19 Carefully Picked Coding Editors To Choose From

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Great coding software to help in daily development process can be irreplaceable tool – bad software can lower your work efficient stage so badly, you would even don’t want to hear my experiences. For example – Dreamweaver, try to write there any code in Design view, you will get so dirty code, that you will have to spend hours until you will understand and clean it to make your page load faster.

Good software however can give you a lot of tips, ways to help code faster,find your typing mistakes without a pain. My research stopped with Aptana few years ago, which one is your pick?

1. Aptana Studio (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X) (FREE)

Aptana Studio is a complete web development environment that combines powerful authoring tools for HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, along with thousands of additional plugins created by the community.

Features of Aptana Studio:

• Unified Editing for Web Apps
• Ajax and JavaScript Libraries
• Ruby on Rails, Python and PHP
• Desktop Ajax
• Free, Open Source and Cross Platform

2. SlickEdit (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X) (FREE Trial; 299$)

SlickEdit is the multi-platform, multi-language code editor that gives programmers the ability to create, navigate, modify, build, and debug code faster and more accurately.

Features of SlickEdit:

• Display symbol details with List Members, function/method argument help, and formatted Javadoc/XMLdoc/Doxygen comments
• Analyze symbols and hierarchy with a rich set of tools including Symbols, Class, References, and Find Symbol tool windows
• Check in and check out from version control
• Diff files and directories
• Preview the definition for the symbol under the cursor automatically without lifting a finger. The Preview tool window shows the definition and formatted Javadoc/XMLdoc/Doxygen comments.
• Edit files up to 2 GB

3. jEdit (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X) (FREE)

jEdit is a mature programmer’s text editor with hundreds (counting the time developing plugins) of person-years of development behind it.

Features of jEdit:

• Built-in macro language
• Plugins can be downloaded and installed from within jEdit using the “plugin manager” feature.
• Auto indent, and syntax highlighting for more than 130 languages.
• Supports a large number of character encodings including UTF8 and Unicode.
• Folding for selectively hiding regions of text.
• Word wrap.
• Highly configurable and customizable.

4. IntelliJ IDEA (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X) (FREE; €86 to €516)

IntelliJ IDEA is a code-centric IDE focused on developer productivity. IntelliJ IDEA deeply understands your code and gives you a set of powerful tools without imposing any particular workflow or project structure. IntelliJ IDEA is your dream pair-programmer who knows its way around the codebase, makes great suggestions right when you need them, and is always ready to help you shape your code.

Features of IntelliJ IDEA:

• Advanced Code Editing
• Supported Languages
• Technologies & Frameworks
• Teamwork Facilitation
• Code Quality Features
• Integrated Environment
• Customization & Extensibility

5. Notepad++ (Windows) (FREE)

Notepad++ is a free source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages. Running in the MS Windows environment, its use is governed by GPL License.

Features of Notepad++:

• Syntax Highlighting and Syntax Folding
• WYSIWYG
• User Defined Syntax Highlighting
• Auto-completion
• Multi-Document
• Multi-View
• Regular Expression Search/Replace supported
• Full Drag ‘N’ Drop supported
• Dynamic position of Views
• File Status Auto-detection
• Zoom in and zoom out
• Multi-Language environment supported
• Bookmark
• Brace and Indent guideline Highlighting
• Macro recording and playback

6. SCREEM (Linux) (FREE)

SCREEM is a web development environment. It’s purpose is to increase productivity when constructing a site, by providing quick access to commonly used features. While it is written for use with the GNOME desktop environment in mind it does not specifically require you to be running it, just have the libraries installed.

Features of SCREEM:

• Broken Link Checking
• CTags Support
• Cut / Paste
• CVS Support
• Document Structure Display
• DTD/Doctype Parsing
• Helper Applications
• Inline Tagging
• Intelliclose
• Link Fixing
• Page Previewing
• Page Templates
• Publishing
• Recent documents / Projects
• Search / Replace
• Select Context
• Spell Checking
• Syntax Highlighting
• Tag Trees
• Task management
• Wizards

7. EmEditor (Windows) (FREE Trial; €32.15)

EmEditor is a lightweight, but extensible, commercial text editor for Microsoft Windows. Although designed for Windows XP, the program is also certified for use with Windows Vista. Available editions of the program include the 32-bit edition and the 64-bit edition, and the program also includes a portability option to set up a removable drive, such as a USB drive, through an Import and Export Wizard. Feature-wise, the program includes unicode and large file support, a tabbed window design, and is extensible via plugins and scripts (macros), many of which have been written by the users.

