- Simple and powerful text editor for Android, to open and save files. It can open more files at once, as it supports tabs. Added rich text styling options, so you can make your notes look just the way you want them! You can now save in.html or.htm formats and share your files with other apps. FEATURES ★ Open more documents at once in tabs ★ Change font bold, italics, underline, strike.
- Sublime Text is a sophisticated text editor for code, markup and prose. You'll love the slick user interface, extraordinary features and amazing performance.
Sublime Text is one of the sophisticated text html editors that let you select multiple lines at a time and can makes changes in them at the same time without any hassle. Sublime Text has the syntax highlight feature for many languages like HTML, C, C, C#, CSS, Java, JavaScript, PHP, Python, Ruby, and many more.
All Windows and Mac machines have basic text editors, but TextEdit and Notepad aren't sufficient for serious web developers. Fortunately, there is no shortage of alternatives. Below is a roundup of the best text editors in 2018 including free and premium options.
Why would you need a more advanced text editor?
Web and software developers use text editors to make code changes or start files from scratch using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, or any other programming language. If you don't know a file's format, you can open it with the text editor to view the source code. Text editors are also useful for removing formatting, font styles and hyperlinks from text. These tasks can be accomplished using the default text editors for Windows or Mac; however, if you're trying to create complex software or websites, a more advanced text editor can make the process much easier.
Best collaborative text editors
There are certain online-based text editors available which are built for collaborative use. Whether that be for interview purposes, team coding session, or easy code sharing, these collaborative text editors are great for easily getting more than one set of eyes on your code.
1. CodeShare
CodeShare is the first service that allows you to share your code in real time. It's extremely useful for remote hiring purposes, code reviews, debugging sessions, etc. One differentiator from CodeShare is that it also allows you to talk over video, which in some cases can prove to be quite beneficial.
You are required to port code over from your local development environment and it should be noted that code is only saved for 24 hours unless an account is created.
2. Codeanywhere
Codeanywhere provides a variety of useful features for coding on the go. It comes with an intuitive editor, allows you to connect remotely, has a built-in terminal console, and provides the ability to track revisions.
With Codeanywhere you can easily share files or complete project folders with any collaborator via a simple share link.
Codeanywhere does come with a free tier however also has plans starting at $2/month going to $40/month.
3. CodePen
CodePen is already known as a quite collaborative platform. You can create pens directly on the CodePen platform and share them with others. However, CodePen also comes with a Collab Mode which allows you and other collaborators to edit a pen at the same time.
Although Collab Mode does require a PRO subscription for the pen creator, collaborators aren't required to pay in order to make edits. Furthermore, this mode also comes with a handy chat feature so that you can discuss any changes with your team in real time.
Best free text editors in 2018
All of the options below support most major programming languages, but none of them support every single language. Before you download a text editor, check the maker's website to ensure that your language of choice is supported. If you're primarily developing websites, then these editors should be sufficient.
1. Atom
Atom is a relatively new (released in 2015) an open source editor that works for Mac, Windows and Linux. This highly customizable text editor is supported by a community of committed developers, so you'll have access to dozens of plugins and themes. Atom even comes with a built-in tool for creating your own plugins. Since the editor was made exclusively with web technologies like HTML, JavaScript and CSS, any experienced web developer should feel right at home with Atom.
2. Visual Studio Code
Like Atom, Visual Studio Code is still relatively new (also released in 2015) however has been successful in gaining quite a bit of traction since then. It is built to run cross-platform, has an extensive plugin ecosystem, and comes with a few welcoming features to make life easier including:
- Built-in Git commands
- IntelliSense, which goes beyond highlighting and autocompletion with smart completions
- Debugging directly from the editor
VSCode has also shown to be faster than other popular text editors such as Atom. Furthermore, if you prefer to work with minimal distractions, you can also enable VSCode's 'Zen Mode' which hides all menus/windows and maximizes the editor screen.
