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My Situation: I love e editor, however I'm on a new computer and my license is being used on my old one. I can't exactly afford another license, so I'm looking for a free editor that meets the follow criteria:
Decent syntax highlighting
Ability to view a directory and its contents on the side panel, without the need to create it as a 'project' (Very Important)
Easily themable (I like dark themes)
Tabs
Also would be nice:
S/FTP support
Code snippets/bundles
Multi-line editing
And is not (Simply listed because they're common suggestions, but I've tried and not found them to meet my criteria):
Vim/Emacs
Notepad++
Crimson/Emerald Editor
Programmer's Notepad
Wordpad/Notepad :P
Thanks. Oh, and as a reference, here's a picture of my current setup: Link
Edit: Thanks all to those who suggested. All 3 (JEdit, Cream, and PsPad) are solid candidates for anyone looking at this thread.
You're willing to spend all this time and effort asking about and evaluating other editors which will almost certainly not have all the features you want, yet you can't shell out $35 for another licence?
When I'm making decisions like this, I always value my time at $100/hour so if this were going to take me more than 20 minutes, I'd just buy another licence.
Time is the one commodity you can't recover; you can always make more money...
You may scoff at this, but Cream is a very un-Vimlike offshoot of Vim. Here is an article written specifically for Textmate (and e) fans who want to try it.
jedit. I believe that it does everything on your wishlist.
PsPad. Excellent free text code editor.
Also does FTP site based editing as if it was in a local folder. very handy.
When you register e, the license is bound to you, and not to one specific computer. This means that you can use you license on as many computers as you like. There is also no limit on platforms, so it will also be valid on future versions for Linux or any other OS.
http://e-texteditor.com/blog/2007/licensing
There's no need to buy another license!
Pick your poison here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_text_editors
I would like to recommand Gedit. There was Windows version.
I haven't ever used Mac but I think Textmate must be the best text editor. When I'm on Windows, I really like e-Text editor. But later, I have to move on to Linux(Ubuntu) for an requirement. I searched for Textmate/e-Text editor like text editor for Linux.
I found out, Gedit is not a bad one. Here is my Gedit...
By your requirement, Gedit already have a decent syntax highlighting and Tab. Didn't have Project pane but Document List and File Browser combination is not bad, I think.
Easily themable? Gedit haven't many ready made themes. But you can easily create your own themes by creating xml color schemes base on default themes (In ubuntu 8.04, default themes directory is /usr/share/gtksourceview-2.0/styles).
As for me, Embedded terminal, Word completion and Code snippets are also important. Gedit have plenty of useful plugins for those feature.
There were many customization tutorial for Gedit. You may need to spent your time on customization. :)
try Komodo edit, its free and can do the things you mentioned afaik.
http://activestate.com/Products/komodo_ide/komodo_edit.mhtml
The sidebar folder feature is called "live folders, and its on the right side bar. It also has vi emulation, dark themes, tabs, sftp support etc..
You also might want to take a look at EditPlus.
The e text editor license is per user not per machine. So, you don't need to buy another license to use it on a different machine, just copy the license.
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I'd like to introduce my young cousin to a bit of programming. Ideally ruby, as that's what I'm familiar with. However finding a suitable text editor is a real pain. All I need of the editor is the ability to type a few lines of code, press 'Run' and get some results (or not, as the case may be). The simpler the editor the better, I don't need Netbeans, Eclipse etc. What I want to avoid is the necessity of using the terminal to run scripts, TextWrangler, Textmate and IDLE for Python can do this.
Unfortunately I need something that will work on Windows, or Ubuntu, otherwise I would have just installed Textmate on his laptop.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
You can do this in SciTE, which is bundled with the Windows Ruby installer or can be downloaded here. Click Tools > Go or press F5. It's an all-around good (and fast) editor with not a lot of bells and whistles.
This might require some configuration to make sure SciTE knows where your Ruby executable is. I believe the configuration for this is in Options > Open ruby.properties > command.go.*.rb.
On Ubuntu... How about the good old Gedit application? The Tool Launcher Plugin will enable you to run any external task (including the execution of the current open file.
