Editors

I'm fed up with Nedit and all the other editors on linux that I use on a daily basis. I'm giving UltraEdit a try. It is a Windows editor that now has a linux version. The only real claim to fame it has is that it is a windows editor that works in linux. I can't tell you how many people complain about linux editors on linux all over the internet.

There is an editor war ongoing in the linux world over editors. The old standbys are Emacs and VIM. If you have used these editors, you have my condolences. Personally, I think they are both lacking. Not in features, they have tons of features. They need an interface that humans can use.

You would think that a text editor would not be that important. It is just rearranging characters. People get very touchy about their editors. I believe it stems from being forced to use one over the other by edicts or defaults.

It is important to have an editor on linux that allows you to edit in a situation where there is no graphical interface available. VI fills this niche in most of the cases where I need it. I only know enough about VI to get the most basic editing done. Things like insert text, remove lines, search and replace come to mind. I don't think I can get much more than that done in VI. Emacs is far more graphic in nature. It allows some pretty cool stuff like text to speech and macros that rival programming languages themselves. I've never learned any of it. 90% of what I need is what I can currently get done in just about any text editor.

The spell checker is important. It has to work. Being able to block indent retroactively is important. VI can do these things, but I cannot figure out how to get it done in VI for the life of me. I'm sure Emacs does too. Gedit doesn't do block moves as far as I can tell, but it might have some add-on for it.

There is no perfect editor.