which editor?

[spizkapa]

OK, first things first, I'm not looking for a flame war between vi and emacs as I'm interested in neither of them. I've also been a linux user for a few years and use exclusively Debian so please, no K-editor or G-editor suggestions. I know it's a tough call but that's why I'm soliciting the help of the community, right?

I've been an emacs user for years but feel like the time has come for a change to a lightweight editor for programming. As I program only in C, Perl, LaTeX and the occasional script, I'm interested in a lightweight, configurable editor that is, of course, free! (as in speech, not beer)

I need:
1. lots of highlighting support
2. autmatic tabbing support
3. minimal support for macros
4. the ability to work with a completely black background as I detest the 'notepad' look of some editors.

and that's it! Now, how hard can it be?


spizkapa

[rbrimhall]

I use Nedit... though I'm not sure how configurable it is (I've never tried since I only use it for simple editing of config files and the like) but you may want to give it a try...

http://www.nedit.org/

[sclebo05]

a agree with the nedit suggestion, i even use it on my pentium 1! if you need something not-as-lightweight but more customizable, try jedit. it runs on the JVM.

[spizkapa]

Excellent suggestions, both of the above!

I have already had a look at nedit and it is quite cool. It's just that I don't seem to be able to change the highlighting options for a specific language so that turning highlighting on with a black background makes the non-highlighted text disappear... which isn't good even in the state my code is in!

Keep the suggestions coming people! Thanks!


spizkapa

[Strike]

If emacs is too heavy, try vim :)

[MorphiusFaydal]

i dont know of any others, but ive found that GVim is pretty good, lightweight, and has pretty good syntax highlighting... and, though ive never tried to, i believe that you can color the BG black if you want..

HTH,

chris

[bwkaz]

vim

;)

[Hayl]

Originally posted by bwkaz
vim

;)

ditto :D

[mage492]

I like Zile. It's like emacs, but a fraction of the size. It comes with Damn Small Linux, in fact!

Personally, I like the command syntax of emacs, but not the bloat. That's where Zile comes in handy...

vim's okay, too. I don't have much experience with anything other than these three.