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I've used Multi-edit and am currently using Ultra-edit on Windows. Quite fond of Ultra-edit (if you use Windows, try downloading the eval version of it, at www.ultraedit.com).
But the only editors I've seen for Linux (x-edit, e-macs, vim) are... archaic. They seem to be little more than 1970 editors that have been a little polished and GUI-fied. With all kinds of ctl commands, or ":" commands or God knows what.
Move little finger down an inch to the control key. Move index finger to x then s.
and
Take right hand off keyboard, pick up mouse, move mouse until the pointer is over the save icon, click, take hand off mouse, put hand back on keyboard.
"Archaic", maybe but that doesn't stop it being more efficient!
I really suggest that you spend a little time learning emacs (or vim) as they are very good, very mature editors.
(I would suggest GUI ones but I can't think of any off the top of my head)
Vim has a GUI version, but it seems rather silly to me. If I can enter a command in half a second without moving my hands, why would I want to move my hands to spend two seconds doing the some job???
Well, don't know why I'd have to go to a mouse to press Alt-f-x to exit.
But you failed to mention that prior to using the ctl-whatever, one might try raising the help, which obscures the active screen preventing one from referencing the help while being able to see the file one is working on. And you didn't mention scrolling through screens and screens of help to finally discover which arcane ctl combination is required to do what one wants, unless of course one forgets what one is looking for.
With a GUI, when one seeks functions which are not used frequently, one can easily go to the menu, with alt or cursor, and quickly scan the available options.
SPF, an IBM command line editor, more than 25 years old, at least uses meaningful abbreviations for it's commands, and has more functionality and utility than any Unix-side editor I've encountered yet.
Do you want a gui editor?
Do you want syntax highlighting?
Do you want font styles etc?
KWrite, from the KDE project is a nice simple editor, though I don't use it.
I use gvim. Do not knock the 'archaic' editors. I have never opened a program file that vim did not recognize and highlight for me. Including some really weird ones I ran into for class. I'm sure emacs is the same. These editors are also extendable beyond belief. A lot of vims functionality is scripted using it's embedded language, same for emacs. This means that the editor can be adjusted to very difficult tasks.
Can you tell your editor to find every instance of a variable that follows the declaration of another and move it's declaration to above the first?
vi / emacs isn't for everybody. But if you need a powerful editor ( ie. lots of programmer-centric functionality ) and extensibility, they're probably you best choice.
If you're only looking to edit the occaissonal webpage, you should try kwrite, gedit, pico, nedit, or one of those.
Actually, what I need right now is to modify config files. (Mandrake's LinuxConfig wizard doesn't seem to save my Samba server selections correctly. I was going nuts trying to figure out why my network behaviour wasn't changing, until I checked the actual files)
Quick, easy, preferably with an SPF-like exclude function, syntax coloring (for config files?) might be nice. Selectable font and screen size (font large enough to read, then max lines on the screen)
Originally posted by cornell Actually, what I need right now is to modify config files. (Mandrake's LinuxConfig wizard doesn't seem to save my Samba server selections correctly. I was going nuts trying to figure out why my network behaviour wasn't changing, until I checked the actual files)
Quick, easy, preferably with an SPF-like exclude function, syntax coloring (for config files?) might be nice. Selectable font and screen size (font large enough to read, then max lines on the screen)
Thanks kervin, I'll try those websites.
Hello,
I use UltraEdit when I'm on Windows. The only editor for Linux that compares to it is JEdit (www.jedit.org).
JEdit is simply good, specially for programming.
But to edit config files I would use vi.
Originally posted by cornell Actually, what I need right now is to modify config files. (Mandrake's LinuxConfig wizard doesn't seem to save my Samba server selections correctly. I was going nuts trying to figure out why my network behaviour wasn't changing, until I checked the actual files)
Quick, easy, preferably with an SPF-like exclude function, syntax coloring (for config files?) might be nice. Selectable font and screen size (font large enough to read, then max lines on the screen)
Thanks kervin, I'll try those websites.
well for things like that i use pico, which is console based but extremely easy to use (comes as part of pine).
jedit mings. annoying, slow and annoying... and slow. i use Anjuta as a full blown gnome IDE and also Glimmer for somewhere inbetween the two.
if you do want syntax editing, then i'd certainly recommend using an editor based on the scintilla code editing engine (anjuta is) as it's a great engine for syntax highlighting and formatting and stuff like that
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