Looking for a Text Editor ...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ahoy Mate
  • Start date Start date
A

Ahoy Mate

.... must be small freeware, not require any additional adjunct library files
(.DLL, etc) and,
most important, permit COLUMNAR BLOCK highlighting. This feature should
(IMHO)
be available as the *only* necessary highlighting feature of any text
editor. Line highlighting,
that overwhelmingly is found on most text editors just doesn't make sense to
me, since you
can accomplish that with a columnar block as well.
 
Ahoy said:
... must be small freeware, not require any additional adjunct library files
(.DLL, etc) and,
most important, permit COLUMNAR BLOCK highlighting. This feature should
(IMHO)
be available as the *only* necessary highlighting feature of any text
editor. Line highlighting,
that overwhelmingly is found on most text editors just doesn't make sense to
me, since you
can accomplish that with a columnar block as well.
Click to expand...

I've felt that lack odd, as well, having been used to it in the past;
it seems like it should be a more common feature. I wish I had a
freeware lead for you, but all I can do this time is agree with you.
 
Ahoy Mate said:
... must be small freeware, not require any additional adjunct library files
(.DLL, etc) and,
most important, permit COLUMNAR BLOCK highlighting. This feature should
(IMHO)
be available as the *only* necessary highlighting feature of any text
editor. Line highlighting,
that overwhelmingly is found on most text editors just doesn't make sense to
me, since you
can accomplish that with a columnar block as well.
Click to expand...

gvim is free and has columnar block operations (referred to as Visual
Blocks in gvim) as well as line oriented ones. Its exe will fit on a
diskette. It does come with tons of associated files but I don't
think you have to use any of them. See

http://www.vim.org

and, in particular see

http://www.vim.org/6k/features.en.txt

for an overview of features.
 
Blinky the Shark said:
I've felt that lack odd, as well, having been used to it in the past;
it seems like it should be a more common feature. I wish I had a
freeware lead for you, but all I can do this time is agree with you.
Click to expand...

If you don't care about some DLLs coming with the program, you could use
SciTE (available for Windows & Linux). It doesn't install DLLs outside of
it's own directory, so I don't mind them to be there... :-)

<http://www.scintilla.org/SciTE.html>

(To select a block use Alt+mouse.)
 
Ahoy Mate said:
... must be small freeware, not require any additional adjunct library files
(.DLL, etc) and,
most important, permit COLUMNAR BLOCK highlighting. This feature should
(IMHO)
Click to expand...

JEdit supports column block highlighting. Never found any use for that
feecher myself, but different strokes fer different folks.
Does "Java" count as an adjunct library file? Not if you already have it on
yer computer, which you prolly do.
 
... must be small freeware, not require any additional adjunct library
files (.DLL, etc) and,
most important, permit COLUMNAR BLOCK highlighting. This feature
should (IMHO)
be available as the *only* necessary highlighting feature of any text
editor. Line highlighting,
that overwhelmingly is found on most text editors just doesn't make
sense to me, since you
can accomplish that with a columnar block as well.
Click to expand...

notgnu, a small emaxish editor supports column editing
 
Ahoy said:
... must be small freeware, not require any additional adjunct
library files (.DLL, etc) and,
most important, permit COLUMNAR BLOCK highlighting. This feature
should (IMHO)
be available as the *only* necessary highlighting feature of any text
editor. Line highlighting,
that overwhelmingly is found on most text editors just doesn't make
sense to me, since you
can accomplish that with a columnar block as well.
Click to expand...

emacs, one of the most powerful editor written for linux, is also available
for windows and is as powerful and light weight.
supports columnar block highlighting as well.
http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/

Sanjay
 
foosland said:
JEdit supports column block highlighting. Never found any use for that
feecher myself, but different strokes fer different folks.
Click to expand...

A common application would be to remove > marks in an email or news item.
 
