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The best Linux text editors. Bluefish – free text editor with syntax highlighting

IntroductionProbably every user who has worked in Windows knows what Notepad is. Or Notepad - whichever is more familiar to you. The thing is convenient. A small, lightweight application where you can type a letter or copy some information from the Internet. Minimum options, simplest controls. The created files are small in size, and they are compressed perfectly by archivers. It would seem that everything is fine. But only for the time being, until we need something larger (and able to work normally with large files). Yes, the convenience and simplicity of Notepad are extremely important for beginner computer scientists. But as soon as you expand the scope of application, try to use Notepad together with other “flat” files, not just *.txt, this simple tool is no longer enough. Even though they can still view scripts of various programming languages, program logs, batch files, settings files and many, many others, working with all this no longer seems convenient and productive. Fortunately, programmers did not put up with this state of affairs, and began to release improved versions of notepads, each supplemented with its own add-ons. Differing in functional extensions, these products in some way began to be divided according to the classes of problems they solve. About one of these classes, simple editors for programmers and webmasters, and this is our review today.

What is paramount for such programs? Of course, syntax highlighting of the language in which the user writes! Support for plugins and additional language and functional packages is desirable, as well as the ability to edit those already connected. Search with replacement and use of regular expressions. A symbol table, a simple hex editor, the ability to work with a large number of formats and encodings. And, of course, ease of use. A requirement that is fair, in principle, for any program, but is most relevant for this kind of product, because the programming process itself takes a lot of time, and no one wants to sit behind an inconvenient shell for a long time. Based on this, we will consider selected programs, namely: PSPad 4.5.0, Golden Pen 1.5, PolyEdit 5.0 RC, Edit Ex 2006r1, Crimson Editor 3.70, Uniqway Poetic 0.2b.

PSPad

PSPad is a fairly well-known and widespread editor for programmers. And his popularity is well deserved. After all, this is a program with probably thousands of functions. And what will be especially pleasant for programmers is that it’s not easy text editor With additional features, this is a set of special tools specifically for their needs. For example, why does a text writer need a built-in FTP client? It is unlikely to be in demand, and the webmaster will probably, having written some script or page, want to immediately see the result in action by uploading it to a remote server. Connecting with specified settings. They are much broader than specifying an address, login and password.


FTP client connection settings


What about the project tree? With its help, you can further expand the editor's functions and create real projects. And although it is not at all necessary that these will be software projects, this opportunity is interesting precisely for these needs.


Parameters of the created project


To work with long codes, displaying the file structure is simply irreplaceable. In this field, PSPad displays functions and macro definitions found by patterns in the file being viewed, according to the selected syntax.



Editing a pas file in the editor window


In the latest versions of PSPad, the user can actively work with scripts, not only manually correct them, but also then recompile them. However, for this you will need to have MS Windows Scripting host installed. The latter supports a fairly large number of languages, not just scripts Visual Basic and Java.

Good HTML editing capabilities. Of course, our editor will be inferior in number of functions to specialized packages, but we don’t require the capabilities of a powerful compiler from a lightweight, convenient tool? Otherwise, PSPad will be useful for both beginners and experienced webmasters. There is a converter between different formats, a viewer with the ability to change resolution, HTML code checking, and ample opportunities formatting.

Freshly installed, the PSPad "knows" about thirty different languages programming. Despite the fact that there are completely ordinary C, Object Pascal, Java, Java Script, HTML, PHP, Visual Basic, etc., the presence of some, such as COBOL, Inno Setup Script, KiXtart, Tcl/Tk, TeX , Unix Shell Script aroused my genuine interest. Any of the languages, by the way, the user can reconfigure, edit and create their own syntax. Or specify a compiler for it.

In general, the widest possibilities for customizing everything is another distinctive feature the editor in question. Starting from the process of installing the program, and ending with the fine-tuning of the tools themselves. I don’t know about you, but such powers have always been pleasant to me, because by providing them, the author thereby makes it clear that he is targeting the product at a qualified audience, whose representatives will be able not only to understand all this, but also to improve, optimize, and bring it to fruition. Of course, there is nothing to worry about, if you don’t need anything like that, leave it as it is, the program will not become any worse.



Program installation





General program settings




Menu for some other settings


Listed above are just a few of the PSPad's features, most relevant to its programming features. In addition to this, there is also a sea of ​​interesting and useful things. For example, a hex editor and clipboard manager.

If you use a typing program, spell checking will undoubtedly come in handy. In addition, there are all kinds of editing, search and replace, and formatting options. The tool menu is simply replete with “bells and whistles”. There is a macro manager, a file parser, ASCII table, several types of palette. If the latter are not enough - here you go, pipette! A variant of a tool well known from many image editors for determining color in a particular area. The PSPad eyedropper will allow you to pick up color at any point and under the program window itself. In addition, there is a hash generator (functions MD4, MD5, SHA1, RIPEMD160 are used), command line, number converter between various systems calculus and even Roman symbols, simple, but powerful option calculator (called an expression analyzer), and others.

The help system (that is, the system) is complete and varied. In addition to the actual comprehensive guide to the program, you can get information about programming languages, and if you have an Internet connection, then access to programming sites and remote online utilities.

Program website: http://www.pspad.com

Golden Pen

Probably many people know Golden Pen. The program is not new; perhaps some have already forgotten it. Not surprisingly, the latest version was released back in 2001, and the author does not even indicate support for Windows XP. On the other hand, simplicity and convenience are the main advantages of this small editor, combined with functionality sufficient for an average level. Therefore, Vitaly Nevzorov’s Golden Pen can be successfully used to this day.



