Let the Editor Choose You

Find the best text editor option available for your operating system

Depending on the operating system that you're using, you'll have different options available to you in terms of which text editor you can install.Some of these editors are not free, but we've listed them because they're robust and available for a short period in a trial mode. Trying them out won't cost you anything financially.

There are many more text editors available for each platform and we'd encourage you to search around if none of the editors on this page choose you.

If you're running Windows –

Notepad++
ConTEXT
E Text Editor

If you're running OS X –

TextWrangler
TextMate
Sublime Text

If you're running Linux –

Gedit
Kate
Bluefish

Spend the next hour or so trying out the various text editors available for your operating system. With each one create a file called 'helloworld.html'. Into that file you should enter the html that you wrote by hand in the previous challenge.

If one of the text editors feels more comfortable than the others, then congratulations; a text editor just chose you. You are now a fierce webcraft warrior and you now have your trusty sword.

Spend about 40 minutes on this task.

Task Discussion

Seraphina79 said:

I recommend either of these:

http://www.yaldex.com/Free_JavaScript_Editor.htm

http://www.jedit.org/

on Aug. 31, 2012, 1:22 p.m.
Sebastian said:

Try Aptana Studio is base on Eclips very powerfull Editor. I realy love it !

on Aug. 28, 2012, 1:17 p.m.
JDubbs said:

I have to say, Sublime Text 2 is a pretty decent editor. I think I'll try it out for awhile, see how it goes.

I might have to tweek the color schemes a little though, they're all a little intense.

on Aug. 8, 2012, 3:15 p.m.
Anonym said:

I recomend Notepad++ because it's fast, it has plugins & themes. It also supports a varity of languages like HTML, CSS, Javascript, Ruby, Python, ect.

Download it here: http://www.http://notepad-plus-plus.org/

on July 6, 2012, 2:31 p.m.

G Powell said:

I agree - Notepad++ is more than sufficient.

on July 8, 2012, 8:13 a.m. in reply to Anonym

Abhinay Thakur said:

for windows...notepad++ is sufficient.. it is rich in features and supports syntax highlighting for wide variety of languages...

on Aug. 10, 2012, 12:06 p.m. in reply to Anonym

G Powell said:

I agree - Notepad++ is sufficient for me. > Subject: Abhinay Thakur posted a new comment at Let the Editor Choose You in #3 Choose Your Weapo. > From:

on Aug. 11, 2012, 7:01 a.m. in reply to Abhinay Thakur

senior caliente said:

yeah npp seems good. i guess its kinda the conventional one for windows?

on Aug. 22, 2012, 12:38 a.m. in reply to Anonym
Ali Mihandoost said:

I recommend SublimeText2 for all platform.

download : ali.md/sl2

help link

ali.md/sl2/h1

ali.md/sl2/h2

ali.md/sl2/h3

on June 24, 2012, 7 p.m.
Ali Mihandoost said:

i thong sublime text 2 is the best of editor in the world for all platform

ali.md/sl2

on June 24, 2012, 6:58 p.m.
radial77 said:

I vote TextWrangler on Mac.

on June 3, 2012, 1:48 a.m.

John Perkins said:

I'm with you on this.

on Aug. 16, 2012, 6:05 p.m. in reply to radial77
Joris Pekel said:

For Mac Textwrangler it is.. Nice clean interface and automatic recognition of html code. Liked the 'distraction free' mode of Sublime text as well but not so much the black background...

on May 27, 2012, 11:15 a.m.

radial77 said:

+1

on June 3, 2012, 1:48 a.m. in reply to Joris Pekel
firewire2879 said:

I used dreamweaver because I have used it for many years for web development. I liked Notepad++. It would be my second choice for web developing. conTEXT was uncomfortable to use.

Heres a screenshot of my page in dreamweaver:

on May 23, 2012, 2:30 a.m.
Pau Company said:

Escojo Notepad ++

on May 15, 2012, 10:58 a.m.
LunatiCat said:

I just downloaded Notepad++ and it seems simple to use.

on May 10, 2012, 6:45 p.m.
DK said:

I did it! I used Dreamweaver. You can see a screenshot of it on my blog: http://p2pwebstudent.blogspot.com/2012/05/i-wrote-my-very-first-page-of-code.html. So exciting!!

on May 9, 2012, 1:31 p.m.
h0mer28 said:

Does anyone use Aptana?

on May 8, 2012, 10:46 p.m.
san45 said:

Wow !!

Bluefish editor is awesome !! Very customizable yet simple. Can add shortcuts for bits of code and so much more.. I love it :)

on May 6, 2012, 12:17 p.m.
dilys said:

only-trial-soon-to-cost-money Mac editors didn't speak to me :-) LOL. I am trying Bluefish. hopefully it's actually free.

on April 24, 2012, 1:52 a.m.

dilys said:

I lied I will be trying Komodo Edit (which is free) first then use Bluefish as a backup if it doesn't work out! Yay. Thanks for everybody for the help. As a beginner Mac OS programmer finding a right editor wasn't easy

on May 1, 2012, 1:23 a.m. in reply to dilys
xzorzist said:

ConTEXT seems a bit odd to me. I like Notepad ++

on April 20, 2012, 7:33 p.m.
Mirek said:

definitely notepad ++

on April 18, 2012, 2:07 p.m.
Bluemackerel said:
Well, I tried out 3 free text editors for Windows:

Notepad++

ConTEXT

SourceEdit

I've decided on Notepad++. You can find out why here: http://bluemackerel.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/text-editors/
on April 18, 2012, 7:50 a.m.
Olexiy said:

My favourite editor in WinXP is Notepad++. It is lightweight and powerful.

As for Ubuntu, I tried many editors like bluefish and gedit, but neither of them worked fine for me. Then one day I discovered Geany and I've been using it since then.

Though, I would still prefer to have Notepad++ in Ubuntu :)

on April 18, 2012, 3:38 a.m.
Caspar said:

I've tried:

Notepad++ (instant love)
ConText (instant delete)
E Text Editor (Only 30 Day Trial -> Delete)
PSPad (Not as good as Notepad++)
VIM (OMG, ... maybe later *cough*)

And the winner is

Notepad++

on April 13, 2012, 3:09 p.m.