The portable text editor displays information in its window on startup. You add a text document to the program by dragging and dropping it into the program interface.

As you can see on the screenshot below, the editor comes without buttons and menus. All you have at your disposal is the mouse and a handful of keyboard shortcuts to work with the text document.

You duplicate a text document window with the shortcut Cltr-Space. A right-click on a text moves the window around in the program window. You can resize windows by holding down the Ctrl key before right-clicking and moving the mouse around to resize the window.

A file is saved with the Ctrl-F2 key. Please note that you can edit a file by simply selecting it first and then using the keyboard to add, edit or remove text from it. This text is visible immediately in all open versions of the file.

Other controls that may be of importance are Word Wrap which can be toggled with Ctrl-Alt-W, Select All which is available by holding down Ctrl-Shift-A, F3 and F4 which change the font size or the keys F1 and F2 which can be used to scroll text windows just like you would do with the mouse wheel. You can close individual windows with the shortcut Ctrl-W.

Here is a video demonstrating the text editors capabilities.

MilkJack Multiple Views Text Editor is a versatile text editor for users who need to work on different parts of the same text document at the same time. You can download the editor from the developer website. The program is compatible with all recent 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system.

This is the menu for Internet Explorer that allows for viewing of the source code. “Notepad” is they typical default source code viewer.

Select Source and the source code will open in the default text editor. In this case, EditPad Lite is the text editor. It is an excellent text editor and it is available free from the link above.

How to Choose Your Favorite Text Editor

You probably have a personal favorite as far as text editors are concerned. If not, try EditPad Lite. It is a versatile text editor that supports Unicode, all Windows and all ISO-8859 text file encodings. Additionally, EditPad supports DOS, Mac, EUC, EBCDIC, as well as other legacy encodings. Notepad may be your favorite, though it is limited, and generally you don’t have to set that because it is the usual default text editor.

To begin choosing your favorite text editor, go to the “Tools Menu” and then select “Developer Tools” or you can press “F12” and access the Developer Tools Window. For this demonstration, we switched to TextPad as a default text editor and we are going to change it to EditPad Lite. In the Developer Tools Window, select “File Menu”, then “Customize Internet Explorer View Source” and then click on “Other”.

This will present the “Program Directory” for the default text editor. This is the “Program Files Folder” for EditPad Lite. All you have to do to change the default application is browse for the program folder that you would like to use as a text editor. In this case, EditPad Lite 7 will be selected. You may download many different free text editors with a simple search and these will show up on the list as options for default. You can perform this operation at any time and customize your text editor for any given purpose.

When you have identified the program that you choose as a text editor, click on the .exe file for that particular application and then click “Open”. Now all you have to do is close the “Developer Tools Window” and the process is complete. Your default text editor is set and this is what Internet Explorer will use as a default for viewing source code. Switching from TextPad to EditPad Lite or any other text editor is easy. Now, going to the View menu, select source and you will see something like this:

Select yes to make the selected text editor the default. Now this PC is set for EditPad Lite as the text editor for Internet Explorer 8.

You can view source code with any text editor you see fit for your purposes. EditPad is a practical choice, but you can build a list of various text editors to fit different circumstances.

We have reviewed several web browser extensions in the past that add that functionality to a browser. It’s all text for Firefox allows you for instance to edit text in an external editor, while Form Text Resizer can resize web forms in multiple browsers.

But those extensions and tools are often limited to one web browser. What if you use multiple browsers or other programs like the email clients Thunderbird or Outlook?

Text Editor Anywhere is the answer to that question. The free software for Windows can be used to edit text anywhere in external text editors.

The program is offered as a portable version and installer. Its functionality becomes available once it is started. Just press the Windows-a hotkey when you have a window open with a text editor to select an external editor in the list of available text editors.

The selection menu displays the default editor on first start. It is possible to add additional editors to the list to make their selection easier in the future.

The text editor can be selected with a mouse click or the cursor and enter keys.

