Talk:Comparison of text editors/Archive 2

Built in file system browser/tab
It would be good to add this feature to the comparison tables. Codewrite has it, and I've just found jedit does, but strangely enough this doesn't seem to be that common for such a simple thing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Special:Contributions/ (talk)
 * Related to this, I would also like to see "tags" searching feature comparison, that is, editors that can easily jump to the definition or use of any symbol, based on the programming language support provided by the editor. --A D Monroe III (talk) 16:17, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Nano on Cygwin
Currently, Nano is listed as an editor that doesn't run on Windows. However, Cygwin packages for the old version do exist at http://mirror.calvin.edu/cygwin/release/nano/. Since JOE is already marked as an editor that runs on Windows, could anyone please test these packages and update the page if they actually work? Or, is the lack of the Cygwin packge for the latest stable version of Nano a sufficient reason to say "it doesn't run on Windows"? -- Alexander Patrakov 07:03, 18 September 2006 (UTC)


 * There's a natively compiled version of nano for windows, for stable 1.2 and probably coming soon for stable 2.0.0 :) -- Dustin Howett 12:18, 08 November 2006 (EDT)

IE's modifications
I hate to say it, but I'm tempted to revert IE's modifications of the tables, mostly because the modifications haven't been carried through to be consistent on all the tables, but also because I think they looked better before the modifications. -- Heptite (T)   (C)   (@)  23:29, 31 October 2006 (UTC)


 * It would help to know which of IE's modifications you're talking about, and which version it is that you're claiming looked better. And if we're going to revert anything, we should be careful not to revert any corrections/updates to the information itself.  (IE ended up reverting at least one correction - maybe several - so it might take a bit of work.) -- Smjg 15:32, 1 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry... I mean the edits starting at 12:03, 2 October 2006 and ending with 06:12, 5 October 2006 (a couple of edits by others are mixed in), plus another at 13:30, 13 October 2006. You're correct that it would have to be handled carefully.  The question is whether to carry through some or all of IE's changes to the rest of the tables, or go back to the way they were. -- Heptite  (T)   (C)   (@)  22:22, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I've finished (and fixed) what IE started. Hopefully I didn't introduce any problems. -- Heptite (T)   (C)   (@)  07:42, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Merge tables
This article is a wonderful resource, but surely some of these tables could be combined somehow, so readers didn't have to scroll up and down constantly to make comparisons. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.193.63.155 (talk • contribs).


 * I don't understand you. If all tables were merged in only one, it would be really confusing to look at them. (unless, of course, the first column and the first row would be always visible) --CrazyTerabyte 01:42, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I merged the information in one CSV-file (separated with semikolon) like this - you can take this into MS-Excel and filter there out your preferred editor :

