Feature
Post
Category
General
Published Tuesday January 8, 2008 at 11:40 am
By Thord Daniel Hedengren
Finding the Right Text Editor for You
Having the ideal (i.e. “right”) text editor when working on code is important. I spent years and years finding one I liked, and then stuck with it ever since. That editor was TextPad for Windows, probably not the best one out there but it handled text in a way that I was very comfortable with. If I hadn’t changed to Mac I would probably still use it.
Lots of people have still yet to find the ideal text editor, and sometimes it’s just hard to find.
However, while I can use the excellent VMware Fusion software to run a virtual Windows machine on my Mac – something I do for testing purposes – I feel that using virtualization to get my text editor of choice is a bit of an overkill, don’t you think?
So I went looking for the perfect Mac editor, landed briefly on an opensource one called Smultron, and then I found it.
Coda.
I already used Panic’s excellent FTP program Transmit, so giving Coda a go wasn’t a big decision. And boy does it do it for me! I’ve got lots of syntax options, I can upload files from within the editor, there’s a clip library that can be edited, “sites” let me manage my projects easily enough…
In short, Coda is great. I love it.
This isn’t a review of this editor, though, but rather a shoutout to the magnificent Devlounge readers. Lots of people have still yet to find the ideal text editor, and sometimes it’s just hard to find it.
So please make good use of the comments and tell us a little bit of the text editor of your choice. Hopefully we’ll be able to do a follow-up on this, highlighting some of the best ones out there.
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
I went through the same quest as you did and followed almost the same path, now I am using Smultron and Coda, which is more than just a text editor to me. Anyway I am loving it and it really got my productivity going up.
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
I love Code as well! Changed the way I work for sure! Now i only have one window open while developing!
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
I lurve TextWrangler. The only feature I’d like to see added is code folding, but that’s pretty minor.
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
It’s TextMate for me in Mac and E-TextEditor for me in Windows.
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
I use OpenKomodo (or more precisely, what will be OpenKomodo, it’s still named KomodoEdit until the next stable version is out.) It’s free as in free software, opensource and it has all the function I need.
Product site (seems to be down as of now) : http://www.openkomodo.org
Editors site (look for KomodoEdit) : http://www.activestate.com/
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
I’ve used Dreamweaver under Windows for a few years, but changed to Aptana – after hesitating for a long time. It’s one of the best things that happened to me for a long time
. Most stunning features are full support of DOM and differenz frameworks, several kind of synchronization features and a built in to-do list. As it’s based on Eclipse and Open Source, you’ve got endless possibilities by writing your own plugins..
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
CRIMSON EDITOR is the best for Windows machines. Don’t have any preferences for other OS’s as of yet.
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
I’ve used Textpad for many years now.
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
I have used Coda as well and really like it, but I always seem to go back to TextMate for OS X. It has a lot of great features, I really like the way they implement code snippets using tab trigers, very useful and time-saving.
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
TextMate. Great piece of software.
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
Editpad Lite
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
Call me old fashioned, but I’m still using Vim. Currently gVim for Windows. I like it because I can get the exact same experience regardless of where I happen to be working from at the time.
I’ll admit that the learning curve is steep, but once you get the commands down it’s amazingly powerful and fast.
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
I have been using Top Style Pro 3 for about 2 years and love it.
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
For Windows, Notepad++ is best:
http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/
These two also look promising:
e-TextEditor http://e-texteditor.com/
inType http://intype.info/
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
I love Smultron on the Mac. Just the right balance of a plain-text editor and color-coding, etc. like Crimson.
I use Dreamweaver too, but not near as often as Smultron.
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
I love Coda. I live 30% of my day in terminal watching log files, having it a tab away from me in the editor is great.
When forced to edit on Windows I have been loving E-Text Editor or the “unstable releases” of Intype.
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
Having began with Crimson Editor a few years ago and moved through a few, including commercial ones such as TopStyle, I’d say WeBuilder 2007 is pretty much the best Windows editor for web-based work. Although it’s strictly a text editor, its GUI buttons and whatnot are very tailored towards web work.
For example, you can hit buttons to put ///etc tags around something, press a button to turn a bunch of lines into an unordered list, produce forms using dialogues, etc. And best of all, it’s geared towards XHTML and CSS. Certainly worth giving the trial a go because the sheer dedication to making a web developer’s life easy is clear, while Crimson Editor et al are more ‘for everything’ text editors with no real specialisation.
Panic Coda certainly looks lovely, but sadly we’re all on Windows at the office. Simply cannot justify the price of Macs when we can kit out with quad cores sporting 4GB of RAM for less than £400.
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
Bollocks, the comments form interpreted all my single tags. Could you replace them with the entities so they display properly? <Thanks!>
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
As far as I know Coda is not a text editor per se. It’s more like a mini IDE for Webdeveloper and the underlying text engine was bought from SubEthaEdit.
I use and love TextMate, by the way.
Greetings
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
When Coda was released and I saw it at work I immediately wanted a Mac. I still want a Mac (for other reasons as well) but I’m still stuck with Windows. Then I found the E TextEditor. Think of it as TextMate on Windows. I fell in love, bought it and I’ve been happy and satisfied ever since. I used it mainly for web development and it even offers using TextMate Plugins and integrates Unix powers with Cygwin.
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
I prefer EditPadClassic for my text editor needs, although my FTP is hooked up with windows default Notepad for all my template minor modifications
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
Perfect Editor is “Rapid PHP 2007″ (For All type Codes, Such as ASP, PHP, CSS, HTML and etc..)
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
I don’t code much but when I do I like using Notepad++.
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
Hi all.
I’d like to share with you my preference over Notepad++, an Open Source code-editor project built over Scintilla, with great (unusual) features like code browser and folding for instance.
Although off-topic, I’d also like to point out my favorite font for coding: Dina.
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
At the moment I use Textmate for the Mac. If you pair it up with a custom extensions it can do almost anything. (There is also a nice plugin to make it recognise ExpressionEngine tags…)
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
When I did development I used nano over ssh or zend on the desktop. Zend is cool for php work and works on any platform seeing as it is java based
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
I’ve used BBEdit for years and highly recommend it. TextWrangler is a slightly less capable free version, prefect if you’re on a tight budget.
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
My Choices:
Textmate
PSpad
Coda
If you’re java,C++/ developer then Eclipse & MS -Express do the job for you,you don’t need text editor then.
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
I really like InType for windows, it has great power and easily customizable (for me at least).
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
notepad++
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
SciTE all the way.
I have never found any other editor that I really liked other than this one.
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
I use CuteFTP to edit HTML files and it works good for me. Many people however don’t like it. NotePad is Ok for Windows. But ther eare many other text editor and it is hard to sya which one is best. when you get used to something it is hard to change it because non one has too much time to digg the web for new applications.