All text will be copied and pasted automatically in the selected text editor. The edited text is then automatically transferred back to the original form once the external text editor is closed.

A right-click on the program icon in the Windows System Tray displays options to change the hot key that triggers the editor selection menu, the temporary file path on the system and all configured text editors available for selection.

The program was not compatible with all text editors that I tried. It did not work with the system’s default text editor Notepad++ for instance, but did work with the Windows text editor Notepad.

Edit Text Anywhere is a handy program for Windows users who want to use an external text editor for some of their text editing. The program can be downloaded from the developer website. (via)

Load Times

In my experience, the biggest culprit in load time problems is the numerous syntax highlighting types. Paring those down to just what you need should be the first thing you do. By default, it loads a lot of languages, any of which may be useful to you, but rarely are they all needed. Others, though handy, you really can live without. This can even change over time. For example, I took a C++ class last year and a JavaScript class earlier this year. I don’t really need either of those anymore. I do make and edit batch files often, so while most users will not need that one, I do. Sometimes a file type may not do what you think. In Litestep, .rc files are used to configure it, but the settings for Notepad++ does not highlight it as one might expect.

To trim, you highlighting list, go to Setting > Preferences. Then click the “Language Menu/Tab Settings” tab. From there, move items from the “Available” list to the “Disabled” list.

The next thing to consider reducing is your plug-ins. If you were testing a few out, but do not use them, get rid of them. If you don’t use the FTP module, turn it off. Just keep what you need.

To trim your plug-in list, go to Plugins > Plugin Manager > Show Plugin Manager. Then click on the “Installed” tab. Check anything you do not use (but know what it does) and click the “Remove” button.

If you weed out highlighting before plug-ins, then you can keep more functionality. Remember, all of this is to decrease your load times, so be mindful of that when you go to use the application again. If you see a difference without sacrificing too much, then you are fine. You may want to consider adding useful plug-ins once the useless ones are gone.

Interface

Notepad++ is designed for you to be able to modify the the context menu. By default, there are ten items to turn on and off five types of highlighting. I never used the feature, so I removed it and added ones that I do use. Editing this menu, however, is not simple. You would expect a GUI to guide you through it, but there is not one. Even the help file has limited information. It does refer you to a guide on how to create a custom file. I have included my own to give an idea of what can be done.

The file, named “contextMenu.xml”, is in a subfolder of your user folder.
Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\Name\Application Data\Notepad++
Vista/Win7: C:\Users\Name\Application Data\Notepad++

<NotepadPlus>
<ScintillaContextMenu>
<Item MenuEntryName="File" MenuItemName="Save"/>
<Item id="0"/>
<Item MenuEntryName="Edit" MenuItemName="Cut"/>
<Item MenuEntryName="Edit" MenuItemName="Copy"/>
<Item MenuEntryName="Edit" MenuItemName="Paste"/>
<Item MenuEntryName="Edit" MenuItemName="Delete"/>
<Item id="0"/>
<Item MenuEntryName="Edit" MenuItemName="Select All"/>
<Item id="0"/>
<Item MenuEntryName="Edit" MenuItemName="Undo"/>
<Item MenuEntryName="Edit" MenuItemName="Redo"/>
<Item id="0"/>
<Item PluginEntryName="Spell-Checker" pluginCommandItemName="Spell-Checker..."/>
<Item MenuEntryName="Run" MenuItemName="Google Search"/>
<Item MenuEntryName="View" MenuItemName="Word Wrap"/>
<Item id="0"/>
<Item MenuEntryName="File" MenuItemName="Close"/>
</ScintillaContextMenu>
</NotepadPlus>

The end result will look like this.

Be sure to backup your original and custom file someplace safe. The installer once overwrote the contextMenu.xml in an update. Make sure you edit the file while Notepad++ is closed, which means using Notepad or Metapad.