Name;Creator  ;First public release  ;Latest stable version  ;Programming language used  ;Cost (US$)  ;Software license  ;Open source  ;Windows  ;Mac OS X  ;Linux  ;BSD  ;Unix  ;OpenVMS  ;Java;English  ;German  ;French  ;Polish  ;Japanese  ;Italian  ;Dutch  ;Portuguese  ;Spanish  ;Swedish  ;Total  ;Multiple instances  ;Single document window splitting  ;MDI: Overlappable windows  ;MDI: Tabbed document interface  ;MDI: Window splitting  ;Spell checking  ;Regex-based find & replace  ;Encoding conversion  ;Newline conversion  ;Multiple undo/redo  ;Rectangular block selection  ;Syntax highlighting  ;Function list  ;Symbol database;Bracket matching  ;Auto indentation  ;Auto completion  ;Code folding  ;Text folding  ;Compiler integration  ;Text shell integration  ;Graphical shell integration  ;Macro  ;Collaborative editing  ;Large file support  ;Multi-line regex support[56]  ;Dynamically customizable  ;Mac OS X  ;Vi  ;Emacs  ;Pico  ;FTP  ;HTTP  ;SSH  ;WebDAV  ;ASCII  ;ISO-8859  ;DOS (OEM)  ;EBCDIC  ;UTF-8  ;UTF-16  ;RTL;Bidi;Windows (CR/LF)  ;Unix (LF)  ;Mac (CR) Acme;Rob Pike;1993;Plan 9 and Inferno;;Free;LPL, (OSI approved);Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;;Yes;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;No;No;Yes;No;No;?;?;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;?;?;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;?;?;?;Yes;No;;;No;Yes;No AcroEdit;SungDong Kim;1999;0.9.18.82;Delphi;Free;Freeware;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;No;No;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;5;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;No;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;Yes;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;;;Yes;Yes;Yes AkelPad;Shengalts A.A.;2003;04.01.2004;C++;Free;Freeware;Yes;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;?;?;?;?;?;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; Alphatk;Vince Darley;1999;08.03.2003;;$40;Proprietary, with BSD components;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;;Yes;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;?;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes [57];No;?;?;;;;;;Yes;No;No;Yes;Yes;?;?;?;Yes;Yes;;;Yes;Yes;Yes AptEdit;Brother Technology;2003;04.08.2001;C++;$44.95;Proprietary;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;1;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;?;?;?;Yes;No;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;;;Yes;Yes;Yes Aquamacs;David Reitter;2005;01. Jun;C and Elisp;Free;GPL;Yes;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;1;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes [75];Yes;Yes;Yes;?;Yes;Yes;;;Yes;Yes;Yes BBEdit;Rich Siegel;1992-04;9.0;;$125, $49 educational;Proprietary;No;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;1;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes [58];No;No [59];Yes;?;?;?;?;?;Yes;No;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;;;Yes;Yes;Yes Bluefish;Bluefish Development Team;1999;1.0.7;;Free;GPL;Yes;Partial [1];Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;26;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;Yes;?;?;Yes[38];Yes;Yes;Yes[39];No;Yes[40];No;Yes;?;Yes;?;Yes;Yes;?;?;?;?;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;?;?;Yes;?;;;Yes;Yes;Yes Caditor;Caglow;2008;02. Mrz;C#;Free;AFL;Yes;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;No;3;Yes;No;No;Yes;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;No;No;Yes;;;;;;;;;;;;Yes;No;No;No;;;;;;;;;Yes;Yes;Yes Carbon Emacs;;;;;;;;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; Coda;Panic, Inc.;2007;01.06.2001;;$99;;No;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;;;;;;?;Some [6];?;?;?;?;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;FTP, SFTP, FTP+SSL;?;?;Yes;;;;;;;;;;; ConTEXT;ConTEXT Project Ltd;1999;0.98.5;Borland Delphi;Free;Proprietary;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;22;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;No;No;Partial[16];Partial [17];Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;?;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;No;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;No;No [60];No;?;?;?;?;?;No;?;No;?;Yes;?;?;?;Yes;Yes;;;Yes;Yes;Yes Crimson Editor;Ingyu Kang;?;03. Jul;;Free;GPL;Yes;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;1;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;No;Yes;Yes;No;No;No;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;No;No;No;?;?;?;?;?;Yes;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;No;No;Partial;No;;;Yes;Yes;Yes Crystal C/C++;SGV Sarc, Inc;1999;4.00;C, embedded C, C++;$249 onwards;Proprietary;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;;;;;;;;;;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;;;Yes;Yes;Yes CRiSP Editor;Foxtrot Systems Ltd, Paul Fox;1990;09.04.2003;;$99;Proprietary;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; Diakonos;Pistos;2004;0.8.6;;Free;MIT;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;;Yes;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;No;No;Yes;No;Yes;?;Yes;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;No;?;Yes;Yes;?;?;?;?;No;No;No;No;Yes;?;?;?;No;No;;;?;Yes;? e;Alexander Stigsen;2005;1.0.30;;$34.95;Proprietary;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;Yes;No;No;Yes;No;Plugin[18];Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;?;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No[61];Yes;Yes;Yes;?;?;?;?;?;Yes;No;No;No;Yes;?;?;?;Yes;Yes;;;Yes;Yes;Yes ed;Ken Thompson;1970;unchanged from original;;Free;/;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;;Yes;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;?;?;?;?;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;?;?;?;Yes;No;;;No;Yes;No EditPlus;Sangil Kim;1998;03. Okt;;$35;Shareware;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes[41];Yes[42];Yes;Yes;Yes[43];Yes;Yes;Yes;?;Yes;Yes;No;No;Yes;Yes;?;?;?;?;Yes;No;No;No;Yes;?;?;?;Yes;Yes;;;Yes;Yes;Yes Editeur;Jean-Pierre Menicucci;1992;05.03.2004;;$28;Shareware;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;?;Yes;?;Yes;?;?;?;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;?;Yes;No;No;No;;;Yes;Yes;Yes EmEditor Professional;Emurasoft, Inc.;1997;08. Feb;;$39.99 (1-user);Shareware;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;Outdated (6);Yes;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;7;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Plugin[19];Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Plugin [44];Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;?;?;?;No;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;;;Yes;Yes;Yes epsilon;Lugaru Software;1984;13. Jun;C;$250.00;proprietary;No;Yes;Yes[2];Yes;Yes;Yes;No;;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;1;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; gedit;GNU Project;2000;2.22.3;C;Free;GPL;Yes;No;Yes [3];Yes;Yes;Yes;No;;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;82;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;No;Yes [21];No;Yes;No;Yes;No;Yes;?;Plugin;Yes;Yes;No;No;No;Yes[45];Yes;Yes;Yes [62];No;?;No;Yes[69];?;?;?;?;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;?;?;Yes;Yes;;;Yes;Yes;Yes Geany;Enrico Tröger;2005;0.15;;Free;GPL;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;21;Yes;No;No;Yes;No;Plugin[20];Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;?;?;?;?;?;Yes;?;?;?;?;No;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;Yes;Yes;;;Yes;Yes;Yes GNU Emacs;Richard Stallman;1984;22. Mrz;C and Elisp;Free;GPL;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;1;Yes;Yes;Yes;Plugin [9] [10];Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;Yes;Yes;?;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;Yes;Yes;;;Yes;Yes;Yes Gobby;0x539 dev group;2005;0.4.7;C++;Free;GPL;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;;Yes;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?; ?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;Yes;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;;;?;?;? JED;John E. Davis;1992;0.99-18;C;Free;GPL;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;;Yes;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;No;Yes;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;No;?;?;Yes;?;Yes;Yes;?;No;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;Yes;No;;;Yes;Yes;Yes jEdit;Slava Pestov;1998 (?);04. Feb;Java;Free;GPL;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;1;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;Plugin[22];Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;Plugin;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;No;Yes;No;?;Yes;Yes;?;?;?;?;Plugin[76];Yes [77];No;Plugin.;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;Yes;Yes;;;Yes;Yes;Yes JOE;Joseph Allen;1988;03. Mai;C;Free;GPL;Yes;Partial [4];Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;4;Yes;Yes;No;No[11];Yes;Plugin[23];Partial[24];No[25];Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;No;No;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;No;Yes;?;?;?;?;Yes;Yes;No;No;No;No;Yes;?;?;?;Yes;Yes;;;Yes;Yes;? Kate;KDE Project;2000-12;02.05.2004;;Free;GPL;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;50 fully / 18 mostly [4];Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;Plugin;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;No;No;?;No;Yes;?;?;?;?;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;?;Yes;Yes;;;Yes;Yes;Yes Komodo Edit;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;Yes;Yes;?;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;No;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; KWrite;KDE Project;2000;04. Mai;;Free;GPL;Yes;Partial [5];Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;;Yes;Yes;?;?;?;Yes;?;?;Yes;Yes;?;Yes;No;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;?;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;?;No;Yes;?;?;?;?;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;?;?;Yes;Yes;;;Yes;Yes;Yes LE;Alexander V. Lukyanov;1997;1.13.8;C++;Free;GPL;Yes;Partial [4];Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;No[26];Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;No;Yes;Yes;No;No;No;No[46];Yes;No;No;No[63];No;Yes;Yes;?;No;?;?;No;No;No;No;Yes;?;?;?;Yes;No;;;Yes;Yes;No Metapad;Alexander Davidson;1999;Mrz 51;;Free;Freeware;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;Yes;No;No;No;No;Partial[27];No;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;No;No;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;No;No;No;No;Yes;?;?;?;Yes;Yes;;;Yes;Yes;? MultiEdit;;;;;;;;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; mined;Thomas Wolff;1992;2000.14;C;Free;GPL;Yes;Partial [6];Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;;Yes;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;Yes;No;No [12];No;No;No;Yes;Yes [28];Yes [29];No;No;Yes [47];?;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;No;No;No;?;?;?;?;?;Yes;?;?;?;Yes;?;?;?;?;?;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;Yes;Yes;;;Yes;Yes;Yes MS-DOS Editor;Microsoft;1991;2.0.026;;Bundled with MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows;Proprietary;No;;;;;;;;Yes;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;Yes;No;No;Yes;No;?;?;Yes;?;?;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;Yes;?;Yes;?;?;?;;;Yes;?;? Nano;Chris Allegretta;1999;2.0.9;C;Free;GPL;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;;Yes;?;Yes;?;?;Yes;?;Yes;?;?;?;Yes;No;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;No;No;Yes;Yes;No;No;No;No;?;?;?;No;?;?;Yes;?;?;?;Yes;No;No;Yes;No;Yes;?;?;?;Yes;No;;;Yes;Yes;Yes NEdit;Mark Edel;1991;05. Mai;;Free;GPL;Yes;Partial [4];Yes [3];Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;;Yes;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;Plugin[30];Yes;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Plugin;Yes;Yes;Yes;Plugin;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;No;Yes;Yes;?;?;?;?;No;No;No;No;Yes;?;?;?;No;No;;;Yes;Yes;Yes Notepad;Microsoft;1985;6.0;;Bundled with Microsoft Windows;Proprietary;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;?;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;No;No;No;No;?;?;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;No;No;Yes;Yes;;;Yes;No;No Notepad++;Donho Don Ho;25.11.2003;05.01.2004;C++;Free;GPL;Yes;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;43;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;Plugin[31];Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Plugin;Plugin;Yes;Yes;Yes [48];Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;with plugin;with plugin;with plugin;Yes;?;?;?;?;Yes;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;plugin;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;Yes Notepad2;Florian Balmer;2004-04;2.0.18;C++;Free;BSD license;Yes;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;?;?;?;Yes;Yes;?;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;No;Yes;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;?;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;No;No;Yes;Yes;;;Yes;Yes;Yes ne;;;;;;;;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; NotesHolder;;;;;;;;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; NoteTab;Eric Fookes, Fookes Software;1995;Mai 61;;Free, $10 Standard, $20 Pro;Proprietary;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;Yes;?;No;Yes;2 windows;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Partial [49];?;?;No;?;Yes;?;?;Yes;?;?;Yes;?;No;Yes[64];?;?;?;?;?;No;?;No;?;Yes;?;Yes;Yes;?;?;;;Yes;Yes;Yes nText;Paul Kenny;2008;;Java;Free;GPL, (OSI approved);Yes;Yes;Yes;No;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;1;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; nvi;Keith Bostic;?;Jan 79;;Free;BSD license;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;;Yes;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;Yes;Yes;No;No;No;No;Yes;No;No;Yes;?;No;?;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;No;No;Yes;No;No;?;?;?;?;?;Yes;?;?;No;No;No;No;Yes;?;?;?;Yes [80];No;;;?;Yes;? Pico;University of Washington;?;Apr 64;;Free;Proprietary;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;;Yes;?;?;?;?;Yes;?;?;?;?;?;Yes;No;No;No;No;Yes;No;No;No;Yes;?;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;?;?;?;No;?;?;?;?;No;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;Yes;?;?;?;No;No;;;?;Yes;? PolyEdit;PolySoft Solutions;1998;5.0 Preview Release;;$27.95;Shareware;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;?;No;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;No;No;Yes;Yes;?;?;?;?;?;No;No;No;No;Yes;?;?;?;Yes;Yes;;;Yes;Yes;Yes Programmer's Notepad;Simon Steele;1998;2.0.6.1;C++;Free;BSD license;Yes;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;No;No;Yes;Yes [32];Yes [32];Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes [50];Yes [50];Yes;Yes [50];Yes;Yes [50];No;No;Yes [62];No;Yes [65];No;Yes;?;?;?;?;No;No;No;No;Yes;?;?;?;Yes;Yes;;;Yes;Yes;Yes PSPad;Jan Fiala;2002;04.05.2003;Borland Delphi;Free;Proprietary;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;36;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Plugin;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;with plugin;Yes;?;?;?;?;Yes;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;Yes;Yes;;;Yes;Yes;Yes Q10 (text editor);Baara Estudio; ?;01.02.2021; ?;Free;Proprietary;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;?;?;?;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;6;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;;;?;?;? RJ TextEd;Rickard Johansson;?;4.521;Borland Delphi;Free;Proprietary;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;14;Yes;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;?;?;Yes;?;?;?;?;Yes;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;;;Yes;Yes;Yes RText;Fifesoft;2003;0.9.9.6;Java;Free;GPL;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;17;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;No;No;Yes;Yes;?;?;?;?;No;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes[81];Yes;Yes;;;Yes;Yes;Yes sam;Rob Pike;1980s;Plan 9 and Inferno;;Free;LPL, (OSI approved);Yes;;;;;;;;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; SciTE;Neil Hodgson;1999-03;Jan 77;;Free;HPND;Yes;Yes;Yes [3];Yes;Yes;Yes;No;;Yes;Yes;Outdated (1.72);Yes;Outdated (1.62);Yes;Outdated (1.67);Outdated (1.63);Yes;Yes;39 [5];Yes;No;No;Yes [13];No;No;Limited[33];No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;?;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;?;Yes;No;?;No;Partial[70];?;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;;;Yes;Yes;Yes Scrivener;;;;;;;;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; skEdit;Sean Kelly, skti;2002;03.06.2001;;$24.95 for a Lifetime license;Proprietary;No;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;?;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;No;Yes [66];?;?;?;?;?;?;?;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;?;?;Yes;Yes;;;Yes;Yes;Yes SlickEdit;SlickEdit, Inc.;1988;11.0.2;;$299;Proprietary;No;Yes;Yes [3];Yes;No;Yes;No;;Yes;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;No;Yes;?;?;Yes;Yes;?;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;?;?;?;Yes;Yes;;;Yes;Yes;Yes Smultron;Peter Borg;2004;03. Mrz;Objective-C;Free;BSD;Yes;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;13;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;Yes;?;?;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;Yes;?;?;?;Yes;?;?;?;Yes;Yes;;;Yes;Yes;Yes SubEthaEdit;TheCodingMonkeys;2003;02.06.2003;;$35 for commercial use;Proprietary;No;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes [34];Yes;?;?;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;?;Yes;?;?;?;?;?;Yes;No;No;No;Yes;?;?;?;Yes;Yes;;;Yes;Yes;Yes TaterEdit;;;;;;;;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;No;No;;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;Yes;Yes;No;No;No;?;;;;;;Yes;No;Yes;No;;;;;;;;;Yes;Yes;Yes TED Notepad;Juraj Simlovic;2001;05.03.2001;;Free;Freeware;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;No;No;?;?;No;Yes;Yes;No;No;No;;;;;;;?;?;?;?;?;No;?;No;?;Yes;?;?;?;Yes;Yes;;;Yes;Yes;Yes TextEdit;Apple Computer;2001;01. Apr;;Bundled with Mac OS X;Proprietary[citation needed];No;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;18;?;?;Yes;?;?;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;No;No;?;?;?;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;?;?;Yes;Yes;;;Yes;Yes;Yes TextMate;MacroMates;10.10.2004;01.05.2007;Objective-C++;39;Proprietary, with MIT components;No;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;1;No;No;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;Partial;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes [51];Yes;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;No;Yes;?;Yes;No;No;No;Yes [75];No;No;No;Yes;Yes;?;?;Yes;Yes;;;Yes;Yes;Yes TextPad;Helios Software Solutions;1992;05. Feb;;$32.40 (£16.50);Shareware;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Outdated (4.7.3);Yes;Outdated (4.7.3);Outdated (4.7.3);Outdated (4.7.3);Outdated (4.7.3);No;9;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;No;Yes;Yes;No;No;No;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;No;No;Yes;Yes;?;?;?;?;No;No;No;No;Yes;?;?;?;Partial [83];Partial [83];;;Yes;Yes;Yes TextWrangler;Bare Bones Software;?;02. Mrz;;Free;Proprietary;No;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;1;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;?;Yes;Yes;No;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;?;?;?;?;?;Yes;?;Yes;?;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;;;Yes;Yes;Yes The Gun;Steve Hutchesson;?;3.0f;Microsoft Assembler (100%);Free;Freeware;No;;;;;;;;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; The SemWare Editor;Sammy Mitchell;1985-11;04. Apr;;$99;Proprietary;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;Yes;Yes;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;?;Yes;Yes;Yes [52];Partial [53];No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;No;Yes;?;?;?;?;No;No;Yes *[78];No;Yes;?;?;?;No;No;;;Yes;Yes;Yes Twistpad;Carthago Software;2006;Jan 64;Borland Delphi;$19.95;Proprietary;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;1;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;;;Yes;Yes;Yes UltraEdit;IDM Computer Solutions;1994;14. Okt;;$49.95;Proprietary;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;No;Yes;No;No;Yes;No;7;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes [35];Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;?;?;?;?;?;Yes;No;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes UNA;N-BRAIN, Inc.;2008;1.0;Java;Lite free, Full $300;Proprietary;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;1;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;?;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;No;Yes;;;;;;;;;;Yes;?;?;?;Yes;Yes;;;Yes;Yes;Yes VEDIT;Ted Green, Greenview Data;1980;6.15.2;Assembly and C;standard $89, Pro64 $239;Proprietary;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;No;1;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Plugin[36];Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes [54];No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;No [71];No;No;Yes;No;No;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Partial;Partial [84];;;Yes;Yes;Yes Vim;Bram Moolenaar;1991;07. Feb;C;Free;GPL - compatible;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;25;Yes;Yes;Yes [14];Yes [15];Yes;Yes [37];Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Plugin [55];Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;Yes [72];Partial [73];?;Plugin [79];Plugin [79];Plugin [79];Plugin [79];Yes;Yes;Yes;No [85];Yes;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;Yes XEmacs;Lucid Inc.;1991;21. Apr;C and Elisp;Free;GPL;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;;Yes;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;?;Yes;Yes;Yes;?;Yes;Yes;?;?;Partial [86];Partial;;;Yes;Yes;Yes xPad;;;;;;;;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; Zeus;Xidicone P/L;1995;3.96q;C and C++;$69.95;Shareware;No;Yes;No;No;No;No;No;No;Yes;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;?;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes;Yes [67];No;No [68];Yes;Yes [74];No;No;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;Yes;No;Yes;No;Yes;No;Yes;Yes;;;Yes;Yes;No —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.35.231.16 (talk) 14:13, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Latest Stable Version
Is this really helpful at all? Comparison of version numbers is pretty worthless to an end-user. A latest-version-release-date column would be much more useful (perhaps with the version number in parenthesis), so a reader could see at a glance which editors are still under development. Twiin 06:09, 2 December 2006 (UTC)