3. Brackets
Brackets was made with web developers in mind. Consequently, there are versions of Brackets for Linux, Windows and Mac. Don't be deceived by the simple UI; Brackets supports dozens of keyboard shortcuts in addition to advanced features like split-screen editing. With the Live Preview feature, you can watch your web pages update in real time as you edit CSS and HTML files. Plugins provide additional support for things like W3C validation and Python tools.
4. Notepad++
As an upgraded version of the default Notepad for Windows, Notepad++ does everything its namesake can do and much more. It allows you to open documents in tabs so that you can edit multiple files without having to open and close them. You can also control all the tabs simultaneously to compare documents for differences, search for text and replace text.
Notepad++ only works with Windows devices, of course, but there is a mobile version available. There are also plenty of plugins you can download to set up auto-save features, merge text from multiple documents and much more.
5. TextMate
TextMate is a great text editor exclusively for Mac users. This Apple Design Award-winning tool has all of the features you'd expect like search and replace, auto-indentation and word completion. You can code in any programming language, but TextMate also comes with a special tool specifically for building Xcode projects.
6. Vim
Vim was one of the best text editors when it was released in 1991, so the fact that it's on this list is a testament to this program's greatness. Even in 2018, developers are still producing new scripts and updates. Due to the editor's age, documentation and tutorials about Vim are easy to find. Vim works on all major platforms.
Check out our Vim commands cheat sheet for a complete overview of the Vim commands you need to know.
7. Komodo Edit
In addition to tabbed browsing, Komodo Edit offers numerous UI options to make editing as convenient as possible. For example, Focus Mode hides all other open windows so that you can concentrate on coding. Alternatively, you can choose to view folders on the side of the editor. An underrated but much-appreciated feature is the button that lets you return to your previous cursor location. If you need more advanced functionality like debugging, unit testing and code refactoring, check out.
Best paid text editors
1. Sublime Text
Just because Sublime Text is lightweight doesn't mean it lacks features. Sublime Text was built from the ground up with a Python API for developers who work with code all day long. Thanks to the editor's array of keyboard shortcuts, you can quickly navigate your code and make changes to multiple lines at once. Not only is Sublime Text cross-platform, but it utilizes the native functionalities of each OS to optimize speed and ease-of-use.
Sublime can be downloaded for evaluation for free however continued use requires the purchase of a license.
Price: $80
2. CoffeeCup HTML
As its name suggests, CoffeeCup HTML Editor is ideal for creating and managing HTML documents. Therefore, it's a popular option among web developers. Notable premium features include a code cleaner and HTML validation. There is a free version with fewer features, but you can try the full program for free for 21 days.
Price: $49
3. Coda
Coda remains one of the best text editors a full decade after its initial release. Like Dreamweaver, Coda is so feature-rich that it's practically an IDE. Coda is exclusively for Mac, so it was built with Apple lovers in mind. If you want a similar program for Windows, try UltraEdit.
Price: $99
4. BBEdit
Another Apple exclusive, BBEdit is the spiritual successor to TextWrangler. BB stands for bare bones, which is an apt description for BBEdit's interface, but this premium text editor supports advanced features like code folding and Git integration. Try the full version at no cost for 30 days.
Price: $49.99
Summary
If you're new to web development, start with an open source text editor like Atom or Bracket. Many of the free editors are powerful enough to meet the needs of most web projects. As you gain confidence in your coding capabilities, you may find such text editors too restrictive, so a premium option could be worth the investment if it can help you work faster and more efficiently.
A text editor is a type of computer program that edits plain text. Such programs are sometimes known as 'notepad' software, following the naming of Microsoft Notepad.[1][2][3] Text editors are provided with operating systems and software development packages, and can be used to change files such as configuration files, documentation files and programming languagesource code.[4]
Plain text vs. rich text[edit]
There are important differences between plain text (created and edited by text editors) and rich text (such as that created by word processors or desktop publishing software).
