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When I am on Mac I use TextMate. What should I use on Windows? I can't install "e text editor" install correctly. What other options are there?

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I would investigate getting e to install properly. It's the closest thing to TextMate you are going to find on Windows. – Matt Greer Aug 4 '10 at 21:37
Figure out how to get e working - it's the editor I've been using for the past month and it's great - all the power of TextMate. I think it's really going to throw off your productivity to be using two different editors. – Zachary Aug 4 '10 at 21:56
possible duplicate of Windows-based Text Editors – voyager Aug 5 '10 at 1:24
Actually, just check out stackoverflow.com/search?q=text+editor – voyager Aug 5 '10 at 1:24
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migrated from stackoverflow.com Aug 5 '10 at 4:42

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18 Answers

up vote 24 down vote

If you are someone cheap like I am, use Notepad++

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+1 for NP++. My favourite editor when I'm stuck on Windows. – eldarerathis Aug 4 '10 at 21:16
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+1 for 'stuck on windows'. I forgot to write that. Ha! – sabertooth Aug 4 '10 at 21:17
Yes! Notepad++ is fantastic. Esp. now that they support sftp. – Peter Ajtai Aug 5 '10 at 1:28
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up vote 15 down vote

You can try to Google "e text editor portable" and find out if the portable version is working. Anyway here are some best text editors for Windows:

You may also be interested on some IDEs:

  • Aptana Studio \ Aptana RadRails (free)
    • Aptana Studio is the industry leading web development environment that combines powerful authoring tools for HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, along with thousands of additional plugins created by the community.
  • JetBrains RubyMine (Commercial—€92, Classroom or Open Source Licence—free)
    • JetBrains RubyMine — Ruby and Rails IDE with the full stack of essential developer tools, all tightly integrated into a convenient and smart environment for Ruby programming and Web development with Ruby on Rails.
  • Eclipse (free)
  • NetBeans (free)
  • Ruby In Steel ($199)
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+1 for Vim. I love it but it has its learning curve. – sabertooth Aug 4 '10 at 21:23
Editpad is good too. You can add that to your list too: editpadpro.com/editpadpro.html ( I mean the Pro one which is around 60 bucks) – sabertooth Aug 4 '10 at 21:27
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+1 for vim. it's very much worth it to learn it. the amount of time you spend learning will be inconsequential compared to how much time its features will save you in the future. – rmeador Aug 4 '10 at 21:45
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You didn't have emacs there. :-/ – Paul Nathan Aug 4 '10 at 22:04
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@Paul Nathan: F5 :) – ventr1s Aug 4 '10 at 22:07
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up vote 10 down vote

Sublime Text works well for me. It has syntax highlighting for most languages, supports themes, and the dark UI is easy on the eyes.

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So many people are sleeping on the great Sublime Text (and Sublime Text 2 for Linux/OSX) – ybakos May 1 '11 at 15:20
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up vote 5 down vote

i really like intellij.

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RubyMine is awesome, and one of its killer features is that it develops almost at the same pace at some Ruby libraries/tools (RVM, Bundler, Rails3, Cucumber, etc.) I'm jumping to the VIM boat too, I'd not like to be too tied to Rubymine, though. – Chubas Aug 4 '10 at 21:32
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up vote 2 down vote

SciTE used to come with ruby on Windows. I've found it a nice text editor, but I can't compare it with the others listed.

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up vote 1 down vote

Emacs works on every operative systems and it's free. Notepad is a good solution to. Jedit can be very customizable. Also you can install Gedit for windows.

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Emacs is also slow. It has to interpret all that Lisp code. I'm not saying it's bad (I'm learning how to use it), I'm just saying it's a little slower than most editors. – TheLifelessOne Aug 4 '10 at 22:37
@TheLifelessOne: I would say Emacs run speed is well above any IDE and on-par or better than most widgety editors. At least in my experience. BUT: It's load-time isn't great, however. Plus, some modes can be slow. – Paul Nathan Aug 4 '10 at 22:44
@Paul Nathan: Yeah, that's what I mean by slow. Sorry for not being clearer. :P – TheLifelessOne Aug 4 '10 at 23:02
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up vote 1 down vote

I am surprised no one has yet mentioned Visual Studio Express. It's free and pretty awesome.

