Linux text editors: Do any make the grade?

The UI is sleek, and while all features aren't necessarily intuitive, you can start using Komodo Edit at a basic level right away, and then turn to the manual as you decide you want more customization features. In fact, Komodo Edit has just about everything I look for in an editor except spell check.

Komodo Edit's strengths include color syntax, matching braces and recordable macros. ()

I subsequently purchased the $295 Komodo IDE (or, more accurately, talked my boss into purchasing it for me at work) and find it a great piece of software for development work.

Komodo Edit ratings (on a scale of 1 to 10):

Ease of learning and use: 8

Look and feel: 9

Content editing (spell check, search/replace, etc.): 7

Simple HTML editing (bold, line breaks, ordered lists, etc.): 9

Customization (macro power, ease of creating): 10

Total: 43

Faceoff: Nine Linux text editors From the Paleozoic era (Emacs, KVIM) Writing code the modern way (Arachnophila, Bluefish, Komodo Edit, NEdit) Word processing lite (Gedit, Kate) All-in-one (Quanta Plus) The bottom line

NEdit

NEdit seems targeted more for people writing code than for people writing and editing articles or flat HTML pages. There are no tool bars or one-click HTML coding that I could find, nor are there writer/editor options such as spell check.

NEdit has a clean, simple look with fairly powerful coding capabilities. ()

NEdit does have recordable macros, which is a nice plus, as well as a fairly powerful macro-writing capability. There's also sophisticated search and replace, which makes sense for a developer's tool. I liked the Make Backup Copy and Incremental Backup options. I missed being able to get to the beginning and end of lines by hitting Home and End, which I freely admit is just a Windows convention I'm used to.

NEdit could stand to have some more functions to do simple text manipulation, however. In researching how to create a macro to join lines, I found this in a Web post:

set_cursor_pos(search("^", $cursor, "regex", "backward"))
s = $cursor
process_up()
set_cursor_pos(search("[^ \t]", $cursor, "regex"))
process_down()
select(s,$cursor)
indent = get_selection()
delete_selection()
insert_string(" ")
backward_character()
backward_character()
delete_next_character()
set_cursor_pos(search("^", $cursor, "regex"))
insert_string(indent"\n")
backward_character()

That's quite a bit larger investment of effort than clicking a command in a tool bar that says "join lines."

If you're looking for something clean and fairly powerful, NEdit is an interesting option with a number of fans among Computerworld readers. If NEdit were the only tool available to me, I think I could make it do many of the things I need. However, with so many other editors available, this isn't one I'd choose in my search for an app that elegantly handles the intersection of writing, editing and coding.

NEdit ratings (on a scale of 1 to 10):
Ease of learning and use: 6
Look and feel: 6
Content editing (spell check, search/replace, etc.): 5
Simple HTML editing (bold, line breaks, ordered lists, etc.): 5
Customization (macro power, ease of creating): 7
Total: 29