Plain text exclusively consists of character representation. Each character is represented by a fixed-length sequence of one, two, or four bytes, or as a variable-length sequence of one to four bytes, in accordance to specific character encoding conventions, such as ASCII, ISO/IEC 2022, UTF-8, or Unicode. These conventions define many printable characters, but also non-printing characters that control the flow of the text, such as space, line break, and page break. Plain text contains no other information about the text itself, not even the character encoding convention employed. Plain text is stored in text files, although text files do not exclusively store plain text. In the early days of computers, plain text was displayed using a monospace font, such that horizontal alignment and columnar formatting were sometimes done using whitespace characters. For compatibility reasons, this tradition has not changed.
Rich text, on the other hand, may contain metadata, character formatting data (e.g. typeface, size, weight and style), paragraph formatting data (e.g. indentation, alignment, letter and word distribution, and space between lines or other paragraphs), and page specification data (e.g. size, margin and reading direction). Rich text can be very complex. Rich text can be saved in binary format (e.g. DOC), text files adhering to a markup language (e.g. RTF or HTML), or in a hybrid form of both (e.g. Office Open XML).
Text editors are intended to open and save text files containing either plain text or anything that can be interpreted as plain text, including the markup for rich text or the markup for something else (e.g. SVG).
History[edit]
Before text editors existed, computer text was punched into cards with keypunch machines. Physical boxes of these thin cardboard cards were then inserted into a card-reader. Magnetic tape and disk 'card-image' files created from such card decks often had no line-separation characters at all, and assumed fixed-length 80-character records. An alternative to cards was punched paper tape. It could be created by some teleprinters (such as the Teletype), which used special characters to indicate ends of records.
The first text editors were 'line editors' oriented to teleprinter- or typewriter-style terminals without displays. Commands (often a single keystroke) effected edits to a file at an imaginary insertion point called the 'cursor'. Edits were verified by typing a command to print a small section of the file, and periodically by printing the entire file. In some line editors, the cursor could be moved by commands that specified the line number in the file, text strings (context) for which to search, and eventually regular expressions. Line editors were major improvements over keypunching. Some line editors could be used by keypunch; editing commands could be taken from a deck of cards and applied to a specified file. Some common line editors supported a 'verify' mode in which change commands displayed the altered lines.
When computer terminals with video screens became available, screen-based text editors (sometimes called just 'screen editors') became common. One of the earliest full-screen editors was O26, which was written for the operator console of the CDC 6000 series computers in 1967. Another early full-screen editor was vi. Written in the 1970s, it is still a standard editor[5] on Unix and Linux operating systems. Also written in the 1970s was the UCSD Pascal Screen Oriented Editor, which was optimized both for indented source code as well as general text.[6]Emacs, one of the first free and open source software projects, is another early full-screen or real-time editor, one that was ported to many systems.[7] A full-screen editor's ease-of-use and speed (compared to the line-based editors) motivated many early purchases of video terminals.[8]
The core data structure in a text editor is the one that manages the string (sequence of characters) or list of records that represents the current state of the file being edited.While the former could be stored in a single long consecutive array of characters,the desire for text editors that could more quickly insert text, delete text, and undo/redo previous edits led to the development of more complicated sequence data structures.[9]A typical text editor uses a gap buffer, a linked list of lines (as in PaperClip), a piece table, or a rope, as its sequence data structure.
Best collaborative text editors
There are certain online-based text editors available which are built for collaborative use. Whether that be for interview purposes, team coding session, or easy code sharing, these collaborative text editors are great for easily getting more than one set of eyes on your code.
1. CodeShare
CodeShare is the first service that allows you to share your code in real time. It's extremely useful for remote hiring purposes, code reviews, debugging sessions, etc. One differentiator from CodeShare is that it also allows you to talk over video, which in some cases can prove to be quite beneficial.
You are required to port code over from your local development environment and it should be noted that code is only saved for 24 hours unless an account is created.
2. Codeanywhere
Codeanywhere provides a variety of useful features for coding on the go. It comes with an intuitive editor, allows you to connect remotely, has a built-in terminal console, and provides the ability to track revisions.