VB code in Golden Pen window


Golden Pen is also good because it is a universal “two-sided” editor. It is equally convenient to use both for typing regular text and for editing source codes. The opportunities provided are approximately equivalent. For text, these are printing, export to RTF and HTML, alignment, display, search and transition options. For scripts - syntax highlighting for fifteen current (for 2000) languages ​​up to Fortran, work with bookmarks, hex mode for viewing files. In addition, there are additional tools, a clipboard, macro recording, a calculator, and an ASCII code table. The Golden Pen calculator is capable of calculating some statistical functions, and, in addition, when typing text, a contextual calculator is active - this is when you type an expression, and after the "=" sign, the program automatically displays its value.



Hex editor mode
While working with the program, I noticed two small bugs - when calling the calculator from the toolbar, the calendar stubbornly appears, and the panel itself disappears when the program is closed, but is not always restored automatically the next time it is launched.

Program website: http://www.geocities.com/midweststudio/

PolyEdit

To call PolyEdit a notepad for programmers somehow doesn’t even dare. However, it made it into our review because it also includes such features. And there are many, many other things that would require a separate article to describe.

Yes, indeed, PolyEdit is a program with the broadest capabilities, although at the first acquaintance it gave me feelings... probably similar to the feelings of the heroes from Nikolai Nosov’s “Dunno on the Moon” when they spent the night at the Economic Hotel. If the owners there declared the cheapest rooms, but in reality required a separate payment for the use of water, TV, beds, etc., then the creators of PolyEdit (Polysoft Solutions), not failing to note the small size of the program distribution, did not include some of the specified functions in it . Therefore, having decided to check the language syntax highlighting first, I was somewhat disappointed and was sent to the program website to download the necessary components. Fortunately, this package in ZIP takes up only 9 KB. It is surprising why it could not be immediately included in the distribution. In addition to the specified file, several more addons and 10 dictionaries are available in the Downloads section, ranging in size from 500 KB to 6 MB. However, You can’t judge the developers too harshly. Expecting to get a full-fledged Word processor in a size of less than one and a half megabytes is somewhat naive. The decision to separately place additional packages needed only by a specific user is quite reasonable for a program freely distributed over the Internet.

As for the program itself, this text was typed just in the editor window, and there were no conveniences to be experienced. The only thing was that I needed to download an additional Russian language pack to check the spelling. To do this, press F7 or select a command from the menu item. The check does not occur automatically. Maybe for the better? This will prevent unnecessary lag and pauses when typing on slow computers.

Among the capabilities of PolyEdit, we note the following. Data encryption using BlowFish transformations and the SHA-1 hash function. Full support OLE objects (pictures, clips, diagrams, etc.). Export/import of several formats, including Word, Excel, Html. Plugin support. Built-in e-mail client. Drag-and-Drop and Drag-and-Dock functions. Support large quantity encodings. Autosave. Search and replace using regular expressions, searching through files. Syntax highlighting. Show non-printable characters.



Some menu items


The "advanced" style interface is very similar to the default interface of the MS Word editor. Everything matches basic capabilities on working with text. Only the drawing panel is missing. But there are additional elements available. I really liked the Drag-and-Dock technology for multi-document windows.



Multi-Document Interface


PolyEdit supports themes. All kinds of parameters can be configured in the program options.



Setting up PolyEdit


Testing the editor when working with raw materials revealed some shortcomings. Thus, in a Delphi pas file, commenting with curly braces does not work correctly, and commenting with regular brackets with asterisks does not work at all. Similar problems were observed for html and cpp files. The highlighting of the t-sql script can be seen in the accompanying illustration. For clarity, the view in PolyEdit and the view in the MS SQL Query Analyzer window of the eighth version are given. It is clear that these programs use different specifications, but still...

Undoing the last actions does not always work correctly.



SQL script in PolyEdit window (left) and SQL Query Analyzer


You can register your copy of PolyEdit. Whether it is advisable is up to you to decide. Among the most important advantages paid version priority technical support by e-mail, free program upgrades, discounts when purchasing other products from PolySoft Solution. As you can see, even the presented advantages do not seem significant, and there is nothing to say about the others; it is unlikely that displaying your company’s name in the program information window costs $30 per license. However, there are discounts for wholesale buyers...

Program website: http://www.polyedit.com/

EditEx

The latest version 2006r1 of this editor was released a little over a month ago, and we will take it for consideration. The main trump card, indicated by the author of the program, Artem Fursenko, is “highlighting everything, everything, everything.” Indeed, EditEx “knows” more than fifty different syntaxes. And this is an absolute record among today's competitors. It doesn’t even make sense to list everything; you’re unlikely to find the one you need. No, well, of course, you can if you want, but for the vast majority of programmers this will be enough.

Despite the fact that the development is domestic, the program interface is entirely in English. The developer's website is similar. Although the site is stingy with instructions and useful information. By the way, there is no help in the program itself. It’s good that it’s not particularly necessary - the editor is quite traditional in appearance and not complicated. On the left side there is a conductor, on top there is a toolbar, and the rest of the space is reserved for the document editing area.



EditEx 2006 editor interface


Everything is included in the program necessary tools for formatting text, searching, changing encoding. Additionally, there is a package for checking the spelling of English and Russian words and an on-the-fly translator. Unfortunately, both work latest utilities just bad. And although they function, it is almost impossible to use them. The translator performs a contextual search in the dictionary and displays absolutely all the results it encounters. Enter the word "go," for example, and you'll get hundreds of options, from "the agony" to "the pangolin." Although, in fact, the verb “go” will be somewhere in the middle of the sample. The spelling check in the dictionary also surprised me with its originality; it was proposed to replace “parts” with “cheboty”, “available” with “Ivan-tea”, “launch” with “zaalet”, etc. in the same vein literally through the word. The situation is only slightly better in the English language, where words are usually less inclined.