 * More or less agreed. Unfortunately, like the 'latest version' column, it will be difficult to maintain. Wikiwalk 18:54, 15 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I'd say don't bother - anybody can click the main article and see the status. Or have popups or something too. &mdash; RevRagnarok  Talk Contrib 19:48, 15 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree -- version numbers are useless to our readers, and accessible at a single click to the main article about that editor. Would just showing the *year* the latest version was released be adequate? (Does every editor under active development release a new version every year?) --68.0.124.33 (talk) 00:28, 4 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I think it would be more useful with just the year -- it indicates whether there is active development. CRGreathouse (t | c) 08:38, 28 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Not every program under active development releases a stable version every year. (That tends to reflect who the developers are, more than the program). Tedickey (talk) 12:03, 28 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, but if the last stable release was 1993 there's a good bet it's not under active development. CRGreathouse (t | c) 12:21, 28 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Sure - but there's going to be some intermediate date where you'll disagree, e.g., 3-5 years, which isn't that far-fetched for a large system under development. Tedickey (talk) 12:40, 28 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Right, people will come to different conclusions. But we don't need to care what they will conclude -- we just provide the information.  CRGreathouse (t | c) 16:10, 28 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree that date would be much more useful than the version number shown now. I guess year would be enough ( as in the "First public release" column now is in most cases). And it might reduce the number of edits a bit, too. But what would be a suitable title for the column (preferably not too long)? --PauliKL (talk) 14:06, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Large File Editing Comparison
It would be beneficial to compare these different software packages based on how they handle large (4GB+) files. If the editor has a filesize limitation based on the hardware it is running under, if the editor has a performance degredation working with files over 100MB if the filesize is doubled/tripled, and if the editor caches the entire file that is being edited in memory or only segments of the file. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.240.172.194 (talk • contribs)
 * This may be something that is too subjective and WP:OR. &mdash; RevRagnarok  Talk Contrib 16:51, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
 * There is nothing subjective about whether a program insists on reading an entire file before allowing you to view any of it (mosts modern file editors do this). This is a key issue in trying to work with Very Large Files. -69.87.200.124 12:32, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately such information is not available for most editors. Hopefully some computer magazine does a benchmark some day, but Wikipedia is not place for benchmarks. --PauliKL (talk) 17:31, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Adding of HippoEDIT
Hello I want to update article with text editor HippoEDIT (www.hippoedit.com). Is this Ok? --KefirX 21:31, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Because nobody complains, I have updated the article. All changes are marked as "Adding HippoEDIT". --KefirX 00:03, 5 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Dear Transfinite, can you please explain me why you have removed my updates "Adding of HippoEDIT" of article "Comparison of text editors". Please describe this in examples, taking one of other editors in the list. --KefirX 11:33, 5 February 2007 (UTC)


 * The article on HippoEDIT was deleted November 9, 2006 as spam and has not returned.  The editors in this list should have associated articles, otherwise they do not belong here. If you can show HippoEDIT passes WP:SOFTWARE, I won't have a problem with it. I'll be removing the other editors with red links fairly soon.


 * Hello Transfinite, maybe it would be more polite to return information about HippoEDIT to the article and delete it together with other editors having red links. When you would start to do so. This would be politically correct.--KefirX 22:07, 5 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm looking through all of these, and trying to figure out which ones are notable. It's probably going to be a piece-meal affair, instead a massive deletion. --Transfinite 02:29, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Keep the same order of editors each list of features
It would be beneficial to have the same order and number of editors in each list of features comparisons. I tried copying and pasting these lists into a spreadsheet - to make one comprehensive list of editors (with many columns across) only to find the rows of names for the editors didnt line up.

Georgerai 13:10, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Georgerai (talk • contribs) 13:08, 12 February 2007 (UTC).


 * Just fixed all tables. Your wish is now granted. :) I just hope all other wikipedians keep this page clean. --CrazyTerabyte 01:42, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Smart indent
block indent (needed for folding) based on		syntax: "sub indents", { }, beginn, end marking easy change of tab-length lineal and scrollbars for x and y direction (VIM missing the x-bar)

Arnero 06:49, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

portability, bi-directional
May these be added or at least started, please? Thank you. 195.113.33.33 10:08, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I miss a comparison of portability, ie. no installation is required and stores the settings in the same directory from which it launches. When you move the app from one pc to another on a USB flash, the settings goes with you. Storing the settings in the Registry or Home directory violates this. Requirement of specific dynamic libraries violates this.
 * I miss a comparison of bi-directional editing, which is required for all right-to-left languages.

I don't think enough people care about bi-directional support to warrant a section on that. It takes up a lot of space. 24.106.212.86 (talk) 15:31, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

removing spam and non-notable editors
I have removed all entries, which articles were deleted as spam or non-notable. I hope no one is really going to hate me for that, although I already know they will.. :-))) There are, however sections with no links at all. It is really hard to identify spam there. Please, help me add links to those as well so that we can remove the rest.. Thank you. 195.113.33.33 11:11, 15 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Seems like a reasonable step to take. However, you accidentally deleted EditPad and EmEditor, because whoever wikilinked them did it incorrectly. I went through behind you and restored them. :-)--SarekOfVulcan 11:24, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry about that.. It was a mess and shit happens. Thanks for fixing. 195.113.33.33 11:44, 15 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Also, I disagree that links should be added: I'd rather go through and remove links from all but the first reference, per the MOS.--SarekOfVulcan 11:25, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, it is the only way to prevent spammers to add programs there and to keep clean track of what is and what is not having a page, isn't it. Tell you, delete entries from those non-linked lists was way too complicated to be done regularily. Also note, that pages are being deleted these times more agressively, therefore, we will have to do this clean-up again in few days or weeks. 195.113.33.33 11:44, 15 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I've just fixed all tables. I haven't checked the links of most of these software, but now all of the tables have the same set of programs and all names have the same links. It is less messy now. --CrazyTerabyte 01:42, 20 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Another clean-up.. 195.113.23.172 10:34, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

TextEdit & WebDAV
TextEdit has been flagged as not having support for WebDAV. I don't agree with this; Mac OS X supports mounting WebDAV volumes. It would be insane for application writers to specifically add WebDAV support given this excellent WebDAV support already exists. This probably applies to all Mac editors, unless they are somehow incompatible with it. --Steven Fisher 14:27, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Large file viewing
Almost all modern text editors read the whole file into memory in order to work with it. This makes even just browsing/viewing large files awkward and slow -- sometimes impossible, if they do not fit into memory. So, a person wanting to view a large text file may need to use a hex editor, because some of them are able to browse through large files directly, without having to load the whole file into memory first. Some hex editors are probably better than others at displaying text nicely. See "Maximum file size" and "Partial file loading" columns in Comparison of hex editors. Are there any particularly good guides to "Viewing large text files"? -69.87.200.124 12:35, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Three free portable ones are listed here: -69.87.199.227 18:52, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * "Universal Viewer Free (formally ATViewer) is a file viewer that supports many different formats like text, binary, rtf, images, videos, audio, etc. One nice feature is that it can open large text files very quickly without eating memory. One downside is that there is no editing of these files, but useful if you have to go through large log files."
 * "DAMN NFO Viewer is an utility for viewing text files containing ASCII art (eg. NFO and DIZ files). The viewer displays graphical block characters correctly, and automatically detects and displays hyperlinks/email addresses as clickable links."
 * "Large Text File Viewer is designed for viewing large text files. It uses little memory and is able to open very large files (> 1GB) instantly. Background file indexing makes browsing even faster. It also allows the user to perform high-speed complex text search by means of plain text or regular expression."

"Protocol support"
What exactly does this protocol support section mean?

Is any command-line editor automatically one that "supports" editing over the SSH protocol? If not, what would be the URI specification for editing files over SSH?!

How does a text editor implement editing over the HTTP protocol, via POST, or?

This whole idea of a network support in editors sounds really strange, and too niche to be relevant. File managers usually have code to transparently access files over the network: basically editing a local fetched copy and having it transparently uploaded back to the remote location, it's confusing to call this a text editor feature as such. --Joy &#91;shallot] 16:46, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Good point. jEdit claims it has native support for HTTP, but how does it do the writing? Windows XP transparently fetches HTTP URLs already. Also, the SSH section needs to be split into SFTP and SCP. jEdit supports SFTP, but not SCP. Komodo IDE supports both. Dandv (talk) 11:57, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

CUA and other human interfaces
Having a column that shows if an editor follows a user interface standard such as Common User Access would be helpful. This would probably go under 'Document interface' and maybe also 'Key bindings'. Chiok 18:10, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * you gotta be kidding: editors like emacs and vi have been around for decades, from before even DOS or Macintosh UI guidelines!  They don't follow any user interface rules other than what need made them support.  They're worlds on their own and that's a Good Thing.  Otherwise, how would we know that there's better paradigms for text editing out there other than basic notepad-like cut'n'paste? 189.27.9.184 06:28, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

EditPad
I think that there is a Text Editor missing in the comparison, namely EditPad. I use EditPad Lite (the freeware version) and I like it a lot. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.2.223.189 (talk) 16:14, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I've been using it for a quote long time, too, before I switched to Notepad++... I don't want to install it only to add its features to the table, but maybe anyone...? It's great compared to Notepad2 and others. --77.187.47.113 (talk) 09:59, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. EditPadPro is definitely my favorite for pure text editing, and has many of the desirable features. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.60.48.210 (talk) 18:58, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Xemacs and UTF-8
I have been told that version 2x.4 is the last stable version of xemacs and it is not UTF-8 compliant on windows, when it is in linux. 21.5 is a beta which should be UTF-8 aware including on windows.

As a consequence isn't the table comparison in main article false? xemacs should be reported as not compatible with UTF-8, or only partially. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.41.137.29 (talk) 16:29, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Multiple vs Single document interface
How come some editors are market to have both single document interface and multiple document interface? Aren't those mutually exclusive? Single document interface is the old method where you can only have one document in each window. Multiple document interface allows multiple sub-windows. If the software support multiple document interface, it does not have single document interface.

And what is the difference between "Single document window splitting" and "Window splitting"?

PauliKL (talk) 17:07, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Since nobody has given explanation to these, I suggest that "Single document window splitting" column will be removed. In "Single document interface" column, mark "No" for all the editors that have "Yes" in Multi Document Interface columns ("Overlappable windows" or "Tabbed document interface"). Or alternatively, change the column title to "Multiple instances of program" or something like that (which is not the same as Single Document Interface).