Many thanks for all the suggestions, though having tried multitudes of editors, the option I've went with is Geany.
http://www.geany.org/
I couldn't get ScITE to work properly with standard input on either Windows or Ubuntu.
Ruby is a great language that could also be attractive to absolute beginners, however, the fact that the ruby installer does not include a basic editor that can be used in a self contained manner (to write and run scripts) really hinders its use for beginners.
This struggle to find an editor that could be used for writing and running ruby scripts almost had me resorting to python!
redcareditor has a "run" option under plugins -> execute
it's quick and dirty :)
I've used SciTE before for that sort of purpose. It reportedly works on Linux as well as Windows, but I haven't tried the Linux version myself.
Take a look at FreeRIDE for an IDE-type solution. You can also run code directly from the SciTE editor.
Well, on Windows, you can get E-Text Editor. It's basically a TextMate clone for Windows that runs TextMate commands and snippets.
30 day trial, then a little under $50 for full version.
I have no affiliation with the creators/owners of E-Text Editor
I use two editors that way, one is old school but only for Windows: Textpad , it also lets you enter parameters. Because of its popularity and power i'm trying to switch to Sublime Text, it is multi OS.
It takes some effort getting used to because i worked with textpad for many years but is is very powerfull and for Ruby development it is now my favorite workhorse. You can also find many tutorials and Youtube demos because of it's popularity.
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I will start developing my next desktop application in about a month. In the past I have delivered functional software that hasn't wowed anyone, including myself, in the usability or aesthetics department.
Does anybody know of any resources or guides or even books that could showcase examples of good design in desktop software?
There seems to be a lot of resources for web apps, but such resources for desktop applications are rather slim.
I enjoyed these dot net rocks tv videos by Mark Miller on The Science of a Great User Experience really got me thinking about good ui:
http://www.dnrtv.com/default.aspx?showNum=112
http://www.dnrtv.com/default.aspx?showNum=123
Where you can really make a difference with GUI design is if you are addressing a difficult to understand concept in a GUI.
When you are doing that, creativity is critical. When dealing with complex hardware configurations (something I had to do a lot, but probably doesn't apply to you), I've had good luck going to tech manuals and tech support people and trying to completely understand the problem. Then I took the methods they used to show me (diagrams from the manuals, whiteboard drawings, etc) and tried to code them into a GUI.
Had a couple massive successes with this.
Iteration is also critical. Prototype something quickly then beg everyone you see to try it. Ask them to solve a problem, then watch where they go first and watch what they have problems with.
Address every problem and stumbling block.
Don't be afraid to throw it all away and start over, it was only prototype code.
Separate your GUI from your implementation so that you can swap out the GUI if you find a better approach.
If you want to concentrate on just one feature, have a look at ITunes' search box which filters as you type. Other software may have had this before, but this was I think the first place I encountered it.
The difference between this and classic search was an eye opener for me in terms of readability.
Auto-complete which you see in so many places is another one. I'd recommend IntelliJ IDEA for the way it took auto-completion which emacs, Visual studio etc had for ages and added autocompletion for variable names and method names in a manner which almost seemed psychic the first time you encountered it.
You can look at Thirteen23 Experiences
To make things usable, you need to make sure that you follow existing conventions for your target platform and application type.
For example, if you're developing a Windows App you'd better make sure that control-c copies, control-v pastes, control-s saves, etc. The File menu better be the leftmost item in the menu bar, and the Help menu better by the rightmost item.
If you don't follow existing conventions, users are going to get annoyed with your application very quickly.
Google for HIG. Human Interface Guidelines typically include lots of research into best-practice in user interfaces, and explain in great detail how to design each aspect of a program. Also, have a google for "user-interface hall of shame" or something like that.
In this question I mentioned GUI bloopers. Part of great design is knowing what makes bad design and why. It is actually a great book, although I don't know how much of it is available on the website.
You can check case studys on websites of GUI companys. I fund few at www.puzzlehead.com
Check there and also other sites.
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We all know that having a good note taking tool is important as a developer.
However, OneNote and Evernote forces us to be locked in to a particular vendor.
Anyone know of good open-source tools, or even other method of taking notes w/o being "locked-in"?