Go Minimal

From here, you can turn off a lot of parts of the interface. This can save you space or create headaches, but each user is free to decide what they want. The menu, tool, and tab bars can all be hidden from the “General” tab in the preferences. The menu bar can still be accessed by pressing Alt or F10. The toolbar can be replaced with a custom context menu. The tab bar, while seemingly indispensable, can be replaced by holding the right mouse button and scrolling. This is awkward for a myriad of tabs, but convenient for a few.

Summary

If Notepad++ was too bulky for your tastes, I hope you give it a second chance. Even if it is only to confirm my findings of how trimming the fat can speed things up. If you are a Notepad++ user, then I hope you decide to customize the application to your liking. Most of the shortcomings of the application can be solved with a few tweaks.

For most users, vi offers too much with too little help. To that end, tools like Gvim were created. Gvim is a strange amalgamation of a standard text-based file editor and a graphical file editor. Its half vi half gedit. Let’s take a look at how this editor can help you out.

Installation

The installation of Gvim is simple. I will demonstrate in Ubuntu. Since Gvim is found in the standard repositories, you can follow these steps:

1. Open up a terminal window.
2. Issue the command sudo apt-get install gvim.
3. Type your sudo password and hit Enter.
4. Allow the installation to complete.

You can find Gvim in the Ubuntu Software Center (or the Add/Remove Software tool for your distribution), but since Gvim is a text-based editor, why not install from command line?

After the installation is complete, you will be surprise to not find a menu entry for Gvim. So to start up Gvim hit Alt-F2 and enter the command gvim in the run dialog. When the application starts, you will see a nice hybrid tool that will make using vi much easier.

Usage

Figure 1

As you can see, in Figure 1, Gvim has the standard editing window, but with a few editions. The most obvious edition is the tool bar. Add to that tool bar a menu bar, and you have the makings for an actual user-friendly vi experience.

If you’ve never used vi, let me give you the gist of how you type and save a file…step by step.

1. Open up vi.
2. Hit the “i” key to switch vi to “insert” mode.
3. Type your file.
4. Hit “Escape” to get out of “insert” mode.
5. Hit the Shift “:” to get to the command mode.
6. Type “wq” (no quotes) to save the file and exit.

Quite a few steps just to save a text file right? Now, with Gvim, the same task looks like this:

1. Open Gvim.
2. Hit the “i” key to go into “insert” mode.
3. Type your text.
4. Hit the Save button.
5. Give your file a name.

That’s it. Although only one step shorter, but a heck of a lot user-friendlier.

But don’t Gvim only aids the simple tasks. Gvim also brings to the user some of the more challenging tasks such as:

• Spell checking.
• Jump to tags.
• Automatic syntax.
• Color testing.
• Window splitting.

And much more…all from handy drop-down menus and tool-bar icons.  The developers of Gvim even thought to include a handy print button!

Final thoughts

If you have been wanting to give the vi editor a go, you can breathe a sigh of relief and enjoy a helpful hybrid version of vi that will have you editing like a power user.

Out of the box, one thing that Nano is missing is spell checking. Nano does include the option for spell checking (you can even invoke spell checking from within Nano, but it won’t work). Why is this? Simple – Nano makes use of a specific spell checker that is not installed on most distributions by default. So even though Nano has the keyboard shortcut available for spell checking, you have to make it work. Let’s see how.

Installing the spell checker

Nano depends upon the package spell for spell checking. This is simple to install, from the command line, if you follow these steps:

1. Open up a terminal window.
2. Issue the command sudo apt-get install spell.
3. Type your sudo password and hit Enter.
4. Accept any dependencies (if necessary).
5. Let the installation complete.

Once complete you are ready to use spell checking.

Check your spelling

Figure 1

Open up a document for editing within Nano. When you do this you should see the list of keyboard shortcuts along the bottom of the screen. Of those shortcuts the ^T shortcut should be listed. That will invoke spell checking.