Spell check is surprising in its approach


Now about the nice additions. A simple FTP client, the ability to work in full screen mode, seeing clean code without sometimes annoying buttons and panels, additional panel automatic setting of HTML tags, preview of HTML pages and launch of the program specifying an external compiler.


Options for connecting to an FTP server



Program website: http://www.flywheel.nm.ru/editex.html

Crimson Editor

Having turned to Crimson Editor after EditEx, it seemed to me that the latter was made from it. Indeed, in terms of their set of functions, both editors are like brothers. Even outwardly it’s easy to confuse them. The same set of functions that are standard for the class of programs under consideration, the same advanced search, the same highlighting of paired brackets, line numbering (and printing with its preservation), text formatting, a transcoder with a minimum number of sets. There is a built-in FTP client, optional explorer, HTML file preview, spell check, detailed statistics, the ability to record and execute macros. A contextual calculator is also available.



Editor window without Explorer enabled


Languages, of which there are only 16 in the standard installation (including Basic, C/C++, CSS, HTML, Java, Matlab, Pascal, Perl, PHP, Python, etc.), are highlighted correctly, with automatic detection type. Language specifications can be customized by the user. In addition, a large number of various language files are available for download on the program’s official website. This probably allowed the creator (Ingyu Kang) to claim support for more than 100 computer languages.

When working with the editor, I found an unpleasant bug - when opening files, the program analyzes its contents, apparently to determine the syntax to be highlighted. The mechanisms are not reported by the author, but as a result of this procedure, some workable scripts lead to a memory access error and the program crashes.



Error while parsing the file being opened



Program website: http://www.crimsoneditor.com/

Uniqway Poetic

Well, in conclusion, let’s look at one more program. This editor is completely new, even raw, but I liked it and seems very promising. Its first version 0.1a was released only about a month ago, and now the second version 0.2b is already available. If the authors (Pavel Sushkov and others) continue with the same zeal, then we can expect a completed, convenient program with good functionality in the spring. Although you can use Uniqway Poetic right now.

So, what's interesting here? In general - a pleasant multi-document interface, extensive use of hot keys, convenient navigation, import/export UTF-8 and UTF-16 formats, printability, preview and page settings. Displaying non-printing characters, adjusting the font size for ease of use, of course, search and replace, using regular expressions. There are also file statistics based on the number of words and certain characters.



Uniqway Poetic


Work with text. I liked the options for adjusting indentation and removing leading and trailing spaces. It is possible to change the case of the typed text and set the type of line break (Unix, Mac or Win). Conversion can be made between the following types: Windows 1251, KOI8-R, ISO-8859-2, ISO-8859-5, ISO-8859-6, DOS 866, Mac Central European, Mac Cyrillic, Mac Greek. A small table of characters indicating codes for quick typing on the keyboard is available, as well as a function for sorting strings in alphabetical order. The history of changes made is not limited.


Transcoder


Working with code. The phrase from the official page of the program about highlighting “any type of syntax” looks interesting. I still don’t understand what exactly the creators had in mind, but practically the program supports following types: PHP, CSS, HTML, Delphi, XML, INI and Perl. Optionally, in addition to the coordinates of the cursor position in the status line, there is a numbering of lines of code.



Program settings


The program parameters can be changed to suit your own needs. Unfortunately, you cannot add custom buttons to any of the taskbars, including the custom one, but I am sure that a similar function will appear in the coming releases.

By the way, what else might appear in future versions? First of all, increasing the number of supported languages, enabling an FTP client and hex mode, expanding the program settings. Or maybe the Uniqway team will please us with something original, different from other editors in the future?

Program website: http://www.uniqway.com/poetic/

Results

In general, I liked all the programs discussed above, one way or another. And everything can be applied to your own “taste and color”.

PSPad It stands out among others in terms of its range of functions and convenience. A very efficient editor, superior even to some paid analogues. I recommend it to absolutely everyone who, due to duty or the dictates of their hearts, has to engage in program writing.

Golden Pen is a good replacement for the standard Windows notepad with a number of additional tools both general purpose and intended for programmers.

PolyEdit- a fairly strong program, but is not a specialized product for programmers. It could potentially be an alternative to MS Word, as it includes extensive capabilities for working with text.

IN EditEx What's interesting, first of all, is the support for a large number of different syntaxes. At the same time, the author’s attempt to stuff the program with a significant number of additional functions should be considered unsuccessful. Perhaps it’s a simple matter of using ready-made ones found on the Internet software components. Despite the fact that some of them are not finalized themselves. Quite quickly you get tired of the banner offering to buy raw software for $40. Throw this away, don't use half-baked features, and you'll get a completely usable editor.

Crimson Editor Overall it’s nicer than the previous program, there’s no annoying banner. The capabilities are approximately the same, but EditEx supports more languages. Crimson Editor, in turn, seems better refined.

Well Uniqway Poetic- a young program with the prospect of becoming a good help to the programmer...

Not every task and not every project requires a full-fledged IDE, so for many, their favorite text editor is still their main tool. And it seems that the choice is simple: powerful, extensible, but simple Sublime Text, living classics in the form of emacs and vim, as well as single-platform favorites - Notepad++ for Windows, TextMate for OS X and Geany for Linux. But new editors appear almost every day - does it make sense for you to change your habits? Let's see what's going on.

