Author Topic: UltraEdit 11 - Best text editor? (Read 86689 times)

Scott · « **Reply #25 on:** April 25, 2005, 12:43 PM »

And it only took an hour and a half for an experienced user to figure out? And I guess I've been nuts to consider the Ctrl key to be a "dead key" all these years...

mouser · « **Reply #26 on:** April 25, 2005, 12:48 PM »

you know, the idea of holding control key to quickly toggle between column and normal selection mode is a good idea.
not having a menu item in edit or view menu to change selection mode, and having to hunt for it in program options, now that is silly.

zridling · « **Reply #27 on:** April 25, 2005, 05:46 PM »

Scott, thanks for the best laugh of the day!

You could almost label this review, "Part I." There are some categories of software — text editors is one, image editors/viewers and archiving apps being others — that there are so many products to review that it's easy to get lost in the alphabet soup of programs. Mouser, I liked how you explained little details, e.g., novices might not understand exactly what a project is or what code folding is, but you provide descriptions throughout. Starting and finishing with UltraEdit, and then comparing features against it is a sound approach. If users take the time to go through the list of apps and download a few to evaluate for themselves, they'll quickly see their shortcomings vis-a-vis UltraEdit.

Differentiating between what makes a good general text editor and programmer's editor is key to this review. Some misguided critiques arise solely out of either confusing the two or conflating them. For example, someone like me would disappointed with Zeus or PSPad as a text editor, but someone who codes would likely be delighted. Even the developer of Zeus admits that his is a programmer's editor and is not suitable for large files. It's courteous that he shares that up front, I believe. Like a lot of writers, I use a text editor to compose an article, monograph, or even book, so I need actual, practical "text" features more than coding. (I take the raw text and "drop it" into whatever container program the publisher wants, such as MS Word, InDesign, Quark, etc.) I do basic HTML/XML, and small bits of PHP with my text editor, so choices like UltraEdit, EmEditor, and EditPlus are good for me. But I'm not writing any variant of C code, and thus have no use for VIM, Emacs, SlickEdit, etc. As you say, that's a different category, much like the difference between a word processor and a desktop publishing program.

Next year, IDM will release its UEStudio IDE (Integrated Development Environment), and since UltraEdit will be the backbone of UEStudio, they will be upgraded in sync. That would be a good time to revisit this category, if not sooner.

mouser · « **Reply #28 on:** April 25, 2005, 07:04 PM »

yes, a special review dedicated to programmer's editors will be in the works eventually, and include ue studio and slickedit,multiedit, and probably return to zeus, etc. it might have been smarter if i talked about the different uses for a text editor and said how this review was really focused on evaluating an editor for general purpose use, rather the use as a hardcore programmer's editor, and left programs like Crimsons and Zeus out of the review completely.

SindbaD · « **Reply #29 on:** April 26, 2005, 01:38 AM »

Hi mouser,
Perhaps it would be a nice thing to value features in importance order. Importance can be different for everybody. It could give some objectivities to value editors. I did it for myself and it helped me to choose tools for me. What do I mean?
Features get value -1 to 5. -1 means that feature has bug, 5 point is the best. And features get an importance value, e.g. 1-3.

After it the value of the editor is SUM(Feature value * Feature importance)
My importance, and it may explain why PsPad won for me:
Using clips easily: 3 (or 4

)
Templates for new file: 3
Syntax highlighting: 3
Auto-completion: 3
Fully customizable settings (keyboards, syntax, etc...) 2
Portable settings !!! (settings should be stored in text to move to other PC easily): 3
Support (forum,...): 2
Speed: 2
Code folding: 1
Word wrapping: 1
Column mode manipulation: 2
Setting external tools: 2
Price

: 1
Search/replace engine: 3
Etc...

I am working now making a decision chart where best editors are valued and user can set his importance order but I can't finish soon.

Best regards: SindbaD

mouser · « **Reply #30 on:** April 26, 2005, 01:49 AM »

that sounds like it would be a great web page; if you want some web space for it let me know, or else post a link to it here when you finish.

i was so impressed with pspad when i tried it.

but you must agree that the word wrap feature is so bad that i will not use pspad.

SindbaD · « **Reply #31 on:** April 26, 2005, 02:19 AM »

"you must agree that the word wrap feature is so bad that i will not use pspad"
Yes, if this feature is very important for You , unfortunatley PsPad cannot be used yet for You. I can avoid word wrapping so I can use it.

But how do You use large code snippets into UltraEdit??? I didn't find good solution for this, just in PsPad.

If web page will be ready with decision chart I will inform You. Perhaps space for page will be necessary, thanks for help.