With your document open hit Ctrl-t to begin the check. Figure 1 shows the Nano spell checking in action. Spell will begin at the top of your document and continue on until it comes across a word it does not recognize. When it lands on a mis-spelled (or unrecognizable) word it will stop and ask you to correct the spelling of the misspelled word. Spell will not offer suggestions for replacements. Instead Spell will simply allow you to edit the misspelled word. Once you’ve edited the word you will have the chance to change all instances of the misspelled word. To replace a single instance just retype the word and hit enter. You will be asked if you want to replace that instance. If you want to only replace that instance hit Y (for yes) or, if you want to replace all instances hit A (for all) and all instances of the misspelled word will be replaced. If you have misspelled your correction just hit Ctrl-c to cancel the replacement.

Once Nano is finished with the spell checking it will inform you by saying so. Since there is nothing automated or fancy about Nano you will need to remember to save your changes made to your document when you exit (using Ctrl-x) the editor.

Final thoughts

Most users have grown accustomed to auto-spell checks that make spelling suggestions to the users. That’s not Nano. Nano wants you to think for yourself. It’s not perfect, but it’s as close to spell check as you will find with Nano.

For those Linux (and BSD, and Mac, and Windows) users, the tool by which most measure the standard is Bluefish. Bluefish is a GPL software that was started in 1997 to facilitate web development on the Linux platform. Although the programmers and the name has changed over time, the intent has not. Bluefish was and is a fantastic HTML editor.

Features

• Lightweight
• Fast
• WYSIWYG interface
• Multiple document interface. Opens 500+ documents simultaneously.
• Project support.
• Multi-threaded support for remote files using gvfs.
• Powerful search and replace.
• Open files recursively.
• Snippets sidebar.
• Integrate external programs.
• Integrate external filters.
• Unlimited undo/redo functionality.
• Program-language aware in-line spell checker.
• Auto-recovery of changes.
• Character map of all unicode characters.
• Upload / download synchronisation.
• Full screen editing.
• Customizable programming language support.
• Multiple encodings support.
• Bookmarks functionality
• HTML toolbar and tearable menu’s.
• Compliance with the Gnome and KDE.
• Translations into ten languages.

Installation

The installation of Bluefish is simple:

Open up your Add/Remove Software tool.

Search for “bluefish” (no quotes).

Mark Bluefish for installation.

Click Apply to install.

Figure 1

You will have to enter your administrative password and accept any dependencies that might be necessary. When Bluefish has completed installation you will find the application in Applications > Programming. When the tool starts up you will notice a ton of features quickly available (see Figure 1).

Once you start working with the editor you will want to start immediately using the syntax highlighting. In order to do this you will first select the type of document you are working with (click Document > Document Type > HTML if you are working with an HTML document). Once you have selected the type of document, update the highlighting by either clicking F5 or clicking Document > Update Highlighting.

You will also notice all of the toolbars in Bluefish. There is a Main toolbar, a custom toolbar, an HTML toolbar, and a sidebar. The HTML toolbar is exactly what you would expect – it contains all of the icons for adding tags to your document. The sidebar allows you to navigate your directory hierarchy as well as check reference materials for different styles or types.

Also included with Bluefish is the ability to preview your code in a browser. As any good HTML editor, you can view your code in multiple browsers – and even add new browsers from within the Preferences window. To add a new browser click the Preferences icon on the main window and then select the External Programs tab. Here click the Add button near the middle of the right pane and then double click under the Name column (and enter the name of your browser) and then double click under the command column (and enter the command necessary for the new browser).

After you add a new browser it will show up in the External menu.

Final thoughts

If you prefer to do your HTML work by hand, in an HTML-specific text editor, you can not go wrong with Bluefish.

Wordpad is almost as fast as Notepad, and offers rich text editing support, something that the plain text editor Notepad is not offering.

Texter is a new Wordpad replacement for Windows that supports both plain and rich text editing. Texter requires the Microsoft .net Framework 4.0, but has no other requirements besides that.

wordpad replacement texter

The design looks similar to the Wordpad design, especially the color scheme is nearly identical. A difference is that Texter does not use a Ribbon interface, which reduces the header area noticeably.

