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4.7 star rating
0
What is the best alternative to Programmer's Notepad?
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Light Table
All
4
Experiences
Pros
3
Specs
Top
Pro
Inline evaluation
With LT's inline evaluation, you don't have to re-compile your whole source file. Each time you want to see an output, all you have to do is hover your cursor over the line you'd like to evaluate and press ctrl+enter; LT will evaluate that line of code for you.
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Pro
Your code runs live as you write it
The "Watches" feature lets you see your code running live as you type it. This means that you can debug your code live while writing it, which leads to considerably less programming errors.
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Pro
Plugin manager available
LT has a plugin manager built directly inside of it. This plugin manager connects to LT's own registry of plugins, so whenever you want assistance while writing your HTML, JS, or even Python, just open up the plugin manager, search for it, and click the little install button beside it's name. Your plugin will then be installed.
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows, Linux, Mac
License:
MIT
Integrated Debugger:
REPL
Collaborative editing:
No
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61
31
Textadept
All
7
Experiences
Pros
5
Cons
1
Specs
Top
Pro
Has both GUI and TUI
Both text and GUI versions behave mostly the same, just the way notepad users would expect it to. Like shift+arrows - select, Ctrl+c - copy, Ctrl+o - open a file.
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Con
Community
Does not have an IRC channel or some kind of forum where a community of developers/plugin writers could evolve around. Has a mailing list which is said to be active but that does not feel that attractive.
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Pro
Cross-platform
It's available for Windows, Mac and Linux.
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Pro
Easily written plugins
You can write plugins pretty easily. Here is the API doc, quite compact. Here is a module which adds a support for ctags.
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Pro
Small and portable
Has very few dependencies, and very small footprint. Can be copied to a new system in a moment, unpacked and be at your service.
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Pro
Scriptable
Has a built-in lua engine.
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows, macOS, Linux, BSD
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Experiences
Free
43
3
PSPad
All
12
Experiences
Pros
8
Cons
3
Specs
Top
Pro
Free
PSPad is completely free to download and use.
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Top
Con
Windows only
It's only available for Windows.
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Top
Pro
Simple and small
PSPad is simple, small, and lightweight. It's also quite fast.
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Top
Con
No code folding
Does not support code folding.
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Pro
Code highlighting for many languages
PSPad supports code highlighting for several languages.
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Top
Con
No content assist
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Pro
Portable version
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Pro
Column mode
Editing in column mode.
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Pro
Integrated HEX editor
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Pro
Accented words
In PSPad, the user can add accents to words.
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Pro
Integrated FTP client
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows
License:
Freeware
Multi Language Support:
Yes
Auto Complete:
Yes
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Experiences
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18
3
Kate
All
10
Experiences
Pros
8
Cons
1
Specs
Top
Pro
Integrated terminal
Has a terminal that can sync to the location of your document, letting you compile or run your program quickly or run quick commands, all without leaving the editor.
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Top
Con
Hard to install on Windows or OS X
Kate can be a little hard to install and configure, especially for beginners. On Linux or BSD, it can be easily installed from your distribution's repositories.
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Pro
Project mode
Kate allows you to make projects to simplify the organisation of your code. This brings in additional organization of an IDE without the overhead.
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Pro
Fast and minimaistic
Kate is pretty fast and lightweight. This helps it with it's start up speed.
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Pro
Syntax highlighting
Kate supports syntax highlighting for over 180 languages, from Assembler to Zsh.
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Pro
Edit over FTP, SSH, or other protocols
Kate uses KDE's input and output libraries to read and write files, allowing seamless integration with FTP, SMB, SFTP, and many other protocols.
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Pro
Thriving plugin ecosystem
Lots of plugins allow Kate to expand or shrink based on your needs. It includes GDB integration, XML completion, and symbol viewing to speed up programming.
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Pro
By far one of the best and lightest text editors.
Notepads alternative (for the Windows users).
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Pro
Vi entry mode
Kate has a vi entry mode.
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows, macOS, Linux, BSD
License:
LGPL-2.0-or-later, MIT
Collaborative editing:
No
RTL:
Yes
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Experiences
Free
148
19
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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Top
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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Top
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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Top
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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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
Editra
All
8
Experiences
Pros
6
Cons
1
Specs
Top
Pro
Very customizable
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Top
Con
UI is ugly and outdated
Editra's UI is rather ugly and outdated and the color scheme is not as sleek as the other options out there.
