News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

Ask YC: Best text editor for Windows?

I'm stuck with a PC at work, and am missing TextMate. what editor should I use? Looking for something windows based (not XEmacs) for general use. Suggestions?
( 34 comments | 5 points | on HN )
Re:Ask YC: Best text editor for Windows? by aaco on Friday February 08, 2008 @08:17PM (#112459)
Vim. Both for Windows and Linux I use it, it's a good and very powerful editor. However it's not the type of editor that you'll get how to use it in 5 minutes (well, this is true for the very very basic use, just press "i" to insert text).

Download the self-installing executable here:

http://www.vim.org/download.php#pc

Re:Ask YC: Best text editor for Windows? by kashif on Friday February 08, 2008 @10:00PM (#112514)
Just upvoting ViM is not enough, so I put in this note. I have used Emacs and ViM and I am with ViM forever...
Re:Ask YC: Best text editor for Windows? by yters on Friday February 08, 2008 @10:03PM (#112518)
There is a vi mode in emacs, though it just replicates the keybindings: http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/ViperMode
Re:Ask YC: Best text editor for Windows? by vikas5678 on Friday February 08, 2008 @03:20PM (#112301)
I use Textpad a lot, cos its pretty simple looking, and yet has a lot of functionalities, and I open a lot of very huge xml documents in it(pretty stable), some other ex-colleagues of mine love(d) Notepad++. Some other people I know like Ultraedit, although I found it to be too complex for my liking.
Re:Ask YC: Best text editor for Windows? by pingswept on Friday February 08, 2008 @03:26PM (#112306)
(Notepad++)++
Re:Ask YC: Best text editor for Windows? by showerst on Friday February 08, 2008 @04:58PM (#112377)
Another vote for textpad here, there are syntax files for nearly everything, and Search & Replace w/ Regex is really useful.
Re:Ask YC: Best text editor for Windows? by edw519 on Friday February 08, 2008 @04:12PM (#112340)
Textpad can be as simple or complex as you want. I use nothing else any more.
Re:Ask YC: Best text editor for Windows? by agotterer on Friday February 08, 2008 @09:18PM (#112486)
I used textpad for years, recently switched to notepad++ and am very happy.
Re:Ask YC: Best text editor for Windows? by tzury on Friday February 08, 2008 @04:02PM (#112338)
Scite. Scite is the one I used in windows for couple of years and kept it with me when switched to linux a year and a half ago.
Re:Ask YC: Best text editor for Windows? by sosuke on Friday February 08, 2008 @04:42PM (#112367)
Notepad++ is a good editor built off Scite with some nice additions. I keep both installed on most of the systems I work on and would recommend you give it a shot. Other editors I work with are far to heavy for quick changes or random filetype testing.
Re:Ask YC: Best text editor for Windows? by undees on Friday February 08, 2008 @03:46PM (#112328)
InType and e are fairly TextMate-ish. The latter costs money, and the former has announced plans to set a price. They're both basic but usable, and compatible to some degree with TextMate snippets / bundles.
Re:Ask YC: Best text editor for Windows? by jamongkad on Saturday February 09, 2008 @09:21AM (#112698)
I used to use Intype on my windows box before I made the jump to Ubuntu. Now I use VIM and never looked back. Intype is definitely not bad imho.
Re:Ask YC: Best text editor for Windows? by 3flp on Friday February 08, 2008 @06:20PM (#112407)
Emacs + customisations.. nearly like Textpad but easier to use. Emacs is not really a text editor. It is some sort of OS for making text editors. You can have any text editor you like. Why would you use anything else?

# There is a native Windows build. It is a normal Win app, with file selection dialogs, etc...

Re:Ask YC: Best text editor for Windows? by yters on Friday February 08, 2008 @10:01PM (#112515)
For the windows build see here: http://ourcomments.org/Emacs/EmacsW32.html

This is the emacs wiki page on emacs for windows: http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/EmacsForWindows

Re:Ask YC: Best text editor for Windows? by alek on Friday February 08, 2008 @03:49PM (#112331)
Cream (a GVIM variant, which is a VIM variant, which is a...) http://cream.sf.net/

you will need a day or two to get the hang of it, but once you do you won't ever want to go back. (you'll know when you start writing ":wq" in non-VI editors)

Re:Ask YC: Best text editor for Windows? by donal on Friday February 08, 2008 @04:12PM (#112341)
gvim is the only thing that keeps me sane in windows. I have not tried this cream you speak of however. Just downloaded it though.
Re:Ask YC: Best text editor for Windows? by donal on Friday February 08, 2008 @04:16PM (#112345)
eeppp, I think I'll stick with gvim.
Re:Ask YC: Best text editor for Windows? by fendale on Friday February 08, 2008 @09:58PM (#112512)
The fact that Textmate doesn't run on Windows is exactly why I stayed away from it on OS X - I am forced to use a windows machine at work, and am stuck in a terminal a lot of the time, so I decided to learn emacs instead.

