When comparing Ash Editor vs Textadept, the Slant community recommends Textadept for most people. In the question“What are the best open-source text editors for programming?” Textadept is ranked 9th while Ash Editor is ranked 35th. The most important reason people chose Textadept is:
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.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Multi-file and multi tab & window support
Pro Easy to learn
Uses commonly used key bindings.
Pro Great looking
Pro Feature rich
Pro Cross platform
Pro Terminal based
Pro Open source
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.
Pro Cross-platform
It's available for Windows, Mac and Linux.
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.
Pro Scriptable
Has a built-in lua engine.
Cons
Con Slow for large files
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.