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Top
Pro
Small and portable
Editra's small size makes it extremely fast and portable. It can be uploaded in a USB drive and be used on the go.
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Top
Pro
Powerful
Editra can open more than 60 different types of source code, each with syntax highlighting and many other features. It also has many widgets that can be installed to make the user experience easier (you can download them from the main site).
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Top
Pro
Cross-platform and open source
Editra can run on Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. Its sources are easily available from the site.
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Top
Pro
Simple
Editra has a simple and very customizable UI.
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Top
Pro
Python IDE
It's written in Python and can also be used as a Python IDE. Just by extending it through the installation of additional features and widgets, Editra can become an IDE for any programming language it supports.
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows; OSX; Linux
License:
wxWindows
Column selection:
Yes
Supported keybinding styles:
Vi
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Experiences
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1
0
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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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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Pro
Easy access to Visual Studio workspace
SlickEdit opens Visual Studio workspace with no conversions needed.
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Top
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
SciTE
All
12
Experiences
Pros
8
Cons
3
Specs
Top
Pro
Flexible
It's property files allow for fine tweaks of its behavior, at a global or per language / project level. These textual settings might be confusing for those used to preference dialogs, but prove to be powerful, flexible, and fine grained.
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Top
Con
Hard to config
The configuration is mainly a file-based config, which can be unintuitive and difficult to use for new users.
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Top
Pro
Lightweight
With less than 2 MB of binary on Windows, SciTE starts instantly. Plus, if you don't need all the config, syntax files, blah, there's a 678k standalone .exe version. Nothing is going to beat that for lightweight and start-up times. Stick it in a folder that is already on your PATH.
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Con
Missing file browser
SciTE's greatest weakness is perhaps the file browser. It does not really have one, just a poor substitute which works a little bit like a terminal window with ls or dir commands to show the files in a directory.
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Pro
Powerful
Based on the Scintilla source code editor, SciTE has some advanced features like rectangular editing, simple regular expression search and replace, code folding, etc. It allows the user to launch a compiler or interpreter, and it can also interpret the error messages, jumping at the location they point to. Lua scripting is key to SciTE's power and flexibility. The Lua scripting language can be used to perform complex text transformations. It's relatively simple syntax and its large user-base makes it a great choice for a scripting feature.
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Con
Customization
No extensions, Themes.
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Top
Pro
Built-in shell
The console window can show the result of ran commands (like build current file, reporting warnings, and errors), but also accept interactive shell commands.
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Pro
Portable
SciTE works on Windows and Linux, and it also has a commercial port on MacOS.
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Top
Pro
Powerful syntax highlighting for numerous languages
Lexers providing folding and syntax highlighting are based on code, not on regular expressions. They support context, nesting, special rules, etc.
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Pro
Free (except on Mac) and open source
SciTE is written in C++, with lot of contributors, both to the core and to the numerous lexers.
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Pro
GUI
Has a simple graphical user interface
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows; OSX; *nix
License:
HPND
Supported remote file editing protocols:
None
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Experiences
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38
12
Synwrite
All
5
Experiences
Pros
3
Cons
1
Specs
Top
Con
Windows only
Synwrite is only available for Windows and it's not cross-platform.
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Top
Pro
Clean interface
Synwrite has a clean and beautiful UI.
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Top
Pro
Small size and portable
Synwrite's small size makes it very portable and usable even from a USB flash drive.
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Top
Pro
Built-in FTP support
Built-in support for FTP allows the user to transfer and exchange files between different computers and accounts.
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows
License:
MPL
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5
2
Vim
All
46
Experiences
Pros
30
Cons
15
Specs
Top
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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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
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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Top
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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Top
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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Pro
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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Pro
Multiple clipboards
It is called "registers".
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Pro
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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free
2402
445
Sublime Text
All
41
Experiences
Pros
28
Cons
12
Specs
Top
Pro
Lightweight
Sublime Text is very lightweight by default. Customization occurs on the fly thanks to Package Control.
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Con
Paid
Although paying for something good is far from a Con, having the competition this editor has and still have to pay for it is definitely a Con.