Once you get over the initial Emacs learning curve its great - then install the emacs code browser, and the rails plugins (if you do rails obviously) for extra productivity. See [this tutorial](http://sodonnell.wordpress.com/the-emacs-newbie-guide-for-ra...) to set it all up.

Re:Ask YC: Best text editor for Windows? by utnick on Friday February 08, 2008 @03:32PM (#112314)
was going to suggest xemacs :(
Re:Ask YC: Best text editor for Windows? by joshwa on Friday February 08, 2008 @06:29PM (#112413)
http://www.e-texteditor.com/ : "The Power of TextMate on Windows"
Re:Ask YC: Best text editor for Windows? by CHIEFARCHITECT on Friday February 08, 2008 @05:15PM (#112383)
UltraEdit is a pretty adequate text editor if one is willing to do some minor configuration. It took me only 30 mins to master it.

A txt editor is like most tools, one has to customize it to their needs and wants.

The sword does not make the samurai. It is the samurai that makes the sword go. (General View)

Re:Ask YC: Best text editor for Windows? by kencyber on Friday February 08, 2008 @07:03PM (#112429)
I've been using UltraEdit for about 8 years now. Notepad++ is close, but the FTP plug-in just isn't quite as good (I use FTP a lot through my text editor and UltraEdit is the best). The best features of UltraEdit are it's macro recording and template (ie: code snippets) feature.
Re:Ask YC: Best text editor for Windows? by davidw on Friday February 08, 2008 @05:20PM (#112385)
Maybe you're a Mac guy rather than a Unix dude, but I put this together a while ago as a wiki, then 'froze' it into an article:

http://www.welton.it/articles/windows_for_linux_users.html

Re:Ask YC: Best text editor for Windows? by kingnothing on Friday February 08, 2008 @07:14PM (#112439)
I haven't used Windows in a while, but I think something I discovered right before I made the linux switch was called Programmer's Notepad. Try http://www.pnotepad.org/
Re:Ask YC: Best text editor for Windows? by bprater on Friday February 08, 2008 @08:25PM (#112464)
Ultraedit+WebDrive was my wet dream. It was the only thing holding me back from switching to Mac 100% of the time, until Panic churned up Coda.
Re:Ask YC: Best text editor for Windows? by Zak on Friday February 08, 2008 @05:36PM (#112394)
Not XEmacs? I think GNU Emacs runs on Windows too.
Re:Ask YC: Best text editor for Windows? by ivank on Friday February 08, 2008 @05:51PM (#112399)
Eclipse for its mark occurrences feature, easy editor splitting, and variable width font support (when it's occasionally needed).
Re:Ask YC: Best text editor for Windows? by dhouston on Friday February 08, 2008 @06:36PM (#112417)
- editplus is great for general text editing (non-coding)

- activestate komodo for python/perl/php

- visual studio for c++

Re:Ask YC: Best text editor for Windows? by jalammar on Saturday February 09, 2008 @02:24AM (#112620)
I like to use jEdit for coding. EditPlus is commonly used where i work so I use that for general text editing.
Re:Ask YC: Best text editor for Windows? by nreece on Friday February 08, 2008 @09:04PM (#112479)
Re:Ask YC: Best text editor for Windows? by kmt on Friday February 08, 2008 @09:36PM (#112494)
Real programmers use... http://xkcd.com/378/
Re:Ask YC: Best text editor for Windows? by thorax on Friday February 08, 2008 @04:48PM (#112369)
PSPad is good enough for me. PHP I use Nusphere PHPed (not free).
Re:Ask YC: Best text editor for Windows? by projectileboy on Saturday February 09, 2008 @01:25AM (#112591)
I like Crimson Editor. I think it's a bit nicer than Textpad.
Re:Ask YC: Best text editor for Windows? by klocksib on Friday February 08, 2008 @08:50PM (#112473)
GNU Emacs. :)