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i'm in love also of Visual studio but is a viable solution only when you need to work with Microsoft development tools. – voodoomsr Apr 14 '11 at 5:09
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up vote 1 down vote

Redcar. It's in alpha stage but it's great!

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up vote 1 down vote

on mac i use redcar. Even though its in its early stages, i feel comfortable with it. I've not been able to install it on windows though. I get "NoMethodFound" error when i install.

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up vote 0 down vote

Most developers use the (free) Eclipse platform. vim - Is this even a serious answer?

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/library/os-eclipse-rdt/

If you insist on using Ruby, Eclipse is still the first place to look. (Ruby still hasn't taken off, and probably won't even if it is better--there's just too many people who'd rather keep their 1990's skill set relevant by sticking with old tech they already know--what a shame.)

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"Superior alternative" is pretty objective... – Anonymous Aug 4 '10 at 22:00
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Downvote for the false statement. It is not the case that "most programmers" do just about anything. CERTAINLY they don't all use the same editor. And yes, VIM (and emacs of which I am a partisan) are MUCH more powerful than Eclipse. VIM lets you do complex commands with a very few key strokes. Emacs lets you modify your environment to suit just about any need, and has tons of libraries that are already written. Eclipse is nice too, for its niche, but "most developers"? not even close. – Brian Postow Aug 4 '10 at 22:00
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Downvote for subjective, unsupported, and ignorant statements. – Paul Nathan Aug 4 '10 at 22:06
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I see the VI cult is out in force today. "Superior alternatives" refers to things OTHER than Ruby that are currently mainstream (or other unspecified alternatives), so you've completely misunderstood. VIM - Just because it's more "powerful" doesn't make it more productive. For Java developers (where I believe many Ruby devs came from), Eclipse is the only real choice other than perhaps WebSphere or intellij. There's no denying that J2EE is by far the leading enterprise tech of choice, therefore "most" = J2EE = Eclipse. Sorry. – Crusader Aug 4 '10 at 22:10
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@Crusader: farm4.static.flickr.com/3217/3015062728_6b27f9a6ae.jpg – ventr1s Aug 4 '10 at 22:49
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up vote 0 down vote

emacs is what I use for all my text editing, on any operating system.

When I have to look at a file Real Quick, I usually open it up in notepad++.

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up vote 0 down vote

I usually use either vim or Notepad++ for HTML, PHP, CSS, JavaScript and SQL, Visual Studio C++ or Code::Blocks for C/C++, and IDLE for Python.

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But who cares about what are you using for C, C++ and Python? :> – ventr1s Aug 4 '10 at 22:52
No one, apparently. – TheLifelessOne Aug 4 '10 at 23:01
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up vote 0 down vote

Try PilotEdit Lite. It is free. http://www.pilotedit.com

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up vote 0 down vote

Textpad is great, it is so versatile. I use it in place of Notepad for regular text editing.

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up vote 0 down vote

I recommend learning either Vim or Emacs. Both are comparable and fairly powerful, but will take some getting used to as they're primarily keyboard-driven. One benefit you'll enjoy from either is being able to run them on any OS you want - Windows, OS X, GNU/Linux, they'll happily run on them all. You should even be able to share the same config files across all operating systems.

PS, the spam prevention mechanism prevents me from using more than one link. Sorry Emacs.

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up vote 0 down vote

I use jedit ( http://jedit.org/ ) which supports Ruby and HTML.

HAML and SASS modes are available online too (e.g., google for: jedit HAML).

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up vote 0 down vote

I really like Emerald Editor, its free, open source, and is great when all you really need is syntax hi-lighting and line numbers.

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up vote 0 down vote

Here is a list of editors that I tried and found adequate ( not IDEs thou) in no particular order:

Free ( as in beer, not necessarily speech) :

Not-free, trial / shareware available

IDEs ( I tried all of them but found them too much and getting in the way most of the time, mostly cause they are slow, even on my Windows 7 8-core 12gb RAM workstation):

Most of these are cross-platform, but some are not. Personally I liked Sublime so much - I got a licence for Sublime 2 and I'm using it both on my Windows and Mac systems - it really helps that I can use the same editor (hence conventions and shortcuts) on all systems. Before I used Textmate on my mac and Intype and Notepad on Windows and it was really annoying - I kept confusing shortcuts.

** Full Disclosure: I'm not in any way affiliated with Sublime Text editor - just a fan-boy :-)

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