With Codeanywhere you can easily share files or complete project folders with any collaborator via a simple share link.
Codeanywhere does come with a free tier however also has plans starting at $2/month going to $40/month.
3. CodePen
CodePen is already known as a quite collaborative platform. You can create pens directly on the CodePen platform and share them with others. However, CodePen also comes with a Collab Mode which allows you and other collaborators to edit a pen at the same time.
Although Collab Mode does require a PRO subscription for the pen creator, collaborators aren't required to pay in order to make edits. Furthermore, this mode also comes with a handy chat feature so that you can discuss any changes with your team in real time.
Best free text editors in 2018
All of the options below support most major programming languages, but none of them support every single language. Before you download a text editor, check the maker's website to ensure that your language of choice is supported. If you're primarily developing websites, then these editors should be sufficient.
1. Atom
Atom is a relatively new (released in 2015) an open source editor that works for Mac, Windows and Linux. This highly customizable text editor is supported by a community of committed developers, so you'll have access to dozens of plugins and themes. Atom even comes with a built-in tool for creating your own plugins. Since the editor was made exclusively with web technologies like HTML, JavaScript and CSS, any experienced web developer should feel right at home with Atom.
2. Visual Studio Code
Like Atom, Visual Studio Code is still relatively new (also released in 2015) however has been successful in gaining quite a bit of traction since then. It is built to run cross-platform, has an extensive plugin ecosystem, and comes with a few welcoming features to make life easier including:
- Built-in Git commands
- IntelliSense, which goes beyond highlighting and autocompletion with smart completions
- Debugging directly from the editor
VSCode has also shown to be faster than other popular text editors such as Atom. Furthermore, if you prefer to work with minimal distractions, you can also enable VSCode's 'Zen Mode' which hides all menus/windows and maximizes the editor screen.
3. Brackets
Brackets was made with web developers in mind. Consequently, there are versions of Brackets for Linux, Windows and Mac. Don't be deceived by the simple UI; Brackets supports dozens of keyboard shortcuts in addition to advanced features like split-screen editing. With the Live Preview feature, you can watch your web pages update in real time as you edit CSS and HTML files. Plugins provide additional support for things like W3C validation and Python tools.
4. Notepad++
As an upgraded version of the default Notepad for Windows, Notepad++ does everything its namesake can do and much more. It allows you to open documents in tabs so that you can edit multiple files without having to open and close them. You can also control all the tabs simultaneously to compare documents for differences, search for text and replace text.
Notepad++ only works with Windows devices, of course, but there is a mobile version available. There are also plenty of plugins you can download to set up auto-save features, merge text from multiple documents and much more.
5. TextMate
TextMate is a great text editor exclusively for Mac users. This Apple Design Award-winning tool has all of the features you'd expect like search and replace, auto-indentation and word completion. You can code in any programming language, but TextMate also comes with a special tool specifically for building Xcode projects.
6. Vim
Vim was one of the best text editors when it was released in 1991, so the fact that it's on this list is a testament to this program's greatness. Even in 2018, developers are still producing new scripts and updates. Due to the editor's age, documentation and tutorials about Vim are easy to find. Vim works on all major platforms.
Check out our Vim commands cheat sheet for a complete overview of the Vim commands you need to know.
7. Komodo Edit
In addition to tabbed browsing, Komodo Edit offers numerous UI options to make editing as convenient as possible. For example, Focus Mode hides all other open windows so that you can concentrate on coding. Alternatively, you can choose to view folders on the side of the editor. An underrated but much-appreciated feature is the button that lets you return to your previous cursor location. If you need more advanced functionality like debugging, unit testing and code refactoring, check out.
Best paid text editors
1. Sublime Text
Just because Sublime Text is lightweight doesn't mean it lacks features. Sublime Text was built from the ground up with a Python API for developers who work with code all day long. Thanks to the editor's array of keyboard shortcuts, you can quickly navigate your code and make changes to multiple lines at once. Not only is Sublime Text cross-platform, but it utilizes the native functionalities of each OS to optimize speed and ease-of-use.