Features of EmEditor:

• New Snippets Plug-in
• Brackets/Quotation Mark Auto-Complete
• Narrowing
• CSV, TSV and DSV
• Full Screen View
• Clipboard History
• Wildcard Support
• Workspace Including Undo Information
• New External Tools
• Pin to List
• Save in Protected Folder
• Supports Windows 7 Jump List
• New Buttons on Toolbar

8. Programmer’s Notepad (Windows) (FREE)

Programmer’s Notepad is an open-source text editor targeted at users who work with source code.

Features of Programmer’s Notepad:

• Bookmarks (both numbered and plain)
• Code Folding/Outlining
• Docking tool windows
• Excellent external tool support with user-configurable output matching
• Export to HTML (using CSS) and RTF
• File association manager
• In-file method/definition navigation (using Ctags)
• No limit on file size (although large files may take a while to load)
• Non fixed-width font support
• Projects and Project Groups with multi-level folders and file system mirroring
• Quick Search toolbar with links to Google and Google Groups
• Regular expression search and replace
• Support for unicode files
• Support for windows, unix and macintosh file formats
• Syntax highlighting for many languages through “schemes”.
• Tabbed MDI interface
• Text Clips
• Unlimited number of schemes supported, powerful syntax highlighting supporting both user-defined and built-in schemes
• User-defined schemes (XML)
• Word-wrapping

9. PSPad (Windows) (FREE)

PSPad editor is a freeware text editor and source editor intended for use by programmers.

Features of PSPad:

The universal freeware editor, useful for people who:

• Work with plain text
• Create web pages
• Want to use a good IDE for their compiler

10. HTML-Kit (Windows) (FREE)

HTML-Kit is an HTML editor for Microsoft Windows. The application is a full-featured HTML editor designed to edit, format, validate, preview and publish web pages in HTML, XHTML and XML -languages.

Features of HTML-Kit:

• Navigate tags and scripts
• Code Folding
• Batch Search and Replace
• Upload Options
• Incremental Search and Go-To
• File Versioning and Auto Backup
• HTML-Kit Shorthand
• Not Lost in Translation
• Remote Editing with Local Copy
• Dockable Plugins
• Paste Plus
• Native Unicode Support
• Multi-Page Templates
• Re-order Document Tabs

11. EditPlus (Windows) (FREE Trial; $35)

EditPlus is a text editor, HTML editor, PHP editor and Java editor for Windows. While it can serve as a good Notepad replacement, it also offers many powerful features for Web page authors and programmers.

Features of EditPlus:

• Multiple document interface
• Overlappable windows
• Tabbed document interface
• Window splitting
• Spell checking
• Regex-based find & replace
• Encoding conversion
• Newline conversion
• Syntax highlighting
• Multiple undo/redo
• Rectangular block selection
• Bracket matching
• Auto indentation
• Auto completion
• Code folding (Text folding)
• Compiler integration

12. Crimson Editor (Windows) (FREE)

Crimson Editor is a professional source code editor for Windows. This program is not only fast in loading time, but also small in size (so small that it can be copied in one floppy disk).

Features of Crimson Editor:

• Edit multiple documents
• Syntax highlighting
• Multi-level undo / redo
• Project management
• Directory tree view window
• Find & Replace
• Column mode editing
• Natural word wrapping
• Spell checker
• User tools and macros
• Edit remote files directly using built-in FTP client
• Print & Print preview

13. Coda (Mac OS X) (99$)

Coda is a $99 commercial web development application for Mac OS X, developed by Panic.

Features of Coda:

• Plug-ins
• Open quickly
• Smart Spelling
• Subversion
• Find across files

14. BBEdit (Mac OS X) (FREE Trial; From $49 to $125)

Whenever you need to work with text, whether you want to create or maintain a Web site, write a program or shell script, search log files and extract data, or write a few paragraphs (or pages, or books), BBEdit offers what you need to make accomplishing your task quicker and easier. BBEdit 9 adds over one hundred new features and over one hundred improvements over the previous version.