PauliKL (talk) 09:46, 19 February 2008 (UTC)


 * That seems logically. The only thing is that you'll get two columns which are each others counterparts. Maybe its better to have a column "Window interface" which states 'single' or 'multi' and maybe 'multi-tabbed'? --Løde (talk) 09:37, 20 February 2008 (UTC)


 * It seems to me that people usually understand this "Single document interface" column as "Multiple instances", so I guess that would be more appropriate heading for that column. (Those people who claim SDI is better than MDI usually assume that an MDI program can not have multiple instances.) Removing the column may not be a good idea, since it does give some additional information. It seems that there are actually some editors that do not support multiple instances. However, this may require some explanation, since some programs (such as Microsoft Word) only mimic an SDI program with multiple instances, while in reality there is only one instance of the program running.


 * There is still no explanation on why there are two columns, "Single document window splitting" and "MDI: Window splitting". I don't see how window splitting would be connected to MDI and SDI. I assume this "window splitting" refers to an ability to show two different parts of a single file by splitting a window. So I suggest to remove one of these columns, maybe the last one, and rename the first one to just "Window splitting".
 * -- PauliKL (talk) 16:34, 11 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Now I changed the title of the first column. Did not remove the last column (Window splitting) yet. I added notes below the table to describe the first two columns. I think it would be good idea to have the explanations near the table. However, it seems to mess up the numbering of notes on the bottom of the page somehow.
 * -- PauliKL (talk) 17:14, 12 March 2008 (UTC)


 * It isn't connected to MDI and SDI as such. It's two different ways in which window splitting can be used.  Single-document window splitting means that the window can be split to show two areas of the same file simultaneously.  MDI window splitting means that the window can be split to show two different files simultaneously.
 * Having just one "Window splitting" column has been tried before. The apparent discrepancy that arose is what led to the desire to distinguish the two forms of it in the first place.  The distinction should be preserved. -- Smjg (talk) 17:24, 12 March 2008 (UTC)


 * But you do not need to "split" window to show multiple documents. Normal way to open new document in MDI is to open a new window for it.
 * Or does this "MD window splitting" mean non-overlapping windows? Like on Notepad++ for example? In that case, I think most editors have false information in this column. I think non-overlapping windows and overlapping windows are mutually exclusive. So if the editor has overlapping windows, it does not have "MD window splitting".
 * BTW, Notepad++ has window splitting, but it does not have overlapping windows nor tabbed document interface AFAIK, so the information in the table is wrong. And with window splitting, only 2 documents or 2 views to the same document can be viewed. So the window splitting support should be marked as "partial" for Notepad++.
 * -- --PauliKL (talk) 18:19, 25 March 2008 (UTC)


 * How do you work out that overlapping and non-overlapping windows are mutually exclusive? You miss the point.  Some editors provide splitting a single window (which may be the main window or an MDI child window, depending on the editor) as one means of viewing multiple documents, and overlappable windows as another means.  There are at least two possible approaches to this:
 * The application main window can be split into panes to view two documents side by side or one above the other, but the user also has the option of viewing them in overlappable windows if he/she prefers. This is distinct from the behaviour of the Tile command in most Windows MDI apps, which arranges the overlappable windows without changing their state.  I'm not sure OTTOMH whether Eclipse supports overlappable document windows, but if it does, then this would be an example.
 * Individual, overlappable document windows can be split, and a different document can be open in each pane. Thus overlappable windows and MD window splitting can be used simultaneously.  I've a vague recollection of the Borland C++ IDE having such a facility.
 * -- Smjg (talk) 17:16, 27 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I guess it is theoretically possible that an application could have both overlapping windows and non-overlapping windows. But does such an application exist? After all, there is no much point having non-overlapping windows if you do have overlapping windows. Does any of the editors in this list actually have them both? I doubt that.
 * -- PauliKL (talk) 19:58, 31 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Of course there's a point. Some users may prefer overlapping windows, and others may prefer to split a single window.  There are a few advantages to the latter if all you're doing is viewing two documents side by side or one above the other.  The two modes of operation may also be suited to different circumstances.  It's like how TextPad 5 offers the choice of overlapped windows or tabs.  For all we know, TextPad may well add MD window splitting in a future version.  But whether such apps exist at the moment, it's a separate issue from that of whether an app has SD or MD window splitting, which is what I was originally talking about.
 * But if you still think some of the information in the table is wrong, then add disputed-section or dubious as appropriate, and make a clear statement here of why you think it's wrong. -- Smjg (talk) 18:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Unicode text editors other than Notepad
Template:Table Unicode

I suggest a more detailed table listing the types of Unicode support available in various text editors. The section in the comparison article called "Encoding support" or "Unicode support" is very limited.

The chart needs to indicate the default settings for support of Unicode. Also it needs to indicate whether a program supports editing in Unicode formats, or just preserving existing Unicode files when opening them.

Regular Notepad that comes with the Windows operation system will allow some Unicode editing but it has many other limitations.

I am trying to find a variety of freeware, shareware, demoware, and trialware that will allow me to easily copy, paste, and edit Unicode characters.

I am talking about Unicode characters for languages such as Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Hebrew, etc.. To see how many language character sets are installed on your computer, see what shows up when you go to this page: http://yudit.org/cgi-bin/test.cgi

fr:Catégorie:Diagramme ko:분류:표 ja:Category:図 sk:Kategória:Diagramy vi:Thể loại:Sơ đồ

The above interlanguage links are from commons:Category:Diagrams.

Notepad2 does not support pasting in Unicode into new windows at its default settings as does regular Notepad.

This caused me some irritation when trying to copy, paste, edit, and move around interlanguage links. One can't just copy the above interlanguage links into a new Notepad2 window. One ends up with a bunch of question marks (?) replacing many of the characters.

One has to change the default settings for encoding. Even then only some of the characters show up no matter what default settings are selected in "File menu/encoding".

Also Notepad2 does not support Unicode filenames. It will not open files with Unicode filenames. From its FAQ : "Are filenames with Unicode characters not supported? No, they aren't, as Notepad2 internally is an ANSI program (yet Windows 9x is no longer supported). Only filenames containing ANSI characters from the system ANSI code page are supported."--Timeshifter (talk) 16:49, 31 January 2008 (UTC)


 * What do you mean by "default settings for support of Unicode"? How are you expecting to paste unicode characters in a new file in editor, if you have not told to the editor that it is unicode? Configuring your editor to create UTF8 or UTF16 files by default is not a good idea. Wast majority of text files are 8-bit, so if you use unicode as default, you will have wrong encoding most of the time. And we have already seen how much trouble it causes when some people use UTF8 in e-mail or Usenet postings. If you want to create Unicode file, you can use "Save As" and select the encoding. You have to do that anyway to give your file a name.


 * "Unicode support" means that the editor can edit and display Unicode characters (assuming the required font is installed). If it can not, there should not be "yes" in the UTF8 and UTF16 support columns of the table.


 * "Preserving existing Unicode files" is not Unicode support, it is a basic requirement of a text editor. A text editor must not change anything in a file unless the user commands it to do so. With a text editor, you can always load and save a file, and be sure that the new file is an exact copy of the original.


 * It seems that some editors are claimed to have Unicode support, but in reality they just silently convert UTF8 or UTF16 files into their internal 8-bit format, thus destroying any characters that are not included in the 8-bit character set. If a "text editor" meshes Unicode characters, it does not have Unicode support, but in addition, it is not even a text editor. Maybe this should indicated somehow in the table.


 * In addition, there could be a separate column to indicate if the editor can convert Unicode characters if required.


 * But why did you chage the name of the table from "Encoding support" to "Unicode support"? Unicode is not the only encoding. Since there is room in the table, I think there should be columns at least for ISO 8859, OEM (DOS, or Code page 437), and EBCDIC.
 * PauliKL (talk) 18:54, 3 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your reply. Maybe we can remove the ASCII column and create a separate table for it and the non-unicode encodings you mentioned.


 * Out of curiosity I tried pasting in the interlanguage interwiki list into a Google Mail window. All the characters showed up fine.


 * You sound like you know more about Unicode than I do, and could probably make a Unicode table that broke it down more clearly.


 * According to your definition of Unicode support it looks like Notepad2 does not support UTF8 or UTF16. I could not figure out a way to paste in the interlanguage interwiki list into a new file no matter what the default settings were for encoding. Notepad2 is a quick download and install. Maybe you can test this out more. I may not be doing this correctly. --Timeshifter (talk) 07:59, 4 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I downloaded Notepad2 and tried it. If I just start Notepad2 and paste UTF-8 text, it does not show correctly. Obviously the default is 8 bit ANSI charset. I did not find a setting to change the default. But when I selected UTF-8 from File -> Encoding menu before pasting the text, the text shows correctly (depending on the font selected, of course). I do not have a font that contains Korean characters, but several other languages (such as Russian and Arabic) were displayed correctly with Microsoft Sans Serif font.


 * It seems that when you paste UTF-8 text from Windows clipboard into an application that uses 8 bit text buffer, Windows automatically converts the text into the character encoding (e.g. Western) selected for the font used. In this process, any characters that are not included in the character set are replaced with question marks. So you lose the non-ASCII characters, even if the application itself would preserve them.


 * As for the table columns, I think it is better to have only a single table for all the encodings. There are already so many tables on this page. And there is lots of room for more columns. Perhaps there should be separate columns for Unicode editing and Unicode conversions. Or alternatively, those editors that only convert Unicode should be marked to have "Partial" Unicode support.


 * PauliKL (talk) 17:44, 12 February 2008 (UTC)


 * You may need to install the East Asian languages. I don't know. Can you see all the characters when you paste the text into plain old Notepad? If not, then you may need to go to the "Regional and Language Options" control panel (if using Windows XP), and then the languages tab. It is easy to install everything by checking the boxes.


 * Maybe the section can be titled something like "Unicode and other character encodings".


 * I can't see the Korean characters in Notepad2 either. No matter the encoding default setting done previously at "File menu/Encoding/Default".


 * There is a Notepad2 FAQ here:
 * http://www.flos-freeware.ch/np2faq.html


 * Please see the section titled "How do I select the proper character set?". It is here:
 * http://www.flos-freeware.ch/np2faq.html#q9


 * It says: "Select the character set (script) matching your local encoding from the font dialog, as in this screenshot. Alternatively, the character set can be entered manually, but only for the Default Style and 2nd Default Style items, as demonstrated in this screenshot."


 * From the first screenshot I see that "Arial Unicode MS" is used. So I tried it at View Menu/Default font. This time when I pasted in the interwiki links, all the characters showed up (including the Korean characters). --Timeshifter (talk) 01:00, 13 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I added the columns for ISO 8859, OEM (DOS), and EBCDIC. The ASCII column is quite redundant, since obviously all editors support ASCII. So perhaps it could be removed.


 * It should be noted that to support the encoding, the editor must be able to actually edit the text, not just display it. So configuring the editor to use an OEM (DOS) font in Windows does not give support to OEM character set, since the keyboard would not work correctly. If the DOS version of the editor uses DOS character set and Windows version uses Windows (ISO) character set, then both DOS and ISO character encoding support should be marked as "partial". Or perhaps "yes2"?
 * --PauliKL (talk) 14:32, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Table width
On 4th of January 2008, Steppres "Changed table widths to auto to correct layout problem when viewed in IE".

What problems were those? I viewed the earlier version with IE 6.0, and I did not see any problem.

But after the change there are problems both with Firefox and Opera. On IE, the tables are still 100% width, but on Firefox and Opera the tables are narrow (as they should when  is set). This causes problem for example with the table Document interface. The first table header line (which is actually a separate table) is squashed and the columns are not in correct position. In addition, the caption of this table (and many other tables) is squashed to the width of the narrow table.