SindbaD · « **Reply #32 on:** May 02, 2005, 05:51 AM »

Hi mouser,
what about SourceEdit (http://www.sourceedit.com) ?
Very good free editor!!!

mouser · « **Reply #33 on:** May 02, 2005, 07:51 AM »

i'm going to try it today and report back.

Hahhahaahhahahahaha i love the picture on the page - hahahahahaaha so cute !

Sentinel · « **Reply #34 on:** May 10, 2005, 01:13 PM »

For anyone interested, you can now sign up to beta test UEStudio 05. More info at the link below...

http://www.ultraedit...viewtopic&t=1295

dandersahn · « **Reply #35 on:** July 07, 2005, 09:18 AM »

Can UltraEdit send the selected text (or the entire active buffer if nothing is selected) to the stdin of an external program and replace it with the stdout of that program? EditPlus has this 'text filter' option. I have never seen it work exactly the same way as in EditPlus. I would swtich to UltraEdit if this is available.

What about jEdit? Did anyone mention it already? It's about as customizable as possible and with beanshell macros it can do just about anything you can imagine (including the text filter thing and much more). If only it was so damn slow and such a resource hog.

mouser · « **Reply #36 on:** July 07, 2005, 09:39 AM »

Can UltraEdit send the selected text (or the entire active buffer if nothing is selected) to the stdin of an external program and replace it with the stdout of that program? EditPlus has this 'text filter' option. I have never seen it work exactly the same way as in EditPlus. I would swtich to UltraEdit if this is available.

i have written a macro script and tool to do exactly this in ultraedit.
i will post it today or tomorrow at latest.

i uses it when programming to take a selected block and format it using a code formatter and then repaste it into file.
(ue actually has a built in thing to work with astyle for text formatting but its not as flexible and doesnt work well with undo the way my custom solution does).

dandersahn · « **Reply #37 on:** July 11, 2005, 12:09 PM »

mouser, does your macro basically copy to the clipboard, run and external program to process the clipboard and update it then paste the clipboard contents back? that seems to be the only way i can see to implement the "text filter" functionality.

after using UE for a few days, i see a few (mostly minor) things that are missing as far as i can tell...
- there seems to be no way to select the contents of a document without losing the current cursor postion
- it would be nice to be able to close tabs w/ middle click
- there seems to be no way to have variables (e.g. currenly selected word, current cursor column, current line) in macros
- there is no way to specify how to interpret the output of external tools when captured in the 'list box'. UE seems to be pretty good at figuring it out if there is a filename and line number somewhere in the output lines, but can't always and there is no way (e.g. via regex) to specify the pattern
- activating a line in the listbox output from an external tool will revert the current file to the last saved version if the line refers to the current file
- there seems to be now way to "list lines containing current string" without moving to the next such line.

mostly minor gripes probably better suited for the UE forums

mouser · « **Reply #38 on:** July 11, 2005, 01:54 PM »

yes, that is pretty much what my macro does,
BUT
i had to add some more elaborate stuff to make bookmarks and remove them and jump to them, in order to properly save your place in the file and re-select the selected text, in order to really make the technique work well and be nice to use, and in order to make the undo work properly if you don't like the changes.

i will upload it today as soon as we finish today's review.

i think your list is mostly spot on - and if you read our review you'll see i griped quite a bit about the ad hoc and uneven macro support.
there are some macros for some of the things you mention, but not enough.

i can't remember if you can configure middle mouse to close tabs, but a double-click will close a tab, which i personally find more useable.

mouser · « **Reply #39 on:** July 11, 2005, 02:10 PM »

dandersahn, i've posted my technique in a separate thread in this section; i'd be happy to discuss it there and hear any improvements or obsevations, etc.

dispossessed · « **Reply #40 on:** September 06, 2005, 03:14 PM »

Hi, I was reading through some of the interesting reviews here and felt compelled to put in some good words about my favorite editor: SciTe.

First, it does support column mode, just hold alt. Also, if I understand correctly, 'user tools' means things like interpreters and compilers whose output is captured within the editor - this is very much there in SciTe, under the Tools menu (compile/build/go options).

SciTe is definitely geared towards coders, but I think it's the most functional and elegant editor available. It's extremely customisable, but everything is controlled by editing text files. In fact overall it's very keyboard centric, which is partially because it's cross-platform, so it doesn't really gel very well with the mouse-oriented interfaces found in most excellent Windows apps. That's a downside. But other than hex mode and spell check, I'm pretty sure it has all the features you mention about UltraEdit.

mouser · « **Reply #41 on:** September 06, 2005, 03:34 PM »

SciTe is an excellent editor, as you say most definitely focused on editing source code for programmers - that's really why it didn't get much attention in our review. One of the best things about it is that its not just open source, but well supported on multiple platforms. It's part of a project that includes a text editor component that can be used in building other tools (SCIntilla). Definitely a fantastic project.

