When comparing Syntaxic 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 Syntaxic is ranked 38th. 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 Cross-platform
Syntaxic is available on Windows, OSX, and Linux.
Pro Built-in Shell
Syntaxic has a built-in terminal emulator.
Pro Code completion
Syntaxic offers symbol completion.
Pro SSH editing
Syntaxic permits editing files through SSH and it also supports features such as sudo
, su
, and tunneling.
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 Lacks file preview
There's no file preview in Syntaxic when selecting a file in the file tree.
Con Can't load binary files
An error results when you try to load a binary file in Syntaxic.
Con Can't switch syntax highlighting on the fly
Con Non-intuitive controls.
For example, you can only move tabs inside of group, not to other groups, or to a new window by dragging and dropping.
Con Not free
Syntaxic needs a license code to work which costs $20 until version 1.0 hits, and once it does it will be $35.
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.