Text editors

[micky]

Notepad++ inexplicably keeps adding blank lines to my files so the text
is double and triple spaced. I am not particularly attached to the
program, so what other text editor is good for html and css under winxp?

Tim W

I've been using Edit Pad Lite, free for individuals.

I just started using the Trial version of Edit Pad Pro, and it has
many color schemes depending on the file extension, like .html.

What I was expecting was the ability to color text at my will, just
for emphasis, when it wasn't code but just a letter or a list for
myself. . AFAICT, that's not possible. ;-(

Does any text editor do this? (I've been using my email program
Eudora to write notes to myself, and it colors text just fine.)

Micky

 

[Ray_Net]

I've been using Edit Pad Lite, free for individuals.

I just started using the Trial version of Edit Pad Pro, and it has
many color schemes depending on the file extension, like .html.

What I was expecting was the ability to color text at my will, just
for emphasis, when it wasn't code but just a letter or a list for
myself. . AFAICT, that's not possible. ;-(

Does any text editor do this? (I've been using my email program
Eudora to write notes to myself, and it colors text just fine.)

Micky

With WordPad you can emphasis at your will.

 

[dorayme]

What I was expecting was the ability to color text at my will, just
for emphasis, when it wasn't code but just a letter or a list for
myself. . AFAICT, that's not possible. ;-(

Does any text editor do this? (I've been using my email program
Eudora to write notes to myself, and it colors text just fine.)

Micky

With WordPad you can emphasis at your will.[/QUOTE]

Good question, and though the editor I use - BBEdit - is famous in the
Mac world for quality (though I do use an old version), I don't think
it actually can do this? Not that I ever need it. In fact, I don't
even like markup in colour (which it does well if wanted). Years of
B&W photography has dampened my need for colour in non-natural
objects.

 

[micky]

With WordPad you can emphasis at your will.

[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the suggestion. I used to use WordPad but pretty much
stopped when I learned about Notepad++ and EditPad Lite.

I checked just now, and Wordpad lets me change the color of my font,
and then everything I type is in that color. Then I can change it
back again. What I had in mind was to type in black almost all the
time, and then to select text whose color I want to change, and then
make it red, for example, just like I would make the text bold or
italics or underlined. , and it would only affect the text that had
been selected. .

I was so used to this in Eudora, I thought it would be common.

Good question, and though the editor I use - BBEdit - is famous in the
Mac world for quality (though I do use an old version), I don't think
it actually can do this? Not that I ever need it. In fact, I don't
even like markup in colour (which it does well if wanted). Years of
B&W photography has dampened my need for colour in non-natural
objects.

ROTFL I understand Scientology has a cure for that.

 

[Tim Streater]

With WordPad you can emphasis at your will.

Good question, and though the editor I use - BBEdit - is famous in the
Mac world for quality (though I do use an old version), I don't think
it actually can do this? Not that I ever need it. In fact, I don't
even like markup in colour (which it does well if wanted). Years of
B&W photography has dampened my need for colour in non-natural
objects.[/QUOTE]

If you want to style your text then it's no longer a text editor, I
wouldn't have said, it's a word processor; I use Pages if I want to do
that. I use TextWrangler for text editing - it does syntax colouring but
that is different.

 

[Tim Streater]

Thanks for the suggestion. I used to use WordPad but pretty much
stopped when I learned about Notepad++ and EditPad Lite.

I checked just now, and Wordpad lets me change the color of my font,
and then everything I type is in that color. Then I can change it
back again. What I had in mind was to type in black almost all the
time, and then to select text whose color I want to change, and then
make it red, for example, just like I would make the text bold or
italics or underlined. , and it would only affect the text that had
been selected. .

I was so used to this in Eudora, I thought it would be common.

That's because Eudora was giving you the ability to style your text,
using HTML for the job. You won't be able to do that with a *text*
editor. If you use WordPad (or TextEdit on the Mac, sounds like a
similar program), you can style the text in the way you describe, but if
the save the file as *plain text* the styling information is lost.

 

[dorayme]

If you want to style your text then it's no longer a text editor, I
wouldn't have said, it's a word processor;

I sympathise. But perhaps your argument would not stand up to great
scrutiny. If it helps someone to edit text to colour user selected
strings (like side notes or whatever) then that is not too far into
the slippery slope *down* to those horrid things called word
processors.

I use Pages if I want to do
that. I use TextWrangler for text editing - it does syntax colouring but
that is different.

What is so *different* about it? It is just one user-friendly option.
There could be yet another without it turning into a frog or a word
processor.

I like text-editors a lot. Probably too much, I better mention this
when I next see my doc.

