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4.7 star rating
0
What is the best alternative to 010 Editor?
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UltraEdit
All
12
Experiences
Pros
9
Cons
2
Specs
Top
Pro
Handles large files (>1GB) extremely well
UltraEdit has small memory usage and allows for fast parsing/searching when handling large files.
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Top
Con
Proprietary
It's not free and a license costs $79.99.
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Pro
Works perfectly with remote files
Supports several protocols for accessing remote files and working on them with the same ease as local files. Files can be integrated in the projects as normal files.
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Con
The themes introduced in version 20 regressed certain aspects of syntax coloring
The themes simplified the syntax highlighting which lost the capacity to have as many colors as one wanted to define. Now it is limited to around 20 different colors. In general it's not a problem but in certain cases it broke coloring. For some reason, the classic theme is the only one that is totally pleasant for readability well with syntax highlighting.
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Pro
Probably the most versatile general editor in existence.
If you need a general editor, UltraEdit is the way to go. If you were writing C/C++ all day, then this would be your editor. If you need to slog through large files then this is your go to editor. If you need to go through XML files, then this is your editor. If you need to sort data, then this your my editor.
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Pro
Fast, stable, easy to use
It loads with a short delay, but once loaded it's snappy and rock-solid. Anyone accustomed to using Windows text editors will feel at home in its interface, and those that prefer alternate keybindings can easily change them.
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Pro
Search and replace capabilities
From Ultraedit to Perl to Unix regex engines, the search and replace can accomplish just about anything.
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Pro
Responsive company
Whether for feature requests, technical support or license questions, IDM is always quick to respond.
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Pro
Nice hex display & edit
There's a handful of other features like this that make UltraEdit indispensable.
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Pro
Extremely customizable GUI editor
UltraEdit offer the best of both worlds. it has a full on GUI along with all the shortcut commands you need. There's no need for the user to suffer 80 char limitations of a terminal editor.
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Top
Pro
Highly flexible
UltraEdit allows you to handle groups of files as a project.
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows, macOS, Linux
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Experiences
$79.99
58
11
iBored
All
5
Experiences
Pros
5
Top
Pro
Free
iBored doesn't cost anything.
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Top
Pro
Supports HFS, FAT, APFS and more disk structures
Uses an extensible templates system to view structures of common disk and volume formats.
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Top
Pro
Disk editor
iBored is one of the few disk editors on the Mac.
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Pro
Remote operation
Can be used to remotely assist in viewing and repairing disks over the internet: iBored has to be started on both computers, and then one can connect to the other and view and modify its data (after getting permissions from the target side).
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Pro
Also available for Windows and Linux
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free
17
0
0xED
All
4
Experiences
Pros
1
Cons
3
Top
Con
Current version 1.14 crashes
Crashes on macOS 10.13 (High Sierra)
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Top
Pro
Responsive
Fast editing of large files. Instant opening of files of any size. Remains responsive with 1 million+ edits.
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Top
Con
No longer updated
The website states that the app is no longer in development
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Top
Con
doesnt work
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Get it
here
238
17
Synalyze It!
All
13
Experiences
Pros
9
Cons
3
Specs
Top
Pro
Can decypher the internal structures of many files, such as .zip, .tar and many "savegame" files
You can even add your own grammar for a new file type structure. Great for analysing foreign file formats.
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Top
Con
Doesn't work anymore
MacOS Monterey changed where python is located, and it crashes when it tries to find it now.
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Top
Pro
Advanced binary comparison
Compares binary files byte-by-byte or with a more flexible algorithm that shows inserts and deletions in any of the compared files.
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Top
Con
Not free
Cost 9.99$ once with 14 days trial (non pro full version).
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Top
Pro
Edits files of unlimited size
Huge files can be opened and edited instantly because only the displayed part is loaded to memory.
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Top
Con
Proprietary
It's closed source.
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Top
Pro
Scriptable with Python and Lua
The script engines allow you to automate repetitive tasks and extend the standard functionality.
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Top
Pro
Can check and monitor checksums of selected text
Selecting a bit of source code and using th e"Show Checksums" feature allows seeing different checksums for selected text and get it updated in real time.
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Pro
Allows color-coding text
The editor allows selecting a bit of source code and highlight it.
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Top
Pro
Histogram view
The histogram shows the distribution of all byte values in the file. This lets you quickly see if a file is compressed or encrypted.
