Well I haven't used emacs yet so I think I can't compare them. But if Emacs is just somehow similar to Vim, then I think I could say that there's a big difference between them. If you have Wine, you could run Notepad++ and see for yourself

Like I said, the primary points are multi-tabbing for opened files, search/replace of text, and many useful tools, including plugins. Best of all, it's a lot easier to use, especially when you're manipulating many files like in a project at once.

Oh I forgot to mention. The file compare system (now a plugin) is really readable and easy to handle.

I recommend trying emacs

You get multi-tabbing, search, search replace, auto-indent, syntax highlighting, etc.

I typically use VIM for quick edits to code, and emacs for big changes. I've never felt the desire for any functionality that emacs doesn't already provide, even for projects involving many different source files, each with 1k+ lines of code.

emacs does have a steep learning curve though. The keyboard shortcuts are not very intuitive in my opinion, but once you get the hang of them you can do anything you want without the mouse...

Ctrl-x-f = open file
Ctrl-x k = close file
Ctrl-x b = switch buffer (to another open file)
Esc % = search and replace
Ctrl-c ; = auto-indent highlighted text
Ctrl-] = cancel current operation
and so on...

I'm quite 90% certain that I already tried emacs before and there was no multi-tabbing. Also it's a little vague but everything looked just like a terminal dialog system but was only enhanced in GUI, but that was a long time ago already but I'll try it again. Let's see

@suicidaleggroll: I don't see tabs but windows around instead. Is there another interface of emacs besides gtk? Features are quite good as well, but there's one immediate difference that I could see. Emacs doesn't seem to have direct control over conversion between different character forms like from ASCII to UTF8, etc. And so far, I can't something in Emacs that's similar to Notepad++'s "Find all in Current Document" and "Find all in Open Files". Highlights and styles/custom styless aren't there as well.

Vim and emacs are cli editors. The gtk version you are using is another thing. Start vim or emacs in a terminal (although I thing the "GUI" versions offer the same functionality). Both editors support multiple buffers (open files), find, find and replace, find and replace from cursor to end, fing and replace from cursor to begining, find and replace n times, even auto word completion seaching all open (and #include) files. And many many more features. Have you worked with these editors enough?

@segmentation_fault: not on Emacs. But on Vim I could even boast that it's even more than enough

emacs uses buffers for the individual files, you can use "Ctrl-x b" to switch between them. xemacs provides visual tabs in addition to the emacs-style "Ctrl-x b" buffer switching.

You're right, I don't think it has character switching, but the one thing it does have that I use all the time is split window. You can split the window in half (vertically or horizontally) with any file open in each side, you can even have the same file open in both sides. The nice thing about it is it lets you have two sections of the same file open for editing simultaneously, with both of them updating in real time.

@suicidaleggroll: I see. Thanks for telling me those details. I think it would be fun to study Emacs, even though the family of editors that uses Ctrl-* commands (which includes Nano) to manipulate themselves is not easy to my hands. The last time I used a CLI-based editor that was easy to me was Edit.com/Qbasic.exe of DOS. Perhaps it just confuses me, since I got used with control keys (Ctrl/Alt/Meta) being only used within dialogs/windows that has a toolbar menu. Sometime perhaps I'll try to learn it. Although I really think Vim is already enough for me when it comes to terminal-based editing.

Anyway, why don't you guys try Notepad++ as well yourselves and see what I mean. You could install it with the installer using wine.http://notepad-plus-plus.org/

If you're conservative about it, it's ok you don't have to

I'm afraid it doesn't support BASH or IDL, which is a deal breaker for me.

Well, that's too bad What's IDL?

It's a high level language similar to matlab, typically used in the scientific/research community:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDL_(programming_language)

I wonder. Is this IDL available in all platforms? But I'm not talking about using windows anyway. I was just wanting you to know how Notepad++ differs greatly from other text editors.

And about Bash btw, do you mean you want the editor to be able to run bash from it? Is that really a necessity?

Yes IDL is on all major platforms, Win, Mac, and Linux.

I mean syntax highlighting, auto-indent, etc. for writing bash scripts.

That's actually one of its default supported languages for such. Auto-indent is a general feature as well. I hope you don't mean automatic command listing/autocompletion of commands for bash? I don't think it's necessary for shell scripting, but it's still possible if someone decides to write a plugin for that.