 

[Tim Streater]

I sympathise. But perhaps your argument would not stand up to great
scrutiny. If it helps someone to edit text to colour user selected
strings (like side notes or whatever) then that is not too far into
the slippery slope *down* to those horrid things called word
processors.

No problem with that but how do you then save that as a text file
without losing the styling?

 

[micky]

That's because Eudora was giving you the ability to style your text,
using HTML for the job. You won't be able to do that with a *text*
editor.

Well, Edit Pad does a lot more than just edit text. It highlights
links, it allows one to call a browser and pass a url to, the Pro
version runs macros, etc.. And it would have been nice if it allowed
selected text to be colored whether using html or some other method.

And I think that coloring text is one aspect of editing it. In fact,
Wordpad does have the ability to color sections of text by my changing
the font, retyping the section, then changing the font back. And it
saves that info when the file is saved. I just checked. It uses an
..rtf extension, or maybe I had to choose that. So if it can do what
I want inconveniently, it would be nice if it did it conveniently.

I could use a word processor but those generally lack some of the
features of Edit Pad, I think., And I think they are bigger, take
longer to load, and use significant ram, but I'm not sure about these
things.

If you use WordPad (or TextEdit on the Mac, sounds like a
similar program), you can style the text in the way you describe, but if
the save the file as *plain text* the styling information is lost.

Well, that's no good. But I tried doing that with Wordpad,
and it loses it with .txt, but with .rtf it works.

Thanks.

 

[dorayme]

No problem with that but how do you then save that as a text file
without losing the styling?

Well, it would have to be built into the editor, just as syntax
highlighting is preserved on saving (for editor viewing, not for
source viewing in a browser), you would know better than me as an
active programmer?

With syntax highlighting, the editor knows what are key words, what
are comments etc in HTML markup. In the case of some user selected
bits of text, the user would need to tell the editor (it's not a mind
reader) with some special control (a key combo while selecting, I
don't know). For viewing *in that editor* (not any other editor or in
View Source in a browser or fetched from a server).

Why am I arguing for something I would not like to have? I think I
should go and sit and watch the John Wayne version of True Grit
(though I liked the more modern one that came out recently).

 

[Tim Streater]

Well, Edit Pad does a lot more than just edit text. It highlights
links, it allows one to call a browser and pass a url to, the Pro
version runs macros, etc.. And it would have been nice if it allowed
selected text to be colored whether using html or some other method.

And I think that coloring text is one aspect of editing it. In fact,
Wordpad does have the ability to color sections of text by my changing
the font, retyping the section, then changing the font back. And it
saves that info when the file is saved. I just checked. It uses an
.rtf extension, or maybe I had to choose that. So if it can do what
I want inconveniently, it would be nice if it did it conveniently.

I could use a word processor but those generally lack some of the
features of Edit Pad, I think., And I think they are bigger, take
longer to load, and use significant ram, but I'm not sure about these
things.


Well, that's no good. But I tried doing that with Wordpad,
and it loses it with .txt, but with .rtf it works.

Right, that's all the expected behaviour. Thing is, normally one would
use a text editor (like NotePad or TextWrangler) for programming, where
the result, a program or script, needs to be plain text. Very often such
editors can do syntax colouring - you tell the editor what language
you're using (PHP, C, etc) and it knows how to highlight e.g. language
keywords in your choice of colour.

But that has nothing to do with you styling your choice of individual
words (e.g. bold, italic, particular font or text colour) and then being
able to save the styling information when the file is saved. To do that
requires a program (such as WordPad or TextEdit) which can save the
styling info as well. But such programs IME don't tend to have
programmer features such as syntax colouring.

As you discovered, to save the styling info requires that you save the
file, f'rinstance, in Rich Text Format (.rtf) or some other word
processor format. You can open your .rtf file in NotePad and see the
formatting info there. But you can't feed those files into a compiler or
script processor.

It depends on what you want to do. I'd find NotePad/WordPad/EditPad too
lacking in features to use either for programming or writing documents.
And one of the nice things about TextWrangler is that I can have 75
files open at once, pull the plug on my Mac, and on restart have TW open
itself and the same set of files available - complete with any unsaved
changes

 

[Tim Streater]

Well, it would have to be built into the editor, just as syntax
highlighting is preserved on saving (for editor viewing, not for
source viewing in a browser), you would know better than me as an
active programmer?

But the syntax colouring info is not saved, as such, just the language
you chose. That is save along with other state information such as where
the cursor is in the file. I guess on the Mac TW saves that as file
metadata, I don't know whether Windows knows how to do that.

Why am I arguing for something I would not like to have? I think I
should go and sit and watch the John Wayne version of True Grit
(though I liked the more modern one that came out recently).

I haven't seen the more modern one, I'm quite happy with the JW version.
I'm slowly building up my JW collection - hiding obtaining DVDs when we
make Amazon purchases, when SWMBO is not looking.