Atom

Back in August 2011, GitHub co-founder Chris "defunkt" Wanstrath set himself an ambitious goal: to create an editor that was truly open and offered unlimited hacking capabilities, without turning into another Vim or Emacs (which , as you know, can do almost everything, but only if you have a brain like Jeff Dean). And now, three years and more than fifteen thousand commits later, public beta testing began. In March of this year, Atom became available for download to everyone. How is the famous company going to revolutionize our approach to coding?

The first thing that catches your eye when you launch GitHub's new brainchild is its incredibly similar interface to Sublime Text. This in itself is not a minus. It is a known fact that the Sublime interface was inspired by another, no less popular code editor for OS X, TextMate. The current story with Atom and Sublime only emphasizes the latter's successful GUI solutions.

The second feature of Atom is that it is essentially a web application wrapped in Chromium. No, of course, the editor has its own icon in the dock, normal system menus and support for native hotkeys. It’s just that the Atom core is written mostly in CoffeeScript, it runs on Node.js, and the editor interface itself is an HTML page with quite normal markup. You can verify this by selecting Developer -> Toogle developer tools from the View menu.

Third interesting feature Atom - its modularity. In the best traditions of the Node.js ecosystem, it is written using the maximum number of open modules (more than fifty). This means that if you don’t like some standard functionality, then, according to the developers, you can easily find a replacement for it from more than 70 thousand packages in the npm registry or write your own plugin. Considering that JavaScript has actually been the most popular language on GitHub for a long time, and CoffeeScript is only slightly behind Perl, this gives us confidence in the future of Atom.


What about killer features? Here everything is not so rosy. Whether it’s the youth of the project or something else, Atom, apart from the big name of the creators and great hopes, doesn’t provide anything out of the box that could make you play with it for hours. What is presented by developers as advantages (for example, autocomplete, tabs, code collapse, snippets) can only bring a condescending smile on the faces of Sublime adherents. Yes, of course, Atom already has its own package manager, but I didn’t find anything in its repositories that couldn’t be implemented using plugins for Sublime.

Light Table

The development of Light Table began in 2011, when American programmer Chris Granger decided that the process of working with code in modern text editors did not fit well enough into modern workflow. In short, the Light Table's task is to make the development process truly interactive and visual, giving the developer instant feedback on any action, thereby helping to quickly navigate a large code. It was with this idea that Chris went to Kickstarter and quickly enough raised $316,720 for the development of the project, with a stated goal of 200 thousand. Why exactly did the bakers like Chris’s ideas so much?

One of the coolest features of Light Table is the ability to work with documentation as you write code. To see a description of a function, simply hover over it. The editor will instantly find and display documentation for the requested function or parameter (in the case of build-in methods) or show a prepend description of the function left directly in the code. This is somewhat reminiscent of autocomplete, which is used in the Visual Studio development environment from Microsoft, but much deeper and more powerful.

The second killer feature can be called instant execution of functions while writing code. This allows you to try different input conditions in debug mode and see not only the result, but also how the variables flow through the entire code. This is also quite a useful thing, especially when you are not sure of the result of executing any piece of code.


The third feature of Light Table is its unique ability to organize code into so-called tables. They are logically complete blocks of code through which interaction can be visualized individual functions programs. Using this feature, it is very convenient to divide a file into several independent function blocks and work with them, building some kind of real dashboard from the code. Another nice feature is the intelligent highlighting of blocks - in this case, the chances of getting confused in an already clear workflow tend to zero.


Despite its rather unusual philosophy, Light Table is undoubtedly a new generation editor. Its trick is not that it is written in fashionable technologies, but in changing the very approach to the process of developing complex software. You probably won’t feel the real power of Light Table when working with simple JS scripts, but for slightly more complex projects it will become an indispensable tool. You just need to get used to it. But this will not be easy.

Lime

All of Lime can be described by one single but well-known phrase from Bobuk - the brilliance and poverty of open source. The project, started last year by Fredrik "quarnster" Ehnbom, solves a single, but clear task: to create an open-source constructor in the image of Sublime Text. The reason for this desire is clear - the author, an ardent fan of Sublime, was dissatisfied with the sluggish development of the project and the lack of banal bug fixes for previous versions. The idea turned out to be close to several dozen like-minded people, and soon the first version of Lime was released.

The first thing that turns you off when you get acquainted with this editor is the absence of at least some semblance of binary packages. In general, the logic of this decision is clear: Lime is not a single application, but a set of a separate backend in Go and a couple of frontends to choose from. However, this doesn’t make it any easier - trying to quickly get Lime to work turns into an exciting tinkering with Go dependencies, configs and other joys of life.

As for working in this editor, at the moment it is frankly inconvenient, and there is essentially nothing unique to write here about. Lime can't yet boast even those features that other text editors take for granted. It seems that developers are still paying much more attention to application architecture and code cleanliness than functionality. To some extent, the situation is saved by partial compatibility with the Sublime API (and some parts of TextMate, respectively), but despite this, Lime still has big problems with usability.


In general, today Lime leaves a mixed impression. It must be great when your working tool is completely open source and so flexible. But let's be honest with ourselves: how many of us would ever think of rewriting the front end of our text editor? How many of us would even think of developing a text editor for ourselves because of some inconvenience, instead of using this tool for its intended purpose - namely, writing our own programs in it? Most developers (especially those who do not suffer from Stallman brain disease) will be able to use the functionality of Sublime Text and its system of plugins to solve everyday problems. And, to be honest, in a few years daily work I haven’t come across any super-critical bugs in Sublime for which I couldn’t find my own workaround. So at this stage, Lime is truly suitable only for die-hard open source fans with a huge amount free time and a desire to make this world a little better.