EDIT: I should kick myself in the head for not specifying. Taking text notes is easy. I'd love to be able to write ink notes ( I use a tablet ), add images,and sketch GUI ideas.
Pen and paper.
Try the one file tiddlywiki for which you can get even shared hosting here.
Use a text editor and save as a text file. Guaranteed no lock-in whatsoever.
The open source xournal is what I use. It also lets you annotates PDF files, by using them as a background instead of the more normal blank, lined, or gridded. Very similar is gournal
There are also the java apps in the same space: jarnal and notelab
Try the ones that work on your platform and see which you like. I don't believe any do handwriting recognition, which is a shame, but they all seem to be pretty usable.
Evernote doesn't force you to be locked in. You can export all your notes as plain text or HTML.
http://www.vimoutliner.org/
http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=861 (Vim Wiki)
http://skawina.eu.org/mikolaj/vst.html (Vim ReStructuredText)
(Or another personal Wiki system with vim, just google it).
Plain text all the way...
FreeMind mind mapping editor
It might help a little bit if you elaborated a little on what features you want from a note-taking tool.
Emacs with outline-mode is one option.
While it's not exactly a note taking tool, I create my notes using OpenOffice and save them in my Dropbox folder so that they're available on every pc I log into. It then syncs those notes onto every PC you have it set up on.
Alternately, you can use Google Docs.
I've always used Notepad for quick stuff. From Microsoft:
To create a log file in Notepad:
1. Click Start, point to Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Notepad.
2. Type .LOG on the first line, and then press ENTER to move to the next line.
3. On the File menu, click Save As, type a descriptive name for your file in the File > name box, and then click OK. When you next open the file, note that the date and time
have been appended to the end of the log, immediately preceding the place where new text > can be added. You can use this functionality to automatically add the current date and
time to each log entry.
It's simple, but only works with Windows > 2k.
You should also check out What do you use to keep notes as a developer.
Pen and a nice Moleskine Notebook
Notepad and/or VI
Well, I should reconsider Evernote. As it has a public API it's not that much of a walled garden and I wooudn't mind the "locked to vendor" thingie :)
Evernote API
One more vote here for Vim.
It is open source, available for multiple platforms and there is no lock-in, because the files are accessible with other text editors (except when encrypting with the built-in mechanism, but that would be deliberate lock-in).
Drawbacks:
It might have some slight disadvantage in ease of use and is not really able do handle filetypes other than text.
"TodoPaper is a simple, lightweight, and easy to use to-do list application for Windows." plus it's based on plain txt files.
I usually use a mix of a spreadsheet program (export to csv in event of lock-in fear) and a plain text editor, with one file per project, or a folder for projects with more notes. I usually use a sheet of paper as quick notes, but always commit all notes to disk before allowing more than a full-single sided sheet of paper to be filled.
I build one based on python and html editor, it works well for me, you can get it from github: MyNote, it loos like:
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Granted knowledge is best retained when put into practice, but as programmers I'm sure there's just too much information. Besides annotating your books, what other methods do you use for your own personal knowledge-base so you can have an easily accessible reference?
Do you create your own wiki or use software like wikidpad, or save them as plain text, bookmarks, pdf, web pages etc..? Or do you just treat google/SO as your giant knowledge-base and search only when required?
You may find this similar
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10961/have-you-used-a-wiki-in-your-project-or-group, and of course this question can easily relate to non programmers as well.
Blog about it. That way you'll always have it no matter where you are, and that information gets shared with others.
I use Tiddlywiki to keep all of my development notes together, other than notes or handouts that I might get at a meeting that I want to keep. Those go into a folder for the particular project and I add a reference to them in my Tiddlywiki so that they don't get lost in the shuffle. I tag everything with a limited set of tags (rather than going overboard with the tagging, I have a set of 15 tags that cover the projects and categories I need) so I can get back to them quickly.
Works for me.
Otherwise, I blog about them as needed, use drive indexing for massive searching across lots of stuff, and keep a short daily summary of activities (1 or 2 lines) for better recall.