I believe that  and   sould not be set at the same time. In a way, the narrow tables might be considered better, but they cause formatting problems (especially since  can not be used with sortable tables). So I think it would be better to use 100% width.

PauliKL (talk) 17:06, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Plugins and 3rd party add-ons
For many editors, there is "Yes" marked for many features that are only available as 3rd party add-on or plugin. Most users do not even know where to obtain those add-ons and thus do not have them available in the editor. I think such add-ons should not be marked as standard feature of the editor.

I suggest that the template yes2 would be used for features that require add-on or plugin. This creates a table cell with light green background. Then use ref to explain how to obtain this add-on. See Template:Yes.

-- --PauliKL (talk) 18:44, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Column description
I think more explanation of the columns couldn't hurt. Two new columns were added recently ("Function list" and "Symbol database"). For the first I have no idea what this could mean, the second only has a wiki link without description about what this means exactly for text editors. Furthermore the columns "Text shell integration", "Graphical shell integration" and "Macro" mean very little to me. Is there some enlightened person who can help here? :) And not only here in thee talk, but on the page itself. --Løde (talk) 13:53, 10 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Me too thinks that more information would be needed. Originally, there were no information at all. I have added some notes below the tables, but I don't know if that is the best way to do it. Maybe the text size should be smaller, as in footnotes? Anyway, I will add some more notes for those items I am familiar with. --PauliKL (talk) 15:56, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Syntax highlighting and code folding
Forgive me for proselytising a bit, but one feature that I really like about EditPad Pro is that it handles syntax highlighting by using regular expressions. I've been looking for a free alternative so I don't have to buy it, but all of the other text editors I can find do not use regex-based syntax highlighting (aside from Emacs, and I'm not that crazy ;-)). Instead they use rather primitive keyword-matching and "start tag and end tag"-matching.  For purposes of folding in particular, this is terrible when it comes to HTML, since &lt;h1> through &lt;h6> do not have closing tags -- they end at the start of the next header or at the end of the document.

Would it be unreasonable to update the "Syntax highlighting", "Code folding", and "Text folding" columns of the table to identify the actual nature or mechanic of how it supports it? Maybe "Full" would mean total lexical customisation of the syntax via scripts/regex, "Most" would mean customisation of keywords, quotes, etc. but the end user cannot define new lexical constructs, "Partial" would allow changing the colours of stylesheets for a hard-coded selection of languages only, and "None" would be, well, none of the above. --Jtgibson (talk) 01:17, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually, &lt;h1&gt; through &lt;h6&gt; have closing tags that are not optional&mdash;they must be there..  A few tags in the past&mdash;such as &lt;li&gt;, &lt;tr&gt;, &lt;td&gt;, etc.&mdash;had an optional close tag, but they are now required for XHTML, and preferred for HTML 4.01.


 * As to other editors that have regular expression based matching, even those have to have some way to indicate start/end of regions, even when using regular expressions. Vim's syntax highlighting engine (which is how it implements the syntax based variant of its folding) has several options, including keyword matching, regular expression matching, and regular expressions to define the start/end of regions.


 * -- Heptite (T)   (C)   (@)  05:36, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Sorry, and sorry for the lateness of the reply, but I meant "a closing tag at the end of the block they define". I know they have closing tags on the line they're written on.  I mean more specifically that they're not nested tags: you don't wrap the section they define &lt;h1 section="My Section">...entire contents of section...&lt;/h1>, but rather they're simple anchors that have their own block level, and don't include the following HTML that in human-readable terms is a part of that section. --Jtgibson (talk) 11:25, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Downloadable?
Here I am at home, with work to do on web pages and only the missus' Mac available. It only has Apple's raher horrible editor, and I'm connected via dial-up. So forget the "bare bones" (ha ha) TextWrangler, which is the wrong side of 10MB. I've just downloaded the latest version of something called Smultron to support 10.3.9; the download was palatable at 3MB. Anyway, I wonder if there might be an additional section on compact packages, easily downloadable in situations such as this. -- Hoary (talk) 07:01, 29 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't think an additional section would be needed. And how would you decide if the package is "compact" or not? However, it would be a good idea to add a column for the (smallest) size of download package in the 'Overview' table. One problem with this is that the sizes may not be comparable to each other. Some download packages contain documentation, others do not. (And with a new software, you probably do need documentation.) Some free programs may even not have a help file at all, and you need to search the web or Usenet for any documentation. Documentation can take more space than the actual program. For example, the download package of the Windows version of VEDIT (which is one of the most powerful and feature rich editors available), is only 1.8MB, and that includes full help files. However, if you want to have the documentation as PDF files, that adds another 3MB to download size. So maybe there should be two values: the size of smallest download package, and the size with documentation. --PauliKL (talk) 09:18, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Gobby
Is there a special reason why Gobby is not part of this list? For me it is a valuable editor, since it is (as far as I knew before reading this page) the only cross-platform collaborative text editor (SubEthaEdit is good, but sometimes we have to take notice of those not-mac-users). I seem to remember that Gobby was on this page earlier. Trondtr (talk) 06:59, 8 August 2008 (UTC).


 * Done. Thanks for pointing this out. Because of your comment, I've added Gobby (and also Q10). (I have no idea if Gobby was here before). --68.0.124.33 (talk) 00:39, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Carbon Emacs
Shouldn't the section on Mac specific editors also include [Carbon Emacs:http://homepage.mac.com/zenitani/emacs-e.html]? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.209.166.130 (talk) 11:40, 26 August 2008 (UTC)


 * This (like most of the) comparison-topic is largely promotional in nature - there's no Carbon Emacs simply because no one's decided to show how it compares (or not) against others Tedickey (talk) 12:14, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Inclusion of specialized editors
Coda has an editor, but from the description (a) the editor by itself is non-notable, "based" on SubEthaEdit, and (b) not a general-purpose text-editor but one specific to HTML. Tedickey (talk) 11:00, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree. Coda should be moved to Comparison of HTML editors (if it is considered to be notable). --PauliKL (talk) 08:10, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Why use these editors?

 * Why does one need these editors?
 * Why not just type HTML code into the HTML editor or into the word processor? Dogru144 (talk) 19:21, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I think the answers to these questions should go into some Wikipedia article. But not this one. This "comparison of text editors" is for comparing text editors to each other. I think the word processor article or text editor article would be a better article for comparing text editors vs. HTML editors vs. word processors. --68.0.124.33 (talk) 03:41, 14 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I think these questions needn't be answered in Wikipedia. I use text editors without explaining why. The article is notable, and treats fairly common text editors fairly, so the article is OK as far as I'm concerned. Said: Rursus (☻) 18:15, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Adding PowerPad
I think PowerPad should be included in this list: http://www.quickmediasolutions.com/software/powerpad/powerpad.html 207.6.107.191 (talk) 20:42, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Editor titles
EmEditor titles have been changed to the topic name, however, a distinction must be made, at least for EmEditor editor, since in the past there were a Professional version and a Standard version avaliable. I don't know about the other editors, is it true there too? Red Summer Rain (talk) 17:38, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

UltraEdit?
Is there any reason UltraEdit is not on this page? Would it be okay if I added it? Richardthiebaud (talk) 23:45, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
 * What do you mean? UltraEdit has been on the page for years. --PauliKL (talk) 08:06, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Natural language
Korean has been added to the natural languages. However, the note for natural languages says that "Selected languages are those for which the respective edition of Wikipedia has over 250,000 articles" and Korean only has 95,527. Can someone please remove it? Red Summer Rain (talk) 19:38, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
 * But the note is incorrect. Not all languages which the respective edition of Wikipedia has over 250,000 articles are in the list.Maybe 300,000 is correct.Rafom (talk) 21:49, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I see, should the note be updated? That would be the simplest answer. Or the list? What do you think? Note: I saw you removed it. Okay... NM. Thanks.Red Summer Rain (talk) 21:11, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I meant remove Korean, not the note. But then again, I don't know if the note is a requirement. ??? Red Summer Rain (talk) 21:15, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Maybe we should remove both Korean and the note? I'm sorry that I'm just an en-1 user.Rafom (talk) 22:43, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * My understanding of the note was to keep the amount of languages on the list down. I don't actually know the reason though. Per the note, Korean has less than 250,000 articles therefore, it should not be on the list. Does this make sense? Red Summer Rain (talk) 23:32, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree to remove Korean from the list. Actually, the reason for my action is that Chinese has more than 250,000 articales but it's not in the list. --Rafom (talk) 11:14, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Auto Save
The comparison tables omit one of the most crucial, if not the most crucial, feature in a text editor: auto save. And this is one that a lot of editors flunk on. To qualify, the autosave must save to a separate file, not overwrite your document, and perform the autosave automatically, not pop up a window and ask if you want to save (which among other things prevents the saving of the file if you have walked away from the computer). The autosave also may not store the autosave file in /tmp which is erased on reboot. Autosave must be enabled by default, or this be noted. The program should also at least notify you that there is an autosave file the next time you open the file; otherwise, you may not know which files were properly saved and which need recovery. The user can't be expected to remember what was open and unsaved at the time of a crash - some people multitask and files can remain open for days or weeks. Some files, like the system management log, may stay open for the lifetime of a machine. Emacs is the only unix text editor I am aware of that gets this right. I lost a lot of work to Kdevelop, even though I thought had tested it (or at least one of the editors which uses the same editor component: kate, quanta+, etc). earlier by killing a process but then upgraded the version. Pass: emacs Flunk: gedit (disabled by default?), kdevelop, quanta, kate, scite, xmlcopyeditor (old version, but newest with debian/ubuntu package), Another essential editor feature that many flunk on, is the ability to open a file from the command line using "editor foo". Some ignore it entirely, some fail if the file doesn't already exist, and some fail due to directory issues (java wrapper scripts that change to the directory which has the program). Whitis (talk) 07:18, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Flunk: bluefish, scribes Partial: nedit. Autosave not configurable ("~file"). No notification of autosave file when editing file. Kinesics text editor doesn't mention autosave in feature list. xml-copy-editor: no autosave in preferences dialog Whitis (talk) 10:31, 19 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Wow, this is a pretty narrow definition of "auto save". So, would Vim qualify for "auto save"? It doesn't actually save a copy of the file, but it keeps a .filename.swp file--usually in the same directory as "filename"--that contains information about the changes to "filename" since the last write. If Vim crashes or is forced to exit without saving and then a user tries to edit the same file again with Vim, a prompt appears asking what to do. Vim also has an option--disabled by default--called 'autosave', but it just automatically writes changes to "filename" N seconds after an unsaved change has been made. -- Heptite (T)   (C)   (@)  10:39, 19 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Auto save is not an important feature, and definitely not crucial. And it should not be enabled by default. It is much better to use an editor that does not crash. I haven't used auto save in Vedit for years, and I have never lost any edits because of crash. And it makes no sense to keep a file open for hours or days when you are not editing it. --PauliKL (talk) 13:49, 1 June 2009 (UTC)


