Techies Only

[lostcarpark]

I'm looking for a new text editor. If you're not into programming and/or web design, you probably won't be interested...

At the moment I'm using Programmer's File Editor (PFE). It's very good, fantastically customisable, and free. Unfortunately the guy who wrote it stopped developing it in about 1996, and it's now showing it's age.

Some things I really like about PFE:

• The wide range of customisations and settings.


• The way I can record a very quick macro (one button to start recording, one button to stop recording, one key to run macro), use it to repeat an action a bunch of times, then throw it away.


• Having different settings for different file types (I edit lots of different kinds of files, and don't want it to treat a C file the same way as a HTML file.


• The ability to handle different line end characters (open a Unix file in Notepad and it doesn't look pretty).


• Fully customisable keyboard shortcuts.


• Copes with lots of open files easily.


• Line numbers. Probably goes without saying, but it's really useful to be able to see line numbers at the start of every line.


• Help file integration - being able to integrate language specific help files.


• Bracket matching - this is very handy, though probably could me implemented in a friendlier way.


• The "Set Directory to Current File" is really handy. You open a file in the directory you're working in, and set it to be the current directory, which means that directory will be the default when saving new files.

Here are some things I'd like to have in a new editor:

• Unicode support. This is the one thing I cannot do without any more. Needs to support ASCII (preferably with multi-codepage support), UTF8, UC16, and probably a few others I haven't encountered yet.


• Goes with above - easy way of picking characters not on the keyboard.


• XML Validation (and possibly HTML checking and tidying functions).


• Code colouration - not essential, but nice to have.


• Word wrapping - again, not essential, as most of my files are code/HTML and best viewed in non-wrapped mode, it's not a big issue to open text documents in Notepad.


• Tag matching - an extension of bracket matching above, make it easy to match open and closing HTML/XML tags.

I'd like to hear what text editors you guys use, and why. I'm probably missing a few features from your must-have lists. This is probably because I didn't think of them rather than because I don't want them.

I'd be happy to pay for an editor that can do everything I'm used to, but add the features I need and as many of the ones I'd like as possible. However, if there's a free one, that would be better still. And if it had source code available, I'd be in heaven!

There's probably someone who'll say Notpad is the only text editor you need, and they're probably right, but if you use a really good editor for a while you won't want to go back.

Thanks for your thoughts!

Comments

[lostcarpark.livejournal.com]

Thanks, but I'm not convinced.

My only experience of Emacs was on a text-only Unix terminal session. I found it even more painful than Vi. I can accept that the GUI versions may be an improvement, but I won't be easily convinced.

I could accept using an external validator, providing the editor can call it automatically without having to type stupid command lines, and capture the results so I can easily corrolate errors with the source. However, I'd much rather a clever integrated checker which highlights errors in the source.

As for macros, I really think these are essential. A macro is not simply a keystroke recorder. It really needs to be integrated with the editor so it can respond to unexpected events. There's nothing worse than an error occurring in the middle of a macro, and the recorder keeps on going, making a right mess of things!

But instead of telling me how to get around its shortcomings, tell me what's good about it. Maybe I could yet be convinced.