Adobe Brackets

Brackets is quite young (development has been going on since 2011), but interesting project from Adobe. Its goal is simple - to create a minimalistic and comfortable development environment that would require a minimum of effort on the part of the developer. In my memory, there have already been a considerable number of projects with similar goals. Let's see if Adobe, with the help of the community, managed to do something interesting in this field.

Surprisingly, Brackets turned out quite well. Everything you need works out of the box (after Lime, even this becomes a plus in a sense). The project really solves its problem main task- makes it easier to write code, although it does it practically without any fundamentally new approaches. And by the way, there is nothing wrong with that.

Brackets is written in HTML/JS (thanks not Flash or Adobe AIR :)), tightly integrated with Node.js. Outwardly, out of the box it makes a very favorable impression (though not without a touch of some toy-ness). What captivated me from the first keystroke was the amazing autocomplete for HTML/CSS/JS/jQuery. It's really smart and also contains a lot of pleasant little things(for example, a built-in color-picker or a tool for selecting transitions in CSS).


But the main killer feature for me was the inline editing of related code sections. This is an opportunity to view and edit, say, a set of CSS properties by its class or ID directly from the HTML layout file in a separate area. Brackets analyzes the structure of your project in real time, builds a dependency tree, and allows you to write interdependent sections of code without leaving the main context of the file. I admit, I created exactly this kind of functionality a couple of years ago in my simple text editor (I’m sure I’m not the only one). So such a feature cannot but please. Other features include quick access to documentation (though not as detailed as Light Table), JSLint out of the box, and a nice plugin manager. Although, of course, Brackets cannot yet boast of such an abundance of packages as Sublime.

Overall, while it does support some degree of support for, for example, Ruby or Python, Brackets is aimed primarily at front-end developers. It will cope perfectly with the needs of layout designers, in some ways leaving even specialized IDEs behind. You won’t find anything revolutionary new in it, except for inline code editing. However, what is there is made conscientiously and with soul. If you mainly design or write client code on a not too complicated stack, it’s quite possible that Brackets will be to your liking.

Zed

Zed is a rather hipster text editor that also tries to reimagine the modern software development process. If Light Table is trying to change the very principle of development, then Zed is mainly limited to experiments with the interface. Development began in 2011, and today Zed is available on the official website in the form of binaries for major platforms, as well as as an application for the Chrome Web Store.

The first thing that catches your eye when you get acquainted with Zed is the absence of familiar interface elements such as the project tree or tabs. A rather controversial step, during development it is often much easier to navigate the structure of the project using wood. But in the absence of tabs there is some rational grain: usually when working with large projects the number open tabs grows exponentially, and after just half an hour of work you have to constantly walk through them, closing what you are not working with at the moment. In Zed, navigation through the project is carried out either by jumping directly to the desired file in the project by its name (Ctr/Cmd + E) through a small console at the top of the application.

The second memorable feature of Zed is its emphasis on a multi-column interface. The editor supports several fixed options for splitting the workspace - 50/50%, 25/75%, and so on. It is worth noting that the second (or even third) column is intended not only for simultaneous editing of several files, but also for instantly previewing code in languages ​​that require processing (such as Markdown or CoffeeScript).

When working with Zed, you can really feel its focus on remote editing. So, out of the box it has great support for editing files from Dropbox or directly on a remote server and supports sessions. But precisely as an editor, Zed is very poor. Its built-in autocompletion is based on a dictionary, it does not have convenient tools for working with extensions, and does not allow you to customize the UI as you would like. Although, that’s probably not what Zed is talking about.

By the way, it should be noted that Zed is very thoughtful. At times, the application freezes for quite a long time and loses all responsiveness, which, of course, does not add convenience to an already rather unusual experience.

Overall, Zed is weird and definitely not for everyone. If you don't bother with endless customization user interface, you care about portability, the ability to stablely edit files on a remote server, and you are ready to try something unusual, you can play around. But Zed is clearly not suitable for everyday coding.

Hello, dear readers of the blog site. For a very long time I wanted to write about a wonderful free editor(the link leads to the official website where you can download the latest version with Russian language support).

For many years now, it has been one of the most popular and used programs for editing Html, CSS and PHP code. I’m even surprised: “how did I manage without it before, realizing its potential with the help of some other programs?”

Now I always have a couple of browsers running simultaneously on my computer, very simple, free and convenient FTP manager FileZilla and this very editor, the capabilities of which are simply incomparable with the default notepad used in Windows. But first things first.

Downloading and features of the Notepad++ editor

Installing the program on Windows is carried out in a completely normal way. You can also if you wish download Notepad++Portable, which is portable version this editor, which does not require installation into the operating system.

The portable version can be obtained from the regular version if you unpack the archive with the program to any convenient place and run executable file notepad.exe.

All the advantages of the Notepad++ editor

In fact, the notepad built into Windows is as different from our hero as heaven and earth. There is practically nothing in the classic notepad except the ability to view and create simple text files(it turns out something similar to a digging stick used by people in the early stages of development).

Having started using Notepad with two advantages, at least for editing Html and CSS files, you will be taken straight from the Stone Age to the cabin of a modern earthmoving machine. There are, of course, other alternative programs and even , but for a beginner, a “notepad with two pluses” will be just the thing (IMHO).

