Using a text editor is unavoidable part to any computer professional.
For all these tasks, I think of some features:
- Spell checking
- (un)Wrapping long lines
- Search and Replace (using regular expressions is a huge plus)
- Supporting both UNIX and Windows "new line" formats (LF and CRLF)
- Highlighting special keywords depending on application
- Multi selection
- Managing HUGE files
- Extra tools: case changing, tabulating, indentation, ...
- External tool support: running make, or java, or execute, ...
For all of these, I guess:
TextPad
is the best. Can find TextPad hereIn their website, they say the feature list includes:
* Huge files can be edited, up to the limits of virtual memory. See Specifications for the actual limits.
* Supports Universal Naming Convention (UNC) style names, and long file names with spaces.
* CUA compliant keyboard commands.
* English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish user interfaces.
* A spelling checker with dictionaries in 10 languages.
* Multiple files can be simultaneously edited, with up to 2 views per file.
* Warm Start feature lets you restart exactly where you left off.
* In addition to the usual cut, copy and paste capabilities, selected text can be case shifted and block indented, and characters, words and lines can be transposed. Cut and copied text can be appended to the clipboard, as well as replacing its contents.
* Text can be automatically word-wrapped at the margin, or at a specified column, if it does not fit on a line. In this mode, text can be split into separate lines where wrapping occurs, or lines can be intelligently joined, preserving paragraphs.
* OLE2 drag and drop editing for copying and moving text between documents.
* Unlimited undo/redo capability. The undo buffer can be optionally cleared when a file is saved, or by using the Mark Clean command.
* Block (column) selection mode, and visible display of tabs and spaces.
* A keystroke macro recorder, with up to 16 active macros.
* Sorting, using up to 3 keys.
* Text can be automatically aligned and indented, relative to the previous line, to aid block indentation.
* The right mouse button pops up an in-context menu.
* The cursor can be constrained to the text, or can be positioned freely in the document view.
* Toolbar with fly-by usage hints, and an active status bar.
* A powerful search/replace engine using UNIX-style regular expressions, with the power of editor macros. Sets of files in a directory tree can be searched, and text can be replaced in all open documents at once.
* Visible bookmarks can be placed on individual lines, and on all occurrences of a search pattern. Bookmarked lines can be cut, copied or deleted.
* A built in file manager for fast file copying, renaming, deleting etc.
* Print previewing, and printing with customizable headers/footers and page breaks.
* Viewer for binary files using a hexadecimal display format.
* Built in file comparison utility, and up to 16 user-defined tools with argument macros.
* Hypertext links from file search and user tool output to the relevant source line.
* DDE interface to other tools, such as MS Visual C++. The editor detects when an open file has been modified by another tool, and prompts you to reopen it.
