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.
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.