There are several solutions that I have seen people use successfully:
blog about it (as others have noted here)
maintain a Wiki (local or hosted)
keep it in a plain text file
use Backpack
use a hosted office solution (Google docs, Zoho)
email it to yourself in Gmail (yes, really :) well, makes stuff easily search able)
I personally use a TiddlyWiki (easy to use; very good search) which I carry around in a USB pen drive and which is also checked in to my SVN repository; and a small "notebook" (created from here) which fits neatly in a wallet, to jot down things when I am not near a computer.
Start a wiki.
ScrewTurn is what I use.
I've been storing my notes in Google Documents(google.com/docs). I've tried wikis but the cost of setup and maintenance hasn't been justified yet. I may need to look further into this option as my set of notes get larger.
Another thing to consider is ye olde programmer's physical notebook. Paper and pencil should never been underestimated in this digital age.
As far as personal Wiki software goes, I've been a big fan of VoodooPad for OSX. It's a nice self contained Wiki applications. No need to maintain a web server or have your Wiki hosted anywhere but your computer. Plus you can export into a variety of formats. It's very inuitive to use and can store just about anything you want.
It should also preserve syntax coloring if you were to extract a code sample (I don't have it in front of me so I cannot confirm).
I like Treepad for organizing notes. It's based around a tree structure, and each node can contain a text document, and have child nodes.
It's not particular designed for programming, but it's very easy to use.
org-mode for Emacs. I use it for planning work (short- and long-term), TODO items, random how-to notes (with clicky links to source files and URLs) — All in one single flat file. It has unicorns!
I use codekeep to store my code snippets
Occasionaly I store a few notes on google notes too
Mostly in a plain text on a flash drive, which is in the key ring along with keys from home. Plus eventually backups on the web site. This makes it available on any platform and in any place, wherever I go. There's still places without internet access you know.
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Other than Notepad++, what text editor do you use to program in Windows?
Another vote for gvim (about, download). I think once you learn the keystrokes to control it, you won't want to use anything else.
Plus, there is the added benefit of being able to use it on just about any platform, including the nice Windows port.
Sublime Text is amazing.
GNU Emacs is my preferred text editor and it works well on Windows (copy/paste actually works as expected) It's also available on all major platforms so you can reuse your knowledge if you jump around OSes like I tend to do.
I really like JEdit as well. It's a good text editor for code and random text. It's a nice middle ground between Notepad and Eclipse.
If you want something just a step above Notepad for quick, efficient editing I would recommend Notepad2. It's really useful when you replace the standard Notepad with this version. You continue to have a fast startup but the syntax highlighting is a real boon. I replace Notepad with Notepad2 on every one of my Windows machines.
I use SciTE
I'm a massive fan of Notepad2 - it is so quick!
For quick simple editing of text for me it's close to perfect. It has syntax colouring for Xml and code and can be extended easily.
We use Dreamweaver and Visual Studio for larger coding efforts.
UltraEdit is my second home. It is a great general purpose text editor.
Textpad is what I would use for random text editing (checking out HTML source, quick hackery, scripts and the like).
For actual Java development it's Eclipse all the way, although people tell me the IDEA is the cat's pyjamas.
E-TextEditor
Is a bit buggy, but beats the pants off any other editors I've used due to it's using the Textmate bundle format (and the bundles) - also gets updated very regularly. I use it every day and would gladly purchase it again.
Note that I primarily work in C/C++. For C/C++ code, I use Visual C++ Express Edition or Visual Studio Professional. For the little bit of Python I'm learning, I use the editor in the PythonWin IDE. (Mostly because it does a bit of code completion.) For everything else, I use GViM.
Tip:
After you install ViM on Windows, if you right-click on any file in Explorer, you see the Edit with Vim option in the right-click menu. This is very useful for peeking into and editing every kind of text file without having to bother about specific editors. GViM can understand most formats and thus displays them with syntax coloring. Get used to doing this and soon GViM becomes your defacto generic text editor on Windows. (Even replacing Notepad.)
Thej already recommended it, but to elaborate:
SciTE - Free, has preset colouring for many languages, and it's multi-platform (Windows & Linux), and lightweight.
alt text http://scitedebug.luaforge.net/scite-debug.png
gvim. I also use Dreamweaver for web stuff.