Sublime can be downloaded for evaluation for free however continued use requires the purchase of a license.
Price: $80
2. CoffeeCup HTML
As its name suggests, CoffeeCup HTML Editor is ideal for creating and managing HTML documents. Therefore, it's a popular option among web developers. Notable premium features include a code cleaner and HTML validation. There is a free version with fewer features, but you can try the full program for free for 21 days.
Price: $49
3. Coda
Coda remains one of the best text editors a full decade after its initial release. Like Dreamweaver, Coda is so feature-rich that it's practically an IDE. Coda is exclusively for Mac, so it was built with Apple lovers in mind. If you want a similar program for Windows, try UltraEdit.
Price: $99
4. BBEdit
Another Apple exclusive, BBEdit is the spiritual successor to TextWrangler. BB stands for bare bones, which is an apt description for BBEdit's interface, but this premium text editor supports advanced features like code folding and Git integration. Try the full version at no cost for 30 days.
Price: $49.99
Summary
If you're new to web development, start with an open source text editor like Atom or Bracket. Many of the free editors are powerful enough to meet the needs of most web projects. As you gain confidence in your coding capabilities, you may find such text editors too restrictive, so a premium option could be worth the investment if it can help you work faster and more efficiently.
A text editor is a type of computer program that edits plain text. Such programs are sometimes known as 'notepad' software, following the naming of Microsoft Notepad.[1][2][3] Text editors are provided with operating systems and software development packages, and can be used to change files such as configuration files, documentation files and programming languagesource code.[4]
Plain text vs. rich text[edit]
There are important differences between plain text (created and edited by text editors) and rich text (such as that created by word processors or desktop publishing software).
Plain text exclusively consists of character representation. Each character is represented by a fixed-length sequence of one, two, or four bytes, or as a variable-length sequence of one to four bytes, in accordance to specific character encoding conventions, such as ASCII, ISO/IEC 2022, UTF-8, or Unicode. These conventions define many printable characters, but also non-printing characters that control the flow of the text, such as space, line break, and page break. Plain text contains no other information about the text itself, not even the character encoding convention employed. Plain text is stored in text files, although text files do not exclusively store plain text. In the early days of computers, plain text was displayed using a monospace font, such that horizontal alignment and columnar formatting were sometimes done using whitespace characters. For compatibility reasons, this tradition has not changed.
Rich text, on the other hand, may contain metadata, character formatting data (e.g. typeface, size, weight and style), paragraph formatting data (e.g. indentation, alignment, letter and word distribution, and space between lines or other paragraphs), and page specification data (e.g. size, margin and reading direction). Rich text can be very complex. Rich text can be saved in binary format (e.g. DOC), text files adhering to a markup language (e.g. RTF or HTML), or in a hybrid form of both (e.g. Office Open XML).
Text editors are intended to open and save text files containing either plain text or anything that can be interpreted as plain text, including the markup for rich text or the markup for something else (e.g. SVG).
History[edit]
Before text editors existed, computer text was punched into cards with keypunch machines. Physical boxes of these thin cardboard cards were then inserted into a card-reader. Magnetic tape and disk 'card-image' files created from such card decks often had no line-separation characters at all, and assumed fixed-length 80-character records. An alternative to cards was punched paper tape. It could be created by some teleprinters (such as the Teletype), which used special characters to indicate ends of records.
The first text editors were 'line editors' oriented to teleprinter- or typewriter-style terminals without displays. Commands (often a single keystroke) effected edits to a file at an imaginary insertion point called the 'cursor'. Edits were verified by typing a command to print a small section of the file, and periodically by printing the entire file. In some line editors, the cursor could be moved by commands that specified the line number in the file, text strings (context) for which to search, and eventually regular expressions. Line editors were major improvements over keypunching. Some line editors could be used by keypunch; editing commands could be taken from a deck of cards and applied to a specified file. Some common line editors supported a 'verify' mode in which change commands displayed the altered lines.
