Other Text Editors

Even if you don't want to use one of the traditional Unix text editors, it's still a good idea to use an editor more powerful and flexible than Notepad or TextEdit, particularly if you ever edit scripting or programming language files, or even HTML. All of the editors below do some sort of syntax highlighting and have at least some auto-indenting support. Some also have features like auto-complete. All are free (as in speech and beer).

• [http://tuppis.com/smultron/ Smultron] - Mac (10.5 only, [http://www.opensource.org/licenses/apache2.0.php Apache License V2.0])

• [http://www.activestate.com/Products/komodo_ide/komodo_edit.mhtml Komodo Edit] - Windows, Mac, and Linux. (Mix of [http://www.opensource.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.php GPL], [http://www.opensource.org/licenses/lgpl-2.1.php LGPL], and [http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mozilla1.1.php MPL]) Built on top of the Mozilla platform (but not browser-based), so it's pretty heavyweight compared to the rest. And they try to sell you KomodoIDE ($295). It is a good editor though.

• [http://projects.gnome.org/gedit/ gedit] - Linux (Gnome, GPL)

• [http://kate-editor.org/kate Kate] - Linux (KDE, LGPL2)

• [http://www.jedit.org/ jEdit] - Windows, Mac, and Linux (GPL)

• [http://www.scintilla.org/SciTE.html SciTE] - Windows, Linux (Similar to [http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php MIT] license. i.e. disclaimer and notice)

• [http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm Notepad++] - Windows (GPL)