RJ TextEd 16.31 / 16.34 Update

★ Winner of Best Text/Code Editor in 2017.

Overview

RJ TextEd is a feature rich, robust text and source code editor with support for Unicode, CSS, HTML and a variety of other formats. Aside from being a basic text editor, it is also a very powerful development tool, giving you the ability to create clean JavaScript, PHP, and ASP code.

Installation

With a file size of about 30 MB, this text editor is not as compact as one would expect, although it usually only takes a couple of minutes to download on a decent Internet connection. This utility can be installed on almost all versions of Windows, including ME, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, Server 2008, and 7.

Interface

The RJ TextEd user interface is considerably more complicated than the standard text editor's, with a plethora of menus and button icons located along the top toolbar. In fact, there are 11 different menus accessible within the Main window – File, Edit, Search, View, Format, HTML, Convert, Environment, Tools, Windows, and Help. Although the visual setup is somewhat complex, it aids in the process of project management and organization significantly. The left navigational frame lists the various components of the project, while the larger right frame displays the files that you're editing.

Pros

• Supports CSS and HTML previewing using integration with Firefox, Internet Explorer, and chrome. The HTML preview tab includes full browser functionality, including the ability to add/edit folders in favorites within browser tabs.

• Includes various additional tools like color picker, syntax editor, and charmap

• Can be synchronized with FTP and SFTP clients to facilitate expeditious uploading to servers

• Supports binary, ANSI, UTF-8, and ASCII files

• Offers multiple text editing modes, including multi-select, multi-edit, and column mode

• Supports HTML repair, formatting, and validation, to ensure the cleanest code possible at all times

• CSS/HTML wizards simplify the process of creating clean code in a user-friendly interface

• Supports most major text formats, including PHP, JavaScript, JSP, CSS, and HTML

• Includes a syntax definition file editor

• Supports Tag and Class auto completion, and both of these features are compatible with Unicode

• Add or remove comments to and from an entire block of text

• Lets you undo/redo changes an unlimited amount of times

• Word wrap function neatly compartmentalizes text to make it more readable

• Tabbed interface makes it easy to switch between documents, while the advanced sorting capabilities make it easy to work within each document.

Cons

• Lacking in XML syntax checking capabilities

Alternatives

There is a vast array of notable alternatives to RJ TextEd, which include Notepad++, GEdit, VIM, Notepad2, Geany, and EditPlus. Of these competitors, NotePad++ and EditPlus are probably the most popular ones, and contain the most similar functionality.

Conclusion

If you're looking for a comprehensive source editor that is ideal for web developers, RJ TextEd is an ideal solution. With a basic interface that is easy to navigate, plenty of advanced features, and support for the majority of popular text/web development formats, this program is the application of choice for many web professionals.