Advanced text editor
 

I guess this question has been talked about a lot, but anyway, is there a good text editor for linux (alternative of np++ for example):
by good I mean:
It has syntax highlight
Matching brackets
Line numbering
Current line highlight
Colon select
Unicode support
Cut and paste with buffer
Regular expression finding(replacing)
Compare of two documents, using all the functionality above
Multiple Undo, Redo
Unnecassery block hiding
Easy text sizing(Ctrl + mouse or something like that)
End of line and start of line display(as usable characters)
codepage changing option
macros

I guess I forgot something, but these are reasons good enough :)
The closest thing was VIM

But I have a feeling that Linux platform lack of good text editor, you are now welcome to attack me ;) but only constructively!

P.S.
Off course I guess (Wine + Notepad++) is also an option, but I am a bit worried that functionality of np++ through wine might suffer.

Hi,

I've used the Wine-NP++ combination for quite some time and it worked. I mainly used it because it was what I was familiar with. Nowadays I use Nano, Vim and Emacs (Emacs just starting to discover) and haven't started NP++ for several months. You could also have a look at where NP came from, namely SciTE.

Kind regards,

Eric

Why do you think that vim isn't a good texteditor?

I'm using vim exclusively since many years even on Windows-systems. vim is a very powerfull editor with all features you meantioned and many more.

Note that you will have to learn to use the editor (like every program) before you can use it in an efficient way. And for vim like other tools you'll experience a steep learning-curve, but on the long run you'll be better off with such a powerful tool.

Markus

Hey markush, you misunderstood me, on contrary, I told that VIM is the best text editor on Linux I have found (I don't use Emacs, but from what I have read, it seams to be very powerful tool, like, Slackware, have separate installation part for Emacs :) , but I really don't like that standard key configuration is so very different from most of other applications)

So VIM is great! It just didn't prove it to me that it can do all the things I stated earlier.

If you can do all(ok, more or less like I stated ;) ) of the things I wrote above, than I would be happy to use VIM, I really enjoy that it works in console.

And you took good quote from read it carefully
It isn't enough if you just say, oh I like some application, if you don't like it than you just don't understand it. Prove me that I am wrong and I will shake your hand ;)

No offence :)

well, here we go:
It has syntax highlight: vim has syntaxhighlighting for almost every filetype and syntaxfiles can be easily written.
Matching brackets: vim shows the matching bracket when the curser is under a bracket.
Line numbering: in commandmode enter :set number
Current line highlight: I don't know
Colon select: I don't know what you mean
Unicode support: yes
Cut and paste with buffer: one of the moste elaborate features of vim
Regular expression finding(replacing): yes, I use it very often
Compare of two documents, using all the functionality above: can be done at least with the diff command
Multiple Undo, Redo: yes
Unnecassery block hiding: there is a wrapper function
Easy text sizing(Ctrl + mouse or something like that):[/b] I don't know what you mean
End of line and start of line display(as usable characters): I don't know (but can be used within regular expressions)
codepage changing option: I don't know
macros: vim comes with it's own macrolanguage and one can record macros into named buffers which can be edited afterwards

Maybe you tell us what you want to do with the editor, which filetypes do you want to edit? and which problem do you want to solve with the editor. I mean an example.

Markus

Emacs provides most if not all of what you want.

• syntax highlight: YES
• Matching brackets: YES
• Line numbering: YES
• Current line highlight: unsure, but probably
• Colon select: don't know what it is
• Unicode support: unsure, but probably
• Cut and paste with buffer: YES
• Regular expression finding(replacing): YES
• Compare of two documents, using all the functionality above: unsure, but probably
• Multiple Undo, Redo: YES
• Unnecassery block hiding: unsure, but probably
• Easy text sizing(Ctrl + mouse or something like that): unsure, but maybe
• End of line and start of line display(as usable characters): unsure, but probably
• codepage changing option: unsure, but probably
• macros: YES, DOUBLE YES

Since your feature needs seem to lean toward program editing I think you may benefit from looking into a full IDE, which Emacs can also serve as. I'll leave it to others to point out more popular IDEs.

I've used vim and emacs for years. For me, emacs is the best.

I did it the other way ;) my first editor with Linux was Emacs, back in the year of 1994, but later I turned to vi and vim.

Well, maybe this is a little bit off topic, but vim is quickly installed on Windows systems and can also be installed on an USB-storage-device and then be started on Windows. So I don't have to change the editor between different operating systems.

Markus

There are lots and lots of great text editors in linux. Personally I use vim on terminal ... its just that vim has a steep learning curve in the beginning. I don't think I need to try emacs neither.

Now coming back to the point, if you are accustomed to Notepad++ then look no further than at 'juffed' or 'kate'.

Cheers

Yeah I too used notepad++ on Windows. A nice close substitute I found when switching to Linux is kate. Never tried emacs, except its tetris!

OK guys sorry for long time no answer

to markush thanks for showing possibilities about most of them I knew :)

but thanks for info about diff, wrapper function and set number

BUT big minuses are yeah you can see matching bracket, but only in the borders of vim window, that's just silly and is not serious

there are few codepages, they doesn't to seem to affect anything and to import new seems a bit pain in the a**

all other options are more or less possible, but not as efficient as in np++ (font size change, to view structure of file, current line select, etc.)

and here everything boils down to efficiency, yes vim has steep learning curve, which actually is not as steep and I learned all this functionality in some 20 minutes(of course to know how to use vim properly, I should sit a bit with it, may be my opinion would change).

The problem is that even if you are god of vim, you will work slower than on np++ (except, I believe vim has specific features that np++ doesn't have :) and I was pleasantly surprised that vim has clipper language syntax :) )



To emacs guys: I should try out Emacs and answer you, what I think about it, I haven't used it, so I have no opinion.



To other guys Kate is weak :) did you read functionality I need.

Juffed is great, but lacks, few features, I would like to have and I really don't like that it uses QT.



To all, if you find some mistakes I have made in this post, please correct me, for example is there possibility to see matching bracket in vim further then screen(jumping is option, but it's like hack :) ).



And for few days this thought is starting to bother me, may be I should start more serious project for self development and build one most efficient advanced text editor as possible (Not as feature full as vim, it would have most used and necessary functions which would be usable as easy and fast as possible hmm...)

Thanks for help!

the "specific features" are what vi/vim makes very very fast and efficient. One cannot learn vim within some hours or days and say it is slower than editor XY... The most important feature of vim is that one doesn't need the mouse or the STRG-key. One important requirement is that you can typewrite with 10 fingers and without looking onto the keyboard.

I'm sure there is a feature to match braces outside of the current window, but I don't yet know how to do that.

Markus

I guess both vim and emacs have way more than enough features that one would ever need. Obviously you have to pay the price in the time spent learning either of them. I used to use emacs exclusively, now I am kind of undecided as I am starting to find some of vim's ways more convenient to me.

I miss notepad++ from windows...

@E.U.A. post # 14 : Welcome to LQ.

How about "textmaker-free". Can almost replace MS Word .. post #4 here
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...lent-799567/#4