 

[Neil Gould]

I've been using Edit Pad Lite, free for individuals.

I just started using the Trial version of Edit Pad Pro, and it has
many color schemes depending on the file extension, like .html.

What I was expecting was the ability to color text at my will, just
for emphasis, when it wasn't code but just a letter or a list for
myself. . AFAICT, that's not possible. ;-(

Does any text editor do this? (I've been using my email program
Eudora to write notes to myself, and it colors text just fine.)

If I understand what you're after, you can set up parameters to color your
text in TextPad, and it will color HTML comments by default. Since this is
an "old" feature in TextPad, if you can edit the color scheme settings in
Edit Pad Pro, you may be able to accomplish the same.

 

[Ray_Net]

That's because Eudora was giving you the ability to style your text,
using HTML for the job. You won't be able to do that with a *text*
editor. If you use WordPad (or TextEdit on the Mac, sounds like a
similar program), you can style the text in the way you describe, but if
the save the file as *plain text* the styling information is lost.

The question was:
What I was expecting was the ability to color text at my will, just
for emphasis, when it wasn't code but just a letter or a list for
myself. .

Therefore WordPad is THE solution evenwhile you did not accept that WordPad is
editing a text ...

 

[dorayme]

Therefore WordPad is THE solution evenwhile you did not accept that WordPad
is
editing a text ...

Tim was not saying this, he was just saying it is then not a true or
pure text editor but more a word processor.

 

[micky]

Right, that's all the expected behaviour. Thing is, normally one would
use a text editor (like NotePad or TextWrangler) for programming, where
the result, a program or script, needs to be plain text. Very often such
editors can do syntax colouring - you tell the editor what language
you're using (PHP, C, etc) and it knows how to highlight e.g. language
keywords in your choice of colour.

But that has nothing to do with you styling your choice of individual
words (e.g. bold, italic, particular font or text colour) and then being
able to save the styling information when the file is saved. To do that
requires a program (such as WordPad or TextEdit) which can save the
styling info as well. But such programs IME don't tend to have
programmer features such as syntax colouring.

As you discovered, to save the styling info requires that you save the
file, f'rinstance, in Rich Text Format (.rtf) or some other word
processor format. You can open your .rtf file in NotePad and see the
formatting info there. But you can't feed those files into a compiler or
script processor.

It depends on what you want to do. I'd find NotePad/WordPad/EditPad too
lacking in features to use either for programming or writing documents.
And one of the nice things about TextWrangler is that I can have 75
files open at once, pull the plug on my Mac, and on restart have TW open
itself and the same set of files available - complete with any unsaved
changes

Restarting where I left off woudl be very nice too. My friend uses
Macintosh, but he doesnt' edit files much less write code.

Oh, well. .

 

[Tim Streater]

On Fri, 13 Jul 2012 12:55:21 +0100, Tim Streater


Restarting where I left off woudl be very nice too. My friend uses
Macintosh, but he doesnt' edit files much less write code.

That seems to be the way Apple is going with all their apps, but 3rd
party apps would need rewriting to take advantage of that. Some folks
don't like it, but you can turn it off.

 

[Ray_Net]

Tim was not saying this, he was just saying it is then not a true or
pure text editor but more a word processor.

Yes, but WordPad edit a text evenwhile being a "word processor" and is not processing
words.

 

[dorayme]

(e-mail address removed)
says...

Yes, but WordPad edit a text evenwhile being a "word processor" and is not
processing
words.

Yes, it is a bit of both in that respect then.

What very few people realise in all these text-editors and word
processors is this: behind the scenes and quite hidden to most - you
need special gear to see this - is a lot of playing with the
sentences, words and indeed, even the letters by the editor itself. It
might surprise you to know that when editors want to play when not
being used, they can take all the letters in any document and see if
they can rearrange them to say quite different and more or less
interesting things.

For example, and really this is just an example, Marcel Proust's 'In
Search of Lost Time' is a big favourite of theirs and attempts,
largely successful, have been made to see Sartre's 'Being and
Nothingness' contained with in, the words and even letters in the
former being rearranged for the latter.

Of course, when the owner of the document comes back to it, he will
find it exactly as he left it, just as an office worker will have the
spreadsheet he is supposed to be compiling visible as quick as the
boss comes in, having hid the game he was playing.

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

Yes, but WordPad edit a text evenwhile being a "word processor" and is not processing
words.

I think I understand what you are trying to say, but not sure. WordPad
is a simple word processor. While it can edit text files it is for "word
processing". That is ot can format text and save in a Rich Text or other
word processor formats which have embedded special formatting codes that
are not suitable for HTML or scripting source code. That is why it is
not recommended to use WordPad, or any other word processor to generate
code.