Yes, of course, at first using it may seem intricate and unconventional. But this is only at the very beginning of acquaintance, and then it will be just as difficult for you to live without it, just as, for example, many computer users cannot imagine their lives (also a kind of “classic”).

If we compare Notepad++ with more complex programs, designed to make it easier to write and edit various codes, such as Dreamweaver, then there are quite a few arguments for using our hero:

  1. Firstly, it's absolutely free, which means you can save a lot by using it instead of Dreamweaver, if you don’t take into account hacked versions of paid programs (which may well be a breeding ground for Trojans and other viruses).
  2. Secondly, Notepad is much more light and fast than many of paid editors. In addition, it is possible to use it without installing it in the operating room at all Windows system(the so-called portable version - portable) and carry it, for example, . As a result, you will always have at hand a convenient, functional and well-understood tool for working with Html, PHP and several dozen other types of code.

Why is this editor worth downloading?

Let's briefly go over its capabilities and features, and then try to consider them in more detail. So, Notepad++ can do the following:

  1. Highlight several dozen of the most popular programming and markup languages, for example, such as: Ada, Assembler, C, C#, C++, CSS, FORTRAN, HTML, Java, JavaScript, Objective-C, Pascal, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, SQL , XML.

    2. For all these languages ​​it is carried out syntax highlighting, breaking the code into lines and blocks, which can be collapsed by clicking on the minus sign and expanded by clicking on the plus sign. You can also display the relationship between elements with a dotted line. As an example, I took a piece of PHP code to demonstrate the capabilities of this editor:

    If you click on the opening HTML tag e, then it will be highlighted with a blue background and at the same time the closing tag, if any, will also be highlighted. Great for finding unclosed elements and .

  2. It's very easy to implement change the encoding, for example, the now popular one, which I talked about in an article devoted to the fight against krakozyabrs in Russian language encodings (see it at the link).

  3. In one program window you can open as many files as you like for editing, because Notepad++ uses tabs in the manner of those to which you have already become accustomed modern browsers.

    The color of the floppy disk on each tab indicates whether you have saved what you have made in it. last changes using a similar diskette on the toolbar. On the active tab, a red floppy disk (and on an inactive tab - purple) indicates your forgetfulness.

  4. With this editor you can conduct search(Ctrl+F) both for the document opened in it, and for a whole host of text files lying in a certain folder. Search with replacement and using regular expressions are possible. An amazingly convenient tool.

  5. In the settings of this editor, you can enable automatic writing of the closing Html tag when you type the opening tag, as well as the auto-completion option for tags.
  6. NotePad++ not only keeps a history of all your changes and allows you to roll back as many steps as you like or go forward, but also backup storage copies of these documents in the same way as Microsoft Word does.
  7. This editor has the ability to control hotkeys, of which there are a great many specified in it - from the top menu “Options” - “Hot keys”. Moreover, with double click Clicking on the combination you are interested in will open a window for reassigning keys, which can be convenient for those who are switching to Notepad from another editor.

  8. Notepad over the years of its existence got a lot of plugins, some are installed with it by default, and the rest will be available to you from the top menu “Plugins” - “Plagin Manager” - “Show Plagin Manager”.

    To install, you just need to check the box next to the required plugin on the first tab and click on the “Install” button.


    After this, the editor window will reload and new plugin will be available in the tab of the same name:

  9. Also this " Swiss knife» can connect to your site via FTP, record and play macros, check spelling on the fly, compare two files in windows open side by side, and much, much more.

What else might you need in Notepad++

  1. Thanks to syntax highlighting in Notepad ++, it is very easy, for example, to check whether all Html tags in the code are closed, and with minimal experience you will already visually note what is in your code there was a mistake made somewhere, because the color scheme of the code in this place will change.
  2. Also, due to the fact that the code is highlighted in color, and the regular text of my articles remains black, my constant proofreader grammatical errors(beloved wife) it is very convenient to check grammar in it. No, of course, I use various ones, but not one of them can still check punctuation, and semantic errors too.
  3. What I also really like about this text editor is the ability to visually display individual blocks of code using highlighting brackets like ( ) (). When the mouse cursor is between any brackets, they are highlighted, as if highlighting the beginning and end HTML block or PHP code.
  4. In addition to the excellent implementation of the backlight, special mention should be made of the possibility take a step back(cancel previous action). Moreover, the number of steps back is not limited, which allows you not to be afraid to experiment with the code without the risk of irreversible consequences.

    Undoing an action in Notepad++ is possible using the hotkeys Ctrl+Z (Ctrl+Y is a step forward, i.e. undoing the cancellation), using the corresponding menu items “Edit” or using the buttons in the form of curved arrows on the toolbar of this editor.

  5. NotePad++ constantly monitors the status of documents opened in it and if they are changed or deleted, for example, in another program, you will be shown a window asking you to close this tab with the document or re-upload its modified version.
  6. As I mentioned earlier, the two plus notepad has the ability to syntax highlighting settings(as well as a dozen other languages) to suit your tastes and needs, but I have never used this option, because I am quite happy with the default settings.

    But no one is stopping you from doing this, fortunately, everything is extremely simple - select “Options” - “Define styles” from the top menu, which will open a window where you can fine-tune the fonts and colors for Html highlight, PHP or any other language you need.

    7. Notepad++ also has the option automatic completion the word you type, which can be very convenient if you are not sure of the correct spelling of a particular Html, PHP or any other code operator. To do this, when typing, just press the Ctrl-Space key combination and select the desired option from the window that opens:

    If you want to make code completion automatic, without using hotkeys, you will need to select “Options” - “Settings” from the top menu and on the “Reserve/AutoCompletion” tab, check the “Enable for each input” box.