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Pro
Compares text encodings
This feature lets you compare the text representation of a byte sequence for numerous text encodings. This is the most efficient way to find the correct text encoding, be it ASCII-based, EBCDIC or any other code page supported by libICU.
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Pro
Incremental search
The search results are immediately highlighted in the hex editor. Text, numbers, and masks can be searched.
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Specs
Platforms:
Mac
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Experiences
Get it
here
21
3
GVim
All
6
Experiences
Pros
5
Cons
1
Top
Pro
Vim without a shell
When opening files from the file manager, it is still nice to have vim.
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Top
Con
GVim, like Vim, has a difficult learning curve
A lot of time is needed to learn all the commands and modes supported. A lot of time will also be spent tuning all the settings to the user's preference.
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Pro
Excellent performance
Because it loads the whole file into RAM, replacing all string occurences in 100MB+ files is quick and easy. Every other editor sort of died during that.
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Pro
Works on all platforms
Whether its your windows machine, a Linux, Unix or a Mac Vim would work everywhere. You can even build it from its source on your favorite linux environment.
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Top
Pro
Has different cursor shape in command and insert modes
Unlike vim, gvim has different cursor shape in command and insert mode, which is very convenient.
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Top
Pro
Supports all vim features and settings
All vim features, custom settings, and plugins are automatically available.
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10
2
Hex Fiend
All
10
Experiences
Pros
9
Cons
1
Top
Pro
Small memory footprint
Hex Fiend does not keep your files in memory. You won’t dread launching or working with Hex Fiend even on low-RAM machines.
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Top
Con
Files can't be saved with a .dat extension
Trying to save files with .dat extension gives the following error: You cannot save this document with extension “.dat” at the end of the name. The required extension is “.(null)”.
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Top
Pro
Works with huge files
Hex Fiend can handle as big a file as you’re able to create. It’s been tested on files as large as 118 GB.
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Top
Pro
Binary compare / diff
Hex Fiend can show the differences between files, taking into account insertions or deletions.
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Top
Pro
Fast & efficient saving
Hex Fiend knows not to waste time overwriting the parts of your files that haven’t changed, and never needs temporary disk space.
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Top
Pro
Insert, delete, rearrange
Hex Fiend does not limit you to in-place changes like some hex editors.
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Top
Pro
Fast
Open a huge file, scroll around, copy and paste, all instantly. Find what you’re looking for with fast searching.
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Pro
Free and open source
Hex Fiend is licensed under a permissive BSD-style license.
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Pro
Data Inspector
Interpret data as integer or floating point, signed or unsigned, big or little endian...
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Top
Pro
Embeddable
It’s really easy to incorporate Hex Fiend’s hex or data views into your app. Its permissive BSD-style license won’t burden you.
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Experiences
Get it
here
61
10
GNU Emacs
All
15
Experiences
Pros
9
Cons
5
Specs
Top
Pro
Infinitely customisable
Customizations can be made to a wide range of Emacs' functions through a Lisp dialect. A robust list of existing Lisp extensions include the practical (git integration, syntax highlighting, etc) to the utilitarian (calculators, calendars) to the sublime (chess, Eliza).
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Top
Con
Non-standard keyboard commands
I'm editing this in Chrome, but I could be using Firefox, Edge, or any other browser, or Notepad, or even Libreoffice or Microsoft Word, and in ALL of those cases, keys would work exactly the same way, including how to jump around by word, select words, cut/copy/paste, etc. Pretty much all modern editors share the same basic key combinations, from Visual Studio to Sublime to Atom to VS Code to Xcode. Becoming an Emacs expert means you need to mode-shift between code editing and editing in your browser; adding Emacs modes to SOME apps means you need to remember which key bindings to use where. The cognitive load added by switching between Emacs and other text editors is not worth it, especially since all the advantages of Emacs are now available in free editors elsewhere.
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Top
Pro
Completely free
Licensed under GNU GPL.
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Top
Con
Not set up as an IDE by default
Requires customization to get IDE-like features. Luckily a few features such as compilation, debugging, and syntax highlighting are included.
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Top
Pro
Keyboard-focused, mouse-free editing
Emacs can be controlled entirely with the keyboard.
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Top
Con
Learning curve is steep
While it's better than it used to be, with most functions being possible through the menu, Emacs is still quite a bit different from your standard editor. You'll need to learn new keyboard shortcuts.
