EditPad Pro discounted at Bits du Jour on December 18

[TucknDar]

Like the topic title says, the EditPad Pro editor is available at a discount (61%: you pay just below $20) on December 18.

EditPad Pro
A Powerful, Flexible, and Convenient Text Editor (And Word Processor)

I've only just downloaded the free trial, but a simple search here at DC reveals several positive reviews and remarks about this editor. So question is: Should I?

[tranglos]

Should I?

-TucknDar (December 11, 2008, 02:23 PM)

Do give it a try. It has a few very nice aspects, and then some that take getting a little used to. Very simple but also annoying example: pressing ctrl+delete on a word deletes the word (like in most Windows editors) but - unlike most editors - does not delete the space following the word. It trips me every time.

EditPad Pro has what's probably the most powerful search facility among the popular editors, including filtering of the matching lines, and  its regex highlighting is a cherry on top... As long as you get used to the non-modal task pane at the bottom. I feel it slows me down.

Very nice and well-implemented syntax highlighting and code folding. By comparison, EmEditor has more powerful definition for highlighting. For example, EmEditor is the only editor I know where I can highlight only the angle brackets in html / xml tags. On the other hand, EmEditor's code folding is rather weak.

Alas, no scripting. Macros - yes, but stored in lengthy INI files, totally impractical for manual tweaking. This is where EmEditor really wins over EditPad Pro.

My support story: For the requirements of one of my clients, an earlier version of EditPad Pro didn't handle UTF8 files cleanly enough. It had an option to always add the byte order mark or never to add it, which meant that depending on this setting it would either drop the BOM from files that had it, or would add the BOM to files that did not. For this particular client such a change breaks their build. I asked the author of EditPad Pro to fix it, they did and sent me a nice email about it. So now, as far as I am concerned, EditPad Pro handles UTF8 and -16 as cleanly as EmEditor.

EmEditor seems a little faster overall when loading and editing large files (double-digit MB sizes), but in my experience EmEditor has been getting worse in this respect since version 7, even though the author claims otherwise. I know that editing some large xml files with long lines has at times been s...l...o...w for me in EmEditor, while EditPad Pro exhibits no hiccups there.

I use both EditPad Pro and EmEditor, depending on my mood and what I'm doing. My advice: if you need (or would like to play with) virtually unlimited scripting, or if you enjoy having mind-bogglingly extensive control over the look and behavior of the editor depending on file type, go for EmEditor. If scripting isn't a concern, then EditPad Pro is also a very polished and convenient, with some extreme serching power and good configurability.

[TucknDar]

Wow, great post! Thanks, tranglos!

[AbteriX]

just an reminder
50% discount today for the next 6 hours.

[Darwin]

I have a licence for EditPad Pro and highly recommend it. It has many nice features, as tranglos outlines above. I can't put my finger on what it is about it, but I like working in it infinitely better than UltraEdit (for which I have a lifetime licence  If pressed, I guess it is a combo of the layout, feature set, and the icons are more up to date looking...

[Darwin]

Just to follow-up for anyone wondering where the discount is:

http://www.bitsdujou...oftware/editpad-pro/

Should do the trick 

[Carol Haynes]

Over now - but anyone notice that Backup4All is on 22nd December for $22.47 (46% discount)

[dsilvia]

Like the topic title says, the EditPad Pro editor is available at a discount (61%: you pay just below $20) on December 18.

EditPad Pro
A Powerful, Flexible, and Convenient Text Editor (And Word Processor)

I've only just downloaded the free trial, but a simple search here at DC reveals several positive reviews and remarks about this editor. So question is: Should I?

-TucknDar (December 11, 2008, 02:23 PM)

Hi!

I've been using EditPad Pro for years, and the quote from the website is accurate (my opinion). You can use it in a completely mundane, NotePad fashion (albeit, EditPad has more functionality) to simply edit text. At the other end of the spectrum, you can configure it to be, say, an all purpose IDE. I know of no other Windows based editor that has the depth and breadth of scope of EditPad.

