Best Multipurpose (html,php,js) Editor? Looking for a lightweight editor.

[rob86 2]

I'm looking for a web design text editor that can be used with almost everything. Something light weight, fast to load and run, nothing that builds a full fledged webpage for you by pointing and clicking ( a la dreamweaver), just a notepad type software. When I mean it can be used with any language I mean it can check the syntax/colourize things correctly depending on if you're using php or js or html etc.Anything out there that can do it all, so to speak? I tried PHP Expert Editor which works okay, but when I wanted to try out some java script it couldn't understand what I was doing and sometimes the colour it gave text was wrong. Not a huge deal there but when you're learning the colours and syntax check help make sure things look right.. :(Thanks

[The Simpleton 2]

I'm using Bluefish editor and it works very well for me. Unfortunately, I don't know whether it works in Windows or not (I'm using it in Ubuntu). I think you can give it a try - it hasn't disappointed me yet and there are a lot of people who recommend it. If you're looking for a free editor which is like a clone of Dreamweaver, then I recommend using Aptana Studio. It's very helpful as well.

[shadowx 0]

I use PHPDesigner2007 Personal edition. Its for non-commercial use only though. But it does an excellent job, its not as light as some of the notepad based editors but it does have a preview mode for HTML, support for all the common web languages (all the ones you listed and more) can be attached to a local apache server (i use xampp) so you can preview PHP and other server side languages (ok, its just a built in browser window, but it saves you changing windows and refreshing each time).And it has a nice, full featured yet simple to use interface. Try download.com to get it, i think it may be discontinued by the author as they have gone more to the pro side of the software which is paid for.This is for windows by the way... i dont know what system you are running currently.

[Quatrux 4]

I also recommend PHP Designer, I am using it since version 2005 as I remember and don't use any other IDE anymore, it used to be free, but for some time now it isn't so I thought to change, but did not find any IDE which would suit me like PHP Designer, so I asked to buy it at my job, because I couldn't use anything else at the office.. Sometimes I write some suggestions to the developer and in a month he adds the features, but not all of them.

So just get PHP Designer at http://www.mpsoftware.dk/phpdesigner.php

If it's to "big" for you, you could use Notepad2 or a little more powerful text editor called Notepad++ which is also good, but it's not as powerful and useful as PHP Designer.

[miladinoski 1]

I use Komodo Edit from ActiveState which is fully free and open-source for both personal and commercial use. There is also a commercial IDE which costs $$$

You can get it from here: http://www.activestate.com/komodo-edit

It's available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, so you don't have to worry about OS compatibility

[Baniboy 3]

Crimson Editor all the way!!! I love it, and you should too :(It supports all kinds of syntax types from C to Javascript. I use it because when I code with it, the code is easily understandable and I can easily use the padding in the code to see which element is in which(It keeps the padding of the previous line when you move to a new line, so you can just press tab to move it a bit more to right and then it looks like it's "inside" the element, makes working with divs a lot easier). It has small features that make coding CSS a lot easier, you can notice typos easily 'cause only correctly written stuff gets coloured. PHP is also highlighted with a red background and the functions and all other stuff are coloured. You can also choose your own colors for the code, I forexample didn't like the variable highlighting so I changed it.I would also recommend notepad++. It's good too.

[Quatrux 4]

I just tried Komodo Edit from ActiveState and it's quite a good editor, especially because it's free. I liked the feature like on most C++ or C# editors, where dotted lines show when an if starts and ends, very comfortable, also you can minimize that part by clicking on +, it's not only for if, but for all the operators like while, do, else and etc. I wish PHP Designer would have this feature, working very well with such languages as PHP, maybe even on Javascript, but mainly I would need it for PHP.

[shadowx 0]

Phpdesigner has the ability to highlight brackets, curly and standard () and {} which is useful for all logic gates (IF, WHILE, LOOP) etc... it highlights the corresponding closing bracket if you select the opening one and vice versa, this also works with nested brackets which is extremely useful for finding where the code will naturally flow after or during a logic gate.And since, in php, you cant have a logic gate without brackets it pretty much does the same thing as you mentioned above

[rob86 2]

Looks like there are a lot of options out there. I tried Aptana Studio a while ago and it's a bit too big and bulky (slow) for what I need right now. I'm just learning not actually designing much so I just work with little bits of code for now. I'll try some of these out. I see nobody mentioned PSPad which is one I did try. It's a notepad-ish software. One thing I noticed about PSPad that it was really fast and supported many languages and it looked like a decent little editor to me. I'll try PHP Designer first ..and maybe the other ones too.Thanks!

[-Sky- 0]

I use PHPDesigner2007 Personal edition. Its for non-commercial use only though. But it does an excellent job, its not as light as some of the notepad based editors but it does have a preview mode for HTML, support for all the common web languages (all the ones you listed and more) can be attached to a local apache server (i use xampp) so you can preview PHP and other server side languages (ok, its just a built in browser window, but it saves you changing windows and refreshing each time).
And it has a nice, full featured yet simple to use interface.

Try download.com to get it, i think it may be discontinued by the author as they have gone more to the pro side of the software which is paid for.

This is for windows by the way... i dont know what system you are running currently.

I agree with you there shadow. PHPDesigner is good to work with for coding and projects being done, espesually if it's a main page your making. Though I have not used it for a long time, I actually kind of forgot the name of it. :angel: I used to use it, now I found it again (thanks to you mate) I can re-use it.

[nol 0]

I'm using phpdesigner too, its amazing. The bluefish one does not work on windows products, but I have used that one previously before too and it works great.

[Idolon 0]

Netbeans is also another very good multipurpose (and multi-platform) editor. ?It's nowhere near as lightweight as, say Notepad++, but it runs very quickly. ?The PHP only version does syntax highlighting and code completion for PHP, HTML, XML, CSS, and JavaScript. ?Judging by download size (26MB), I'd say Netbeans is much less bulky than Aptana Studio (130MB), and the PHP code completion is top-notch. ?Unlike Aptana, Netbeans also searches your source code in the background and provides code completion suggestions from the code, which makes working on large applications like WordPress so much easier.If all you need is syntax highlighting, take a look at Notepad++ too. ?It's a general text editor very similar to PSPad.

[jlhaslip 4]

There is a Bluefish for Windows project, but it is not very well supported.

[truefusion 3]

If you want something designed to be lightweight that'll remain lightweight (due to its design goals) which supports syntax highlighting, auto-completion, and the languages you gave as an example, then try Geany. I use it for HTML, CSS, Python, JavaScript and PHP (and when looking at C and C++ code).

[Quatrux 4]

Phpdesigner has the ability to highlight brackets, curly and standard () and {} which is useful for all logic gates (IF, WHILE, LOOP) etc... it highlights the corresponding closing bracket if you select the opening one and vice versa, this also works with nested brackets which is extremely useful for finding where the code will naturally flow after or during a logic gate.
And since, in php, you cant have a logic gate without brackets it pretty much does the same thing as you mentioned above

Yes, I know that and I usually use it to find what is where, but sometimes my code is very very long for a bracket to find, I just highlight the bracket and scroll down to search for another one, so doing it 3 times a day just sucks, especially with code I wrote on year ago.. On a current project usually I remember everything that I don't need any features, just a text editor and the ability to write variables or constants where an IDE suggests what to write, I think I could code anymore without this feature.