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Top
Pro
Works in terminal
You can use Emacs' command line interface or graphical user interface.
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Con
A UI designed before anyone had a clue about UI design
Emacs is positively NOT a well-designed user interface. Its design dates back to the time when all microwaves still needed instructions and VCRs universally displayed a flashing 12:00 because no one could figure out how to operate them. Many modern editors have 100% of the power of Emacs with none of the hassle.
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Pro
Self documenting
Emacs has extensive help support built-in as well as a tutorial accessed with C-h t.
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Top
Con
Chorded keyboard combinations can be baffling
For example, for navigation it uses the b, n, p, l keys. Which for some people may seem strange.
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Top
Pro
Has turn-key packages for IDE work
Packs like spacemacs make it easy to get started and bring the learning curve down from an infinitely regressing spiral to something more manageable.
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Top
Pro
Works over SSH
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Top
Pro
Great Integration
Emacs has modes for nearly every use case, even ones like mail and internet browsing. It has often been said that Emacs is essentially an operating system on its own.
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Top
Pro
Has Vim emulation
Evil-mode makes Emacs actually usable as an editor.
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Specs
Platforms:
GNU/Linux, BSD-like, Windows, MacOS
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Experiences
Free
60
11
Hexinator
All
6
Experiences
Pros
4
Cons
1
Specs
Top
Pro
Basic hex editing features are free
Hexinator has some advanced reverse engineering features. You can create a "grammar" for custom binary file formats and let software parse files automatically.
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Top
Con
Pricey
The highlighting is in paid version after the trial period, and 80$ is not an attractive price.
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Top
Pro
Portable
A portable version is available.
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Top
Pro
Automatic file decoding
Hexinator decodes various file formats automatically with "grammars". There are already many grammars for dozens of file formats.
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Top
Pro
Scripting engine
Allows scripting with Lua or Python (Paid version only).
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows, Linux
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Free / paid
23
5
EmEditor
All
6
Experiences
Pros
3
Cons
2
Specs
Top
Con
Windows-only
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Top
Pro
Excellent file compare functionality
Comparing files is intuitive and works well.
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Top
Con
Default themes and syntax coloring not the prettiest
Some syntax highlighting colors and/or themes don't look very good - but can be customised.
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Top
Pro
Very good at handling (large) CSV files
Quickly opens even very large CSVs and converts data to columns according to delimiter. Fast Search/Replace operations.
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Top
Pro
Opens very large files very fast
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows (7+)
License:
Proprietary
Hide
39.99
1
0
Spacemacs
All
4
Experiences
Pros
2
Cons
1
Specs
Top
Pro
Preconfigured emacs distro
Spacemacs is just a well-configured Emacs distribution with community-sourced best in class plugins and layers selected to take the setup pain out of Emacs. Evil mode gives the Vim bindings and modes for fast editing, while Helm makes everything discoverable to make learning to be more productive simple and unintrusive.
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Top
Con
Emacs is slow
Emacs is single threaded which means that if you enable all the great features you might be used to from Vim, it will run noticeably slower which can be quite frustrating at times. There are efforts at a concurrent Emacs, but they don't seem to be going anywhere.
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Top
Pro
VIM Keybindings with EMACS ecosystem
EMACS ecosystem and language support is best in show. The EMACS is a great IDE that was in search of a good text editor. Spacemacs makes EMACS have a good text editor.
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Specs
Platforms:
GNU/Linux, MacOS, Windows
License:
GPL3
Multi Language Support:
Yes
Export:
Yes
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here
80
17
Neovim
All
27
Experiences
Pros
18
Cons
8
Specs
Top
Pro
Still Vim but with upgraded features and some issues fixed
NeoVim was a complete rewrite of Vim, with new features added and underlying issues resolved thanks to the Vim code base. The keybindings and configuration are the same as Vim, so the switch can be pretty simple.
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Top
Con
Poor feature discoverability
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Pro
Better integration with external tools
The core text editor is "headless", meaning it's detached from the user-interface so other programs can hook into it. This enables better integration with IDEs and browsers, where "Vim mode" has typically been a poor substitute because it was a partial rewrite or a partial port at best. One of the advantages of Vim has always been ubiquity and Neovim makes it even more ubiquitous.
