Text Editors

I just discovered that Notepad++ doesn't do Linux. I dunno, maybe I already knew that. So now I'm in the market for a new text editor. I have encountered a few features over the years that I find really useful, but most of the stuff that shows up on tool bars is not what I want or need, or for that matter, even understand why anyone would want something like that at all, much less think it's so great and useful and handy that it needs it's own toolbar button. Still, having all this stuff that I don't want doesn't bother me if I could get the stuff I do want.

I still use archaic AEDIT occasionally because it can do things most graphical editor developers have not even deamt of. I tried Emacs once. It was insane. Windows Notepad is too feeble for words. I'm still looking for something decent that will work on both Windows and Linux.

What do I want? Let me just tell you:

• Instant load time. OK, I will give you one second, but it better be because the OS is being stupid.
• Automatic color highlighting of programming source code.
• The ability to use invisible characters (like carriage returns, line feeds and tabs) in search and replace strings.
• A macro facility.
• Reliability. I don't want an editor that crashes any time I ask it to do something a little out of the ordinary. I also want the cursor to move in a predictable manor when I press one of the arrow keys, unlike the editor I am using right now (Blogger) to write this.
• Hard or soft automatic word wrap. Word wrap puts the next word on the next line when you get to the edge of the window. Soft word wrap doesn't change the actual text, it just displays the next word on the next line. Hard word wrap inserts a carriage return. Soft word wrap is good for most text that is going to be displayed on the web. Hard word wrap is what you need for computer program source code and for printing. So it is already in there, I just want access to it. Notepad++ allows you to turn soft wrap on and off. AEDIT is the only editor I know of that does hard word wrap.

Recently I have discovered a couple of features on Notepad++ that I really like:

• File comparison. Open two files in Notepad++ and click on Compare and it will display the two files in side by side windows, along with a thin window along one side which gives a graphic comparison of which parts are the same and which parts are different. Very handy, and much easier to use than the old command line fc.
• Export of what you see as html. Kind of like WYSIWYG, except it incorporates the color highlighting, which it already does automatically. Very cool.

If there was anything I wanted, it would be a source code formatting function, like astyle, that would automatically rearrange stuff according to your preferences.

Macros are kind of a problem. AEDIT basically spoiled me. AEDIT has a couple of problems. One is that it is command driven. You can't just start typing, you have to tell it you are going to start typing. It only takes one key, but it is a habit thing, and once you have gotten used to typing without having to press that one key, it is really hard to go back. Or forth. The other is that is old, archaic, only does white text in a small, 25 line black box, and only uses fixed pitch fonts. Never mind that fixed pitch fonts are the only fonts really suitable for use on an electronic display.

The AEDIT macro facility is just awesome. It is helped by not being crippled by having to use a mouse or the stupid ALT or CTL key combinations. Everything is done with the simple character keys. Okay, there is one non-character key you need: the escape key.

This means the macros are just a series of characters. You create them just by typing. No control key or alt key combinations, no mousing, just type, type, type. Plus, you can search for anything you can type, like carriage returns or tabs, just by typing them. You don't have to use some cryptic programmer code to represent what you want. This whole graphical interface hysteria has unleashed an army of moronic mediocrity on the world.

If I could really get whatever I wanted, I would want my text editor of choice integrated with my browser, so that whenever I wanted to write something, it would be done using my text editor, not whatever crippled, clumsy, half-wit editor some enthusiastic nitwit stuck in a web page so people could write comments.