views:

210

answers:

2

For a few years now, I've been using Eclipse as my all-purpose file editor, regardless of the language I use (which mainly includes C++, Matlab and python, with some XML thrown in for fun).

However, I recently got a new machine with more a recent Eclipse, and the wonderful Colorer plugin, which I previously used, crashes (Which is a separate issue that's apparently specific to my setup - I'll try debug it, but in the meantime I have work to do)

So I've switched to CDT for C++ instead, and I'm having serious performance issues with the editor, especially when copy-pasting or undoing stuff. I understand why CDT is so heavy, but I don't want a full C++ IDE - just something that does decent syntax highlighting.

Are there any lightweight syntax highlighting alternatives to CDT (or Colorer) that do a decent job at C++, without the needless (for me) layer of code completion and all that jazz?

Or, alternatively, any ideas of things I can turn off to turn CDT into a lightning-fast bare-bones editor (I've already turned off the spell-checker and the indexer)

Edited to say that I'm not looking for a replacement editor for Eclipse, except maybe as a short-time fix. If this problem turns out to be unsolvable and I have to learn/configure something new, I'm going to switch to emacs (for all kinds of non-religious reason: it's pretty much standard everywhere, my colleagues already use it, and the person in charge of our standard development setup supports it, so it's really the most reasonable replacement for me) But really, I'd prefer a fix to my poor Eclipse.

+2  A: 

Jheez if you are using C++ then Netbeans handles Autocomplete for C++ the best -- short of visual studio.

Hassan Syed
I'm not really interested at learning a new editor at this point, except maybe as a last resort. For better or for worse, I'm comfortable with Eclipse right now (keyboard shortcuts and all that), and switching would be a considerable investment.
Kena
Well CDT is pretty much the only C++ plugin for eclipse -- and trust me, I have tried everything under the sun to find an alternative to visual studio. My criteria, has been the ability to autocomplete Boost though, and netbeans can handle this, although slow.
Hassan Syed
Should be noted that Netbeans actually has an "Eclipse" option for keyboard shortcuts so that keys work the same. It's really helpful if you're used to Eclipse and need to switch over for a while.
Martin
Have you tried QtCreator? Don't be thrown by the Qt part as it works well with non Qt C++ projects as well. It does the best I have found (other than Visual Studio) at autocompletion of complex libraries like boost without being dog slow. I would at least give it a try. I used to switch IDEs every month because I always hated the one I was using, but I have stuck with QtCreator for a long time now.
Jason
Well I did give QT creator a test, but perhaps I was too presumptuous. I will give it another look.
Hassan Syed
A: 

I've finally figured out a work-around to my performance issue.

There is a "scalability" mode in CDT that kicks in when your file is above a certain number of lines (under Preferences-C/C++-Editor-Scalability). By changing the default size to 1, I can disabled the "editor live parsing" that seems to be causing the problem, and get a significant performance boost.

Kena