Notepad2
Syntax highlighting for html,c#,javascript,css,xml,sql,python,bat
Rectangular selection, regular expressions
Indentation, back/foreground customization
Downside: No tabbed windows.
I'll echo the others who have endorsed Emacs. I program every day on, at a bare minimum, OS X, Windows, and Linux. Having the same IDE on all three systems gives me an enormous productivity boost. That said, the vanilla version of GNU Emacs...well, it sucks. I'd strongly encourage you to try EmacsW32 instead. In much the way that Aquamacs makes an OS X-friendly version of Emacs, the EmacsW32 project makes Emacs out-of-the-box work just like a Windows text editor. Mind you, all of Emacs' power (and complexity) is there, but if you don't already have muscle memory built up, there's no reason not to use Ctrl-C/X/V as copy/cut/paste instead of M-w/C-k/C-y just to be cool. EmacsW32 also brings Windows-compliant open/save dialogs, sane CRLF file handling, and quite a bit more. If you've ever had an itch to try Emacs, give it a shot. You won't regret it.
Not everybody uses Notepad++, it's not that good.
Crimson Editor
http://www.crimsoneditor.com/images/overview.gif
EditPlus is my editor of choice. All the features you'd need, and no more.
I know this is my own question but I came across this text editor Sublime Text and thought it was pretty sweet. There are a few features in it that i have never seen before. It has multiple line select ( lines that are not continuous ) and a birds eye view navigation. It's a little pricey but I am having fun playing with the free version.
I use EDIT.COM for a lot of things, believe it or not. Old habits die hard.
Commercial product (Windows): UltraEdit.
Freeware (Windows): Notepad++, PSPad.
Cross-Platform: JEdit. It's written in Java and runs on almost anything.
If you don't mind taking a performance hit under Windows, JEdit has some amazing capabilities. For native performance on that platform, I would go with one of the others. I tend to switch back and forth between Notepad++ and PSPad. Notepad++ probably edges it out for most tasks. It has section folding, which is very handy. However, you did ask about products other than that one.
I have used UltraEdit for years... If I'm working on a project I prefer to use a real IDE, but nothing beats it for quickly making changes to source files, or especially for those small PHP projects where you're just hacking away anyway. The killer feature for me is the compare functionality.
I personally like ConTEXT.
A lot of people gave their suggestions for favourite text editor here:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10238/text-editor-or-ide#10391
I strictly use jEdit.
My personal favorite is EditPad Pro. Not because it is superior in any way, but because it was the one I started to use.
UltraEdit it my favorite text editor. Too bad I have to pay for it. You can't beat the ability to highlight vertically vs. horizontally.
Textpad replaces notepad for me. I couldn't live without it. Some key features that I use with Textpad are:
Find in files (along with open all, replace all, save all, close all).
Block Select (along with copy/paste of a column).
Clip Library
Syntax highlighting
Ability to attach externals tools (compilers, etc.) and capture the output to a window.
I use Eclipse for Java, Visual Studio for C++, C#, and VB.NET, JellyFish Pro for PowerBasic, I still use Visual Studio 6 for Classic VB, and I use TextPad for perl, python, Powershell, vbscript, SQL, HTML, and batch files.
I hate to sound like a broken record, but Vim is my choice. It works the same way everywhere and you'd be hard pressed to find a more powerful editor.
I don't code much on Windows, but e text editor is my choice. As far as free editors go nothing beats Emacs.
Notepad2, apart from Notepad++
Visual Studio, notepad2, notepad++.
Visual Studio for .Net development. Currently working with VS2008, but seems to be not quite finished yet. 2005 is probably the most stable and complete. Anything else for that would seem quite futile for .Net development
I use e-TextEditor for most other things. It covers most of the topics above including syntax highlighting, multi-select/edit, column select, TextMate bundles for auto-complete.
As you can see, asking about a preferred editor will get you a lot of responses. For me: UltraEdit - robust:
Notepad++ - lightweight
Also tend to use the IDE that comes with various tools (e.g. VB, C#, etc.)
But, the best advice is to pick a decent editor and learn it thoroughly. You will be spending a whole lot of time using it. So, the better you know it, the more time it will save you in the long run.