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Pro
Comfortable to work with
Sublime Text has a minimap on the side that provides a top-down view of the file and keyboard shortcuts for most actions. It also supports a large number of languages and general text editing features out of the box.
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Con
Proprietary
Sublime Text protects and copyrights its code and is thus not the freedom-ware some would like it to be.
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Pro
Multi-line select and editing
Multiple cursors and column selection allows for versatile ways of editing. ctrl + d will select the current word and each time the command is repeated, it adds the next occurrence of the word to the selection. ctrl + click or middle-mouse click will place another cursor in the place that's clicked. Cursors can then be controlled together. This also permits selecting vertically. ctrl + shift + l will place a cursor on every highlighted line.
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Con
Interruption while work
"Purchasing" messages box interrupts while saving file.
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Pro
Functionality can be easily extended
Sublime Text uses TextMate's syntax declaration files to support new languages, it has all its menus and keybindings generated from JSON files, and it can be scripted to add new features using Python. If Sublime Text doesn't support a desired language or feature, it's usually not long before someone implements it themselves - examples include the plugin package manager and the 'open in browser' command.
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Con
No printing of files
Sublime Texts offers no way of printing the files it edits.
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Pro
Beginner-friendly
When you start using Sublime Text, it doesn't drown you in keyboard shortcuts or non-intuitive use-concepts. However, high-level functionality can still be easily accessed when the need for it arises.
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Con
Not a full IDE
It does not necessarily function on a project level.
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Pro
Consistent cross-platform
Sublime Text looks consistently the same across Windows, OS X, and Linux.
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Con
Annoying whitespace management
All too often it does the wrong thing with indentation on otherwise blank lines.
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Pro
Fully customizable
Sublime Text allows for all sorts of customization to help users change almost everything in the editor: Key Bindings, Menus, Snippets, Macros, Completions, and many more. Essentially, just about everything in Sublime Text is customizable with simple JSON files. This system gives the user flexibility as settings can be specified on a per-file type and per-project basis.
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Con
Loading big files on Windows is slow
Here's a rough comparison: a 70 MB file takes about 2 seconds to load in Notepad++, whereas the same file in ST3 takes over 10 seconds to load.
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Pro
Very fast
Sublime is quick to start and never slows down. The UI is always responsive and you know what is happening in the background.
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Con
No toolbar
Sublime Text is more focused on keyboard users, meaning it doesn't come with a tool bar. Even plugins can't toggle bookmarks using the mouse.
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Pro
Has tons of plugins available
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Con
Slow development
While development has yet to stop on Sublime Text, it is significantly slower than its competitors Atom, VSCode, and others.
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Pro
Installable package manager
The package manager is a plugin and can be swapped with something else custom.
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Con
Inadequate language support
Sublime Text offers poor support for Far-East languages in Linux.
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Pro
IDE features without the cruft
Sublime Text, while being lighter-weight than an IDE, still supports many IDE features. Text from the current file is used to provide autocomplete. Project Support (folder browsing, scoped history, build-system declarations). Refactoring support is emulated through multi-select, project-wide find and replace, and regular expression search. Syntax-aware selection and GoTo for quickly jumping to locations in the project. Snippets and Macros. A Python console for everything else.
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Con
No RTL Support
Although it is a "text" editor, Sublime Text does not support rendering text written in Arabic or other right to left languages. The developers seems unwilling to fix this issue any time soon.
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Pro
Offers Command Palette
Command Palette allows for fuzzy searching all available settings, snippets, etc.
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Con
Often crashes due to poor quality plugins
Some plugins are quite buggy, meaning that installing many can become quite a problem regarding stability.
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Pro
Easy to get started
All you need to do when starting up is to install a package manager and modify user configuration.
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Pro
Regex commands
Regex commands help describe a certain amount of text.
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Pro
Customizable keymapping
From menus to commands, assign key maps to almost anything.
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Pro
Portable settings
Settings are modular and can be shared.
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Pro
Distraction free editing mode
Distraction free editing takes over your screen and removes every UI element so you can focus on code.
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Pro
Dynamic Build System
Choose from many build systems or craft your own.
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Pro
Freemium
A Sublime license can be bought but it can still be used for free. However, a pop-up appears when you save multiple times.
