Text editor recommendations

[Andrew Farris]

On Wed, 2009-10-21 at 07:05 +0000, madanabhat27 at gmail.com wrote:
> Hi all, I was wondering which is the text editor you'd recommend for
>  me, considering that I'm a TOTAL newbie to linux and having JUST
>  migrated from MS Windows Vista Business where I was using notepad..

As a basic text editor...notepad is utter crap, but if that's what
you're used to then you'll feel right at home with most basic text
editors on linux. Gedit (installed by default on Ubuntu, under
"Applications > Accessories > Text editor") or Kate (installed on
kubuntu by default, someplace under the K menu...) will probably do
everything you want and more. Also, at least in the case of gedit, you
will also find that there are numerous additional features you can
activate to turn the editor into basically whatever you want. explore it
to find out more...theres too much to list here.

In reality, I find that a lot of tasks you may have had to accomplish on
windows using notepad can be accomplished much more efficiently in
linux, but it depends on what you're needing it for that really defines
what program to use....for instance:
     1. If on windows you used the notepad to do HTML stuff for webpages
        (since most web-editors cost money), then you might want to
        consider a real web-editor (like Bluefish) instead of a plain
        text editor (even though gedit will do a lot of the same things,
        like syntax highlighting)
     2. If you used notepad to actually write little 'notes' to yourself
        (I used to) then you may want to look at Tomboy Notes. It can be
        added to your panel as a flyout menu, and you can type all kinda
        of notes in there, organize them into 'notebooks', link notes to
        other notes, and much more.
     3. if you just need a basic text editor, then gedit will serve you
        well. its quick, simple, and since your used to how notepad
        works, it will be familiar, so you don't have to take time to
        learn another whole new program.

>  Some of my friends recommended vim and others recommended emacs but
>  I'm a bit confused as to which one to pick

vim and emacs both have their places, I've used both at one time or
another, and they're probably good to learn at some point (I'd say
especially vim), but don't do it now and sacrifice productivity. Learn
them at your own pace, once you've gotten more familiar with your
system... I simply say this because if you're used to the 'notepad way'
of doing things, vim/emacs require almost completely different mindsets
to use properly.

Finally, if at some point you want to learn vim, I'd recommend starting
with gvim, and the vim tutorial package found in the repos. It's very
useful.

Hope that helps!

-- 
Andrew
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