For numerous developers, a reliable text editor is sufficient for crafting even the most intricate web applications. Whether building a website from the ground up, modifying a CSS file, or managing server-side configuration files, a robust text editor can effectively handle these tasks. Last week, over 600 individuals cast their votes to determine the best text editor from a wide array of available options.This article highlights the fifteen most popular text editors for development, as chosen by you.
SciTE, an open-source text editor for Windows and Linux, was initially created to showcase the capabilities of Scintilla. It has evolved into a comprehensive tool for developers, allowing for expansion with user-generated configuration files, such as the SciTE command-line launcher, a straightforward Windows command-line utility for opening files in SciTE.
EditPlus is a Windows-based text editor for HTML and programming, featuring syntax highlighting for HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript, and more. It includes a built-in web browser for previewing work and browsing the internet, as well as auto-completion. However, EditPlus is not free, with a 1-user license costing thirty-five dollars.
E – TextEditor, or simply E, is a Windows version of TextMate. It offers a range of developer-friendly features, such as a personal revision control system to manage multiple file versions, ultimate customization, and a suite of automated tasks to enhance productivity. You can refer to the Keyboard Shortcuts Cheatsheet to optimize your workflow with E.
GNU Emacs is an open-source, cross-platform text editor (available for various Linux distributions, Mac OS X, and Windows). It is highly extensible and customizable, offering syntax highlighting, support for multiple file types, and the ability to enhance its features with extensions like debuggers and note managers/organizers.
gedit is the official open-source text editor for GNOME, a desktop GUI for Linux-based and Unix-based computers. It boasts a variety of features that developers will appreciate, including syntax highlighting for numerous languages, full support for UTF-8 text, remote-file editing, and file backups. Additionally, gedit features a user-friendly plugin system for extending its capabilities.
TextPad is a general-purpose text editor for Windows-based systems, offering a range of features such as a spell checker for 10 languages, a Warm Start feature to resume your work from where you left off, a keystroke macro recorder for automating keystrokes, and more.
UltraEdit is a popular and powerful Windows-based text editor for developers and programmers. It supports languages like PHP, JavaScript, Perl, C/C++, and includes built-in file management features, a robust search-and-replace function, and a feature map showcasing its extensive capabilities.
Dreamweaver is a fully-featured IDE for web designers and developers, created by Adobe. Its Code View is a favorite among developers, offering syntax highlighting, intelligent code-hinting/auto-completion, and on-the-fly syntax validation.
Komodo Edit is an open-source, cross-platform editor for server-side languages (included with Komodo IDE, but also available separately). It provides developers with a wide range of features, such as code folding, on-the-fly syntax checking, and the ability to extend it with various plugins.
Aptana is a free, comprehensive web development IDE available as a standalone application or as an Eclipse plugin. It includes built-in support for popular libraries like jQuery, MooTools, and Prototype, simplifying client-side web development.
PSPad is a freeware programmer’s editor for MS Windows, offering the ability to save sessions, a built-in FTP client, and a text difference feature for comparing file differences.
Vim is an advanced text editor for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS, known for its extensibility and efficiency. Many consider it a programmer’s text editor, even an IDE, and it is distributed as charityware, with donations going to charities.
Coda is a Mac OS web development environment featuring a powerful and elegant text editor with syntax highlighting, line numbers, and auto-completion. It also supports live collaboration (based on the Subetha Engine) and a Clips feature for storing frequently used snippets.
TextMate is a powerful Mac OS editor for programmers and designers, allowing users to customize the interface, auto-complete character pairs like parentheses and brackets, and run shell commands within a document.
Notepad++ received nearly a quarter of the total votes, making it the most popular text editor for developers. This free source code editor for Windows is released under the GPL license and offers a variety of features, including macro-recording and playback for repetitive keystrokes, a powerful regular expression search-and-replace, and support for numerous programming languages.What’s the best text editor for developers? (polls)
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