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Top
Con
High effort to customize
A lot of time and effort is put in to make it specific to your needs.
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Top
Pro
Powerful plugin model
Vim plugins have always been useful, but tied to specific languages. Neovim's architecture provides better separation between plugins and the core product, so that plugins are completely flexible and can be written in any language.
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Con
Requires Brain Mode Switching
When editing in vim, you have you use the vim keys; when editing in every other window on your PC, or in Word or Excel or other application, you need to use the standard system key combinations. Learning the vim combinations can actually make you SLOWER at everything else.
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Top
Pro
Built-in terminal emulator
This avoids the user having to make any installations.
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Con
Consume brain energy for editing that should be used for logic
Text editing in vim can be great once you've learned it, but it requires thinking about combination of commands. In other editors, you don't have to think about how to delete this part of code. You just think about how to implement a feature, what is a good design for this code. Even after you get used to using vim, it still requires your brain for editing.
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Top
Pro
UI Agnostic
The core functionality is handled apart from the UI, meaning that Neovim can be embedded into any other GUI system, such as Atom.
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Top
Con
Ambiguity in extensive documentation
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Pro
Async plugin execution
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Con
Limited cross platform support
Neovim is not available for many legacy platforms
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Pro
Active development community
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Con
Split the VIM community
Moolenaar to be blamed for. If he opened up the development for vim to other bright minds, no fork would have happened. As it is mostly compatible with vim, it is not such a big issue.
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Pro
Opens a 3Gig Text File in a few seconds
Not many editors can open such a large text file so quickly.
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Con
Poor support for external tooling
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Pro
Fast and light on memory usage
New neovim editor instance starts instantly and you can have multiple editors open at the same time, because id does not require a lot of memory to run.
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Pro
Easier to pick-up than ever
Don't believe it? Try typing vimtutor in your command line right now.
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Top
Pro
Work in TUI (Text User Interface)
Neovim can work on terminal, on a remote server over ssh.
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Pro
Modern code base
As a refactor over Vim, Neovim has greatly improved its code base. For example, some functionality is handled by libuv, the same code base that powers Node.js.
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Pro
Comes with some good configurations out of the box
Some typical configurations most of VIM users make are default in Neovim.
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Pro
Even more powerful since 2019, because of additions such as vim-coc, TabNine, fzf, skim
Vim gets stronger every time command-line tools get stronger. This isn't even it's the final form.
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Pro
Config file is where it should be
I don't like having dotfiles or dotdirs in my homefolder unless they're needed. Configs should be in the .config dir in their respective folder.
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Top
Pro
Built-in file-explorer and ability to make splits and edit multiple things simutaneously.
This makes editing multiple files at once, moving code around so easy.
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Pro
Treesitter and LSP
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Pro
Terminal mode is very convenient for testing code in a split window
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Specs
Platforms:
Linux, Windows, macOS, *nix, Android
License:
Apache
Bracket Matching:
Yes
Error Markup:
Yes
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Experiences
Free
598
90
SlickEdit
All
16
Experiences
Pros
14
Cons
2
Top
Pro
Extensive support for programming languages
SlickEdit supports over 50 programming languages on nine platforms.
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Top
Con
No command line option
This is a visual only editor
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Top
Pro
Built-in beautifier
The beautifier formats code as you type to help improve readability and consistency.
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Top
Con
It's kinda slow
If you have a very large project or tag database, it can hang the UI.
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Pro
Compiler tools
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Pro
Scriptable
Write custom macro commands, functions, dialogs and tool windows.
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Top
Pro
Over 13 emulations
Choose from fifteen keyboard emulations, containing the key bindings and behaviors necessary to emulate other editors (e.g., CUA, Vim, GNU Emacs, etc.)
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Top
Pro
Extensive configuration options
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Top
Pro
Easy access to Visual Studio workspace
SlickEdit opens Visual Studio workspace with no conversions needed.
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Pro
Symbol analysis support
There are powerful symbol analysis features in SlickEdit, including context tagging and references.
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Pro
Integrated debuggers for multiple languages
Integrated debuggers for GNU C++, Java, Python, Perl, Ruby, and PHP.
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Pro
Multi-Platform
Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, AIX, HP-UX, Solaris SPARC, Solaris x86
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Pro
Portable mode
Possibility to set up a portable installation, to run on a USB drive for example.
