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Add to SafariWhen comparing FlashDevelop vs Geany, the Slant community recommends Geany for most people. In the question“What are the best programming text editors?” Geany is ranked 3rd while FlashDevelop is ranked 41st. The most important reason people chose Geany is:
Geany is very lightweight thanks to the smaller offering of features.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Free
FlashDevelop comes without any cost.
Pro Haxe development support
FlashDevelop has first-class support for Haxe development, the open source toolkit based on a modern programming language and cross-platform library.
Pro Good code completion
FlashDevelop's code completion is pretty good.
Pro Excellent support for Actionscript 2 and 3 (Flash)
Although everyone claims Flash is dead, it's still quite useful for game developers due to its rapid compile and run times, as well as its great debugging functionality with FlashDevelop.
Pro Good number of project templates
While it's project template system is not the best compared to it's competitors, it still is decent and is a good way to generate some boilerplate code.
Pro XML/HTML completion
FlashDevelop has XML/HTML completion aside from code completion.
Pro .NET Framework 2.0 application
It's windows only, but has tremendous support from plugin developers and a dedicated team that's been developing it for close to 10 years.
Pro Source-control support (svn, git, mercurial)
Pro Great debugging
FlashDevelop provides very efficient debugging features.
Pro Supports Zen-coding for HTML
This is very useful for carrying out high-speed HTML coding and editing.
Pro Snippets
Pro Tasks/todo
Pro SWF/SWC exploration
Pro Great project compilation
FlashDevelop facilitates project compilation.
Pro Decent code generation
Although the code generation can't really be called top-notch, it's decent and sufficient for most developers.
Pro Light and fast
Geany is very lightweight thanks to the smaller offering of features.
Pro Built-in plugin manager
Geany has a built-in plugin manager which can be used to install plugins and add new powerful features to the editor.
Pro Quick search on large files
In Geany you technically search once for a whole search query, unlike Gedit, where once you start typing, the file is searched for in accordance with each substring of what you're typing, all the while leading to terribly annoying lag.
Pro Cross platform
Geany is a cross platform editor, very similar to Notepad++ in Windows.
Pro Build in terminal
Press F5 and code will run without the need to switch between windows.
Pro Actively developed Free (as in freedom) Software
This software respects your freedom.
Pro Real syntax parsing (not just coloring)
Hence it is capable of showing the methods and inner classes of, e.g., a Java source file.
Pro Simple project management
Pro Native
It is a real app and not another frankenstein web/electron app. This means it runs great and doesn't extraordinary amounts of RAM.
Pro Options in the menu are easy to find
For example, there is an easy way to change the font and theme in the View menu. No need to search through several syntax styles like in Notepad++ just to be able to change the used font.
Cons
Con Windows only
FlashDevelop is for Windows only, and it's not cross-platform either.
Con Haxe debugging is in its infancy
Although FlashDevelop supports breakpoint debugging on Flashplayers, native Haxe applications (C++) can't be easily debugged within FlashDevelop.
Con Not very advanced
Although it has some IDE features, it is not as advanced as some other text editors that can be extended to contain IDE functionality.
Con Windows installer not digitally signed
Con Not many third-party plugins
Geany is not as popular as some other text editors with plugin support. As such it's understandable that it's missing lots of powerful plugins available in other editors.