Texter’s memory usage stays below that of Wordpad, albeit not by a lot. Wordpad uses roughly 40 Megabytes of memory, and Texter about 7 Megabytes less than that.

Texter stays feature-wise close to the original Wordpad, with minor feature additions like character and line counts, a read mode for comfortable full screen reading, rtf encryptions and ability to save the documents as pdf files.

Windows users who want a flexible Wordpad replacement with several interesting feature additions find that and then some in Texter. The program is available for download at the developer website. Remember that Texter requires the Microsoft .net Framework 4.0 before it can be installed or used.

The Sourceforge page of the project links to an old version of the program, and the source code. It is likely that the files will be updated eventually by the developer.

This might be to much distraction for some users who need to work on a text. Zen Edit might be what those users have been looking for. The full screen text editor will overshadow all other desktop elements so that only its interface is displayed on the computer screen.

All text editor controls are handled by right-clicking. Here it is possible to change the background and font color, something that most users probably want to do as the black background light green font color are likely not the colors most users want to work with.

The right-click context menu can also be used to load, save and create new documents, find and replace text in the text document, display document statistics and send the document to the printer via the print command.

Zen Edit is a portable text editor. The documents will by default saved in the editor folder.

Zen Edit will not stop programs running in the background which means that sounds and notifications might still appear on the screen.

Other text editors that we have reviewed earlier are crea writer and write monkey for Windows and Pyroom for Linux.

Zen Edit can be downloaded from the developer’s website.

Update: The download at the official developer website is not available anymore. The latest working version has been uploaded to our servers for your convenience. You can download Zen Edit here: Zen Edit (170)

In this article, I will introduce you to a different kind of text editor – Scribes. Upon finishing this article (and giving Scribes a try), you can judge for yourself whether or not Scribes can make you more productive or not.

Features

So what does Scribes offer feature-wise:

• Extensible with Python plugins.
• Remote editing.
• Snippets (more on this in a bit).
• Word completion.
• Auto pair completion.
• Smart insertion.
• Auto indent.
• Bookmarks and smart navigation.
• Document switcher.
• Syntax highlighting for over 30 languages.

For this article I want to focus specifically on one particular feature that is very unique to Scribes (and which does actually boost productivity). That feature is Snippets. But first, let’s make sure you have Scribes installed.

Installation

Installation is simple, because you will find Scribes in your distributions’ standard repositories. Follow these steps:

1. Open up your Add/Remove Software tool.
2. Search for “scribes” (no quotes).
3. Mark Scribes for installation.
4. Click Apply to install.

That’s it!  Now you are ready to get productive.

Usage

Figure 1

You can start up Scribes from the menu or the command line. You will find Scribes in either the Applications > Accessories or Applications > Programming. If you don’t find it, you can always hit <Alt>F2 and then type scribes to start it up.

When you first open up Scribes you might be surprised to see how minimal the main window is (see Figure 1). It’s that way on purpose – to make you productive! As you can see there are few bells and whistles. You can toggle the find/replace bar, you can Undo/Redo, you can open documents, you can print, you can open up the options, and you can get help. What you don’t see, from the GUI is the most useful feature of Scribes – Snippets. Let’s see what this is all about.

Snippets

A snippet is basically like a permanent, expandable, highly useful clipboard. Imagine you are a programmer with a TON of functions or code pieces that you use frequently. Instead of having to open them and copy/paste them in, with Scribes you can just type a shortcut, hit the Tab button, and that snippet of code will automatically be added to your document. Let’s see how to create a snippet.

Figure 2

If you click on the drop-down associated with options (directly left of the help button), you will see the Template editor. When that window opens (see Figure 2) you will see a number of different languages listed that you can add templates for. In the example shown I have added a template for the sh language (shell scripting). To add a new template do the following:

1. Select the language for your template.
2. Click Add.
3. In the new window give your template a name, description, and then add the snippet in the Template section.
4. Click Save.

That’s it. Now let’s see how you can make use of that template.