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Pro
Easy access to XCode projects
SlickEdit opens XCode projects with no conversions needed.
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Pro
Third party tool integration
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Pro
Popular version control system
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Experiences
99$
63
17
HxD
All
6
Experiences
Pros
4
Cons
1
Specs
Top
Pro
Free
Free for private and commercial use.
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Top
Con
edit
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Top
Pro
Lots of features
Searching and replacing, exporting, checksums / digests, insert byte patterns, file shredder, concatenation or splitting of files, statistics etc.
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Top
Pro
Portable
Portable version available.
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Pro
Easy UI
The UI elements are arranged in a intuitive manner.
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows
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Free
265
57
Emacs
All
41
Experiences
Pros
30
Cons
10
Specs
Top
Pro
Keyboard-focused, mouse-free editing
Emacs can be controlled entirely with the keyboard. While true, I often find the mouse and menus handy for those lesser-used commands. An aide-memoir.
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Top
Con
Learning curve is long
While it's better than it used to be, with most functions being possible through the menu, Emacs is still quite a bit different from your standard editor. You'll need to learn new keyboard shortcuts.
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Top
Pro
Total customizability
Customizations can be made to a wide range of Emacs' functions through a Lisp dialect (Emacs Lisp). A robust list of existing Lisp extensions include the practical (git integration, syntax highlighting, etc) to the utilitarian (calculators, calendars) to the sublime (chess, Eliza).
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Top
Con
Sometimes the extensibility can distract you from your actual work
If I ever want to lose half a day, I'll start by tweaking my .spacemacs config file.
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Top
Pro
It's also an IDE
You can debug, compile, manage files, integrate with version control systems, etc. All through the various plugins that can be installed.
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Top
Con
Keyboard combinations can be confusing for new users
For example, for navigation it uses the b, n, p, l keys. Which for some people may seem strange in the begging. However they can be changed easily.
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Top
Pro
Works in terminal or as a GUI application
You can use Emacs' command line interface or graphical user interface.
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Con
Documentation is not beginner-friendly
Although lots of good built-in documentation _exists_, I have after four years of Emacs as my primary editor not figured out how to actually make use of it, and rely completely on Google / StackOverflow for help.
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Top
Pro
Self documenting
Emacs has extensive help support built-in as well as a tutorial accessed with C-h t.
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Top
Con
User interface is terrible
I was using Emacs in the early 1980's, before there were GUIs. In fairness to Emacs, its original design was conceived in that context and is rather good at some things, like flexible ability to bind commands to keyboard shortcuts. Unfortunately, it didn't keep up with the times and fails to take advantage of the entire world of GUI design that's revolutionized computer science since then. So Emacs does 5% or what an editor should do quite will, and is surprisingly under-powered and old fashioned at the other 95%. To this day, it lacks or struggles with very basic things, like interactive dialogs, toolbars, tabbed interface, file system navigation, etc., etc. The things I just mentioned, are all present in some limited and inept form, but falls far short of current standard of good user interface design. For this reason, I would not recommend Emacs to anyone who is under 50 year old, or who needs power user capabilities. For casual, unsophisticated applications by someone who grew up with green screen character based computers, it's probably OK.
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Pro
Free
Licensed under GNU GPL.
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Con
Emacs lisp is very poorly designed
The language that's used for user customization, extensions, and for much of the basic editor functionality, is Emacs lisp, or elisp for short. I actually like lisp in general, especially Scheme, but unfortunately, elisp is one of the worst versions of lisp ever created, barely meriting being called lisp. It's very slow, impoverished in features, inconsistent, and rather inelegant in design. Elisp needed to be overhauled 20 or 30 years ago, but the Emacs developers were not willing to do the work. I believe this is one of the major reasons Emacs is so buggy, lacking in features, development is so slow, and consequently almost nobody uses it (or should use it) anymore.
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Pro
Great documentation
With 30+ years of use the Emacs documentation is very thorough. There are also a lot of tutorials and guides written by third parties.
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Con
Very poorly maintained
It's not clear to what extent Emacs is still supported. There's still some development taking place, but so slow that it's almost an abandoned project. There are numerous bugs in Emacs, many these days associated with start up and package management. When you search the Internet for solutions, you often find many posts, sometimes going back months or even years, with no clear fix.
