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66
Recently I've been spending more and more time in Linuxland and have been forced to come up to speed with one of the editors there. I chose Vim simply because it is ubiquitous. I've learned the very basics - enough to open, navigate, edit, save and exit. But I have to say - I have not really enjoyed the experience (it reminds me of the old days working in DEC's KED (and TECO) editors on a VT-100 terminal connected to a PDP-11). Yes, I am aware of the power of Vim and Emacs but I've been unable to justify spending the time required to come up to the power-user level (i.e. learning all the seemingly archaic keystroke bindings and non-perl-like regex syntax).

However, one of my coworkers from my last engineering job was extremely proficient with Emacs, and he could work absolute miracles with it. He also was an amazingly fast touch typist and had setup the Dvorak keyboard layout on his machine - (which effectively kept the rest of us mere mortals from ever messing with his box!) I know that Emacs has evolved a long way and is very configurable. But say what you will about Windows, one very good thing that has resulted is a standardized user interface and a common set of keystroke bindings (which I have grown very used to over the years). If I could get Emacs to look and feel like a Windows editor, this might be a viable solution. I was wondering if there are any Windows users here who have setup Emacs to emulate the Windows keystroke functionality?

Oh, and thanks for all the input!

67
Yes, I know there are a lot of threads here covering text editors but I couldn't find a recent one that specifically covers those that are both free and for Windows. Also, some of the text editor reviews are getting a bit stale. (e.g. The DC best choice award for UltraEdit may have been accurate in its day but I would probably disagree with that choice now) Thus, (with unmitigated audacity), I am daring to open up a new thread on an old (and sensitive) topic.

When setting up a new computer for a client, I need a good text editor that can be installed and left on the box. The editor must be free for commercial use. Personally, I use (the non-free) EditPad Pro for 90% of my editing and UltraEdit32 for the remainder (Ultra-Edit has superior "column-mode" block editing). The free version of EditPad is pretty good but is missing some essentials: Regex search/replace and spell check. Other requirements are small footprint, fast startup and non-obtrusive invasion of the system registry and file system. Syntax highlighting would be nice but is not essential. Also, it must adhere to the standard Windows keystroke shortcuts (i.e. CTRL+TAB=previous file, CTRL+LEFT=word left, CTRL+RIGHT=word right, CTRL+UP=scroll up, F1=help, CTRL+PGUP=... etc.)

After reading various threads and reviews here (i.e. The Best Of: text editors and Windows editors - do they have to be so bad?), and doing a bit of research on my own, the choices seem to boil down to: PSPad and Notepad++. But neither has the powerful regex support I have grown used to with EPP.

So PSPad or Notepad++? Either one will probably suffice for my needs but I figured some of you guys/gals would know more on this subject and might justifiably lean more one way or the other. Or is there another better free editor that I am unaware of?

68
General Software Discussion / Re: Must-have Windows Programs
« on: February 11, 2010, 06:50 PM »
Process Explorer
EditPad Pro
ZTree
FileZilla
Opera
Deus Ex
7Zip
Paint Shop Pro 8
Putty
Nero 6
HashTab

Edit: Added hashtab!

69
I haven't done imaging for years, but I've been contemplating getting into it again... also, when I do a clean reinstall, I do want the format to get rid of any leftover junk and have a fragmentation-free clean slate.
I'm not really sure what you mean by leftover junk...anything on the drive that is unwanted is delete-able (I assume I'm missing something).
System Volume Information :)
...Which contains one metric boat load of system recovery snapshots and etc.

Hm... For some reason I ws thinking that the install cleaned that out. *Shrug* but it can be deleted if need be. I don't do it frequently enough to quip off the top of me head, but I'll play with it this weekend if I have time.

System Volume Information == System Restore data storage
To clean it out, simply turn off system restore, then (optionally) turn it back on. (Right click My Computer->Properties->System Restore->Turn off System Restore on all drives)

This does bring up another justification for partitioning - system restore works on a partition by partition basis. I turn it on for the WIN_XP_SYS system partition only, and turn it off for all other drives (TEMP, HOME, MM, etc). It is quite useful when trying out a new application - here's my work flow...
    [*]Set a new restore point: "Pre-ApplicationX"
    [*]Install and try out the software
    [*]If I don't like it, uninstall and do a restore
    [*]If I do like it, leave it installed.
    [*]Turn System Restore off then back on again.
    [/list]

    I've found that System Restore works great for very recent modifications, but is not reliable for restoring a long-ago system state. As you all know, one cannot depend upon a program's uninstall process alone, to restore the system back to where it was before you started. Very few programs actually clean out *everything* they messed up - that's where System Restore comes in handy and it does work wonders for this purpose.

    Regarding Windows' choice of where to put stuff and what to name it, don't get me started! IMHO everything started going to hell when they added the ability to put spaces in file names back with Win95 - they couldn't help themselves. They just had to name a bunch of directories using multiple words so that they could put the spaces in there: "Look everybody, you can now put spaces in your file names - Just look at all these cool human readable directory names!"

    70
    Yeah, at ~$300, Camtasia Studio is a bit pricey for "hobby" screencasting. I have played around with BB Express some and was quite impressed with the features and quality - I thought you may have been using that...

    Thanks again!

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