(Barely) more powerful than notepad
January 4, 2006 12:44 PM Subscribe
Software recommendation filter: I want something like Notepad, but it's for writing in html, so it will colour-code the code part of what I'm writing. And I want spellcheck. And I want it to open and close really really fast, which is why I'm using Notepad and not OpenOffice or some html editor at the moment.
NotePad 2. Small, fast, (customisable) syntax highlighting and a spellcheck (plus lots more).
posted by djgh at 12:50 PM on January 4, 2006
posted by djgh at 12:50 PM on January 4, 2006
Visual Studio 2005 Web Developer Express, is, as far as I can tell, free. Integrates with Office, is lightweight, and has all the features that you need.
posted by thanotopsis at 12:52 PM on January 4, 2006
posted by thanotopsis at 12:52 PM on January 4, 2006
Have a look at the css-d list of text editors but I'd highly recommend HTMLPad Pro 2005, US$25.85.
posted by ceri richard at 1:09 PM on January 4, 2006
posted by ceri richard at 1:09 PM on January 4, 2006
Basically, everyone has a favorite that they've grown attached to, and would never switch to anything else.
posted by matildaben at 1:10 PM on January 4, 2006
posted by matildaben at 1:10 PM on January 4, 2006
Response by poster: I tried notepad2 and like it except for the fact that despite what djgh said it doesn't seem to have a spellchecker.
Textpad has a little too much stuff in it for my liking but I think I'll go with it for now.
posted by thecjm at 1:15 PM on January 4, 2006
Textpad has a little too much stuff in it for my liking but I think I'll go with it for now.
posted by thecjm at 1:15 PM on January 4, 2006
I really like UltraEdit's feature set, but it always loaded much, much slower than Notepad for me.
posted by Jairus at 1:39 PM on January 4, 2006
posted by Jairus at 1:39 PM on January 4, 2006
If you simply want a small, fast, and completely free multi-tab editor reminiscent of Notepad, I use Crimson Editor. Crimson Editor has your user-expandable spell-check and syntax highlighting features, though I don't personally use either, plus macro and user-defined tool support. Looks to be a one man effort and he hasn't updated it in a year-and-a-half and counting, but if it does what you want, that may not be an issue for you. I use it for all my text editing, though I admit to being a minimalist.
Ahh, someone beat me to first rec. Still, a nice editor for what it is.
posted by mdevore at 1:41 PM on January 4, 2006
Ahh, someone beat me to first rec. Still, a nice editor for what it is.
posted by mdevore at 1:41 PM on January 4, 2006
You'll spend the rest of your life figuring it out, but when you do, you'll thank me. Maybe.
No, I can't use it properly yet, either. But at least it's free. And it has lots of HTML modes.
posted by shepd at 1:56 PM on January 4, 2006
No, I can't use it properly yet, either. But at least it's free. And it has lots of HTML modes.
posted by shepd at 1:56 PM on January 4, 2006
too much talking, mdevore. :)
Seriously, it would be great if we were all more verbose about why we like what we like, but the feature sets are all so basic, and it is all so much a matter of personal choice, that you (thecmj) are much better off installing about 30 of them and seeing what clicks.
posted by misterbrandt at 2:03 PM on January 4, 2006
Seriously, it would be great if we were all more verbose about why we like what we like, but the feature sets are all so basic, and it is all so much a matter of personal choice, that you (thecmj) are much better off installing about 30 of them and seeing what clicks.
posted by misterbrandt at 2:03 PM on January 4, 2006
Hey, that's not called verbosity, that's called pre-qualifying...
posted by mdevore at 2:11 PM on January 4, 2006
posted by mdevore at 2:11 PM on January 4, 2006
misterbrandt: Are you joking or being a jackass?
I usually use Crimson Editor or Metapad.
posted by null terminated at 2:36 PM on January 4, 2006
I usually use Crimson Editor or Metapad.
posted by null terminated at 2:36 PM on January 4, 2006
Personally, I use SciTE. Small, fast, has colour coding and most importantly: code folding.
