2008 Trend: Best Ultraedit Alternative Free Text Editor You Recommend

Question

2008 has passed and there are new free software or updates for text editors that can take the place of Ultraedit-32, which is arguably the killer app of commercial text editors.

We all have searched for that perfect editor, tested them, compared them, and eventually stuck with the one we love the most.

Ultraedit-32 features that are powerful that we also look for in alternative text editors are:

• Stable and fast, and the ability to open GB-size files without sacrificing system resources (AKA Direct File Access)
• Find and Replace, supports Regular Expressions. Can Find/Replace among files.
• Column Editing, including the ability to select an empty column and type on all the lines on those columns (Holy Grail of Column Editing).
• IDE Features like Syntax Highlighting, Auto-Completion, Auto-Indent, Templates, and source code navigation.
• Tabbed interface for text files.
• Customizable fonts and colors

To make this Q&A very useful, please indicate:

• Name of Text Editor
• OS Platform of Text Editor
• Website URL
• Your comments

Answer 1

I use Notepad++, which has most of the UltraEdit features (Windows platform).

But the main reason is a deployment one: I know I can just copy it one the desktop of my colleagues, and they can start using it. No setup or registry tweaking involved. It is actually one of the portable applications.

The integration of Scintilla component is quite stable now.

Answer 2

For me it's emacs, I always go back to it.

Available on almost any os.

Answer 3

Microsoft Visual Studio Express Edition :)

Answer 4

Long time ago I switched from UE to Crimson Editor (but the latest version 3.72 is available on Source Forge under the Emerald Editor project).

Then recently I switched to PSpad after having tested more or less all the free editors available at the moment. It was the one that best fit my needs.

Just for completeness, for very very long time I've used MicroEmacs on a variety of platforms, mostly Unix but also Amiga and MSDOS. It's still around as Jasspa MicroEmacs and even if I think it's a great editor, I hadn't the heart of going back to a character based interface (my fault).

All these editors are scriptable and have syntax highlight and other features but none of them could replace a full IDE for the language. Most notably with an editor you'd miss the symbol cross reference to answer questions like "where this function has been defined?" or "where is this variable referenced?". For things like this I use Source Navigator NG that does a wonderful job on creating a complete cross reference database. It has also some editing capability, but I wouldn't rely on them!

Answer 5

As a long-time user of TextMate on a Mac, I'd recommend using this "clone" called E. It is much lighter than any IDE and for many usage as powerful. Or you could get a Mac instead and run TextMate :) With things like VMware Fusion and Parallels 4, running a Mac editor for Windows files, it should be very easy...

Answer 6

Like Stumproot sayd, Emacs is a great choice, but it doesn't strictly comply with your listed requirements.

Stable and fast - OK.

Ability to open GB-size files - Unfortunately Emacs can't handle large files, because it always loads the whole file into buffer. In UNIX world the command line programs grep, awk and sed do the work of editing large files, but the inability to open up big files might be greater problem in Windows.

Find and Replace - OK.

Supports Regular Expressions - OK.

Can Find/Replace among files - OK.

Column Editing - If this is what you mean, then Emacs has it.

Syntax Highlighting - OK.

Auto-Completion - OK.

Auto-Indent - OK.

Templates - OK.

Source code navigation - depends what you mean by that. It also depends of the programming language.

Tabbed interface for text files - By default Emacs doesn't have tabs (although Aquamacs does). A widespread opinion among Emacsists is that tabs don't scale. But you can always use Tab Bar mode if you really want to.

Customizable fonts and colors - OK.

But the main thing about Emacs is not what it can currently do, but what you can make it to do. No other editor is so easily extensible. I guess you could even work around the large files issue and develop some kind of large-file-mode (if somebody already hasn't done it).

I don't know of any other editor where you can edit ASCII tables, draw diagrams and play games.

Answer 7

At the moment I'm using a few different editors depening upon what I'm doing - not the most optimal approach, but I have yet to find the "one editor to rule them all".

• Windows development - C++, C#, etc: Microsoft Visual Studio 2008
• Java development: Eclipse - tool support for outlining, debugging etc. is wonderful.
• Ruby development on Mac: TextMate - ok so not exactly free, but its cheap!
• Python development: Eclipse with PyDev plugin or Emacs
• Everything else: Emacs

Answer 8

Ultraedit-32, which is arguably the killer app of commercial text editors.

You obviously haven't ever tried the Zeus editor ;)

Answer 9

* Name of Text Editor

Jedit

* OS Platform of Text Editor

Cross Platform (java based)

* Website URL

http://www.jedit.org

* Your comments

Try it, it's great!

Answer 10

Hola. LopeEdit 5.5 viene en dos versiones LopeEdit Lite (freeware) y LopeEdit Pro (shareware). Tiene funcionalidades avanzadas como Notepad++ Crimson Editor PSPad y UltraEdit y está completamente en español. http://www.lopesoft.com/es/index.html

Answer 11

I like SciTE. It's cross-platform, I've used it on windows, linux, mac. It does syntax highlighting and auto-indent, not sure about auto-completion.

Answer 12

I like to use Geany

Its gtk+ based and runs on Linux and Windows

http://www.geany.org/

It has excellent support for auto-indent, class/method auto-completion, it can auto close []{}()""'', supports xml/xhtml tag closing, file browser and support for plug-ins.

Also on Linux you get a terminal window at the bottom.

Has buttons for compile and executing. I have tested it for C, C++, Java, and Python.

Answer 13

GVIM - for vim/vi lovers. If you plan to work a lot on Unix/Linux like systems,having GVIM is the best editor that would keep your editing/automating skills sharp. It has all goodies such as

• syntax highlighting
• auto intendation
• automating by scripting
• powerful regex engine to search/replace
• tons of plugins