I’ve finally gotten onto a project outside of Delphi and I’m realizing how dependant I am on Borland’s text editor. I find myself typing all over creation before I realized the tab didn’t put me where I thought it would. I tried downloading UltraEdit and a few of the other editors that were brought up in This Thread , but they don’t do everything I’m used to. I’m just curious if any of you know of any other editors that have the following features:

-Virtual space (so you can position the carat anywhere, regardless of whether there are spaces out to that point or not)
-Trim Trailing Spaces (to clean up the file when I save it)
-Save tabs as spaces
-“Smart Tabbing”(Look at previous lines to find the next column which has a character preceded by a space and position the cursor there)
-Column Marking (but not just any column marking. When I paste I want the cursor to move to the next line down after the pasted text so I can repeatedly paste down the page. This is a feature I am REALLY used to).
-Syntax Highlighting allowing for a dark background (easier on the eyes, or at least it’s what I’m used to).

If anybody knows of a good windows based editor that will do all of the above (with column marking and “smart tabbing” being the most sought after features) I’d really appreciate knowing about it.

It sounds like you may want to try crisp not cheap, but I think it does just about everything in your list.

I thought UltraEdit did every single one of the things on that list? Which ones doesn't it do for you?

I don't remember exactly (I've downloaded about 5 editors already!), but I believe it didn't handle the column pasting in the "brief" manner mentioned above (it apparently keeps the cursor in the same position as before you paste, which makes multiple pastes cumbersome), I couldn’t find an option for “virtual space”, nor could I find “smart tabs”. I did only look at it briefly though, so if you know where these options are or how to turn them on I’d be delighted. My head is swimming looking at so many different editors!

I will have to say that vim does most of that.

I don't really understand what you mean by ``column marking'', but you can definitely paste the same thing multiples times without it interrupting previous pastes by using `P', although that will keep your cursor above what's been pasted, so sort of the opposite of the effect you describe.

I don't think that it'll do the auto-space thing, either. (Edit: Yeah, it will. It's the virtualedit option.) The rest of it should be doable, albeit not with the default settings.

but I believe it didn't handle the column pasting in the "brief" manner mentioned above (it apparently keeps the cursor in the same position as before you paste, which makes multiple pastes cumbersome)

Having communicated with UltraEdit's author a number of times in the past, I'll bet that if you asked him, he'd provide that as an option in the next upgrade (if it's not already). Perhaps there's an easy way to work around this, such as pressing a certain key combination to reposition the cursor after the paste.

I couldn’t find an option for “virtual space”,

In my version, which I admit is a few releases back, this option is called "Allow cursor positioning beyond line end". Works like a charm. If, after positioning the cursor in this empty space, you type a character, it pads that area with space.

nor could I find “smart tabs”.

Hmmm. You might be right about this one. My version has some tab options, but not a lot of them. I wonder if newer versions have more options. Just yesterday I was wishing I'd had some useful tab options, but ended up realizing that the file I was playing with was much better served by dropping it into Excel and mangling it that way.

I don't really understand what you mean by ``column marking''

I mean being able to mark text (for copying, cutting or deleting) in columns rather than rows which is most programs typically mark text. I've been trying to locate an option for it in vim but haven't been able to find it yet. However, since I'm going to be doing at least some of this project on Solaris soon I'll probably be familiarizing my self with vim no matter what editor I end up on for windows. In fact, I’ve already turned some of our other guys onto it (who are currently using vi).

Ah. You can select arbitrary (rectangular) blocks of text using Ctrl-V followed by movement.

Exactly how that relates to pasting I'm not sure.

Edit: But you might be using it under Windows, in which case Ctrl-V might be superceded by the paste function. Try Ctrl-Q instead.

Perhaps there's an easy way to work around this, such as pressing a certain key combination to reposition the cursor after the paste.

True enough. Most good editors should allow me to write a macro to do this; I suppose I'm not thinking creatively enough. There's no reason to expect column pasting to work the way it does in Brief; in fact as I think about it it's kind of counterintuitive. It just works so darn well!

this option is called "Allow cursor positioning beyond line end". Works like a charm.

Excellent, I thought maybe I was just missing this. I can't believe how hooked I got on this feature.

And now I think I might be able to give up on smart tabs now that I have virtual space. I found the reason I mostly wanted smart tabs is because I kept having to tab back over into my code blocks after creating them (I have this ugly habit of coding my end braces as soon as I put my begin braces and then going back and putting in code in between). With virtual space I can simply push the “up” arrow and I’ll still be in my code block.

