Talk In Code

Since starting programming I have used a lot of text editors, some have been good, and some have been very, very bad.

One text editor that stands out is PSPad. It is a free text editor for Windows that has lots of features and is very stable. I have been using this for a while now and have seen very little problems. I say "very little" as I once tried to open a 800 megabyte log file and it fell over, which is understandable.

It has the following features:

• Have many different files open with multi tabbed editing.
• Close and re-open the editor with the same files you had open.
• Built-in FTP client.
• Search and replace in files.
• A very neat text difference engine which highlights differences.
• Create new files from templates in HTML, PHP, Pascal, JScript, VBScript, MySQL, MS-Dos, Perl and a few more.
• Fully functional HEX editor.
• Intelligent syntax highlighting dependent on file type, which can be changed to any other syntax highlighting.
• Ability for users to create their own syntax highlighting.
• Print out text with coloured syntax highlighting.
• When typing you can press Ctrl and space to see a list of functions that start with what you have typed. This is an intelligent list so if you are writing in PHP you will be given a list of PHP functions.
• Built in code explorer that allows you to view functions and classes in your files. Created for PHP, XML, HTML, INI, C/C++ and Pascal, but more are in development.
• Spell checker.
• Auto correction of code.
• Bracket and tag matching.
• HTML code tidying and formatting.
• HTML entities and ASCII chart.
• Text manipulation with line sorting, removing blank lines and regular expression text replacing.
• Export text with syntax highlight to HTML, RTF, Tex format or to clipboard.
• Ability to link program with external compilers and capture error messages.
• Record, save and load macros to carry out repetitive tasks.
• Create a project so keep track of multiple files.
• Many more features besides these few.

Here is a screen shot.

Personally I find the bracket and tag matching extremely useful, and is a feature that makes it stand above professional text editors like Dreamweaver. If you are battling with your current text editor then give PSPad a go and see how easy it is.