  7. Another feature that seems quite convenient to me in this editor is the ability to drag document shortcuts directly into the program window to open them (although this hardly surprises anyone) and the ability Drag and drop in the document itself, select a fragment of code (with the left mouse button) in the place you need.
  8. When working with Notepad++, you will have the option put markers, which are called notes in it, but the essence does not change. In the line you need, you can place a marker in the form of a blue dot on the left margin by clicking the mouse.

    To set a marker (note) in the editor, you can also use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-F2, and to move between markers placed in the document, you will only need to successively press F2 or Shift-F2 to scroll through notes in the opposite direction.

  9. If you work in this editor with an Html file, you can look what your code will look like in the browser FireFox or IE by selecting the appropriate Start menu items. If you need another browser, then select the top “Launch” item and look for the executable file you need in the window that opens.

  10. There is also ability to record macros, which I have not yet created, but the logic of their operation is quite simple. First, you record it by selecting “Macros” - “Start recording” from the editor menu, and then insert the recorded macros into the desired place in the code, selecting them from the editor menu or using the hotkeys assigned to them.

Encodings and working with files in the NotePad++ editor window

  1. It should be noted that this code editor allows you to save and convert Html, PHP and other files into UTF-8 encoding (without BOM). This has helped me more than once to overcome the problem with Russian encoding when working with various sites.

    When I wanted to change some inscription on the site into Russian, I often ended up with crappy messages, the reason for which was the Windows-1251 encoding in which the source file was saved.

    After the original file has been converted to UTF-8 encoding (without BOM), krakozyabrs were successfully transformed into ordinary Russian symbols. That. if you add the Cyrillic alphabet to any engine files, then for it correct display on the site you will need to either immediately save it in the correct encoding or convert it later.

    I should probably say a few words about this very BOM. The fact is that when you work with different text objects in a regular Windows notepad, when you save it in UTF-8 encoding, invisible characters (BOM) are added, which can subsequently affect the performance of this file (for example, PHP can throw an error) .

  2. If you would like to print the contents open file, then the code will be printed not in the form in which you see it in the program window. But by selecting from the “Options” menu - “Settings” tab "Seal" you will be free to change this and choose the option of printing code highlighting in color, allowing the display of line numbers, headers and footers, etc. things:

  3. This advanced text editor also allows you to open as many new documents as you like without fear of cluttering up your operating system taskbar. In unison with modern browsers, it will open all new documents not in a new program window, but in a new tab already open window.

    Moreover, these tabs of various documents in the window of this notepad can be arbitrarily dragged with the mouse, closed and minimized.

    Well, depending on the settings made (“Options” - “Settings”), all tabs opened before closing Notepad ++ will be restored the next time you start the program (again, similar to how browsers work). You can close unnecessary ones by double-clicking on them or placing them vertically.

  4. In addition to the usual operations with tabs, in this editor you can open in one window at once two copies of the same document. This may be necessary if you need to work with a document in different parts of it (look at it somewhere or copy it, and paste it somewhere).

    To activate this mode you just need to click right click mouse on the desired tab of the PHP editor and select the “Duplicate in Another Window” item from the contextual one.

    It is very convenient that if you save changes in one of the copies of the document, the second one will also be updated (that is, you will not get confused whether you saved the changes you made and in which copy).

  5. I also really like it built-in search By open HTML or PHP documents with the possibility of replacement(some actively use regular expressions for this, but to my shame I don’t know them). All the richness of the search in this advanced text editor can be appreciated by simply opening the “Search” menu item. See the screenshot at the beginning of the article.

In general, this text editor has taken a lot of useful and convenient features from the functionality of other applications, for which special respect goes to its developers and those who make plugins for it, some of which will now be discussed.

Using plugins in Notepad++

Let me remind you that to install a new plugin you will only need to select “Plugins” from the top menu of the editor - “ Plugin Manager" - "Show Plugin Manager".

And in the window that opens, on the first tab (from the top menu), check the box next to the required plugin and click on the button "Install".


After this, the editor window will reload and the new plugin will be available in the tab of the same name. In general, everything couldn’t be simpler.

What plugins for Notepad you may need in your work

    The plugin provides a lot of additional and convenient gadgets "TextFX", which after installation will be available in the item of the same name in the top menu of the editor. If you don’t have such an item yet, then go to “Plugins” - “Plagin Manager” - “Show Plagin Manager”, scroll down the list in the first tab and check the box next to TextFX Character.

    After installing it, the editor will reboot and will appear in the menu new item TextFX with many drop-down sub-items. For example, activating the option shown in the figure can greatly make your life easier when editing or writing HTML code:

    In this case, as soon as you enter in text Notepad editor++ opening Html tag, next to it a closing tag will immediately appear. There is a significant saving of time and a significant reduction in the likelihood of an error due to an unclosed tag. However, this thing annoys me and I don't use it. But this does not at all diminish her dignity.

    There are quite a lot of gadgets in TextFX, so try them in practice yourself and decide what exactly will be convenient and useful for you.

    Well, continuing the topic of tabs in the editor, it’s worth mentioning the possibility comparing two documents. First you will need to install this plugin through the Plugin Manager:

    To activate the document comparison mode in Notepad++, you just need to select “Add-ons” - “Compare” - “Compare” from the top menu or press Alt + D on the keyboard. As a result, the currently active tab will be open in the window of this notepad, as well as the tab located next to it.