Download it here
posted by Arthur Dent at 3:08 PM on January 4, 2006
Download it here
posted by Arthur Dent at 3:08 PM on January 4, 2006
Notepad++ is built on SciTE and improves it in many ways (for Windows). I used to love Textpad, but it looks as though all development has stopped on the product and other editors are introducing some kickass features (code folding is one).
posted by purephase at 3:15 PM on January 4, 2006
posted by purephase at 3:15 PM on January 4, 2006
Since when does :) == jackass?
null, I was responding to mdevore's "Ahh, someone beat me to first rec." by pointing out that I beat him due to terseness (as opposed to helpful commentary).
And then proceeded to compliment mdevore on his good practices in annotating his recommendation rather than just blurting out, as all of us up-thread had been doing (and yet explaining the reason for our terseness, as matildaben already had)
What part came across as jackass-y?
posted by misterbrandt at 3:35 PM on January 4, 2006
null, I was responding to mdevore's "Ahh, someone beat me to first rec." by pointing out that I beat him due to terseness (as opposed to helpful commentary).
And then proceeded to compliment mdevore on his good practices in annotating his recommendation rather than just blurting out, as all of us up-thread had been doing (and yet explaining the reason for our terseness, as matildaben already had)
What part came across as jackass-y?
posted by misterbrandt at 3:35 PM on January 4, 2006
Well, I took it as a fun remark with no meanness to it and replied in a similar vein. Does that, hopefully, pre-empt any further expressions of displeasure?
posted by mdevore at 3:38 PM on January 4, 2006
posted by mdevore at 3:38 PM on January 4, 2006
Well, now that I've said more about my comment than about the topic at hand, I would hope so, yes. :)
posted by misterbrandt at 3:56 PM on January 4, 2006
( :) :) :) :) )
posted by misterbrandt at 3:56 PM on January 4, 2006
Nobody's mentioned NoteTab yet:
posted by Tubes at 4:01 PM on January 4, 2006
Handle a heap of files with a simple tabbed interface... Search files, strip HTML tags and format text quickly. Build libraries of text macros to speed up your work. thesaurus, a multilingual spell checker, text-outline editing, EBCDIC file editing, customizable menu shortcuts, Clipbars...And it colors code, and opens quickly. Feels very lightweight.
posted by Tubes at 4:01 PM on January 4, 2006
PSPad is what I use... it's just really good 'n' simple.
posted by ph00dz at 4:07 PM on January 4, 2006
posted by ph00dz at 4:07 PM on January 4, 2006
don't forget about jEdit. I've been using this more lately and i really dig it. try it out. opens up quickly, color codes and other cool features needed for an web coder.
posted by freudianslipper at 4:17 PM on January 4, 2006
posted by freudianslipper at 4:17 PM on January 4, 2006
Another vote for TextPad. Fairly lean, very flexible.
CrimsonEditor is also OK; just fonder of TextPad.
posted by lodurr at 4:43 PM on January 4, 2006
CrimsonEditor is also OK; just fonder of TextPad.
posted by lodurr at 4:43 PM on January 4, 2006
Crimson Editor or ConTEXT
Is there a way to enable inverse colors in ConTEXT or Crimson? Is it possible to make it word wrap at the right margin instead of the right window border? If so, these programs would be just perfect.
posted by nixerman at 4:46 PM on January 4, 2006
Is there a way to enable inverse colors in ConTEXT or Crimson? Is it possible to make it word wrap at the right margin instead of the right window border? If so, these programs would be just perfect.
posted by nixerman at 4:46 PM on January 4, 2006
I second SciTE (for Windows) and one of my few software purchases has been TextMate (for OSX). They both rock.
posted by five fresh fish at 4:47 PM on January 4, 2006
posted by five fresh fish at 4:47 PM on January 4, 2006
misterbrandt: Sorry, I read it completely incorectly.
My apologies :-\
posted by null terminated at 5:41 PM on January 4, 2006
My apologies :-\
posted by null terminated at 5:41 PM on January 4, 2006
UltraEdit.
Loads fast on my aging Athlon 1.8 with MS SQL server, MySQL server, IIS and a boatload of other apps in memory to boot.