In the main window if you type the word you used for the template name. When that word turns orange you know that Scribes is aware that is a template  and you can hit the Tab key. As soon as you hit the tab key that entire snippet of code will automatically be added to your document. Now that is productive!

Final thoughts

Although Scribes isn’t filled with bells and whistles, the features it does have will directly effect your productiveness. If you are a programmer you should really give Scribes a try. Sure there may be more complex, feature-rich programming editors available, but none of them will have you working as productively, with such a shallow learning curve, as Scribes.

Mousepad was originally created to bring printing support to Leafpad. Well, since then Leafpad has added printing support, so what’s the diff? Very little. But if you look around enough you will find a few variations on the Leafpad theme. In this article I will show you how to install Mousepad and illustrate it’s use and some of the differences you will find.

Installation

As you can imagine, installation of Mousepad is simple. You will find Mousepad in your distributions’ standard repositories, so all you need to do is:

1. Open up your Add/Remove Software tool (such as Synaptic or Packagekit).
2. Search for “mousepad” (No quotes).
3. Mark mousepad for installation.
4. Click Apply to install.

Once installed you will find Mousepad in your Accessories menu. If not there you can look in the Programming menu (if you have one). If not in the programming menu you can always hit <Alt>F2 and then enter mousepad in the run dialog to start up Mousepad.

Usage

Figure 1

When you start up Mousepad (see Figure 1), as you can imagine, it will look very similar to Leafpad (which, in turn, looks very much like you have a terminal window open). Mousepad borrows directly from Leafpad’s minimalist sensibility. You have a text area and a toolbar – that’s it! But don’t be fooled, Mousepad is a very worthy contender in the text editor arena. This little guy can do just about anything the others can.

• Word wrap.
• Line numbers.
• Auto indent.
• Find/replace.
• Jump to.
• Copy/paste.
• Print.

And, unlike Leafpad, Mousepad has a menu option for “Open Recent”. But as far as differences are concerned – that’s it. So why use Mousepad over Leafpad? That’s a good question. At one point you would have used Mousepad over Leafpad when using the Xfce window manager. And although there may be some tiny benefits to using Mousepad over Leafpad in its native environment, you would be hard pressed to notice a difference.

In the end, the only advantage to using Mousepad over Leafpad is the “Open Recent” menu option. Other than that you won’t be able to tell the difference.

Ultimately, however, you are just using a text editor that is nothing more than a step above a text-based editor. And since most text-based editor offer far more features than do either Leaf or Mouse pad, your best bet is to learn the ins and outs of the text-based editors (I will begin to cover some of these editors very soon!)

Final thoughts

It’s up to you which you prefer. But if you’ve tried Leafpad then you’ve tried Mousepad. But, if you use Xfce, you might just feel a bit more at ease using the editor that was originally created for your window manager of choice.

In this article I am going to show you how to install and run an infinote server so that Kobby and Gobby can communicate with one another.

Installation

There are two packages you must install for this to work. One of those packages will have been installed when you install Gobby. That package is libinfinity. If you did not install Gobby on the machine that will act as your infinote server you will need to install the libinfinity package as well as the package listed below. Follow these steps for installation:

1. Fire up your package management system (Synaptic, Ubuntu Software Center, gnome-packagekit, etc).
2. Search for “infinoted” (no quotes).
3. Mark infinoted for installation.
4. Click Apply to install.

That’s it! You are now ready to begin.

Usage

There are two ways to use infinoted: with or without encryption. If you want to offer password-protected sessions you will have to run with encryption. No passwords = no encryption. Let’s start off with the non-encrypted session first.

To launch an encryption-less session open up a terminal window and issue the following command:

infinoted –security-policy=no-tls

NOTE: When launching this session you will not be returned your prompt. Even if you add the “&” to the end of your prompt (which usually places the command in the background) you still won’t get your prompt back. When you issue this command the command will instruct you which port the server is listening on. By default infinoted will listen to port 6523 (in case you do not issue the command from the terminal window – more on that in a bit).

