad is the best overall.  Ultraedit can do the most.  Notepad++ is the best of the free ones.

The one I actually use most at present is Notetab Pro, because it has a reasonable set of features for this non-coder; notably, bookmarks, multi-level backup/undo, a spell checker, and the Clipbook macro system.  I don't use much of the Clipbook, but I think I quite like it because it's a bit like using the endless array of batch-file enhancers, and that's more or less where I came in.  If I still had to write a lot of text, though, I'd just go back to my DOS editor, VDE, because it's WordStar-style.  None of the Windows editors I've seen are a patch on WordStar for text handling, as opposed to code.  Having said that, VDE is written in assembler, and its author writes that in... VDE.

As for the free Windows ones, I had good service from Crimson Editor but I agree that most people will probably like Notepad++ more.  The latter is certainly more rapidly updated.

superboyac

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Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor
« Reply #70 on: November 14, 2010, 01:06 PM »
I actually started with Notepad Pro as my first "different" notepad, years ago.  It was good, but after seeing all the other ones available, it doesn't really stand out.  I also tried Crimson for a while, which was also good, but there were some weird things about it that I don't remember right now, and it was kind of slow.

widgewunner

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Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor
« Reply #71 on: November 14, 2010, 07:37 PM »
... If I still had to write a lot of text, though, I'd just go back to my DOS editor, VDE, because it's WordStar-style. ...

EditPad-Pro has a one-click setting for wordstar key bindings. (Don't know about the free EditPad-lite version however.)

rjbull

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Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor
« Reply #72 on: November 15, 2010, 02:35 PM »
EditPad-Pro has a one-click setting for wordstar key bindings. (Don't know about the free EditPad-lite version however.)

Those WinGUI editors I've briefly looked at that claim WordStar bindings fail miserably, with a trivial subset of features.  The problem is that important WordStar keys like Ctrl-C, Ctrl-X etc. were pirated by Gate$ for Windows itself, and hardly anybody seems brave enough to address the issue.  By far the best one I've seen for WordStar emulation is WSedit, freeware by Dr. Martin Vieregg.  I'd be interested to see any discounts on EditPad-Pro, however, given how many people seem to like it.  Perhaps that's a faint hope for now, with a new version about to come out.

EditPat-Lite, when last I looked at it, only had the Help file for EditPad-Pro, as a teaser, presumably.  I don't think it had anything significant in WS emulation.

Hmmm...  better park my hobby horse...

widgewunner

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Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor
« Reply #73 on: November 15, 2010, 11:33 PM »
Actually, the WS emulation is pretty full-featured (including the Ctrl+C, Ctrl+X, Ctrl+S etc). From the EPP6 help file...
Wordstar Navigation Keys
EditPad Pro supports the classic for people who are used to them.  WordStar is an old word processor that used Ctrl+Letter key combinations to navigate through the document.  WordStar was created at a time when most keyboards did not yet have separate arrow key blocks.  Note that many of these navigation keys conflict with standard Windows shortcut keys.  E.g. Ctrl+S is the standard Windows shortcut for File|Save.  In WordStar, Ctrl+S moves the text cursor one position to the left, just like the left arrow key.

You can enable the WordStar navigation keys in the Keyboard Preferences.  When enabled, they are recognized by every full text editor control in EditPad, such as the main editor, the search box, the replace box, the clip editor, etc.

The shortcuts with Ctrl+Q are two-key combinations.  First, press Ctrl+Q.  Then release the Q key and press the second letter in the key combination.  Whether you press Ctrl along with the second key or not makes no difference.

Cursor movement keys
Key combination Action
Ctrl+S Moves the text cursor one position to the left.
Ctrl+D Moves the text cursor one position to the right.
Ctrl+E Moves the text cursor one line upward.
Ctrl+X Moves the text cursor one line downward.
Ctrl+A Moves the text cursor to the start of the previous word or the end of the previous line, whichever is closer.
Ctrl+F Moves the text cursor to the start of the next line or the end of the current line, whichever is closer.
Ctrl+R Moves the text cursor up an entire screen.
Ctrl+C Moves the text cursor down an entire screen.
Ctrl+W Scroll down one line.  Cursor moves up one line unless it is already at the top (configurable).
Ctrl+Z Scroll up one line.  Cursor moves down one line unless it is already at the top (configurable).
Ctrl+Q, S Moves the text cursor to the beginning of the line (configurable).
Ctrl+Q, D Moves the text cursor to the end of the line.
Ctrl+Q, E Moves the text cursor to the top of the screen.
Ctrl+Q, X Moves the text cursor to the bottom of the screen.
Ctrl+Q, R Moves the text cursor to the start of the file.
Ctrl+Q, C Moves the text cursor to the end of the file.

Editing commands
Ctrl+I Insert a tab character.
Ctrl+N Inserts a line break.
Ctrl+G Deletes the character to the right of the text cursor.
Ctrl+H Deletes the character to the left of the text cursor.
Ctrl+T Deletes the part of the current word to the right of the text cursor.  If the cursor is not on a word, all characters to the right of the cursor up to the start of the next word are deleted.
Ctrl+Q, Y All the text on the current line to the right of the text cursor is deleted.
Ctrl+Q, T All the text on the current line to the left of the text cursor is deleted.
Ctrl+V Toggles between insert and overwrite mode.
-EditPadPro

superboyac

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Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor
« Reply #74 on: November 15, 2010, 11:39 PM »
I don't mean to sound rude, but what is the big deal about Wordstar?  I looked it up on Wikipedia and didn't get a feel for why people want these features.  Isn't it just a matter of having customizeable keyboard shortcuts?