Just a word of caution: get a version later than 11.2a. If you happen to "find" a free, registered version of 11.2a on the internet, you'll be wise to avoid it because it has a really insidious undo-cache bug that occasionally--but not always--screws up some of your text as you're undoing/redoing changes.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 6:30 PM on January 4, 2006
Loads fast on my aging Athlon 1.8 with MS SQL server, MySQL server, IIS and a boatload of other apps in memory to boot.
Just a word of caution: get a version later than 11.2a. If you happen to "find" a free, registered version of 11.2a on the internet, you'll be wise to avoid it because it has a really insidious undo-cache bug that occasionally--but not always--screws up some of your text as you're undoing/redoing changes.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 6:30 PM on January 4, 2006
See also jEdit, which I've grown to like for quick and dirty Java and Python coding. When it's just a plain text or HTML/XML job, I too like UltraEdit, for what it's worth. Metapad has what you want - I used it for a long time beforwe I discovered UltraEdit and it's fine, very quick loading and lightweight, which is sometimes all you want, but a definite improvement over Notepad. Visual Studio also works great for plain-text editing, not the quickest loading editor, though :-)
posted by normy at 6:48 PM on January 4, 2006
posted by normy at 6:48 PM on January 4, 2006
I'm not sure about inverse color schemes in conTEXT -- there's a colors tab oin the options, but I think it is just for syntax highlighting. (But Crimson is a definite yes, as Cray said)
oh and null, we're cool.
posted by misterbrandt at 8:28 PM on January 4, 2006
oh and null, we're cool.
posted by misterbrandt at 8:28 PM on January 4, 2006
I second tomble I use Notetab Pro for capturing all my quick thoughts, ideas and code snippets! It's great!
posted by nosophoros at 12:44 AM on January 5, 2006
posted by nosophoros at 12:44 AM on January 5, 2006
Notetab is the bomb-diggity. It's extremely fast loading and has tabs, if you're into that (which I am, a lot).
posted by mattwatson at 2:41 PM on January 5, 2006
posted by mattwatson at 2:41 PM on January 5, 2006
Another vote for Metapad here.
posted by starscream at 4:03 PM on January 5, 2006
posted by starscream at 4:03 PM on January 5, 2006
Ultraedit also has tabs.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:07 PM on January 5, 2006
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:07 PM on January 5, 2006
Another vote for Crimson Editor here.
It's also extensible, so if you ever want to use it for more than just HTML, there's a whole boatload of syntax options that you can load in to the editor.
I tried TextPad, didn't like it as much as Crimson. I even got my C++ professor to switch recommendations from TextPad to Crimson (he used vim).
posted by Third at 4:41 AM on January 6, 2006
It's also extensible, so if you ever want to use it for more than just HTML, there's a whole boatload of syntax options that you can load in to the editor.
I tried TextPad, didn't like it as much as Crimson. I even got my C++ professor to switch recommendations from TextPad to Crimson (he used vim).
posted by Third at 4:41 AM on January 6, 2006
I got very accustomed to TextPad, and so didn't like Crimson very much. But they're both very good, and both are very extensible. The interfaces are quite similar. I think Crimson might run better as a pure standalone; TextPad tends to create a profile entry for itself when run.
I find it ironic that some of the best Windows shareware/freeware is pretty obscure, and some of the crappiest is really well-known.... i also find it curious that people like us can get so excited about comparing editors. What a bunch of geeks we are. (Not that I'm complaining; it's a nice simple pleasure, AFAIAC.)
posted by lodurr at 7:49 AM on January 6, 2006
I find it ironic that some of the best Windows shareware/freeware is pretty obscure, and some of the crappiest is really well-known.... i also find it curious that people like us can get so excited about comparing editors. What a bunch of geeks we are. (Not that I'm complaining; it's a nice simple pleasure, AFAIAC.)
posted by lodurr at 7:49 AM on January 6, 2006
Ultraedit also has custom tag dictionaries.
:)
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 9:39 AM on January 7, 2006
:)
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 9:39 AM on January 7, 2006
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by matildaben at 12:47 PM on January 4, 2006