Features of BBEdit:

• Text Handling
• Web Development
• Programming
• File Handling
• Display
• Search
• UNIX & Admin

15. TextMate (Mac OS X) (FREE Trial; €48.75)

TextMate brings Apple’s approach to operating systems into the world of text editors. By bridging UNIX underpinnings and GUI, TextMate cherry-picks the best of both worlds to the benefit of expert scripters and novice users alike.

Features of TextMate:

• Ability to Search and Replace in a Project
• Auto-Indent for Common Actions Like Pasting Text
• Auto-Pairing of Brackets and Other Characters
• Clipboard History
• Column Selections and Column Typing
• Completion of Words from Current Document
• CSS-like Selectors to Pinpoint the Scope of Actions and Settings
• Declarative Language Grammars for Graceful Mixing and Hacking
• Dynamic Outline for Working With Multiple Files
• Expand Trigger Words to Code Blocks With Tab-able Placeholders
• File Tabs when Working With Projects
• Foldable Code Blocks
• Function Pop-up for Quick Overview and Navigation
• Plug-able Through Your Favorite Scripting Language
• Recordable Macros With No Programming Required
• Regular Expression Search and Replace (grep)
• Run Shell Commands from Within a Document
• Support for Darcs, Perforce, SVK, and Subversion
• Support for More Than 50 Languages
• Switch Between Files in Projects With a Minimum of Key Strokes
• Themable Syntax Highlight Colors
• Visual Bookmarks to Jump Between Places in a File
• Works As External Editor for (s)ftp Programs
• Works Together With Xcode and Can Build Xcode Projects

16. SubEthaEdit (Mac OS X) (FREE Trial; €29)

SubEthaEdit is a powerful and lean text editor. And it’s the only collaborative one that is a joy to use. By combining the ease of Bonjour with the world’s best text collaboration engine, it makes working together not only possible but even fun…

Features of SubEthaEdit:

SubEthaEdit includes various advanced features: A UNIX command line utility to enable complex and interactive pipe workflows with your terminal. Overhauled printing, including all bells and whistles, even with collaborative metadata. Exporting to HTML, again with metadata. Completely user customizable syntax highlighting through styles. Support for editing files as administrator. Improved AppleScript support to allow control of sharing features.

17. CSSEdit (Mac OS X) (FREE Trial; $39.95)

Design beautiful, innovative and fast-loading web sites… with a beautiful, innovative and fast app. CSSEdit’s intuitive approach to style sheets and powerful previewing features will make you deliver awesome standards-based sites in no time!

Features of CSSEdit:

With CSSEdit, you see changes to your style sheet applied in real-time. Without saving. Without uploading. Without hassle. For any Web App or HTML file. You can edit style sheets for absolutely any site, on- or offline. Thanks to our innovative Override technology, you can even apply your open style sheets to any site and see it change instantly! Styling a Web App used to be a cycle of type — upload — refresh. CSSEdit destroys this waste of time. Making your Web 2.0 App beautiful is now easy and productive.

18. Taco HTML Edit (Mac OS X) (FREE Trial; $24.95)

Taco HTML Edit is the premier HTML editor and PHP editor for the Mac. As an HTML editor, Taco HTML Edit empowers its users to rapidly create their own web sites. It is designed exclusively for Mac OS X and has many advanced features including spell checking, live browser previewing, PHP previewing, syntax checking, and much more.

Features of Taco HTML Edit:

• Component Library
• Code Coloring
• Preview
• Code Completion
• Syntax Checking
• Live Preview
• Code Clips

19. skEdit (Mac OS X) (FREE Trial; $34.95)

skEdit is a text editor for Mac OS X, aimed at web designers and programmers.

Features of skEdit:

• Tabbed interface
• Project based site management
• Code hinting and completion
• Code folding
• Code snippets
• Syntax highlighting
• File uploading and remote editing (using FTP, SFTP or WebDAV)
• HTML Tidy integration
• Search and replace with support for regular expressions

Which software for coding is your favorite? If you haven’t got one, now you certainly have some promising programs to choose from!