editor with good fortran support

Question

Can anyone recommend an editor (or an IDE) with good support for fortran ? Most newer editors I find and try lack language support for it.

Answer 1

Slickedit has Fortran Support. I can't tell how good it is, but given the good support for other langugaes, you should give it a try.

Answer 2

GNU Emacs has a major mode for FORTRAN. Use M-x fortran-mode to switch to this major mode.

I have used this mode a lot and can recommend it. I used it mostly to write a FORTRAN dialect that still requires punched card format however. Support for punched card input was my primary concern and I do not know much about other FORTRAN specific functionality of this mode.

Answer 3

Vim has a relatively good fortran support. Maybe a little quirky with syntax highlighting, but otherwise ok.

Answer 4

If you're familiar with Eclipse, the Photran plugin may be what you're looking for.

• Upside: it's free, cross-platform, and versatile and you get all the fun plugins that exist for Eclipse (SVN, etc.)
• Downside: If you're not familiar with Eclipse, getting the build environment sorted out can be a real pain. Plus Eclipse is java-based, meaning it's bloaty, slowish, and has a crapload of options that make configuration and setup a real chore.

That said, it beats the hell out of learning either vi or emacs from scratch. Eclipse/Photran seems to work fine once you find the magic incantation to get it to compile Fortran. If you're already using make, this is a non-issue; under Windows the prospects are dicier but doable.

Answer 5

If you use a Mac, BBedit is very good.

Answer 6

I use Ultraedit (IDM.com, ultraedit.com) daily for many types of programming (F90, javascript, DCL, HTML etc). Works well. Has good FTP support and great syntax highlighting. Have not use it in conjunction with any Windows or Linux compiler. My OS is OpenVMS.

Ransom Fitch