N.C. Aditya’s Blog

Have you ever used Notepad to write HTML or C/C++ code ? If you have done so, you might be aware that it is not so cool. There is no color coding, no syntax highlighting and it is simply very difficult if something goes wrong. You will be completely lost in jumble of code, unless you have the ability to figure your way out of the maze yourself.Many people recommend using a [commercial] programmer’s text editor for writing code. I agree with them: commercial software comes with customer support. If something goes wrong, or you are unable to figure out something, you can always call them and they will help you. However, there are free alternatives as well. [I will review some of the paid text editors later.] You don’t always have to shell out $40 or $47 [or $(put any amount here)] for a text editor software.

I would highly recommend Notepad++. It is one of the best editors I have come across. It is an open source C++ based project based on the Scintilla edit component which is another powerful editor component. Though a one man project, Notepad++ is very stable and there are very few bugs. As is common with most open source projects, if bugs are detected, they are reported and fixed very fast, sometimes within hours of the bug’s discovery.

You can download and install Notepad++ from the official site or from www.sourceforge.net. Just search in the search box and you will find the related project. You can also download it from other software repositories that may be sharing open source software. I tried searching for it in www.download.com and found a link there as well. However, it is lagging behind in the software version. The version I found at download.com was 4.3 where as the current version is 4.6. I would suggest you downloading from the official website for this reason. The size of the latest version is 1.9 MB.

Here are some screenshots I created while installing the software.

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Installing Code::blocks in Ubuntu
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This entry was posted on Friday, November 23rd, 2007 at 8:30 am and is filed under Software Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.