When computer terminals with video screens became available, screen-based text editors (sometimes called just 'screen editors') became common. One of the earliest full-screen editors was O26, which was written for the operator console of the CDC 6000 series computers in 1967. Another early full-screen editor was vi. Written in the 1970s, it is still a standard editor[5] on Unix and Linux operating systems. Also written in the 1970s was the UCSD Pascal Screen Oriented Editor, which was optimized both for indented source code as well as general text.[6]Emacs, one of the first free and open source software projects, is another early full-screen or real-time editor, one that was ported to many systems.[7] A full-screen editor's ease-of-use and speed (compared to the line-based editors) motivated many early purchases of video terminals.[8]
The core data structure in a text editor is the one that manages the string (sequence of characters) or list of records that represents the current state of the file being edited.While the former could be stored in a single long consecutive array of characters,the desire for text editors that could more quickly insert text, delete text, and undo/redo previous edits led to the development of more complicated sequence data structures.[9]A typical text editor uses a gap buffer, a linked list of lines (as in PaperClip), a piece table, or a rope, as its sequence data structure.
Types of text editors[edit]
Some text editors are small and simple, while others offer broad and complex functions. For example, Unix and Unix-like operating systems have the pico editor (or a variant), but many also include the vi and Emacs editors. Microsoft Windows systems come with the simple Notepad, though many people—especially programmers—prefer other editors with more features. Under Apple Macintosh's classic Mac OS there was the native SimpleText, which was replaced in Mac OS X by TextEdit, which combines features of a text editor with those typical of a word processor such as rulers, margins and multiple font selection. These features are not available simultaneously, but must be switched by user command, or through the program automatically determining the file type.
Most word processors can read and write files in plain text format, allowing them to open files saved from text editors. Saving these files from a word processor, however, requires ensuring the file is written in plain text format, and that any text encoding or BOM settings won't obscure the file for its intended use. Non-WYSIWYG word processors, such as WordStar, are more easily pressed into service as text editors, and in fact were commonly used as such during the 1980s. The default file format of these word processors often resembles a markup language, with the basic format being plain text and visual formatting achieved using non-printing control characters or escape sequences. Later word processors like Microsoft Word store their files in a binary format and are almost never used to edit plain text files.[10]
Some text editors can edit unusually large files such as log files or an entire database placed in a single file. Simpler text editors may just read files into the computer's main memory. With larger files, this may be a slow process, and the entire file may not fit. Some text editors do not let the user start editing until this read-in is complete. Editing performance also often suffers in nonspecialized editors, with the editor taking seconds or even minutes to respond to keystrokes or navigation commands. Specialized editors have optimizations such as only storing the visible portion of large files in memory, improving editing performance.
Some editors are programmable, meaning, e.g., they can be customized for specific uses. With a programmable editor it is easy to automate repetitive tasks or, add new functionality or even implement a new application within the framework of the editor. One common motive for customizing is to make a text editor use the commands of another text editor with which the user is more familiar, or to duplicate missing functionality the user has come to depend on. Software developers often use editor customizations tailored to the programming language or development environment they are working in. The programmability of some text editors is limited to enhancing the core editing functionality of the program, but Emacs can be extended far beyond editing text files—for web browsing, reading email, online chat, managing files or playing games and is often thought of as a Lisp execution environment with a Text User Interface. Emacs can even be programmed to emulate Vi, its rival in the traditional editor wars of Unix culture.[11][12]
An important group of programmable editors uses REXX[a] as a scripting language. Bluestacks phone model. These 'orthodox editors' contain a 'command line' into which commands and macros can be typed and text lines into which line commands[b] and macros can be typed. Most such editors are derivatives of ISPF/PDFEDIT or of XEDIT, IBM's flagship editor for VM/SP through z/VM. Among them are THE, KEDIT, X2, Uni-edit, and SEDIT.