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Pro
Vi keybindings through Evil mode
Evil mode emulates vim behaviors within Emacs. It enables Vi users to move inside the Emacs universe.
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Top
Con
Hard customization
For customization, you need to learn Lisp.
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Pro
Provides org-mode
Advanced planning and publication which can start as a simple list.
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Con
A lot of jokes in this serious software
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Top
Pro
Enormous range of functionalities (way beyond simple "text editing")
Through its programmability, a very broad range of functionalities can be integrated in emacs, turning it even into a "single point of contact" with the underlying operating system.
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Top
Con
Using Emacs on a new machine without your .emacs file
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Pro
Cross-platform
Works on Linux, Windows, Macintosh, BSD, and others.
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Pro
Integrates planning in your development process
You can jump straight from your org-mode files to programming tasks - and back - and build a seamless workflow.
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Pro
Versatile
Emacs is great for everything.
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Pro
Mini buffer
You can pass complicated arguments in the mini buffer.
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Pro
Ubiquity
Fully compliant GNU-emacs is available on many platforms, and they all understand .emacs configuration files.
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Pro
Rectangular cut and paste
Emacs can select rectangularly.
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Pro
Lisp customizations
With lisp customization, any behavior of Emacs can be changed. Update with pre-release patch can be also applied without recompiling the whole Emacs.
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Top
Pro
Visual selection and text objects with Evil
Evil is an extensible vi layer for Emacs. It provides Vim features like Visual selection and text objects.
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Top
Pro
dabbrev-expand (Alt-/)
Dynamic word completion.
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Top
Pro
Support multi-line editing, multiple frame, powerful paren, crazy jumping style
Review the "Emacs Rocks" video.
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Pro
Has been widely used for a long time
The first verion of Emacs was written in 1974 and GNU Emacs in 1984.
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Pro
Helm plugin adds even more power to Emacs
Powerful commands, search, and more with the Helm plugin.
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Pro
GTK+ widgets support
Since version 25 you can run GTK widgets inside Emacs buffers. One of these is the WebKitGTK+, which allows the user to run a full-featured web browser inside Emacs with JavaScript and CSS support among other things.
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Pro
Excelent tutorial to get you started
The tutorial you are presented with at startup shows you exactly what you need to get started and teaches you how to use the built-in help yourself later.
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Pro
Interactive Shells
Emacs has a number of shell variants: ansi-term, shell, and eshell.
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Pro
Emacs provides magit, the best and most complete GIT interface
Complex git history editing become a breeze with very few keystrokes. And simple ones are quickly stashed in muscle memory. Git becomes an direct extension of your brain thanks to Magit. Cherrypicking, blaming, resetting, interactive rebasing, line level commit, spinoff branches... you name it, magit already has it and has typically all those 5 to 10 git CLI commands of higher-level patterns also tide to one simple shortcut (want to amend a commit three commits away ? forgot to branch out and you've got already N commits on master ? ... etc... ).
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Gnus
Managing several large mailing lists has never been easier using Gnus. The threading commands and the various ways of scoring articles means that I never miss important messages/authors, etc. A joy to use.
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Eshell is cross platform
You can use the underlying operating system shell as a terminal emulation in an Emacs buffer. Don't like the default shell for your configuration? You can change it to your liking.
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Excellent Lisp editing support
Built-in packages make editing Lisp source code feel natural.
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Use-package and org-mode
Missing some neural package that predicts actions, maybe in the next release ...
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Specs
Platforms:
Unix-like, macOS, Windows, Cygwin
License:
GPL-3.0-or-later
Multi Language Support:
Yes
Auto Complete:
Yes
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Vim
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Experiences
Pros
30
Cons
15
Specs
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Pro
Lightweight and fast
When compared to modern graphical editors like Atom and Brackets (which have underlying HTML5 engines, browsers, Node, etc.), Vim uses a sliver of the system's memory and it loads instantly, all the while delivering the same features. Vim is also faster than Emacs.
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Con
High effort to customize
A lot of time and effort is put in to make it specific to your needs.
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Free and open-source software
Vim is open-source, GPL-compatible charityware.
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Con
Difficult learning curve
You'll spend a lot of time learning all the commands and modes supported in Vim. You'll then spend more time tuning settings to your needs. Although once it's tuned to your needs, you can take your .vimrc to any machine you need and have the same experience across all your computers.
