I'm such a cynic. I see a phrase such as "Internet ready " and I immediately hear my hype detector alarm sounding. Normally any product with such a claim would get short shift around here but I just came across a tool so useful that I will forgive its author his faux pas.
The tool is EditPlus from Sangil Kim (ES-Computing) (www.editplus.com/). EditPlus is a 32-bit text editor for Windows that can be used as an editor for HTML, CSS, PHP, ASP, Perl, C/C++, Java, JavaScript and VBScript. It can also be extended for other programming languages based on custom syntax files.
When you select an editing mode, EditPlus changes its highlighting based on the syntax for the selected language or script.
If you want to preview an HTML page, EditPlus embeds Internet Explorer (IE) for in-place viewing. There's also a built-in FTP client for uploading files to an FTP server.
Other features include: "HTML toolbar, user tools, line number, ruler, URL highlighting, autocompletion, cliptext, column selection, powerful search and replace, multiple undo/redo, spell checker [and] customizable keyboard shortcuts. "
The HTML toolbar is a great feature. It allows you to insert common HTML tags and offers an HTML Color Picker, a Character Picker, a Table Generator and an Object Picker.
I mentioned "custom syntax files " earlier and not only can you create your own syntax file for your favorite language, scores of syntax files contribute by users are also available on the Web site (see: www.editplus.com/others.html).
EditPlus requires Windows 95/98/Me/NT4/2000/XP or higher and an optional IE 3 or higher for the browser feature. It supports a number of command line options as well as Windows Dynamic Data Exchange. Pricing is $30 per copy.
RELATED LINKS
Network World, 04/08/02
Mark Gibbs is a consultant, author, journalist, and columnist. He writes the weekly Backspin and Gearhead columns in Network World.
Mark Gibbs is a consultant, author, journalist, and columnist. He writes the weekly Backspin and Gearhead columns in Network World. Gibbs is also co-conspirator of the Vitally Important Information Web site.
Gibbs can be contacted at webapps@gibbs.com. Press releases to pr@gibbs.com.