A text editor written or customized for a specific use can determine what the user is editing and assist the user, often by completing programming terms and showing tooltips with relevant documentation. Many text editors for software developers include source code syntax highlighting and automatic indentation to make programs easier to read and write. Programming editors often let the user select the name of an include file, function or variable, then jump to its definition. Some also allow for easy navigation back to the original section of code by storing the initial cursor location or by displaying the requested definition in a popup window or temporary buffer. Some editors implement this ability themselves, but often an auxiliary utility like ctags is used to locate the definitions.
Typical features[edit]
- Find and replace – Text editors provide extensive facilities for searching and replacing text, either on groups of files or interactively. Advanced editors can use regular expressions to search and edit text or code.
- Cut, copy, and paste – most text editors provide methods to duplicate and move text within the file, or between files.
- Ability to handle UTF-8 encoded text.
- Text formatting – Text editors often provide basic visual formatting features like line wrap, auto-indentation, bullet list formatting using ASCII characters, comment formatting, syntax highlighting and so on. These are typically only for display and do not insert formatting codes into the file itself.
- Undo and redo – As with word processors, text editors provide a way to undo and redo the last edit, or more. Often—especially with older text editors—there is only one level of edit history remembered and successively issuing the undo command will only 'toggle' the last change. Modern or more complex editors usually provide a multiple-level history such that issuing the undo command repeatedly will revert the document to successively older edits. A separate redo command will cycle the edits 'forward' toward the most recent changes. The number of changes remembered depends upon the editor and is often configurable by the user.
Advanced features[edit]
- Macro or procedure definition: to define new commands or features as combinations of prior commands or other macros, perhaps with passed parameters, or with nesting of macros.
- Profiles to retain options set by the user between editing session.
- Profile macros with names specified in, e.g., environment, profile, executed automatically at the beginning of an edit session or when opening a new file.
- Multi-file editing: the ability to edit multiple files during an edit-session, perhaps remembering the current-line cursor of each file, to insert repeated text into each file, copy or move text among files, compare files side-by-side (perhaps with a tiled multiple-document interface), etc.
- Multi-view editors: the ability to display multiple views of the same file, with independent cursor tracking, synchronizing changes among the windows but providing the same facilities as are available for independent files.
- Collapse/expand, also called folding: The ability to temporarily exclude sections of the text from view. This may either be based on a range of line numbers or on some syntactic element, e.g., excluding everything between a BEGIN; and the matching END;.
- Column-based editing; the ability to alter or insert data at a particular column, or to shift data to specific columns.
- Data transformation – Reading or merging the contents of another text file into the file currently being edited. Some text editors provide a way to insert the output of a command issued to the operating system's shell. Also, a case-shifting feature could translate to lowercase or uppercase.
- Filtering – Some advanced text editors allow the editor to send all or sections of the file being edited to another utility and read the result back into the file in place of the lines being 'filtered'. This, for example, is useful for sorting a series of lines alphabetically or numerically, doing mathematical computations, indenting source code, and so on.
- Syntax highlighting – contextually highlights source code, markup languages, config files and other text that appears in an organized or predictable format. Editors generally allow users to customize the colors or styles used for each language element. Some text editors also allow users to install and use themes to change the look and feel of the editor's entire user interface.
- Extensibility - a text editor intended for use by programmers must provide some plugin mechanism, or be scriptable, so a programmer can customize the editor with features needed to manage individual software projects, customize functionality or key bindings for specific programming languages or version control systems, or conform to specific coding styles.
Specialised editors[edit]
Some editors include special features and extra functions, for instance,
- Source code editors are text editors with additional functionality to facilitate the production of source code. These often feature user-programmable syntax highlighting and code navigation functions as well as coding tools or keyboard macros similar to an HTML editor (see below).
- Folding editors. This subclass includes so-called 'orthodox editors' that are derivatives of Xedit. Editors that implement folding without programing-specific features are usually called outliners (see below).
- IDEs (integrated development environments) are designed to manage and streamline large programming projects. They are usually only used for programming as they contain many features unnecessary for simple text editing.