 * For those who want the feature, autosave is important (and regarding the comment about editors which do not crash, I suppose not everyone is running a computer which cannot crash ;-) Tedickey (talk) 14:15, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * If you want something does not mean that it is important. If only a few people need some feature and most people do not need it, the feature is not important. Especially if those few people only need is extremely rarely. (Last time my computer crashed was some 10 years ago, and it was the auto save feature of Microsoft World that caused the crash!) Why should everybody be running computer that can never crash? I did not say that auto save would be totally useless, I said it is not important. There are many other features that are more important. --PauliKL (talk) 14:15, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Key bindings
Key bindings

what is mean by "Dynamically customizable"? if it refers to on-the-fly or content-dynamic, i humbly guess many of the checkmarks for this are wrong - at least my edits for bbedit and textwrangler now

also, as a note (perhaps belonging in the article somewhere :! with a reference), all native mac os x applications's menuitems's key-bindings are customizable by the system's preferences-system

Vike2000 (talk) 00:17, 5 June 2009 (UTC)


 * The name "Dynamically customizable" suggests that you should be able to change keyboard configuration on-the-fly. Another interpretation would be just "customizable". That would mean that you can freely change the keyboard configuration, but it may require restarting the program or something. Maybe there should be columns for both? Or multiple choices in that single column (using Yes / Yes2 / Partial)?
 * Keyboard configuration done from the OS does not count. (BTW, you can configure keyboard in Windows, too. There is even a special language, AutoHotkey for that.) Further, mere specifying hotkeys to menu items is not real key binding customizing. For example vi key bindings would require the whole operation principle of the editor to be changed to something totally different.
 * --PauliKL (talk) 14:43, 26 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I think I'm misunderstanding what you're saying about vi key bindings. vi has long has the various :map commands that changes what a key (almost any key, or key combination, in fact) does, both in normal and insert mode (Vim takes this further by adding more flexibility.) -- Heptite  (T)   (C)   (@)  19:35, 26 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I meant that when other editors have "vi key bindings", it requires much more than just changing the mapping of the keys to existing functions of that editor. Vi has the two operating modes (normal/insert), while most other editors do not. And there are many other things that vi does quite differently from other editors. --PauliKL (talk) 15:44, 1 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, if you're going to insist on being accurate, most of that column can be discarded. Tedickey (talk) 21:01, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

What does 'Multiple Instances' refer to?
What does 'Multiple Instances' refer to? Does it mean that... rCX (talk) 00:37, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The editor can open more than one document.
 * The program can be run simultaneously in in two or more windows.


 * no, more likely a reference to how many processes (Windows 3.1 could only have a single process for each GUI application). Documents being edited by a single process would share data; so the distinction is aimed at telling whether there might be some interference from different documents. Tedickey (talk) 11:17, 10 June 2009 (UTC)


 * The table is about the Document Interface features. Multiple document interface (MDI) allows opening multiple documents inside the applications window. Single Document Interface (SDI) only allows opening a single document in one application window. However, if the application allows opening multiple instances of the application, you can open multiple documents, one in each instance of the application (for example Notepad works like that). Some MDI applications (for example old versions of MS Word) do not allow opening multiple instances, which means that all the documents have to be opened in one application window. If the MDI application allows multiple instances, you can open some documents in one application window (for example, all your .C source files) and other documents in another application window (for example, the related document files). --PauliKL (talk) 14:04, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

KEdit
The link points to XEdit (since there is a commercial product which imitates XEdit). However, some of the data, e.g., for cross-platform seems to have been added by editors who confuse it with the like-named KDE application. None of the data for either KEdit is based on a reliable source Tedickey (talk) 18:51, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Code written
Why not add a row, of wich code the program was written? :D
 * There is. ABCGi (talk) 00:27, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Large file support
Many editors have "yes" on the Large file support column, even if there is no indication of LFS on the official web page of that editor. Maybe it is not clear what LFS means? I suppose that in this context it means support for files larger than 4GB. In practice, that requires 64 bit code.


 * If by "64 bit code" you mean a 64-bit instruction set, this is completely untrue. It may require 64-bit variables (depending on the implementation), but it certainly doesn't require a 64-bit processor. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.91.173.36 (talk) 22:44, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Another thing is how well the editor supports large files. An editor may have no technical limits for large files (i.e. 64 bit values used internally for pointers etc.), but the editing becomes unbearably slow even with files of few tens of megabytes. In that case, I think the LFS should be marked as "limited".

--PauliKL (talk) 17:46, 27 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Maybe I'm showing my age, but it used to be that 'Large File Support' was anything over 64K. Perhaps that's where this originated from?  How about a change to indicate the largest supported file size?  Leave the definition of 'Large' to the reader (Is it really important that a text editor gracefully handle a file larger than a gigabyte?  yikes).  Speed8ump (talk) 08:20, 10 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree that something more than just Yes/No would be useful. There may still be some editors that actually have the limit of 64k. Notepad used to be one of those, but since Windows XP, the maximum file size was increased and is probably limited by free memory. (On my computer with 2GB of RAM, Notepad was able to open a 600 MB file, but not a 1.2GB file.) Notepad loads the whole file in memory, which makes it increasingly slow when the file size increases. I think there are quite a lot of editors that work like that. Then there are editors that can gracefully edit files up to 2GB or 4GB and only load part of file in memory as needed. And then there are 64-bit editors that can handle files larger than 4GB.
 * Maybe Yes2 and No2 templates could be used, and the maximum file size added after that if it is known. --PauliKL (talk) 15:52, 13 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Also, every entry should be cited. For example, I could not find anywhere a plugin for Notepad++ that allows it to open a 4GB file.--RockyMM (talk) 12:06, 30 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I suggest the following templates to specify the largest file each editor can handle: Yes = Larger than 4 GB (64 bit), Yes2 = Up to 2 GB or 4 GB, No2 = Limited by free memory, No = Some limit less than free memory. The max size can be given in the column if necessary. See: Template:Yes. --PauliKL (talk) 09:22, 6 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Toward consensus I agree with most suggestions above, it is useful to know the size the editor can handle gracefully. I believe the definition of LFS has expanded beyond 64KB (from Wikipedia and linked on the heading of the Large_file_support column: "Large file support, often abbreviated to LFS, is the term frequently applied to the ability to create files larger than 2 GiB on 32-bit operating systems."). Beyond this, I think it is important to know the specific maximum size the editor can handle gracefully - one would probably want to delineate certain standard sizes for ease of comparison (IMO this is more direct and useful than listing Yes, Yes2, No, No2 which then becomes redundant and a little convoluted, but that is just my 'vote'). Where an editor handles a size poorly (slow performance as noted above) I would not count that as sufficient and would only list the size at which the editor performs gracefully. Issues are how to define "performs gracefully" (and on what computer) and what unbiased evidence (from a "reliable source") to cite that isn't "original research". ABCGi (talk) 01:38, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I think we should also note that the definition is OS-dependent. While I agree with the definition as 2 GiB on 32-bit operating systems, for a 16-bit OSs it would be only 64kb. For a 64-bit OSs wouldn't it be 2^64? rCX (talk) 02:13, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Visual Studio ?
While it's a bit heavy-weight, Microsoft Visual Studio has a pretty full-featured text editor, and an unsurpassed find-in-files feature. It also has a free version (orion elenzil 20:42, 22 May 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.101.140.130 (talk)

Please see the discussion on eclipse for thoughts on inclusion of IDE's. Tylermacnet (talk) 13:46, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Inclusion of IDEs
Agreeing that Eclipse contains a text-editor, it's not apparent that this category should be extended to include every IDE which contains a text-editor. (That would extend the topic by about a third, or more). Tedickey (talk) 08:58, 7 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Thinking a little more - Eclipse actually contains more than one text editor (some are optional of course). Introducing IDEs and suites of programs here doesn't seem useful Tedickey (talk) 09:03, 7 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Agreed, an IDE isn't a text editor, just like Microsoft Visual Studio or Word for that matter, regardless of the fact that it can edit text files, it doesn't qualify it as a text editor, because that's not it's main function. --Hm2k (talk) 23:38, 16 July 2009 (UTC)


 * On the other hand, I came to this page to see how Eclipse and other common IDEs stacked up feature-wise to widely use editors. JohnsterX (talk) 13:35, 26 August 2009 (UTC)


 * But I don't think the article Comparison of text editors is a place for that. The browser I'm writing this text in has an editor, too. Soulmerge (talk) 11:36, 3 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I went ahead and removed it based on this discussion. 24.209.52.11 (talk) 19:15, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Global search and replace
How about a couple of columns for support for global search and replace, across multiple open files, and across multiple files on disk. I wanted to find out which Linux editors supported this, as Notepad++ does on Windows, and gedit does not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jimd999 (talk • contribs) 19:17, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Syntax highlighting support
I'd like to suggest a new list showing what common programming languages the syntax highlighting of each editor supports. e.g. C, C++, Pascal, Matlab, Java, Html, Python, etc —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.154.24.242 (talk) 09:21, 9 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't think that would be possible. That would be a huge list. For example, Vedit comes with syntax highlight for some 50 languages, but I have currently 101 syntax files on my computer. Maybe the number of supported languages could given in the syntax highlighting column. But even that is problematic. There may be some number of syntax files delivered with the editor, then there may be optional syntax files you can download separately, then there are syntax files created by third party, and you can perhaps create more yourself. So which number should be given in the column? --PauliKL (talk) 15:50, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

UTF-8 in ConTEXT
This page tells me that ConTEXT does support UTF-8. That is in contradiction with the table. zabblHans 11:56, 11 September 2007


 * That same page claims that ConTEXT can support files of unlimited size. In reality, the file size is limited by memory and practical limit is much lower than that, see this post at contexteditor forum.


 * According to this post and this post and several other posts at Contexteditor forum, ConTEXT does not support UTF-8.
 * --PauliKL (talk) 12:26, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

This article may be too long
Someone has added "This article may be too long to read and navigate comfortably" tag, but did not add any entry here at the discussion page.

Article size says that tables are not counted in article size. When you leave the tables and references out, there is not much text left. So, according to that, the article can not bee too long.

However, maybe it would not been a bad idea to split the article so that each table would be on a separate page. Maybe it does not make navigating any easier, but at least you could more freely add descriptions of what each column means. And the reference section at the bottom of page would not bee so ridiculously long.

So, how should the splitting be done? As sub-pages under the main page?

--PauliKL (talk) 15:53, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I noticed that sub-pages are not allowed in the encyclopedia, so that option is not possible. So the naming of the pages may be problem. --PauliKL (talk) 16:46, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Large File Support update
As discussed earlier (see Archive), I have now added description of Large file support below the table Extra features. The idea is to actually show how big files the editor can support, not just whether or not it can support files larger than 4GB.

Would you all please check each editor and update the column if needed. (I was only able to check a few editors.)

--PauliKL (talk) 14:32, 5 December 2009 (UTC)


 * The column doesn't show how large the files can be, but only yes/no. Tedickey (talk) 15:11, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
 * That is exactly why it needs to be updated according to the description I added at the bottom of the table. I can not do that all myself since I do not know the details of all the editors. --PauliKL (talk) 19:02, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I was able to check a few more editors. I then changed the template for all the remaining editors to "?" (white), but left the yes/no (if any) as text after the template. If anyone has information about those editors, please update them. --PauliKL (talk) 20:47, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Multiple files loaded at once
Someone (83.86.79.251, at 10 January 2010) added a column "Multiple files loaded at once". But isn't that the same thing as MDI (Multiple Document Interface) in the table Document interface? So, I think this column can be removed. --PauliKL (talk) 17:13, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

UTF-8 and UTF-16 support
In the table 'Unicode and other character encodings', several editors have been marked to support UTF-8 but not UTF-16. How is that possible? I think Unicode support always requires that the editor internally handles the characters as (at least) 16-bit. In practice, when loading an UTF-8 file, it is converted into UTF-16 for editing. So how would it be possible for an editor to support UTF-8 but not UTF-16? I suspect that in reality those editors do not support UTF-8 either.