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Pro
Works in terminal over SSH
Unlike other editors such as Sublime Text, Vim is a command line editor and hence can be used in remote development environments like Chromebooks via SSH.
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Con
Difficult to copy, paste, and delete
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Pro
Extremely portable
Vi/vim exists on almost all Unix-like platforms. It's the de-facto Unix editor and is easily installed on Windows. All you need to make it work is a text-based connection, so it works well for remote machines with slow connections, or when you're too lazy to set up a VNC/Remote Desktop connection.
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Con
Poor support for external tooling
Many plugins depend on optional Python and Lua features, which may or may not be included in whatever binaries are available for your system. And without platform-specific hacks, it is difficult for plugins to operate in the background or use external tooling.
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Pro
Keyboard-based, mouse-free interface, and trackpad support
There's no need to reach for the mouse or the Ctrl/Alt buttons again. Everything is a mere key press or two away with almost 200 functions specifically for text editing. Vim does support the mouse, but it's designed so you don't have to use it for greater efficiency. Versions of Vim, like gVim or MacVim, still allow you to use the mouse and familiar platform shortcuts. That can help ease the learning curve and you'll probably find you won't want to (or need to) use the mouse after a while.
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Con
Poor feature discoverability
Though basic features like syntax checking, autocompletion, and file management are all available out of the box or with minimal configuration, this is not obvious to new users, who might get intimidated or assume they need to install complex plugins just so they can have this functionality. Other features new users might expect to find embedded in Vim, such as debugging, instead follow a UNIX-style model where they are called as external programs, the output of which might then be parsed by Vim so it can display results. Users not familiar with this paradigm will likely fault Vim for lacking those features as well.
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Pro
Great productivity
Vim's keyset is mainly restricted to the alphanumeric keys and the escape key. This is an enduring relic of its teletype heritage, but has the effect of making my ost of Vim's functionality accessible without frequent awkward finger reaches.
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Con
No smooth scrolling
Even with the GUI version, the lines jiggle line-by-line. If you are used to smooth scrolling, this is very annoying, especially when working with larger files.
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Pro
Macros increase productivity
Many text editors have programmable macros, but since Vim is keyboard-based, your programmed macros are usually far more predictable and easier to understand.
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Con
Doesn't play nice with the system cut/paste mechanisms
This can be worked around somewhat if you disable mouse for insert mode. You can then right-click your terminal and use paste like you would anywhere else in a terminal. But it still doesn't feel right when the rest of your system uses Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V, and you have a system clipboard manager, and so forth.
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Pro
Excellent performance
As it loads the whole file into RAM, replacing all string occurrences in 100 MB+ files is quick and easy. Every other editor has sort of died during that. It is extremely fast even for cold start. Vim is light-weight and very compact. In terminal, it only uses a small amount of memory and anytime you invoke Vim, it's extremely fast. It's immediate, so much so you can't even notice any time lag.
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Con
Outdated UI
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Pro
Tons of plugins/add-ons
This makes Vim the definitive resource for every environment (Ruby/Rails, Python, C, etc.), or simply just provides more information in your view.
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Con
Requires Brain Mode Switching
When editing in vim, you have you use the vim keys; when editing in every other window on your PC, or in Word or Excel or other application, you need to use the standard system key combinations. Learning the vim combinations can actually make you SLOWER at everything else.
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Pro
Everything is mnemonic
No need to memorize different key combinations for things like deleting the text inside of a block or deleting the text inside of a pair of quotes. It's just a series of actions, or nouns and verbs, or however you prefer to think about it. If you want to delete, you select "d"; if you want it to happen inside something, you select "i"; and if you want the surrounding double-quotes, just select ". But if you were changing the text, or copying it, or anything else, you'd still use the same "i" and ". This makes it very easy to remember a large number of different extremely useful commands, without the effort it takes to remember all of the Emacs "magic incantations", for example.
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Con
Slow when opening files with very long lines
A lot of very long lines can make Vim take up to a minute to open files, where a few other editors take only seconds to load the same file.
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Pro
Vimtutor
Vimtutor is an excellent interactive tutorial for people with no prior experience of Vim. It takes about 30 minutes to complete.
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Con
Consume brain energy for editing that should be used for logic
Text editing in vim is awesome, but it requires thinking about combination of commands. In other editors, you don't have to think about how to delete this part of code. You just think about how to implement a feature, what is a good design for this code. Even after you get used to using vim, it still requires your brain for editing.
