Recently, in one of my "back to text" moments (I know many of you here share this regressive tendency, especially all you CT lovers!), I was looking for a competent Windows text editor that would list text files (including e.g. Markdown, HTML, OPML etc. files) in the form of a two-pane outliner, i.e. folders/text files on the left, main editing window on the right.

Now common wisdom has it that there aren't many such editors in Windows. Actually, that's b*ll*x. There are loads of them! And many of them are free. I've downloaded a bundle of goodies (including e.g. Zeus Lite and Komodo Lite) and gazed fondly upon a couple of rather good-looking commercial options (cross-platform Sublime, TextPad), but in the end I've opted for the very nice and simple - and free! - Programmer's Notepad.

I was vaguely aware of this a few years ago, when I conducted a similar search for Windows text editors. It's developed quite a lot since then, and has turned into a very nice, flexible text editor with a raft of options for programmers or HTML coders, but a pleasingly simple interface for mere authors (like moi) who wish to write or edit text qua text.

Best of all, you can set up "Projects" that automatically track certain folders (plus all subfolders and files therein; you can also set file filters such as e.g. *.txt, *.md, *.htm and so on). I immediately set up a 'Project' that is keeping track of my Dropbox folder (into and out of which I am constantly loading text files). It's quick, efficient and best of all, has a file-spanning search function that runs pretty quickly, despite lack of indexing (took about 10 secs to search through a series of massive CSV files and pinpoint several contact names I'd "lost").

This is a gorgeous adjunct to my various fave iOS (and Android) editors, which currently include e.g. Notesy, WriteRoom and Nebulous Notes (not to mention Notebooks, which supports raw text files as well as RTF/HTML), and means I can rapidly shunt files to and fro in any number of subdirectories. The latter feature also makes it vastly superior to ResophNotes, which I've tried hard to like but actually don't (hate the inflexibility, to be honest).

It even supports folding (in coded text files), although I'm not sure how that works yet. But I'll be checking it out...

Cheers,
Bill

Nice! It looks similar with EmEditor which was my previous Windows editor of choice (not free). My current choice is TEA --unrelated to the Text Editor Anywher utility, also discussed here in the past- which is cross-platform. One of the main reasons I opted for plain text in my notes, was to be able to work seamlessly across my Windows and Linux setups.

In Android, check out Denote and Epistle. You can set them up to watch a specific Dropbox directory, similarly to Programmer’s Notepad (but only one folder). I've personally opted for Denote, which works better with non-latin and accented characters.

Ah, thanks for the tip: I use Epistle already, which is very good, but I haven't had much to do with accented characters therein. I shall look at Denote forthwith (I've been running searches on German accented characters in Programmer's Notepad - so far all good).

Cheers,
Bill

From the feature list and other info available, as well as the description below, it is not clear to me whether one can save a 'session', i.e. a set of text files to open all together, either upon startup or upon demand. The best implementation I've seen for this is in TextPad. This is for me a very important feature, and I'm surprised it is so rare.

MadaboutDana wrote:

Best of all, you can set up "Projects" that automatically track certain
folders (plus all subfolders and files therein; you can also set file
filters such as e.g. *.txt, *.md, *.htm and so on). I immediately set up
a 'Project' that is keeping track of my Dropbox folder (into and out of
which I am constantly loading text files). It's quick, efficient and
best of all, has a file-spanning search function that runs pretty
quickly, despite lack of indexing (took about 10 secs to search through
a series of massive CSV files and pinpoint several contact names I'd
"lost").

EditPad Pro (http://www.editpadpro.com can save 'sessions' (called Projects); they can be either automatically updated (any files opened are automatically added to your current working project) or managed manually, where you have to specify the files you want included in the project.


Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

From the feature list and other info available, as well as the
description below, it is not clear to me whether one can save a
'session', i.e. a set of text files to open all together, either upon
startup or upon demand. The best implementation I've seen for this is in
TextPad. This is for me a very important feature, and I'm surprised it
is so rare.

Well, I've just tried it, and yes, it does. Programmer's Notepad always asks you whether you want to save the current state of your projects when you exit. And if you say "yes", it reloads everything exactly as it was when you left it. It's very neat! It also uses tabs, offers you the useful TiddlyWiki options of "Close this tab" or "Close all other tabs", allows you to tile windows vertically or horizontally (or split them vertically or horizontally too, which is a useful and unusual trick) and is generally a very good find. I've been using it busily this morning, as a matter of fact. The other thing that's enjoyable: it's gratifying fast. And it's really easy to create folders and files within a project, even though you're effectively seeing a "virtual" view - there's no sense of hesitation or (worse) instability. If you observe the "real" file system while you're creating files/folders in Programmer's Notepad, you can see the files/folders being created instantaneously.

And unlike EditPro, it doesn't cost anything! Apart, of course, from a donation, which I do try and make whenever possible (some developers make it remarkably difficult, mind!).

Cheers,
Bill