--PauliKL (talk) 12:00, 23 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually it's possible. For instance, a developer might choose to store everything internally as UTF-8, and provide conversions to/from other encodings.  (I know of at least one example). Tedickey (talk) 13:05, 23 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Do you have any reference for that? While it is theoretically possible to keep the text internally in UTF-8 format and convert it on-the-fly for display and from keyboard input, that would be quite a complex and inefficient implementation. And further, if someone has implemented Unicode this way, why would they not support UTF-16? Conversions between UTF-8 and UTF-16 are trivial. --PauliKL (talk) 12:31, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

DOS (OEM) support
The 'Yes' markings in DOS (OEM) character support column seem to be wrong in most cases, too. For example, Mac editors BBedit and TextWrangler are claimed to have DOS character support. I did quite an extensive net search but did not find anything to support those claims. I think there are very few editors (other than actual DOS editors) that fully support DOS character set. Ultraedit and VEDIT are the only ones I know about.

--PauliKL (talk) 12:00, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Byte order marks
Would it appropriate to mention which text editors add byte order marks? (See mw:Manual:LocalSettings.php for the importance of this.) I realize the list is already as wide as a typical monitor, so would it be better to just have a list of text editors that add byte order marks and/or list of text editors that do not add byte order marks? Tisane (talk) 22:41, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

SmartFTP
It's not a text editor (though it has a non-notable embedded text editor, according to a stray comment in the linked topic qua advert). Tedickey (talk) 08:25, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Agreed. It should not be here. As the name suggests, it is an FTP program, not an editor. Nobody uses an FTP program as editor even if it does have some editing functionality. Since even IDE's are not listed here, why should FTP-programs be included? --PauliKL (talk) 17:32, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the  link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills.  New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). --Hm2k (talk) 13:53, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia also encourages building consensus (something that I keep in mind - do review the IP-editor's history) Tedickey (talk) 21:25, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Including a link to PowerPad
Not really being familiar with Wikipedia policy regarding external links, I was wondering if this would be a good idea for PowerPad, since it has no page on Wikipedia. Should all of the links point to ? Or should a PowerPad article be created? 75.156.50.208 (talk) 22:15, 29 March 2010 (UTC)


 * It probably should be removed, unless someone's willing to write a topic and establish notability. Tedickey (talk) 23:24, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

the hessling
The THE (The Hessling Editor) - see http://hessling-editor.sourceforge.net/ - is a folding editor and should be mentioned in the comparision list --Brf (talk) 12:19, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Silly definition of compatibility
So, the "cross-platform text editor" table has a significant number of "Partial" entries, based on the idea that you can run the program under a different system using a compatibility environment like Cygwin or Wine. Not sure if others have an opinion on this, but I really don't think this qualifies as "compatibility" with an operating system. I won't remove the "Partial" entries right off, but I'm curious if anybody else can weigh in on this? I just hate to think of people (for example) trying to tackle the beast of installing Cygwin just to use a simple text editor... --66.220.144.27 (talk) 21:32, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I think if an application requires an emulation layer in order to run on a given system, unless that layer is packaged along with the application, it absolutely cannot be considered "compatible". That would be like saying SNES games are "compatible" with Linux or Windows because there is an SNES emulator available for these operating systems (at least I assume there is one).

Or, we can add a "can run in Wine" to pretty much all of the Windows-only editors shown here. And a "can run in cygwin" note to all the Linux-only ones. But this would be incredibly silly and makes the table fairly meaningless.

To me, a "partially" compatible application should be one that only runs in a console when it has a GUI on other systems, or uses a non-native GUI, or is missing some features compared to the same application on other OSes, or has dropped support for the OS in recent versions. Not an application that cannot run at all except for within a "fake" version of the real target platform.

--Fritzophrenic (talk) 17:06, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Deletion of this article
This article must be deleted according to this discussion and result about the deletion of similar list like articles like this one. --91.89.137.62 (talk) 15:43, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, since that rationale for that was that it was a indiscriminate collection of external links, it doesn't apply here.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:40, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Please read the discussion page. The links where removed, but the discussion result was, that incomplete lists like these are still an indiscriminate collection of advertised products. --91.89.137.62 (talk) 15:43, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
 * No, the result was that that particular list was not appropriate. It said nothing about this one. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:46, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Could a registerted wikipedia user create an arcticle of deletion here: Articles for deletion/Comparison of text editors? --91.89.137.62 (talk) 15:44, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Keep. Even if there is a reason to delete some incomplete list that does not give any actual information, it does not mean that all lists should be deleted. However, the main point is that this article is not a list at all. This is comparison. And this article contains lots of information. --PauliKL (talk) 12:43, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Wow, please keep this article! I frequently refer to this article to recommend editors to people who use a different operating system than I do. It is a unique compilation of facts. Many of these editors are well known, but non-commercial. It is difficult to find out important things like handling of unicode, addition BOMs to files, line ending support, encoding handling or syntax highlighting support without tying an editor directly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.91.197.39 (talk) 14:23, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Keep!. Suggesting that this should be deleted, borders to attempted vandalism. And this valuable collection of information is certainly not too long. OlavN (talk) 08:09, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Feature vs platform comparison
As someone that used this article to search for an editor with a particular feature (comparing two documents side by side, as Notepad++ can do, but for the Linux platform), I found the feature comparison table ineffective without a column for the operating systems supported. I would imagine this would also occur for Windows and MacOS users too, and I suggest therefore adding a column to the end of this table. 144.32.2.190 (talk) 02:25, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

UltraEdit for Mac
UltraEdit is now available on Mac! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.117.15.96 (talk) 08:44, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

http://www.ultraedit.com/products/mac-text-editor.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.117.15.96 (talk) 08:47, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Emacs max file size
Emacs was stated not to have large file support based on this: http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/NEWS.23.2 The maximum size of buffers (and the largest fixnum) is doubled. On typical 32bit systems, buffers can now be up to 512MB.

I assume for any editor that can handle files larger than 4GB, we are talking about a 64bit system (if there are exceptions, I'd like to see the citation). I'll change Emacs to 'yes' and change the citation to: http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsFileSizeLimit

(if someone wants to replace that with a better citation, they're welcome to)Kjsharke (talk) 01:03, 9 June 2011 (UTC)


 * As your citation says, the maximum file size in Emacs is 256 MB. In order to edit files larger than that, you need to have both 64-bit OS and 64-bit compilation of Emacs. Thus, Emacs large file support is "partial" at most. However, there is another limitation, the size of virtual memory in your computer. If I understand it correctly, the total size of all files open in Emacs is limited by the available free virtual memory. -- PauliKL (talk) 21:02, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Add Multi-Edit
Multi-Edit (http://www.multiedit.com/ME2008.php) is an excellent programmers text editor on a par with Slick-Edit and Ultra-Edit that has been around since at least 1988. It certainly deserves inclusion in this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.190.0.1 (talk) 19:14, 26 August 2011 (UTC)


 * The starting place would be a topic, to establish notability and provide WP:RS. This topic lacks reliable sources for most of the data presented here. TEDickey (talk) 22:01, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Add medit
I am too lazy to add this, so just asking. The list is a bit incomplete 188.235.239.49 (talk) 06:14, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

elastic tabstops
Please include a column for elastic tabstops in the feature table. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Richard Taytor (talk • contribs) 07:23, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Please add a column for find-in-files feature to functionality matrix
A find find-in-files editor integrated feature such as is implemented by ultraedit or geany is very useful for programmers. Please add a column to the features comparison matrix in this article for that purpose. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.12.184.7 (talk) 21:45, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I added it in the Extra features table. PauliKL (talk) 10:29, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Unreliable information
The information given in this article is quite unreliable. It appears that people just put "Yes" in every column for their favorite editor, whether it has that feature or not.

For example, I recently installed Notepad++. In the character encodings table, Notepad++ has "Yes" for DOS (OEM) character set and "plugin" for EBCDIC. However, I can not find any means for editing DOS characters with Notepad++. The Encoding menu only contains ANSI and Unicode options. There is not even option to load an OEM font, which would give partial support (it would make it possible to view but not edit OEM characters).

As for EBCDIC, I searched the net, but could not find any such plugin. --PauliKL (talk) 09:29, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Is spell checking a Basic feature or a Special tool?
Spell checking is currently the first column in the Basic features table. However, I don't think it is a basic feature on a text editor. It is more like an extra feature or a special tool.

Maybe we should add a new table likeTools or something. It could contain columns such as: --PauliKL (talk) 11:36, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Spell checking
 * Sorting
 * Filtering
 * Comparing files
 * Comparing directories
 * Creating TAGS database

Byte Order Mark
It looks like Byte Order Mark is not handled here, while there are much tables related to newlines and encodings.

It might be taken into consideration, as there are two standard: the one with BOM and the one without BOM, to know: - wether text editor can read it, - if text editor automatically add, keep, or remove it, - if text editor has some feature to configure or handle it on demand. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.199.89.101 (talk) 16:30, 1 July 2012 (UTC)


 * BOM is not a separate feature. Any editor that supports Unicode must be able to handle BOM. However, an editor must not add or remove BOM automatically. A basic requirement of a text editor is that it must not modify the file without user command.
 * By the way, there are no two standards. According to the standard, UTF-16 must have BOM. There is no BOM on UTF-8, since there are no byte order issues, but some programs add a non-standard character sequence which contains BOM characters converted into UTF-8. In any case, the editor should be able to handle the character set even if it does not contain BOM, since you may need to copy a piece of text from one file to another. --PauliKL (talk) 10:48, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Like it or not, Notepad always adds the Byte Order Mark to UTF-8 by default and Notepad++ and Visual C++ are also said to do so by default. Although these editors are very frequently encountered, I don't know of any other editors that add the Byte Order Mark to UTF-8 by default. There are a couple of reasons why some people will probably continue to use the Byte Order Mark with UTF-8. One is so that Microsoft Excel will detect a text file's encoding as UTF-8. Another is (probably later, when browsers generally support this) so that browsers will detect an HTML5 result's encoding as UTF-8, overriding HTTP headers. --Hoziron (talk) 14:20, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Sublime Text
Why is Sublime Text missing in so many tables? --Jobu0101 (talk) 08:50, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

mangled footnote for Notepad/etc
The footnote asserting that Notepad and its imitators runs "flawlessly" on Wine is an example of why Wikipedia topics convey misleading information. Adding what amounts to a sub-footnote making a further assertion about Notepad2/Notepad++ does not improve the information, since it misleads a casual reader into supposing that those programs work anywhere that Scintilla has been ported. That doesn't appear to be the case. Deleting the entire footnote would be the most straightforward way to improve the topic. TEDickey (talk) 20:42, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Text editors written in Javascript (runnable in web pages)
Expand the list of Text editors to include those written in Javascript. Make a new section like Java Based.