Now let’s take a look at starting the server with encryption. To do this you will issue two commands, the first command creates the necessary keys, the second launches the daemon. Let’s take a look at the commands. The first command:

infinoted –create-key –create-certificate -k KEY_NAME.pem  -c CERT_NAME.pem

Where KEY_NAME is the name of the key and CERT_NAME is the name of the certificate. When you issue that command infinoted will generate the necessary key/cert pair and then you are ready to start the server with the command:

infinoted -k key.pem  -c cert.pem

Now when you start up your Gobby and/or Kobby instances, you can host your server with password protection.

Starting your server

If you are like me, you don’t want to have a terminal window open in order to run the server. No matter which type of server you run (with or without encryption), you can add the startup line to your /etc/rc.local file so the server will start up at boot. If you don’t want to go that route you can always just hit <Alt>F2 and then enter the run line in the command dialog box.

Final thoughts

If you are looking for a very simple way to host a collaborative server for Gobby or Kobby, the Infinoted server is all you need for simplicity and reliability. Once the server is up and running all you will have to do is point your clients to the server (and the correct port) and your clients will be collaborating immediately.

In this article I will show you how to install and use Kobby as a collaborative text editor.

Installation

Installation of Kobby is simple, especially if you are already running the KDE desktop. If not, then you will have to install the KDE desktop as well. If you prefer the GNOME desktop then you have two choices:

• Use Gobby.
• Install KDE (and Kobby) and use Kobby from GNOME.

Either way is a win. So pick your poison and continue on. I am going to assume you already have KDE installed on your machine. So in order to install Kobby all you need to do is fire up your Add/Remove Software tool (Synaptic, Ubuntu Software Center, gnome-packagekit, etc), search for “kobby” (no quotes), mark for installation, and click Apply to install. That’s it. Once installed you are ready to collaborate!

Setup

Figure 1

When open up Kobby for the first time you will have to walk through a setup wizard. This “wizard” really has only one step which is the reation of a profile (with nickname and hostname). Once you have done that the main Kobby window will open (see Figure 1) .  Let’s first connect to a Gobby host on another machine.  Their are two (sometimes three) pieces of information you will need:

IP Address of host.

Port.

Password (if applicable).

To create the connection  click on the Remote tab and click the Create Connection button. This will open up a new window where you enter the details for the remote machine. Do this and click OK. If the server is running a compatible server (such as infinote) Kobby

Figure 2

will connect (as shown in Figure 2). In order to actually collaborate you have to open up a collaborative document. To do this right click on the “/” in the left-most pane, select New Document, and then give your new document a name.

When your new document opens you will see the text of your document (once there is text) in the center pane along with users who are collaborating in the lower right-most pane, and the documents available in the upper right-most pane.

The text editor itself is not quite as basic as some of the other editors we have looked at. It features:

• Line numbers.
• Dynamic word wrap.
• Undo/Redo.
• Highlighting.
• Indentation.
• Encoding.
• Word completion.
• Spell check.

and more. Naturally the most appealing feature of this editor is the collaborative nature.

Once you have completed collaboration you can then save your document on both remote and local hosts.

Final thoughts

The collaborative text editor is a really great tool for a lot of situations. Instead of passing documents (or emails) back and forth to get your work done, collaborate in real time, thanks to tools like Kobby, Gobby, and Infinote.

Update: The Kobby homepage is no longer available

Features

For a simple text editor, Kate packs in a lot of features:

• MDI, window splitting, and window tabbing.
• Spell check.
• CR/CRLF/LF newline support.
• Encoding support.
• Encoding conversion.
• Regular expression find/replace support.
• Syntax highlighting and bracket matching.
• Code and text folding.
• Infinite undo/redo.
• Block selection.
• Auto indentation.
• Auto completion.
• Shell integration.
• Numerous protocol support (http, ftp, ssh, webdav etc.).
• Internet transparency.
• Plugin support.
• Customizable shortcuts.
• Integrated command line.
• Scriptable (JavaScript).

