Good text/code editor for Linux

Question

So, I think I'm going to do some coding on Linux soon, but so far the biggest turn-off for me was that I'm very reluctant to move away from my current text/code editor. I'm looking for a Linux text/code editor (either GUI or text-based) which is (or can be configured to be) as close as possible to my current setup of FAR Manager's built-in editor:

• traditional basic keyboard operations (cursor keys for navigation, Ctrl/Shift+Insert for copy/paste)
• syntax highlighting, obviously (FAR has the excellent colorer plugin)
• extensibility (FAR has both macros and plugins)
• auto-completion (the FAR plugin I use is a context "word"-completer and thus language-agnostic, but per-language completion works as long as it's not too slow)
• (multi-line) regular expression search and replace
• code navigation (class/function outline, jumping to the next/previous instances of the keyword under cursor)
• block (column) selection

(sorry if the list looks like an advertisement, but FAR is now FOSS (revised BSD) anyway)

The commercial UEx comes close to this, however it seems to have zero auto-completion support.

Answer 1

It's a pity that you discard 'vim' :)

Answer 2

Why not learn something new instead of looking for something the same as you know already? From your list and vi-aversion, I'd say the power editor of choice would be emacs.

Answer 3

Some questions:

What languages will you be writing code in?

I wouldn't immediately discount an editor like vim. It has an extremely steep learning curve but is great once you're familiar with it. You could try out emacs, in terms of functionality, I believe it is similar to vim.

Full disclosure I use vim for all Linux file editing.

Answer 4

I use vim with Dvorak, and have no (keyboard-layout related) problems with it.

You might want to look at EVim, which is distributed with vim/gvim, and presents something more akin to the modeless editor you're used to. Unlike regular vim/gvim, it also allows shift-arrow-keys to select and ctrl/shift-insert to copy/paste. I'd definitely recommend jumping in to regular vim, though.

Answer 5

How about Emacs?

Answer 6

A quick Google for a Linux port of FAR manager turns up this post. Apparently, FAR manager runs fine under Wine. Is this an option for you? The only real issue I can see is if you're running in an environment without X. In that case, you can use the the wineconsole application provided with Wine which can run without X (AFAIK).

Answer 7

If you like FAR, you can probably continue using it under Linux by use of WINE, which the WINE AppDB page for FAR suggests should work nicely.