--188.223.226.195 (talk) 12:05, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Sam
Along side Acme, you can find Sam shipped with Plan9 and plan9port. It's actually what the folks who invented B, C and C++ (Ken Thompson, Brian Kernighan and Bjarne Stroustrup) all use. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.250.21.204 (talk) 20:21, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Brackets editor
I attempted to add information on the Brackets code editor recently, but user TEDickey reverted my addition as "not topical." Does anyone here have an opinion on the criteria a text editor must meet to merit inclusion on this page? Brackets typically has 20-30k downloads per release, so it seems perfectly relevant to me... I'm inclined to re-add it if I don't hear anything, since it seems like useful information to have recorded here. Ytpete (talk) 07:03, 4 September 2013 (UTC)


 * This is "comparison of text editors". Brackets is (following the link) an html editor.  There is a comparison-of-html-editors topic.  There are other things which it is not - but from the given information, it is not a general-purpose text editor, and therefore not topical here TEDickey (talk) 00:28, 5 September 2013 (UTC)


 * See my reply on the List of text editors talk page. I'll let that be the main discussion thread since the point of contention seems to be the same for both articles. Ytpete (talk) 22:15, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Missing criteria
One columns is missing somewhere: Sorting.

I ploughed through all tables trying to find the ideal text editor for me, and according to the criteria I found in the table headers, only jEdit had everything I want. Close runner-ups were Notepad++ (can't handle large files) and vim (don't feel like learning new interface/shortcuts). I downloaded it, installed it, started using it, and spent 30 minutes searching for a sort feature that, as it turns out, it doesn't even have (although a powerful sort can be added with a plugin). --Zom-B (talk) 11:01, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Same with 'visible whitespaces'. In this case there isn't a plugin that meets my requirements. Guess it's back to using two different editors. --Zom-B (talk) 11:25, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Rectangular select mode is also very buggy and only partially useful in jEdit. Should this be mentioned in the table cell? --Zom-B (talk) 11:27, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Add "Hyperlink support" to basic features
I would like to propose adding "Hyperlink support" as a column in the "Basic features" comparison chart. Some editors, such as Wordpad, lack what some would consider to be a very basic feature. --Stevoisiak(e) (talk) 18:38, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Sed?
sed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.130.100.102 (talk) 07:26, 13 May 2014 (UTC)


 * It's not discussed in the main topic TEDickey (talk) 08:01, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

File size limit for editors in general
It seems that many editors have a wrong file size limit in the table. VI e.g. limits it's swap file to 128 MB by default and this results in a limit of aprox. 65 MB for editable files.

VIM definitely does not support large files, as it does not open files in large file mode. It is not clear what the real size limit is today. In 1995, it was less than 5MB. It seems that the file size is limited by the available RAM. So a 32 Bit VIM is expected to support less than 2 GB.

The only large file editor I am aware of is VED. For this reason, it seems to be wise to request references to verify large file support for the other editors mentioned in the table. Schily (talk) 11:06, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Emacs file-size limit
The given source mentions size only for 32-bit systems; the comment regarding 64-bit systems is unsourced. TEDickey (talk) 09:27, 21 April 2015 (UTC)


 * As usual, you did not read the references. Schily (talk) 11:09, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
 * The true Emacs limit on 64 bit systems is 2 Exabytes. The 2GB limit is not due to Emacs.
 * ??? I have never been able to edit files > aprox. 500M even with a 64 bit Emacs and this was on the same system where I could edit a 6GB file with no problem using VED. Please give a reliable source for your claim. Schily (talk) 14:38, 21 April 2015 (UTC)


 * http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs.git/tree/src/buffer.h#n307 * http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/elisp/Integer-Basics.html * http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Buffers.html#Buffers * http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsFileSizeLimit * https://lwn.net/Articles/272027/

I just tried opening a 2GB zip file in 64-bit Emacs 24.4.1 on a 2GB Debian vbox and got a "memory exhausted" error (not max buffer size exceeded). Opening a 812.7MB zip file succeeds, parses the archive and shows the dired buffer. Opening a temp buffer and using insert-file inserts the file contents successfully. On an 8GB Windows 7 using the latest emacs-w64 from, the same two operations succeed with the 2GB file. Maybe the file[s] you were trying to open were executing an emacs mode that caused it to fail some other way.

I remember there was a problem and I even tried to use truss to find the reason for the failure. It was neither limited /tmp size nor limited memory. For me an editor supports large files if the default compilation creates a binary that is able to deal with large files. This is true for VED but not true for emacs - if I understand you correctly, you need to manually modify the buffer size before compilation - right? Schily (talk) 16:49, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
 * No, I did not modify the max buffer size, this is standard. I built the Debian Emacs myself; the only customization I made was to disable X and sound support, and maybe to enable inotify support (it's a new feature that I wanted and I forget if it was enabled by default when I built).

Manage of binary files
In some sections of features should appear something like "Manage of binary files" and depending on the editor could be indicated as: The idea arose from this discussion in which you will notice that many text editors for Linux (especially those with graphical interface) work as in item 1. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 181.110.89.159 (talk) 03:24, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) Text only (the program reads only up to a point of a binary file or directly not open it showing an error).
 * 2) Hexadecimal (if it is a binary file, then show it as in a hex editor).
 * 3) Gibberish characters, but textual parts are readable (as this).
 * There is also whether the editor is round trip compatible - whether saving the file alters the binary data in any way, regardless of how it's displayed. TextMate isn't.
 * Yea, vi edits binary files but shortens "lines" and removes null bytes. In 1982, working editors have been EMACS from James Gosling and VED from UNOS. Not sure which editors today are OK as I use ved ;-) Schily (talk) 12:46, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Localisation
The section named localisation has less than 20 languages in the list. Nowadays, most softwares, especially text editors come with localisation support for 50+ languages. It would be difficult to add all those languages in the columns and the table will be too long. So, It would be better to write the supported languages next to the editors If there are many languages, say 60+ a short text like 60+ languages in the cell would suffice. -தமிழ்க்குரிசில் (talk) 15:49, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

What about VS Code?
-- 141.100.74.218 (talk) 16:05, 13 June 2016 (UTC)


 * +1 for VS Code, it's gained widespread adoption and is arguably one of the better-known and more successful TypeScript projects. It's notable enough to have its own Wikipedia page, and because it's (apparently) not derived from any major previously existing editor, I believe it deserves a mention here. Julesmazur (talk) 15:14, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

VS Code is primarily an integrated development environment, which happens to have a source code editor. Those are specializations which make it fit under one or both of those topics, but not really as a text editor. As usual there's other stuff (about a quarter of this page could be trimmed without losing anything relevant to the topic). TEDickey (talk) 21:04, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

Elastic tabstops
Please include elastic tabstops in the feature comparison. Aside from automatic alignment for source code, they are essential for viewing/editing tab-separated values. Richard Taytor (talk) 22:34, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

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Joe's own editor (sic)
The homepage for Joe's editor says there is no Windows version. It's irrelevant if someone has "ported" it. TEDickey (talk) 17:12, 19 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Looking at the IP's other edits, it looks like intentional mischief TEDickey (talk) 22:26, 19 August 2017 (UTC)
 * According to the homepage: JOE does not have these features (yet): and Native Windows version (but you can use JOE in Cygwin). TEDickey (talk) 22:32, 19 August 2017 (UTC)


 * It's part of the JOE's official project and not someone else's irrelevant port. The JOE's homepage is subdomain, based on SourceForge. The "Project page" anchor redirects directly to JOE's project repository where the quote can be found as description and in the "README.md" of "files/JOE for Windows": "JOE for Windows is a native port of Joe's Own Editor. Unlike the Cygwin version, it is written (more-or-less) directly against the Windows API and does not need a large, external compatibility layer. It is compiled with the standard Microsoft compiler and has no external dependencies. Changes were made to better integrate JOE into a Windows environment, such as a more Windows-friendly file layout and mouse support. Other additions include drag-and-drop, clipboard integration and color schemes."


 * There is installation setup, binary executable and source code which can be used to further confirm the quotation.


 * In short, Joe writes code but doesn't bother to provide useful documentation (the point being of course is that it's not the proper role of Wikipedia editors to construct documentation for the topic from bits and pieces, but to refer to documentation - see WP:OR to see where your changes fit in). TEDickey (talk) 00:48, 21 August 2017 (UTC)


 * JOE's homepage, you are referring, is an index for any further navigation. The documentation can be found following the anchor provided on it. The documentation includes all the details for confirmation that there is native Windows version. Additionally, according to JOE's news, following the "Release Notes" anchor on the homepage, native Windows version is available from version 3.8 on 2015-03-22 or earlier, thanks to John J. Jordan (one of the project developers). Please refer to the documentation for any other questions you might have.

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Appropriate to include Midnight Commander text editor?
I was surprised to see that Midnight Commander's text editor, mcedit, wasn't already presented here, and wondered if the omission was intentional since it is one of the more venerable such programs. While several of the tables listing more advanced features would not apply, that doesn't exclude similar CLI editors like joe, nano, and vim from being present, which makes me think this is just an oversight. I'll add mcedit to the page shortly, but if that contradicts an earlier decision or rubs someone the wrong way, please explain here and I'll either convince you otherwise or revert my changes.

Thank you. —Peter J. Mello (talk • contribs) 03:06, 14 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Like anyone else's favorite editor, mcedit is subject to the same guidelines on notability and reliable sources TEDickey (talk) 15:41, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Programmer's File Editor
PFE is a fully featured notepad replacement for Windows, quite popular in the 1990's and at the turn of the millenium. The homepage is here, but as development ceased in 2000 its eligibility for inclusion in the comparison list is debatable. --Lmstearn (talk) --Lmstearn (talk) 05:13, 12 February 2018 (UTC)15:26, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

64-bit nativ Version is main part for large memory support
Most Editors have no 64Bit Version and no large Memory support greater than 32-bit with 2 or 4GByte

64Bit nativ Version should be a Feature for Tables. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:810B:C53F:B9E8:4851:C258:A67A:DC31 (talk) 12:05, 9 May 2018 (UTC)


 * There is already a column for Large File Support in the table "Extra features". Large file support does not require compiling for 64-bit processor. Even an 8-bit processor can handle 64-bit values. --PauliKL (talk) 11:31, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Sorting yields incorrect orders.
Two examples: The properties "Software Licenses" and "Open Source" are wonderfully coloured, but are not consistently sorted in the way the colour proposes to do (green <=> red). I do not know of any possibility to make table columns sortable by colours, but I might have missed one. Since I'm not good in Sortable Tables, I would ask you to make the changes needed. Many thanks in advance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mathelerner (talk • contribs) 17:38, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Leafpad & Pluma
I am surprised that for such a 'definitive' article, it does not include the Notepad & Pluma editors that are standard with (but not exclusive to) some simpler Linux desktops. They are relatively recent, but not new. Ludwig87230 (talk) 20:05, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Android
Why are no Android editors listed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.61.180.106 (talk) 13:26, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
 * You are free to add some. --Tuxman (talk) 11:36, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you for that stupid answer. If I had the expertise to do so, I would've done so already, wouldn't I? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.61.180.106 (talk) 05:39, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * If we knew any, we would have added some already, wouldn’t we? --Tuxman (talk) 12:59, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Adding Wikidata
Ahoy,

is there any good reason that version updates are added manually in the list instead of just grabbing them from Wikidata? Tuxman (talk) 09:10, 8 June 2021 (UTC)


 * I noticed that a kind IP has done a good deed here. Thank you, if you read this. :-) Tuxman (talk) 11:39, 27 July 2021 (UTC)