Ah. You can select arbitrary (rectangular) blocks of text using Ctrl-V followed by movement.

Good! I'm not quite as handy with the help system yet.

Exactly how that relates to pasting I'm not sure.

I'm not describing this well. Like I said in my reply to Tony, I can probably use macros to do what I want, it's just an operation that's become a non-thinking keystroke for me. To explain:

The question is where the cursor is put after you paste a column of text. Some editors leave the cursor where it is and simply dump the column of text after it. Others put the cursor on the last row of text that was pasted after the last character, which seems the most intuitive. The editor I'm used to, however, would place the cursor in the same column as it started, but on the next line after the block that was just pasted. This gave the column paste the additional functionality of allowing you to repeat columns sequentially very easily, which is nice for working with some objects or commenting out large blocks of code with line comments rather than block comments (which you may want to do if you're debugging and want to uncomment a few lines at a time). Anyway, I'm not saying that this is the correct behavior when pasting a column, it's just handy and what I'm used to. I'll probably have to get over it.

I see. vim seems to always leave the cursor on the upper-left character of any pasted text, whether it's a paste-above or paste-below paste. This does not coincide with what you want.

However, it does have a feature that no other text editor I know of does. Repeat. So if I do ``I//<ESC>'' (which inserts ``//'' at the beginning of the current line) and then press ``.'', then it does that insert again. A series of ``j.''s (where ``j'' is line down) accomplishes that fairly quickly.

In addition, ``macros'' within vi are quick and easy. You could ``:map q I//<ctrl-v><esc>j'' and that would make ``q'' insert ``//'' at the beginning of the line and then go down one line, at which point you could just press ``q'' again. (Note that this Ctrl-V is to escape the escape so that it doesn't break out of the command you're entering.)

You could also do a ``:.,.+20s#^#//'' and that would ``replace'' the beginning of the line (a zero-character construct) with ``//'' from the current line to the line 20 lines further down.

Of course, none of these are exactly the same as what you're used to. All I can say is that vim (or, at least, some version of vi) is available on pretty much every OS you'll ever touch, so getting proficient with vi means that you'll never have to get proficient with another editor again. That's reasonably true of emacs, as well, but I'm not too good with it.

Seriously, go and download Crisp (there is a trial version), go to Options, Key Bindings and select Brief, and magic everything works like it always did. They also do versions for Solaris and SunOS so you can have a common environment).

Seriously, go and download Crisp

Actually, I did. Sorry I didn't mention it! (I have a bad habit of not giving good feedback here) It does do the column pasting the way I like, though I didn't find "smart tabs" (I've pretty much determined I'll have to give that up no matter what). I didn't realize there were unix versions, so that's a good information. Not sure if my company will foot the bill, but I was pretty impressed.

I don't know if it's important to you, but, as I remember, the Unix versions are very ugly.

this option is called "Allow cursor positioning beyond line end". Works like a charm.

Excellent, I thought maybe I was just missing this. I can't believe how hooked I got on this feature.

Yeah, it's terribly useful. One of my favorite features of Ultraedit. Although with the work I do, I find myself needing to turn it on and off regularly depending on the type of file I'm editing. There are times when I depend upon this feature being off for certain tasks.

Well, it looks better than it used to, but just for reference:

OK, I had to go back and read (and re-read) your description of smart tabs to see what you were talking about. I initially assumed it was the indenting feature, so it would always start at the same place as the previous line, but I now see that you are talking about something differant.

Crisp can import brief macros, so if you can just find out what macro was bound to the tab key when it performed like that it shouldn't be too hard to get it working.

As for the price, well I guess perfection doesn't come cheap, look at what we use as car radios

I'm also having difficulty figuring out how to configure the colors in CRiSP. What I have managed to do is wipe out the java keywords, so I'll have to rebuild them somehow. I have to be honest that the configuration is not very intuitive here, though it does seem to do most of what I want. Possibly might be because it does so much, but I'd really like a dialog with a list of possible options rather than having to search through numerous menu items.

I've probably spent way too much time messing with editors today, but since the whole office is leaving to see the Matrix in 30 min. I don't have enought time to do anything really useful! It almost feels like a friday.

Edit: First thing after posting I found out how to change the color scheme. Isn't that the way?

Edit: First thing after posting I found out how to change the color scheme. Isn't that the way?

I wont go and do it and post instructions then