Best web editor

[Steve Pavlina]

I'm looking for new web editor software. I've previously used HomeSite, but it's several years out of date, and I can't get it to run properly on Vista. It served me well for many years, but I'm looking for something more modern that can properly highlight PHP code.

Mainly I need something that helps with good HTML/CSS/PHP web design and page layout. Cost isn't much of a concern, since such software usually pays for itself.

Any recommendations? Pros/cons?

[Dan.Linehan]

I use boxer.

Extensive macro options, super advanced find and replace (including over multiple files,) highlighting based on filename extension etc.

Its pretty awesome; its not for layouts though.

[GuerillaInternetMarketing]

Steve - I'm a huge fan of Homesite myself - best editor that ever existed! I used it up until a couple of months ago.

I finally made the move over to Dreamweaver recently. While I'm not taking advantage of many of the features, it does the job and after all, Macromedia bought Homesite and merged it into this.

Hope you find a replacement for the irreplaceable Homesite...

[tobyhede]

On windows I use the Open Source Aptana - it has good support for HTML and CSS, and is OK with PHP, but is improving constantly. I also use Eclipse with the PHPEclipse plugin.

My main editor is TextMate, because most of my work is on the Mac. There is a Windows version of this called E. TextMate is incredible, and I've heard good thing sabout E. Extensive code support, excellent code highlighting and colorisation, fully extensible.

For more front-end oriented stuff, Dreamweaver is still probably the best option.

[Caveman Joe]

DreamWeaver is the industry standard.
NVU is good (more up-to-date with current philosophies, and more reliant on CSS, which is nice) and open-source.
But you just can't beat a plain-text editor.

[Minsc]

I use Dev-Cpp, which is a C++ IDE, but it's the only one that I like so I use it for everything else...
Bloodshed Software - Dev-C++

I like it because:
-There's an option to let you seek past the EOL and EOF.
-It's fast and not bloated.
-You can configure it to not automatically fill in anything(no class browsing, ect).
-You can turn off smart tabs. I hate those.

That's more than any other IDE I've ever seen...
It doesn't syntax-highlight PHP because it's supposed to be C++ IDE.

[JimC]

I used Dreamweaver for a few years. It is good for the professional environments since it has the network check in/out feature, it is good for projects. The cons: It tends to produce messy unstandard code. It has XHTML standard implementation, but it's pretty crappy.

There is Notepad2, but it's just a much better version of Notepad, nothing special.


Since you are experienced, I would suggest either Notepad++ or EditPlus

Notepad++ has lots of nice features and it's very simple (low overhead, highly productive). I am especially fond of its syntax highlighting.

EditPlus is kind of like Notepad++ but with more graphical features as well as a sidepane full of codes and functions for referencing that might aid you in coding.

If you don't need much help when coding, I'd recommend Notepad++
If you tend to check online a lot when coding, I'd recommend EditPlus

Both of these are free, but very useful.

If you really don't mind spending money, Dreamweaver is a good thing to experiment with, but from an expert's standpoint, it's pretty messy and powerless. But by all means, avoid Frontpage.

Conclusion: Use Geocities.

[aussieNickuss]

Of all the text editors I have used, I find Dreamweaver has the best PHP highlighting. It just seems to highlight so many more different bits of code (eg. a lot of editors colour code variables and function names the same whereas Dreamweaver separates them).

I've also become accustomed to Dreamweaver's very convenient auto-completes. (eg. to type a whole image tag, I just have to type '<im' enter 'src' enter 'alt' enter '>' and it automatically completes the rest.....saves a lot of time.

For PHP coding, if you sometimes forget what order the variables go into a built-in function, if you type out a function name, it brings up a tooltip with what is required to be entered for that particular function.

Dreamweaver is often seen as just a WYSIWYG editor, but there is a hell of a lot more to it than that.

[Iksander]

PHPEdit is great softwarey for Windows - PHP, CSS, HTML, etc... (it isn't WYSIWYG).

I currently use ViM with PHP, Subversion, and XHTML modules...

[Dharma]

I use Dreamweaver mostly. Good for design and it does highlight php and other languages.

[Kiba]

I recommended vim because it is a geek's text editor.

I used kate day to day but you can't use it on window, it is only available on GNU/Linux.