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Pro
Permits instant file switching
Open Goto Anything by pressing Ctrl or Command + P and by using fuzzy search you can look for a file in your project. The file will load even without pressing enter, so you can make sure you've found the correct file without committing.
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Pro
Multiple languages are supported
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Pro
Haxe and OpenFL integration via plugin
Both of these programming interfaces are cross-platform, open source, and easy to use.
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Pro
Direct server upload
Provides command line shortcut for server upload.
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Top
Pro
Projects support multiple folders and git repos
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Pro
Allows for Vim-style editing
Vintage mode is Vim-style editing that's already built into the text editor.
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Pro
Support for TextMate themes and window decoration themes
Sublime Text compatibility with Textmate bundles is good, but excludes commands, which are incompatible. In general, Sublime Text syntax definitions are compatible with Textmate language files (.tmLanguage extension).
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Pro
Highly Theme-able
Create your own theme with online editor.
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Pro
Functionalities
With lot of functionalities, where other editor even not think to provide.
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows, macOS, Linux
License:
Proprietary
Multi Language Support:
Yes
Auto Complete:
Yes
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Free / Paid
1514
325
Visual Studio Code
All
39
Experiences
Pros
24
Cons
14
Specs
Top
Pro
Extendable through plug-ins
Visual Studio Code comes fairly complete out of the box, but there are many plug-ins available to extend its functionality.
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Top
Con
Embedded Git isn't powerful enough
You can do nothing but to track changes, stage them and commit. No history, visualization, rebasing or cherry-picking – these things are left to git console or external git client.
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Top
Pro
TypeScript integration
There is very solid TypeScript integration in Visual Studio Code. Both are developed by Microsoft and VSC itself is written in TypeScript.
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Con
The autocomplete and code check is not as powerful as the one on WebStorm
Sometimes it doesn't tell you if you made a typo in a method name or if a method is not used and several other important features.
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Pro
Integrated debugging
VSC includes debugging tools for Node.js, TypeScript, and JavaScript.
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Top
Con
File search is extremely slow
It's absolutely not possible to use this tool with big projects given how long it takes to search for files.
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Top
Pro
Ready to use out of the box
You don't need to configure and add plugins before being productive. However, you can add plugins if needed but for the basics you're well covered.
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Top
Con
Project search limits results
Because file search is so slow your results are limited in order to simulate a faster search.
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Top
Pro
Integrated terminal
There's no need to press alt+tab to go to a terminal: it is directly integrated into the editor. Shift+~ is a handy hotkey to toggle the integrated terminal.
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Top
Con
Very bad auto import
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Pro
Great performance
For a 'wrapped' web-based application, Visual Studio Code performs very well.
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Top
Con
Generalized
VS Code is a general code/scripting IDE built to be lightweight and for people familiar with their language of choice, not directly comparable to Visual Studio in power or scope.
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Top
Pro
Libre/open source
Released under the MIT License.
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Con
Memory hog
Allegedly, VS Code is "lightweight". Yet, running multiple instances of it at once, you may get many "out of memory" messages from Windows despite 16 GB RAM. (While of course also running other things. The point is the comparison with some other IDEs/editors where running them alongside the same number of other applications doesn't cause Windows to run out of memory)
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Pro
Fast and powerful
VS-Code has the speed of Sublime and the power of WebStorm. Perhaps this is the best software that Microsoft has ever created.
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Top
Con
Poor error fix suggestions
Error detection and suggestions/fixes are poor compared to IntelliJ platforms
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Top
Pro
JavaScript IntelliSense support
JavaScript IntelliSense allows Visual Studio Code to provide you with useful hints and auto-completion features while you code.
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Top
Con
A "me too" offering from MS, far behind other well established editors that it attempts to clone
Other IDEs specific to a language often offer better tools for deep programming.
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Pro
Embedded Git control
Visual Studio Code has integrated Git control, guaranteeing speed, data integrity, and support for distributed, non-linear workflows.
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Top
Con
Slow launch time
Slower than it's competitors, e.g. Sublime Text.
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Top
Pro
Updated frequently
There's a new release of Visual Studio Code every month. If you are one of the insiders then releases are daily.
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Top
Con
Emmet plugin often fails on even simple p tags
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Pro
ESLint integration
ESLint integrates great. You can define your rules trough .eslintrc.* as usual and vs code will autofix your code on save. So your code is always in style.
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Top
Con
Have no good default js style analyzer
In WebStorm there is analyzer that checks for warnings and highlight this in yellow, here you cannot find or add it even with plugins. It is possible to have it as errors with linter but while you are actively changing file that's not very nice.
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Top
Pro
Extensions (aka plugins) are written in JavaScript
Extensions are written in either Typescript or JavaScript.
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Con
.sass linting is terrible
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Pro
Active development
It's really nice to see how the code editor evolves. Every month there is a new version with great communication of new features and changes.
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Con
Is not an IDE, is a text editor
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Pro
Integrated task runners
Task runners display lists of available tasks and performing these tasks is as simple as a click of the mouse.
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Pro
It has gotten really good
All it takes is one stop for all the features many people need.
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Pro
Custom snippets support
Snippets are templates that will insert text for you and adapt it to their context, and in VSC they are highly customizable.
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Pro
Huge community behind it
The ease of getting assistance and finding tutorials is increasing as the community grows.
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Pro
JS typechecking
It leverages TypeScript compiler functionality to statically type check JS (type inference, JSDoc types) with "javascript.implicitProjectConfig.checkJs": true option.
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Pro
Python support
Excellent Python plugin, originally created by Don Jayamanne, now hired by Microsoft to extend and maintain the extension.
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Pro
Good support for new Emmet syntax
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Pro
High fidelity C# plugin
The Omnisharp plugin is very powerful providing full sln, csproj, and project.json support.
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Pro
Support RTL languages
It supports pretty web rtl languages like arabic languages when most of other editors don't support it.
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Top
Pro
Inline definition picking and usages finding
These features allow you to have a glance at code without opening it as a whole in a separate tab. Moreover, editing is allowed.
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows, macOS, Linux
License:
MIT, Proprietary (official builds)
Multi Language Support:
Yes
Auto Complete:
Yes
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Experiences
FREE
4160
832
Codelobster
All
8
Experiences
Pros
6
Cons
2
Top
Pro
Advanced support for all popular frameworks
Including Laravel, Bootstrap. jQuery, WordPress, Drupal, Yii and so on.
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Con
You need to sign up to get a free serial number for the free version
In order to use the free version of Codelobster, you have to sign up and get a free account. This is done to help stopping piracy, but it's still pretty jarring when all you want to do is install a program.
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Pro
Special support for JQuery through the jQuery plugin
The jQuery support (when you install the jQuery plugin) is great. It adds function definitions so that autocomplete works as intended. Furthermore, the IDE knows about the logic of the different libraries and frameworks and can understand that $(this) refers to a jQuery instance.
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Con
Expensive
For the Pro version (which includes all the available plug-ins), the cost is $99.95. The lite version (without plugins) is $39.95.
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Top
Pro
Great HTML, CSS and JavaScript autocomplete
Codelobster has great HTML, CSS, JavaScript and PHP autocomplete
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Pro
Free version available
There is a free version available for download; it comes with a lot of features that you would find in an IDE.
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Pro
Portable option available
Codelobster IDE offers a lightweight, portable option.
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Pro
Hovering over a CSS property shows you which browsers are supported by that property
This is a really nice feature as it immediately shows you the browsers that support a certain CSS property. Of course, it does not beat actual testing, but it's still a nice feature that saves developers a lot of time.
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Experiences
$0 - $99.95
32
13
Notepad++
All
20
Experiences
Pros
12
Cons
7
Specs
Top
Pro
Syntax highlighting for a wide variety of languages
Notepad++ has built-in support for syntax highlighting for a wide selection of programming languages.
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Con
Windows-only
While it can run in Wine, it is native only to Windows. Linux users will have to use Notepadqq instead.
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Pro
Light and fast
Notepad++ is a very light program that starts almost instantly. This makes it a great text editor for users that want something that will start the second they open it.
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Top
Con
Settings confusingly scattered
Examples: try to change the tab size or used font.
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Top
Pro
Extendable via plugins
A list of hundreds of plugins is maintained.
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Top
Con
Annoying update notifications upon start-up
Annoying update notifications tend to pop up upon start-up after not having used the app or machine for a few days. At the same time, they can be easily turned off.
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Top
Pro
Portable
You can get a portable version of N++ and put it on a flash drive or your dropbox account and have your editor, configured the way you like, at any computer that you are on.
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Top
Con
Outdated UI
Only the text area can be themed, and it doesn't have as many features as browser-based text areas.
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Pro
Free under GPL
Notepad++ is licensed under GPL, which means it is free/open source software that you can use freely.
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Top
Con
Limited new syntax support for new languages
It may be hard to find good plugins for relatively new languages.
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Top
Pro
Regex replace in selection, active tab, or all tabs
In Notepad++, the user can utilise regular expressions to quickly modify text across multiple files.
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Con
Session backups not enabled by default
Unsaved tabs will be lost when Npp crashes, unless you first enable the session backup option.
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Pro
Persistent documents, even after exiting the application
If you close Notepad++ (npp), your documents remain even if you haven't saved.
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Con
User defined language doesn't support triple quote strings
It also doesn't support triple hashed comments. Both styles are overridden by their single character single line version.
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Top
Pro
User defined language syntax support
You can define your own custom syntax highlighting rules (or add support for others) .
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Pro
Easy to use and admin
Very easy to use and personalize.
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Top
Pro
Multi-line editing
While it is disabled by default, when enabled, it is possible to edit more than one line at a time. This is helpful in many situations.
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Pro
Split screen
The user can open and edit files in multiple screens within the editor window.
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Pro
Supports Markdown
If you have the Plugin Manager installed you can search for MarkdownViewer++ and install it via that plugin.
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows
License:
GPL-3.0-or-later
Multi Language Support:
Yes
Auto Complete:
Yes
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Experiences
Free
579
161
Gedit
All
8
Experiences
Pros
3
Cons
4
Specs
Top
Con
Last line bug
Sometimes the last line of text is not visible.
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Top
Pro
Plugins allow for added functionality and customization
There are tons of plugins for productivity available in many different workflows, such as a dictation plugin, an encryption add-on, a whitespace remover, and more.
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Top
Con
Confusing interface
For example, finding anything in the settings menu is hard. Most other text editors use Edit->Preferences for managing settings but this is not the case for Gedit.
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Top
Pro
Great UI
The UI is lean and minimal. Everything feels quite fast and it is easy to add custom shortcuts for doing things like compiling, deploying, or testing.
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Con
Faster than Atom but Slower than Geany
Not bad editor. Very similar to Geany, but Geany works faster and has more features.
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Top
Pro
Available on all systems that use Gnome
Gedit is the official text editor for Gnome and it's available wherever any version of Gnome is installed. With thousands of people using it daily and not even realizing it.
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Con
Not a lot of features
Gedit is a text editor. Though it's simple and fast, it misses a lot of features, most notably auto-complete for several languages.
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows; OSX; *nix
License:
GPL
Collaborative editing:
plug-in
Supported remote file editing protocols:
FTP; HTTP; SSH; WebDAV
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Experiences
Free
69
28
Slap
All
6
Experiences
Pros
3
Cons
2
Specs
Top
Con
Requires node.js
Slap is written in JavaScript and it requires something to interpret it in a local machine. That something is node.js, but for people who don't need node, it would be a hindrance and an overkill to install node just to use a simple text editor. Furthermore, it can only be used remotely if the remote machine has node installed.
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Top
Pro
First-class mouse support
Slap supports mouse keybindings even though it works inside the terminal and also through SSH.
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Con
CLI only
Slap only runs through the terminal.
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Top
Pro
Uses desktop-like keybindings
Slap features configurable keybindings (Ctrl+S, Ctrl+Z, etc).
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Top
Pro
Great terminal interface
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows; OSX; Linux
License:
MIT
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here
14
11
Textpad
All
9
Experiences
Pros
5
Cons
3
Specs
Top
Pro
Highly efficient
Textpad can handle large text files very quickly.
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Top
Con
Macros are not editable
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Top
Pro
Fast and features macros
Text Pad is fast and supports macros for easy handling of repetitive tasks.
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Top
Con
No bold/italics
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Top
Pro
Large number of syntax highlighting add-ons
It's easy to add a new syntax highlighted language to TextPad.
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Top
Con
Disappointing keyboard shortcuts
The keyboard shortcuts in Textpad are a little dated.
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Top
Pro
Search and Replace
Excellent regex functions to manipulate data in large text based (csv, php, etc) files.
