TotalEdit

Download from… http://www.codertools.com

Download size… 5.65MB
Installation size… 12.93MB

It isn’t often I try out a new code editor and get excited. But TotalEdit is doing precisely that.

Let’s see what it’s got…

1. Resizable word wrap
2. Line numbering
3. Ability to easily add multiple browser launch
4. Correctly syntax checks PHP embedded within HTML code
5. Work on a USB stick
6. It’s quick to launch
7. Remembers previously opened files

What isn’t there? Well, there isn’t much else, including plugins. My current editor, Notepad++, has those and I don’t use them. It’s also rather bloated compared to others. But, then again, I’m putting it on an external USB drive where space isn’t an issue.

But, there is ONE issue. It isn’t much but that’s all it takes for a product to go from being the best one to being “nearly there”. Whenever I close the program and restart it the explorer toolbar resets back to the root directory structure. It’s remembered the files I was editing, but not the matching folder structure (and as I have my web development files neatly on a USB drive under lots of sub-folders, this is laborious).

Shame, otherwise I may have been switching editors.

I’m going to contact the authors and see if there’s a solution (I can’t find anything in the preferences)… I’ll wait until I get a reply (or not) before I give this software a final score. My hope is that there is a solution.

27/02/2008 Update
I received a rather speedy reply yesterday from the authors of the software. There is no facility to do what I was after, but they were already looking at modifying the under-used project facilities to do something similar - as in, link the project to a specific folder. The current version was to include this but it didn’t make it in. They’ll hopefully now include it in a later update.

So, I’ll keep an eye out and re-check the program once the update occurs. In the meantime… the software gets 4 (out of 5) stars. So nearly there, but I’m sticking with NotePad++ in the meantime.

LopeEdit Lite

Download from… http://www.lopesoft.com

Download size… 3.2MB
Installation size… 4.6MB

LopeEdit is a nice looking editor. It displays line numbers, word wrap indicators and, importantly, wraps correctly (i.e. re-wrapping as the windows resizes, rather than to a fixed screen position).

I tried the free version (as that’s the grand total of how much I wish to pay) but there is a “pay for” version with extra facilities. In this case, however, none of these extras were ones that I was looking for (ftp updates, file comparison, etc., are all available separately and probably a lot more powerful too).

But, as with most editors there are a couple of cons. First of all there’s no facility to launch the current page in a browser (as I’ve said before I’m surprised this isn’t missing from more editors as most are trying to be generic coding editors rather than web-specific). Secondly, this falls into a trap that others do when it comes to syntax highlighting - PHP scripts are assumed to be pure PHP. That means any HTML within them are not displayed correctly (and in the case of LopeEdit, it often gets confused). As most of my pages are HTML with a smattering of PHP within them, this means they highlight badly. Other editors assume both, others have seperate options (i.e. PHP or HTML/PHP).

Summary

Decent rounded code editor, not web specific, which is where its weaknesses lie. 3 out of 5.

Arachnophilia

Download from… http://www.arachnoid.com/arachnophilia

Download size… 1.59MB
Installation size… 1.54MB

Unlike most of the other editors, Arachnophilia is designed specifically for web development. It used to be my editor of choice, but that was version 4.0 (which you can still download from the site). Since then it’s been converted to Java so it will run on most platforms. Unfortunately, as most people will appreciate, that also means it runs like, well, a dog. Particularly to start. It’s slimline in size, but that’s for a reason - there aren’t many options.

It looks as if it’s been designed by someone from Fisher Price and lacks basic facilities such as word wrap and an explorer bar. There is line numbering a good browser launch system, as well as useful features such as the ability to auto-complete an image size.

In an attempt to make an editor for all people he’s made it difficult to use because it doesn’t perform how we expect it to.

I used Arachnophilia in it’s non-Java form because it was quick to use as a simple editor (although it lacked PHP syntax colouring). Now it’s even lost that. It comes with a Windows Installer but.. and this is always a bug-bear of mine… there’s no uninstall option without going into Control Panel.

Summary

Slow editor that lacks facilities and looks awful. 2 out of 5 stars.

Source Edit

Download from… http://www.brixoft.net

Download size… 3.73Mb
Installation size… 3.88Mb

This is a quite powerful editor, very similar to a commercial one that I use at work (my day job… not web development). In fact, the site even has a syntax highlighter for the obscure language that I programme in at work (a first that I know of - we had to write our own for the product we use). As with some of the other products I review, this is a generic code editor, which includes compiler options amongst other things. Never-the-less everything I look at specifically have facilities for web coding.

Again, this looks a little old-fashioned, but it’s compact and quick. Line numbering can be turned on, as can word wrap but this is where I came across it’s big problem. Word wrap occurs at a set column position - by default at position 80. All the other products I use wrap to the side of the window, so if you re-size it, the word wrap changes. Indeed, there’s a further problem with the word wrap - where lines wrap onto seperate lines, they are given their own line numbers. So, in the test I used, I had a 24 line piece of code but after turning on word wrap it was 27 lines - this means that debugging code will become harder as line numbers reported by, say, PHP will not correlate unless you turn the word wrap off. I looked in the configuration but couldn’t find a way to change this - I’m sure some people prefer it this way, but I’d at least like a way of changing it.

On top of that there’s little support, or something that will do an equivalent, for launching the code in a browser - just viewing it in the default browser. A crude macro facility exists but I can’t see a way of passing the current file name into it. Maybe there is something but after the word wrapping problem, I pretty much gave up the product.

Summary

Seems quite powerful but unusual for me because of its line wrapping problems, so 3 out of 5 stars.

ConTEXT

Download from… http://www.context.cx

Download size… 1.6Mb
Installation size… 2.7Mb

Like many code editors, ConTEXT has been designed to be pretty non-specific. In fact it’s quite lean - it weighs in quiet light in the Mb front but also in the features. All the usuals are there though, including line numbers, syntax highlighting, etc. The GUI is quite basic, looking like a product 10 years older than it really is.

It has a nice explorer bar at the side for file selection and - importantly - has Project facilities but without forcing you to use them. Nice.

The website is detailed, with FAQs and a forum.

Launching in different browsers can be defined by setting up some user-defined keys. These can also be executed by some icons on the toolbar. 4 are available in total and the set-up is quite powerful (compared to most other editors).

Summary

A nice clean, if a little old-fashioned looking editor. This could compete to be my editor of choice. 4 out of 5 stars.