[thanks for the heads up about column mode, i'm updating the review to reflect that information now].

dispossessed · « **Reply #42 on:** September 06, 2005, 05:47 PM »

Thanks for the update, but I think the 'user tools' still needs to be corrected. Also, as of version 1.6, SciTe can be scripted using Lua (http://scintilla.sou...forge.net/SciTE.html).

Jussi Jumppanen · « **Reply #43 on:** September 11, 2005, 09:37 PM »

answering my own question, you can select the DEFAULT selection mode (column or line), and then use ctrl key to toggle. column mode doesn't seem to be able to insert, but still its not a bad solution.
-mouser (April 25, 2005, 12:40 PM)

Zeus does indeed have support for column mode cut and copy and it will quite happily do column mode inserting. In fact Zeus has column, block and line modes of cut/copy/insert.

For example assuming either the Brief or BriefEx keyboard mapping are set as the active keymap then Alt+C keys will select column marking mode. Similarly the Alt+M and Alt+L keys will select block and line marking mode.

But when it comes to cutting/copying and pasting of text I don't think there is anything that Zeus can not do.

Depending on mode in which the text is selected determines the mode that gets saved into the clipboard. So for example if you cut/copy in column mode text then any paste into Zeus will also be in column mode. Naturally, if you then copy the text as line mode then it will get pasted back into the document as lines of text etc.

The exception to this rule is if overwrite mode is active. In this case Zeus assumes no text is to be inserted, but rather the existing text should be overwritten.

Now these are the settings for the Brief and BriefEx keymaps but since the Zeus keyboard mappings are fully configurable, it is possible to re-map these or any other keyboard functions to any key combination.

As you have noticed Zeus also has a mouse marking mode. The default mouse marking mode is set to column mode but this can be easily changed to line or block mode using the Options Editor Options. Also mouse marking mode can be temporarily over-ridden by first pressing and holding the Alt or Control keys, while mouse marking.

But irrespective of whether mouse or keyboard is used to copy the text the same rules apply.

Finally, it is true that Zeus does not have any menus defined for these keyboard functions, but since Zeus has over 500 keyboard functions it is not possible to map all keyboard functions to a menu item.

Jussi Jumppanen · « **Reply #44 on:** September 11, 2005, 09:47 PM »

Can you figure out a way to get it to wrap on window boundry automatically without inserting CRs into source code? if so i'd love to know.

Zeus does not have a "soft CR/LF" mode as you describe above. When Zeus wraps a line in inserts a physical "hard CR/LF" character, hence using the left edge of the window as a line wrap point is not really possible

mouser · « **Reply #45 on:** September 12, 2005, 07:39 AM »

thanks jussi,
i will update the text editor review with the info about zeus,
and i will also update w.r.t. dispossesed comments.

annorax · « **Reply #46 on:** November 18, 2005, 08:14 PM »

Great review, thank you for it. But some of the products have short descriptions and comments.

I tried the trial of UltraEdit and it is impressive, but I still personally prefer EditPlus over anything else. I've tried PSPad, and it's definitely the best free one. The only things EditPlus needs:

- Bottom status bar: Add last modified date/time.
- Bottom status bar: Add size of file.
- For User Tools, in addition to "Save Open Files", add check box for "Save Current File".
- Get a web forum for support.
- I've had issues with FTPing and viewing links on UNIX systems.
- Skins would be sweet.
- Hex Mode.
- Code folding.

I use EditPlus at work (I'm a software engineer), and aside from a full blown coding IDE like Eclipse or NetBeans, EditPlus is great even for coding. Personally, it's on the top of my list.

Do you guys here accept reviews of individual products from members? I've used EditPlus extensively and know much about it. I love comparing and studying software.

mouser · « **Reply #47 on:** November 18, 2005, 11:40 PM »

Do you guys here accept reviews of individual products from members?

yes!! we encourage them very much - we have a special section on the forum for such things, called the "mini reviews by members" section:
https://www.donation...index.php?board=42.0

it's great when people post there about their favorite programs with some screenshots etc.

annorax · « **Reply #48 on:** November 19, 2005, 09:07 AM »

Sweet. I don't see a review for EditPlus. Let me get started on one and I'll post there when I am done.

vegas · « **Reply #49 on:** November 19, 2005, 06:39 PM »

I look forward to this review, thanks!