The Soulpass Project

After testing out a lot of other text editors, I have come to the conclusion that PSPad is the best overall that I have found thus far. Firstly, it’s not bloated at all. That is one of the characteristics that I was looking for in a good editor. It has the same, if not more features as other editors. The author updates the software rather often, and the latest updates can be found in the beta forum.

Here is a partial list of features from the PSPad site:

• Work with projects
• Work on several documents at the same time (MDI)
• Save desktop session to later reopen all open files
• FTP client - you can edit files directly from the web
• Macro recorder to record, save and load macros
• Search and replace in files
• Text difference with color-coded differences highlighted
• Templates (HTML tags, scripts, code templates…)
• Installation contains templates for HTML, PHP, Pascal, JScript, VBScript, MySQL, MS-Dos, Perl…
• Syntax highlighting auto set by file type
• User-defined highlighters for exotic environments
• Auto correction
• Intelligent internal HTML preview using IE and Mozilla
• Full HEX editor
• Call external programs, different for each environment
• External compiler with catch command output, log window, log parser for each environment for “IDE” effect
• Color syntax highlight printing and print preview
• Integrated TiDy library for formatting and checking HTML code, conversion to CSS, XML, XHTML
• Integrated free version of top CSS editor TopStyle Lite
• Export with highlight to RTF, HTML, TeX format into file or clipboard
• Column block select, bookmarks, line numbers, …
• Reformat and compress HTML code, tags char case change
• Line sorting with ability to sort on defined column, with option to drop duplicates
• ASCII chart with HTML entities
• Code explorer for Pascal, INI, HTML, XML, PHP, and more in future
• Spell checker
• Internal web browser with APACHE support
• Matching bracket highlighting

Keep in mind that 1) this is a partial list, and 2) PSPad is a very lightweight editor compared to others; it loads rather fast. Jan Fiala, the author of PSPad, certainly deserves donations if you can find it within your heart and wallet.

Here is an incomplete list of the other editors I have tried (many are geared towards PHP): MetaPad (looking for other features), Notepad2 (too simple, good for a bare-bones Notepad replacement), Crimson Editor (too bloated), Notepad++, ConTEXT, NotepadEx, mdiNotepad, PHPEdit, HAPedit (rather ugly UI), Arachnophilia (Java), Matrix Y2K, Svoi.NET PHP Edit (bloated), EditPad Light (Pro version costs, and not that great anyway), Syn, PHP Designer (Looks like they have a new version out, will have to take a look)…

Here are some things that I look for in a good editor:

• Speed
• Pretty smooth, reasonably easy-to-navigate interface. I like the retro windows look. The smaller the toolbar icons can get, the better
• Reasonable download file size
• Context highlighting (used to be optional, but now I realize just how handy this is)
• Direct FTP editing (optional, but very, very handy. The downside is that one could get used using it, and not keep current local copies of one’s files!)
• Plenty of control over program functionality (i.e. extensive options dialog, hopefully reasonably easy to navigate)
• An author that keeps up with the program. Software that was last updated three years ago is a red flag. I like seeing the authors stay on top of things, perhaps through a forum.
• Extendable, i.e. - It should be able to highlight additional languages by simply adding a file or two. A plugin architecture is nice as well.
• Brace-matching (for finding matching brackets, braces, and parenthesis)
• A project manager is nice, though not necessary. PSPad’s project manager is not bad, could possibly use some improvements in the way that the files in the project are referenced to the files on the drive. There could be a good reason for the way it’s set up the way it is, though. I don’t know.

If you disagree with my conclusion that PSPad is the best all-around editor, please, by all means, leave some comments here! I want to know what you think. If you have a better one, I’ll try it and we can discuss. I’m not here to list as many software titles as possible, I’m here to give the best that’s out there. Only editors that are free for personal as well as commercial use will be eligible to be the “best,” but I’d like to here what you have to say in any case, for any editor.

Cheers!
-Daniel