Enhanced Text editors

[blacknieve]

Well, it was time to give something back already!
Not sure if there's anything related already posted, but if it is, I'm probably horrible at searching.

I'm very sure that most of you are aware that we have the option to use enhanced text editors.
What are these? Glad you asked.
They're basically the unholy child between notepad/vim and any IDE ever.

The main point of this thread:
I've seen quite a few people ask for lightweight IDEs for various programming languages because they don't like, hate, have an older PC than my grandma, have projects that are too simple to use an IDE or simply get confused with Eclipse/NetBeans(Java)/IntelliJ/others and a simple text editor do not satisfy them on the same level.
This is where Enhanced text editors come in. With diverse language highlighting, customization on colors and other weird voodoo magic.

I personally have used Notepad++ and I'm currently using Sublime Text.
(there's been a lot of hype surrounding Sublime Text and while I understand why, I don't necessarily condone it. It's a useful tool,  but come on, it's no Fallout)
While I have no complaints for neither, I've found Sublime text nicer for when you need to edit multiple rows at the same time with the same info (really useful on 10+ rows) and various other selection and editing functions that come in very handy.
They both have syntax highlighting for a lot of languages too!(no, I don't think they have Prolog and LISP)

Let me know what you think about this subject and if you found anything better.
(+ smart tips on how to use them beter are always welcome, although Sublime Text has quite a comprehensive documentation and settings are quite easy to do)

[_moon]

atom.io is quite popular, even though I doubt you would find it superior to sublime text.

[TheWormKill]

They're basically the unholy child between notepad/vim and any IDE ever.

Well, the features you described in the paragraphs after the above statement fit vim. I use it for all my writing-tasks, because I believe modal edting is the key concept that makes me work more efficiently, since people's thinking is modal as well - you don't type a sentence/line of code/(regular) expression directly down without needing to adjust it to changing needs, thoughts, ideas... you get it. Instead, you write down a rough version and edit it until it fits. By separating these two steps in thinking, we develop the way we normally think, by separating the writing/editing/moving tasks in the UI, we can make these processes more efficient as well, although to many this sounds more like a limitation than a feature.

In that sense, vim, being a very powerful text editor can be enhanced to fit basically any task through plugins and scripts, while still being light, expandable and versatile. If you look at it's documentation (or ask a vimmer like me), you'll understand what I mean. So. yeah, no need for sublime/atom here, not to mention IDE's full of unnecessary bloat.

[Polyphony]

I can appreciate the level of control you can get with many of the vim plugins, even if it's kind of a pain to weed through the syntax of vim-script sometimes.  I don't use vim as my main editor, but I'm afraid I'll slowly get tired of the bloat of other editors and eventually convert  .  At least I'm not converting to emacs LISP amirite?

My main "IDE" is Geany.  Supports custom ctags (they even have a shit-ton of different ones in a repo somewhere I'm pretty sure, for things like GTK/glib functions), the shiny compile/build/make/execute buttons, and a good selection of plugins. (built-in lisp/prolog highlighting and indentation as well )

[rogue.hackz]

I've looked at Atom editor and in my opinion it's pretty good. Tons of features and it comes with a nice package manager apm which you can use similar to nodejs package manager npm and quite easy to search and install plugins that you need all from the commandline.

If you've never tried vim, going for atom would be the better choice unless you're prepared to invest tons of hours learning and extending vim. Vim although makes you really efficient at editing and certain tasks has a big learning curve. I mean you can get over the basics in less than an hour but making use of the more advanced vim functionalities takes times getting used to and requires practice.

For web development, atom has this really cool feature that shows you the live markup of your pages as you're working on it. Also it has a developer console similar to chromium which allows you to inspect and debug specific elements from the page. If I didn't have any idea about vim and wanted something that just works out of the box, I'd go for atom.

[blacknieve]

no need for sublime/atom here, not to mention IDE's full of unnecessary bloat.

Sounds about right.
However, up until now, I've never even considered the fact that I might run VIM on Windows.
(only running windows because of my workplace requirements)

I'll see if I can configure it the way I want it in the following weeks and will return with an edit, perhaps.

Thanks for the additional info.

[phraktyl]

However, up until now, I've never even considered the fact that I might run VIM on Windows.

yea, i hadn't considered that either.  i use and LOVE sublime on windows.  that's where i do most of my coding... but i'm gonna go check that out as soon as i'm done writing this post.