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Pro
Amazing extensibility
Vimscript provides a rich scripting functionality to build upon the core of Vim. When combined with things like Tim Pope's Pathogen plugin management system, it becomes easy to add support for syntax, debugging, build systems, git, and more.
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Con
Foreign keyboards have a hard time on Vim out of the box
A lot of frequently-used keybinds are way harder to access on foreign keyboards because they use different layouts. For example, Germans use the QWERTZ layout, while French use the AZERTY.
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Pro
Usable from a Terminal or with a GUI (GVim, MacVim)
If you happen to be logged into SSH, you can use Vim in a terminal. It can also run with a GUI too.
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Con
Unintuitive mode switching
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Pro
Has been supported for a long time
And will be supported for many years to come.
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Con
Extensibility isn't that great
While it has gotten better and some projects are slowly starting to build proper extension support, it still can't and by design never will achieve the extensibility of another editor like emacs.
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Pro
Once learned, it's very hard to forget
Vim's somewhat steep learning curve is more than made up for once you've mastered a few basic concepts and learned the tricks that allow you to program faster with fewer cut/paste mistakes.
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Con
Works poorly out of the box with right-to-left
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Pro
Can never outgrow it
The fact that very few, if any, people claim to be a "Vim Master" is a testament to the breadth and depth of Vim. There is always something new to learn - a new, perhaps more efficient, way to use it. This prevents Vim from ever feeling stale. It's always fresh.
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Pro
Flexible feature-set
Vim allows users to include many features found in IDEs and competing editors, but does not force them all on the user. This not only helps keep it lighter in weight than a lot of other options, but it also helps ensure that some unused features will not get in the way.
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Pro
Has multiple distinct editing modes
Interaction with Vim is centered around several "modes", where purpose and keybindings differ in each. Insert mode is for entering text. This mode most resembles traditional text entry in most editors. Normal mode (the default) is entered by hitting ESC and converts all keybindings to center around movement within the file, search, pane selection, etc. Command mode is entered by hitting ":" in Normal mode and allows you to execute Vim commands and scripts similar in fashion to a shell. Visual mode is for selecting lines, blocks, and characters of code. Those are the major modes, and several more exist depending on what one defines as a "mode" in Vim.
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Pro
By default in Linux
All Linux distributions out there will have Vim built into them, which is highly convenient!
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Pro
Vim encourages discipline
If you use Vim long enough, it will rewire your brain to be more efficient.
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Pro
Useful undo features
Vim does not only offer unlimited undo levels, later releases support an undo tree. It eventually gives the editor VCS-like features. You can undo the current file to any point in the past, even if a change was already undone again. Another neat feature is persistent undo, which enables to undo changes after the file was closed and reopened again.
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Pro
Donations and support to Vim.org helps children in Uganda through ICCF Holland
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Built-in package management
Starting with Vim 8, a package manager has been built into Vim. The package manager helps keep track of installed plugins, their versions and also only loads the needed plugins on startup depending on the file type.
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Pro
If you can use Vim you can also use vi
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Pro
Works on Android
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Pro
Productivity enhancing modal paradigm
As with all vi-like editors, Vim provides a modal paradigm for text editing and processing that provides a rich syntax and semantic model for composing succinct, powerful commands. While this requires some initial investment in learning how it works in order to take full advantage of its capabilities, it rewards the user well in the long run. This modal interface paradigm also lends itself surprisingly well to many other types of applications that can be controlled by vi-like keybindings, such as browsers, image viewers, media players, network clients (for email and other communication media), and window managers. Even shells (including zsh, tcsh, mksh, and bash, among others) come with vi-like keybinding features that can greatly enhance user comfort and efficiency when the user is familiar with the vi modal editing paradigm.
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Pro
Asynchronous I/O support
Since Vim 8, Vim can exchange characters with background processes asynchronously. This avoids the problem of the text editor getting stuck when a plugin that had to communicate with a server was running. Now plugins can send and receive data from external scripts without forcing Vim to freeze.
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Pro
Can set up keymapping
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Multiple clipboards
It is called "registers".
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Status Booster
Using vim not just increase your productivity, but helps you flex.
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Specs
Platforms:
Linux, macOS, Windows, Cygwin
License:
Vim License
Price:
0
Extension language:
Vim
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