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UltraEdit 11 - Best text editor?

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dandersahn:
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:
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.
--- End quote ---

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:
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:
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:
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.

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