    For convenience of comparison of two Html or PHP documents, the Notepad++ editor will highlight the differences for you. To go to normal mode To work with documents, you need to select “Add-ons” - “Compare” - “Clear Results” in the top menu or press Ctrl+Alt+D on the keyboard.

    Moreover, two documents in the Notepad++ window can be viewed both vertically and horizontally. To select the method that is most convenient for you, right-click on the location of their section and select the direction of rotation (right or left).

    By the way, if you, like me, mainly use Notepad++ to edit Html or PHP files of your site, then you may find it useful to be able to connect to it via FTP directly from this text editor. True, I somehow prefer working with FileZilla, especially since they even managed to steal my passwords from it.

    If you want to try working via FTP via Notepad, then select “Plugins” - “NppFTP” - “Show NppFTP Window” from the top menu, which will open the FTP client window on the right.

    To set up an FTP connection, click on the gear icon, select “Profile Setting” and enter your connection details. Further work is not much different from what I wrote in the article about FileZilla, which lives.

  1. If you install the Customize Toolbar plugin using the Plagin Manager, you will be able to shuffle, delete, or add new toolbar buttons this program.

  2. At the beginning of the article I mentioned Light Explorer, which adds the ability to open in the left column file manager. However, you can also use Explorer, which you will find in the plugin manager, for the same purpose.
  3. Great plugin WebEdit, which allows, by analogy with the WordPress Html editor, to frame the text with the most popular heading tags, lists, tables and others. Select the desired fragment and click on one of the buttons on the Notepad++ toolbar.
  4. ImgTags - allows you to have already specified horizontal and vertical sizes (it calculates them itself, which is very cool), prepared ALT attributes and SRC (you will also need to add the path to the folder with pictures on your server there).

Spell checking window in NotePad++ using plugins

    To connect Russian grammar checks the Notepad ++ editor uses the Shell-Checker plugin (from the “Plugins” menu item), for which you will need to download the Russian language dictionary from this page, and when activating this spell checker plugin, specify the path on your computer to the dictionary file.

    There are installation nuances. First you will need download Full installer, and then a file with the Russian dictionary aspell-ru-0.50-2-3.exe. First, install the full installer, in the wizard of which, I personally did not change the default path selected (c:\Program Files (x86)\Aspell\).

    Then install the language pack, where first you will have to enter the letter “y” in the DOS window and press Enter on the keyboard (although, perhaps this was just me, because I had already installed GNU Aspell on my computer before):

    Then the standard Russian dictionary installation wizard will start, where again I did not change the default path. All.

    Now restart Notepad ++ and either select the items shown just above from the menu, or hold down the unreal combination CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+S on the keyboard. In the window that opens, you will have to enter the path to the BIN directory from the Aspell folder:

    If you did not change the path when installing GNU Aspell and the Russian dictionary, then you will need to insert here:

    C:\Program Files (x86)\Aspell\bin\

    Well, or something similar, depending on your operating system. That's it, now select the text in which you want to check the spelling and press CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+S (you can change this combination in the hotkey settings - see above). A window will appear showing the first error found:

    You can ignore it, or choose a suitable replacement from the proposed options. Below you can change the checking language if you have installed several GNU Aspell language modules. That's all.

    DSpellCheck- a very convenient solution in the manner of the previous plugin, because it also uses GNU Aspell and its Russian dictionary, but it already does spell checking on the fly, just like in all modern browsers. Go to the plugin manager and install it.

    Immediately, the grammar check will be enabled by default (it can be disabled by unchecking the box shown in the screenshot), but only the module with the English language will be connected, so we go to the DSpellCheck settings and make changes.

    Select Aspell from the drop-down list (if you don’t have it installed yet, then scroll up this article a little and download the module along with Russian language pack to install them on your OS), and just below indicate the path to the aspell-15.dll file. A little further down, select the language of the connected dictionary, if you have installed several of them, and click on Apply.

    Now all errors found will be underlined with a red wavy line (the color can be changed in the settings), and when you move the mouse cursor, an arrow will appear, by clicking on which you can choose the correct spelling of a given word, or add it to the dictionary or to the ignore list.

Good luck to you! See you soon on the pages of the blog site

You can watch more videos by going to
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So do those who have been involved in web development for a long time. After all, something new always appears, customer requirements change, your own skills improve, you want to automate routine processes for large projects and get as many opportunities “out of the box” as possible. In this article, we have collected the best text editors for web developers at the moment.

Sublime Text (Windows, Linux, Mac)

It is a text editor for web developers, written in C++ and Python. It looks the same on all supported platforms thanks to the use of its own UI framework. The developers provide a free version for evaluation, but for long-term use you will need to purchase a license. The bonus is that the license is per user, not per device. Discounts are also available for purchasing multiple licenses for a company.

Main advantages of Sublime Text:

  1. Ease of use - Once you open Sublime Text, you can start working in it almost immediately.
  2. Fast and flexible search using fuzzy matches.
  3. Possibility of multiple selection for entering the same text in several lines at once. To set the cursor position, press Ctrl + left key mouse or Ctrl + triple left-click to select an entire paragraph.
  4. Availability of a visual mini-code map - it is useful when working with large files, as it allows you to quickly find the necessary fragments:
  5. The ability to use snippets to speed up work and a large number of plugins for a variety of tasks. The main one can be considered Package Control, with which you can search and install the necessary plugins directly from the editor.

Here are some examples of plugins:

Emmet is an excellent plugin that allows you to use shortcuts to enter certain tags, for example:

Ul#nav>li.item$*3>a(Item $)

Emmet converts the shortcut above into a list with three elements: