When comparing Context vs SlickEdit, the Slant community recommends SlickEdit for most people. In the question“What are the best programming text editors?” SlickEdit is ranked 18th while Context is ranked 69th. The most important reason people chose SlickEdit is:
SlickEdit supports over 50 programming languages on nine platforms.
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Pros
Pro Allows for extension grouping
You can turn the groups on/off so you can (just an example) have ones only for work and then after coming home you can turn on two other groups with shopping being the third one.
Pro Extensive support for programming languages
SlickEdit supports over 50 programming languages on nine platforms.
Pro Built-in beautifier
The beautifier formats code as you type to help improve readability and consistency.
Pro Compiler tools
Pro Scriptable
Write custom macro commands, functions, dialogs and tool windows.
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.)
Pro Extensive configuration options
Pro Easy access to Visual Studio workspace
SlickEdit opens Visual Studio workspace with no conversions needed.
Pro Symbol analysis support
There are powerful symbol analysis features in SlickEdit, including context tagging and references.
Pro Integrated debuggers for multiple languages
Integrated debuggers for GNU C++, Java, Python, Perl, Ruby, and PHP.
Pro Multi-Platform
Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, AIX, HP-UX, Solaris SPARC, Solaris x86
Pro Portable mode
Possibility to set up a portable installation, to run on a USB drive for example.
Pro Easy access to XCode projects
SlickEdit opens XCode projects with no conversions needed.
Pro Third party tool integration
Pro Popular version control system
Cons
Con Disables extensions
This does not hide/show extensions (to clean up the clutter if you have many extensions), it actually disables or enables them.
Con No command line option
This is a visual only editor
Con It's kinda slow
If you have a very large project or tag database, it can hang the UI.