Text Editor

Which text editor do you use?  I have used many over the years and a lot of the decision depended upon the operating system that I was running the editor upon.  These days, I spend most of my time on Vista and have found that I am bouncing back and forth between two different editors; Notepad++ and JEdit.

 If I had to choose, I would prefer to use JEdit all the time.  JEdit is written in Java and runs on any platform that supports Java.  JEdit does run a bit slower than Notepad++ because of Java, and I have run into issues with very large files where JEdit will not load the file.  JEdit can run as a service, which does improve the start up time of the editor.

One feature where JEdit shines over Notepad++ is with the ability to split the screen.  JEdit will split any view; horizontally or vertically, at any time, easily.  I have a heck of a time figuring out how to split Notepad++'s view and it will only split the view once.

Both Notepad++ and JEdit have many plugins and both will run off a USB key, which makes them nice and portable.  Both are currently under development, so I continue to see improvements in their solutions.

Notepad++ does run faster because Notepad++ is a native executable for Windows platforms.

If I am recommending an editor to friends, I recommend Notepad++ because Notepad++ is a native program versus Java based.

Some other editors that I have take a quick look at recently are Editra - a python based editor and AkelPad.  I still prefer Notepad++ and JEdit to these other editors, but I had to kick their tires along the way.

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