Blinky the Shark said:
"vim has a so-called "Visual mode blockwise". For example, if you have a
text with 3 'columns' like aaa bbb ccc aaa bbb ccc aaa bbb ccc and you
would like to move the 'bbb' column/block so that your text looks like
bbb aaa ccc bbb aaa ccc bbb aaa ccc you simply go to the upper left
corner of the 'bbb' block, type "CTRL-v", move the cursor down to the
lower right corner of the 'bbb' block, then hit "d" to delete, move the
cursor to where you want the 'bbb' block to be placed, and then hit "p"
(or "P") to paste! Way cool too. You could also go to another file (e.g.
with ":e foofile" or ":n"), yank (copy) a block, go back to the original
file (e.g. with ":e #" or ":N") and paste the block. See ":help
blockwise- visual" or ":help CTRL-V"
Click to expand...

Note that the above refers to how gvim acts in the absence of any key
remappings; however, the version that you download for MS-Windows
comes with remappings (in the _vimrc and mswin.vim files). These
define ctrl-q to start the Visual Block and the hjkl keys (rather than
the cursor keys) to extend it -- freeing up ctrl-v and the cursor keys
for clipboard paste and general movement
 
Ahoy Mate said:
... must be small freeware, not require any additional adjunct
library files (.DLL, etc) and,
most important, permit COLUMNAR BLOCK highlighting. This feature
should (IMHO)
be available as the *only* necessary highlighting feature of any
text editor. Line highlighting,
that overwhelmingly is found on most text editors just doesn't
make sense to me, since you
can accomplish that with a columnar block as well.
Click to expand...

Among the freeware code editors, I like JEdit and Context (both already mentionned) and :

SourceEdit :
http://www.brixoft.com/default.asp

Crimson Editor:
http://www.crimsoneditor.com/
 
|| emacs, one of the most powerful editor written for linux

| Emacs was written for ITS,
| almost 20 years before Linux-kernel ...

I first used emacs on a Honeywell Mutlics system in 1978 ...

http://www.multicians.org

Don't know where Honeywell got emacs from ...

Unix { Multics without Balls } was euphemized as such
by the Unix authors themselves,Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie,
who originally worked on Multics ...
 
Looks to be > 10MB depending on version. Where's the "small"
version ?
Click to expand...
I wasn't going to say anything...but when I saw "light weight," I
almost spit coffee everywhere.

Now the gun, *that's* light weight.

--
Tiger

"If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe; but
precisely because I cannot do this, I must believe."
- Soren Kierkegaard
 
Tiger said:
I wasn't going to say anything...but when I saw "light weight," I
almost spit coffee everywhere.

Now the gun, *that's* light weight.
Click to expand...

I only one could uninstall the included operating system... ;-)
 
Tiger said:
I wasn't going to say anything...but when I saw "light weight," I
almost spit coffee everywhere.

Now the gun, *that's* light weight.
Click to expand...

If only one could uninstall the included operating system... ;-)
 
If only one could uninstall the included operating system... ;-)
Click to expand...

Sorry, that one went right over my head.

--
Tiger

"If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe; but
precisely because I cannot do this, I must believe."
- Soren Kierkegaard
 
Looks to be > 10MB depending on version.
Where's the "small" version ?
Click to expand...
I wasn't going to say anything...but when I saw "light weight," I
almost spit coffee everywhere.[/QUOTE]

You only need file "emacs.exe" to run GNU Emacs, all other files are
optional to add more features. And oh boy, it really has a lot of
those features so all that space is not wasted. My GNU Emacs v20.7
installation in Win98 SE computer has total size of 25 megabytes...

Btw, there are several dozens of light weight versions of Emacs, for
example two quite popular are Jed and MicroEmacs. But can get the
REAL THING, why settle for anything less? Even my cellular phone
(Nokia Communicator 9210i) has GNU Emacs (MS-DOS version running in
emulation), it takes 17 MB of my 64 MB memory card in cellphone...
 
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