Whirlpool

i learn java in syn editor, but im looking to move out into some better software?
will be doing HTML and java

Welcome to Whirlpool!

If you use the search function on the left you'll find plenty of threads on this to look through.

If you want something more tailored to you, you should provide some more information.

The most important question, is what are you after? A notepad replacement? A full blown IDE? Something in between?

Something to start with is notepad++. See if that suites your needs. Great application and completely free / open source.

Mark^Bastard writes...

Something to start with is notepad++

Agreed Notepad ++ FTW, you can right click any file and go to edit with Notepad ++

Oh and i forgot to add, it has tabs as well so you can have several files open for editing in the one window.

+1 for notepad++

with syn editor, i can tell it that im programming in java, and it will highlight... will notepad++ do this?

FooIsm writes...

will notepad++ do this?

Absolutely.
+1 for notepad++.

FooIsm writes...

will notepad++ do this?

Yes. It will also automatically do it based on file extension. So HTML, CSS, JS, Java etc all work automatically.

you could also try jEdit ;)

ok thanks heaps guys, much appreciated

Ginji writes...

you could also try jEdit ;)

+1 jEdit. It might eat RAM and run slow as, but the amount of cool junk you can do with it is awesome. It's like the Firefox of text editors.

sysKin writes...

Absolutely.
+1 for notepad++.

+1 its a fantastic little app,

Mark^Bastard writes...

Welcome to Whirlpool!

I'm impressed that you responded so maturely!

I like Crimson Editor best.

www.crimsoneditor.com

FooIsm writes...

i learn java in syn editor, but im looking to move out into some better software?
will be doing HTML and java

TextPad is about the best editor to use , it is a programmers' text editor.
It has quite a lot of features including a clip library and tags for
HTML
Ansi
Dos characters
Control characters.
It also has quite a few features to configure the app , printing saving text documents with different end of line control chars ( DOS , Unix .. etc ) , running macros and it has a spellchecker.

www.textpad.com

.

Stewart Johnson writes...

I'm impressed that you responded so maturely!

I have a soft spot for 1st post people. There's no chance they've previously annoyed me!

xint is an interesting program as a substitute for notepad, while the more feature rich Tea is pretty awesome

Kurvi Tasch writes...

I like Crimson Editor best.

+1.

works very well.

I like intype. Still in early alpha however. (but stable and works well).

I like EditPlus personally.

It's ultra fast, and has fantastic syntax highlighting.

Programmers Notepad or notepad++ will probably do.

I've used them both extensively for Java, html, xml, C#, javascript, PL/SQL and they've both been great. I don't really have a preference for one over the other.

Question has been asked before, and the answer is always.. VIM..

Although, I use textmate a little bit ( OS X only ), but its a bit pricey if you aren't a Rails fanboy, which is clearly its primary customers.

Matt Watson writes...

Question has been asked before, and the answer is always.. VIM..

2nd vote for vim here :D

vi - nuff said

+1 notepad ++

Quidy writes...

+1 notepad ++

/no<CR>c$vi<ESC>:wq<­ CR>

PSPad, it's free and IMO better then all the other free text editors for windows. Converted practically everybody over at my work anyway from the alternatives ;)

All you nasty people :-)

In honesty yes VIM is cool.

Though one must be careful with one of the few text editors that you can sucessfully format your hardrive with ;-).

I remember the VIM team going to release a coffee mug with all your favourite commands on it....... Then realized that a bathtub is hard to drink from.

Pencil and paper, a scanner and Omnipage Pro.

And an eraser for debugging. :)

Seriously, Crimson Editor is brilliant, for the tabs, the configurable syntax highlighting, column selection mode, and macros amongst other things.

Pirate Steve writes...

TextPad is about the best editor to use

In Windows, when not using an IDE, this is my editor of choice also.

But I use Linux much more than Windows these days, and vim is my editor of choice! For some reason I've never gotten comfortable with the Windows port, even though it's very similar!

There's some interesting alternatives recommended in this thread and I'll be sure to try them out. Thanks.

have fun()
mike

notepad FTW

www.liquidninja.com/metapad

it's very good, some great features, have used it for years.

"metapad is a great choice for those who like their text
editors small, fast, and free" - ZDNet Downloads

windows only though -- unfortunately.

Crimson Editor! Easy and fast loading.

Notepad++ is very fast. I give props to the developers of C++ with Win32 API.

metapad is perfect for an absolute notepad replacement, ie no syntax highlighting or anything like that.

We've had these threads before.

vim >> all.

Quit bitching and just learn it! You'll thank us vimmers later. :)

Notepad2 is my favourite (not the same thing as Notepad++, which I haven't tried).

KitsuneKaze writes...

Though one must be careful with one of the few text editors that you can sucessfully format your hardrive with ;-).

I remember the VIM team going to release a coffee mug with all your favourite commands on it....... Then realized that a bathtub is hard to drink from.

Very nice. :)

but this has been done to death and again

+1 vi

Now that we know what we all prefer, whats your favourite feature of the editor.

Mine would have to be line numbering. Life sucks without it.

My favourite 'feature' is speed of loading time, small memory footprint etc.

I like to use Windows Explorer as my project explorer and double click files to edit them. I use an FTP app for deployment. Basically I don't like using full IDE's but I do like to have IDE style features just for the actual coding part, like syntax highlighting, code folding, line numbering, and even code completion / intellisense would be awesome, though I haven't found an app that does that for PHP yet and remains a true notepad replacement.

I can't live without Intellisense.

I do C# coding at work and use VS2003, couldn't use anything else because I wouldn't have the Intellisense for the .Net class libraries, not to mention my own code, which I sometimes forget what a method or member is called. And it speeds up the typing of code - I hardly ever type a full method/member name - just a few chars, then UP/DOWN through the Intellisense list.