- World Wide Web authors are offered a variety of HTML editors dedicated to the task of creating web pages. These include: Dreamweaver, KompoZer and E Text Editor. Many offer the option of viewing a work in progress on a built-in HTML rendering engine or standard web browser.
- Most web development is done in a dynamic programming language such as Ruby or PHP using a source code editor or IDE. The HTML delivered by all but the simplest static web sites is stored as individual template files that are assembled by the software controlling the site and do not compose a complete HTML document.
- Mathematicians, physicists, and computer scientists often produce articles and books using TeX or LaTeX in plain text files. Such documents are often produced by a standard text editor, but some people use specialized TeX editors.
- Outliners. Also called tree-based editors, because they combine a hierarchical outline tree with a text editor. Folding (see above) can be considered a specialized form of outlining.
- Collaborative editors allow multiple users to work on the same document simultaneously from remote locations over a network. The changes made by individual users are tracked and merged into the document automatically to eliminate the possibility of conflicting edits. These editors also typically include an online chat component for discussion among editors.
- Distraction-free editors provide a minimalistic interface with the purpose of isolating the writer from the rest of the applications and operating system, thus being able to focus on the writing without distractions from interface elements like a toolbar or notification area.
Programmable editors can usually be enhanced to perform any or all of these functions, but simpler editors focus on just one, or, like gPHPedit, are targeted at a single programming language.
See also[edit]
- File viewer – does not change file, faster for very large files and can be more secure
- Hex editor – used for editing binary files
- Stream editor – used for non-interactive editing
Notes[edit]
Good Text Editors
- ^Originally macros were written in assembler, CLIST (TSO), CMS EXEC (VM), EXEC2 (VM/SE) or PL/I, but most users dropped CLIST, EXEC and EXEC2 once REXX was available.
- ^A line command is a command typed into the sequence number entry area associated with a specific line of text and whose scope is limited to that line, or, in the case of a block command, associated with the block of lines between the beginning and ending line commands. An example of the latter would be typing the command ucc (block upper case) into the entry areas of two lines; this has the same effect as typing uc (upper case) into the entry area of each line in the range.
Text Editor For Pc
References[edit]
- ^H. Albert Napier; Ollie N. Rivers; Stuart Wagner (2005). Creating a Winning E-Business. Cengage Learning. p. 330. ISBN1111796092.
- ^Peter Norton; Scott H. Clark (2002). Peter Norton's New Inside the PC. Sams Publishing. p. 54. ISBN0672322897.
- ^L. Gopalakrishnan; G. Padmanabhan; Sudhat Shukla (2003). Your Home PC: Making the Most of Your Personal Computer. Tata McGraw-Hill Education. p. 190. ISBN0070473544.
- ^'The Best Free Text Editors for Windows, Linux, and Mac'.
Every operating system comes with a default, basic text editor, but most of us install our own enhanced text editors to get more features.
- ^'The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6, IEEE Std 1003.1, 2004 Edition'. The IEEE and The Open Group. 2004. Retrieved January 18, 2010.
- ^L. Bowles, Kenneth; Hollan, James (1978-07-01). 'An introduction to the UCSD PASCAL system'. Behavior Research Methods. 10 (4): 531–534. doi:10.3758/BF03205341.
- ^'Introducing the Emacs editing environment'.
- ^'Multics Emacs: The History, Design and Implementation'.
Some Multics users purchased these terminals .., using them either as 'glass teletypes' or via 'local editing.'
- ^Charles Crowley.'Data Structures for Text Sequences'.Section'Introduction'.
- ^'Text Editors for Programmeres - Programming Tools'.
If you open a .doc file in a text editor, you will notice that most of the file is formatting codes. Text editors, however, do not add formatting codes, which makes it easier to compile your code.
- ^'From Vim to Emacs+Evil chaotic migration guide'.
- ^'Gitorious'. Retrieved 27 May 2015.
External links[edit]
- Orthodox Editors as a Special Class of Advanced Editors, discusses Xedit and its clones with an emphasis of folding capabilities and programmability