* Many editors come without the ability to open multiple files, much less projects.
* Most editors have only 2 save options: Save or Save As. What does one do if they want to change the name/location?
* Being able to access files by "Reopen", "Favorites", and "Template" is a pretty unique feature of EditPad.
* Saving an edit session state, or any part thereof, is not common in most editors/RADs/IDEs. It is standard in EditPad.
* Most editors have only the barest copy/cut/paste.
* EditPad Pro has many features beyond copy/cut/paste using the system clipboard. For example, Append and Swap.
* Undo is virtually unlimited. It is also preserved, even after a save.
* EditPad's "Project" function is not a common offering in other editors.
* The richness of EditPad's search function is so great that it has its own menu on the menubar, others have Find/Replace under the Edit menu.

There is much, much more, but it's easier to just say, "...explore!" than to go on enumerating. The Tools section is phenomenal, Extras is a great potpourri of useful functions, Convert addresses conversions you won't find elsewhere, and Options (saving the best for last) gives the user a lot of power over how EditPad will run.

I hope when you say, "just downloaded the free trial", you're meaning the 30-day trial of EditPad Pro. If you downloaded EditPad Lite, by all means, get the Pro trial, it's worth it.

One other thing: support!;) It's extremely good. Requests and comments and problems are answered in a timely fashion. They have actually looked at your email and the description it contains, not just a "keyword" scan to be fed into a knowledgebase to generate a boilerplate response.

If you like EditPad Pro (I think that's a better than even chance!;) and buy it, you may also want to have a look at 3 other JGsoft products. Together they make a formidable tool for most any editing type need. I have:

EditPad Pro
AceText
RegexBuddy
PowerGREP

I use them almost daily and have become so inured that I would truly be lost without them.

In answer to your question, "Should I?", I would reply, "most definitely, you won't regret it!".

jmtcw:

HTH:

Dave S.

[TucknDar]

I actually went ahead and bought the thing Own RegexBuddy from before so used to quality from JGSoft!

And as dsilvia says the support seem very good, I emailed a question/request and got a reply the same day. Wish they had a forum, though, I think it's more convenient than mail for quick questions and similar.

[allen]

Yeah, Jan is opposed to putting a web forum on there--largely because an unused forum brings down the impression of a website, and there's always that risk.  He's integrated a custom forum system into regexbuddy, and I think that new versions of the other software (Like EPP) might see that feature integrated. Here's to hoping!

[TucknDar]

He's integrated a custom forum system into regexbuddy, and I think that new versions of the other software (Like EPP) might see that feature integrated. Here's to hoping!

-allen (December 19, 2008, 02:32 PM)

Yeah, that's right. Buuiltin forum would be a solution, I suppose, although I'd still prefer a dedicated EPP forum online. Some sort of place where users can share experiences and support, really. Anyone know of an unofficial list/forum/something?

[mwb1100]

He's integrated a custom forum system into regexbuddy, and I think that new versions of the other software (Like EPP) might see that feature integrated.

-allen (December 19, 2008, 02:32 PM)

Thanks for the pointer - I was unaware of that feature.

Personally, I'd still prefer a standard webforum, but that might just be because I'm not used to the one in the software itself yet.

[allen]

Either way, I'd largely prefer a web forum conversationally -- but I don't think there's any chance of seeing that.

In the case of RegexBuddy, the built in forum system works very well as it allows you to directly exchange regex patterns and other related files. In that regard, it's very intuitive. I suppose if EPP and RegexBuddy were tied to the same forum, it would be possible for EPP's regex panel to take advantage of the built in forum as well.

[rjbull]

Looks like another chance of a Bits du Jour offer on Editpad Pro: "Just Great Software has signed up,"  though no date or price given yet.

Bits du Jour Discount Deals from Just Great Software

Also a deal to come on RegexBuddy.

[edbro]

I'm not sure that being listed on that page indicates something is coming up. I think they have a page for all the vendors who have ever participated before. I could be wrong.

[rjbull]

I'm not sure that being listed on that page indicates something is coming up. I think they have a page for all the vendors who have ever participated before. I could be wrong.

-edbro (December 06, 2010, 03:47 PM)

You're probably right, but, when I went looking in BdJ History for "editpad," I couldn't find it.  I therefore assumed that the former deal had dropped off their list, and, on checking today and seeing this, further assumed it was a new/renewed one.  Maybe I just couldn't find it.

[Tuxman]

While RegexBuddy is quite a good choice (I should watch it), EPP is weird software to me.