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Pro
Easy to get started, especially for Java
When you require a minimal learning curve and a quick start to writing code, TextPad is one of the best choices. Especially for small Java projects, TextPad is the go-to editor.
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows
License:
Shareware
Bracket Matching:
Yes
Preview:
Download and use for free for 30 days
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Experiences
$3
10
0
CodeRunner
All
4
Experiences
Pros
2
Cons
1
Specs
Top
Con
Working with very very large projects
Code runner is fantastic for shorter projects, although it can handle very large projects. It stops code completion when the program gets to be several thousands of lines long.
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Top
Pro
Fast and efficient
You can have multiple tabs open with multiple languages in at the same time and Code Runner still performs excellently. Searching through code is always instant and executing code is fast.
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Top
Pro
Supports many different languages
Code Runner comes preinstalled with over 20 languages built in, and it's super easy to run simple programs.
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Specs
Platforms:
Mac
Hide
$14,99
21
1
Codiad
All
10
Experiences
Pros
5
Cons
5
Top
Pro
Open source
You can run Codiad on your server to allow you and your team to edit files. Simplest to run may be using a Docker image like linuxserver/codiad.
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Top
Con
Terminal runs as same user for everyone
No matter who is the logged in user, the Terminal plugin runs commands as the PHP user. This also affects the Git plugin in that there is a single SSH key for all users using your Codiad instance.
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Top
Pro
Easy to self-host: Only requires PHP
It only requires PHP 5+ and Nginx or Apache. No database is required. This makes it really easy to install on many servers include shared hosting.
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Top
Con
Full of small bugs
There are plenty of various issues and bug that may either be due to your setup and the UI will not report them, or due to bugs in the code; I'm including common plugins here as well (just naming a few: search files and in files may report nothing if it had an error, commands stderr not printed, marketplace not showing items, search in market place showing no results, Git escaping ( by \( in the commit message for no good reason...). Those are generally small but together it makes the product feel flawed.
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Top
Pro
Multi-line edit
Allows to edit multiple things are once by having multiple cursors like Sublime Text.
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Top
Con
Currently no search and replace in multiple files
There is a search in multiple files, and search & replace in current file, but not something to perform a search & replace in multiple files.
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Top
Pro
Has many easily installable plugins
Many plugins exist, from Terminal, Git to Collaboration and Emmet... Plugins can be installed by using the web interface, or by manually extracting files to the right directory.
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Top
Con
Terminal doesn't TTY
The terminal plugin for Codiad allows users to type some commands and see the outputs, but not interactive input is supported (i.e. stdin is closed). Meaning you cannot run Vim, Tmux or anything requiring user inputs.
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Top
Pro
Simple and easily managable GUI
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Con
Demo only lasts 30min
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Experiences
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here
4
0
Kakoune
All
13
Experiences
Pros
8
Cons
4
Specs
Top
Pro
Will be familiar to vim users
Kakoune first started as a rewrite from scratch of vim, but then ended up being another text editor altogether. So it's inspired in a lot of ways from vim.
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Con
Small community
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Pro
More modern than vim
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Con
No real Windows support
Will compile under CygWin.
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Top
Pro
Good UNIX citizen
It follows the UNIX philosophy by doing one thing well (text editing) and interfaces nicely with other CLI tools.
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Top
Con
Default bindings do not play nice with OS X (Alt+???)
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Top
Pro
Text selection mechanism
Kakoune works on selections, which are oriented, inclusive range of characters, selections have an anchor and a cursor character. Most commands move both of them, except when extending selection where the anchor character stays fixed and the cursor one moves around.
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Con
Written in C++
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Pro
Very expressive
Kakoune provides a very expressive set of commands, including various objects selection (paragraph, blocks, words), alignment support, conditional selection filtering... This set of command is expressive enough to implement all the provided auto indentation logic.
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Top
Pro
Actively developed and supported
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Top
Pro
Self-documenting
A helper pops up when typing commands.
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Top
Pro
Simpler and more consistent than Vim
Some keys select, other keys operate on the selections. Shift is used to extend the selection, alt is used for alternative behavior, e.g. reverse the search direction. No inconsistencies like Y which means yy and not y$ in Vim.
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Specs
Platforms:
Linux, macOS, Android
License:
Unlicense
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