That’s no short list for a simple text editor. But how does it stand up to other such tools? Is it the text editor you’ve been looking for?

Main window

Figure 1

When you open up Kate (click Accessories > Kate) you will see a two-paned window (see Figure 1). The left pane serves as a “tab navigation”. Instead of files opening in tabs, as they do in Gedit, they open up in a list on the left pane. In order to switch between open files you simply have to click on the name listed in the left pane to go back to that particular file.

One nifty feature of Kate is session saving. Say you have numerous files open for a project and you need to stop working on the for a bit of time. You can save that session and then, when you’re ready to start working again, open that session back up. When you open the session up it will have retained all of the open files for you so you don’t have to go back and open them one at a time.

To do this all you have to do is click Sessions > Save and then give your session a name. To open a session click Sessions > Quick Open and then select your session.

Highlighting

Figure 2

And of course, Kate does Syntax highlighting. Figure 1 shows how Kate highlights the same script I illustrated with Gedit. You can easily change the syntax highlight style by clicking Tools > Highlighting and then select the type you want. The type show is Bash.

Embedded terminal

Figure 3

What would a Linux editor be without a terminal included? Well, Kate sure thinks they would be worthless, because she has one built in. If you click on the Terminal button at the bottom of the window you will open the terminal window (see Figure 3) which is a full featured terminal. Just for fun, I opened up the same script in the terminal for you to compare.

Final thoughts

Kate is a very powerful editor that can do handle just about anything any other editor can. give Kate a try, it just might turn out to be one long-term relationship.

Features

Although simple to use Gedit does not lack power and features. Gedit features:

• Tools for editing source code as well as mark up languages.
• Offers syntax highlighting.
• Uses tabs so you can have more than one file open at a time in the same window.
• Can edit remote files.
• Full undo/redo support.
• Has a flexible plugin system.
• And much more.

So Gedit should appeal to just about any type of user – no matter your skill level. So now, let’s take a look at this tool.

The GUI

Figure 1

To fire up Gedit click on Applications > Accessories > Gedit Text Editor which will quickly bring up the Gedit main window (see Figure 1). You will notice Gedit looks like your standard text editor. And with this “standard-type” text editor you could easily open any configuration file (some you will need root or sudo access in order to open). Say, for instance, you wanted to edit you wanted to edit your /etc/samba/smb.conf file with this editor. To do this you would have to open Gedit from command like so:

sudo gedit /etc/samba/smb.conf

Figure 2

The above command would allow you to enter your sudo password so you could have read AND write access to the smb.conf file. When you open such a file in Gedit, it will look like what you see in Figure 2. Using this tool will allow you to easily search the file (without using a command like grep) undo/redo any mistakes, easily copy/paste, and more.

But what of that syntax highlighting? You do not get to see it in action when editing a flat .conf file. Let’s take a look at a bash script using Gedit.

Figure 3

Yes, that’s correct, Gedit even does syntax highlighting for scripting. Figure 2 shows a very simple script (one that creates my .sig file for email) open using syntax highlighting for sh scripting.  When you open this file, if the syntax highlighting does not appear by default (or if you want to switch the highlighting style) you can turn it on by clicking View > Highlight Mode > Scripts > sh. If you click on View > Highlight Mode you will see the number of different types of modes available.

If you look at the Tools menu you will also notice Gedit offers a spell check, language set option, and document statistics. Finally, if you click on Edit > Preferences > Plugins you will see the available plugins for Gedit. By default Gedit ships with twelve plugins, not all of which are activated. If you want more you can search your package management system (such as Synaptic) for “gedit” (no quotes) and find more available plugins for installation.

Final thoughts

If you are one that prefers not to use text-based editors, and you use the GNOME desktop, Gedit might be just the tool for you. In the next article I will introduce you to the KDE equivalent Kate.

It supports code highlighting and other coding related features to make it as easy as possible to work with programming languages. It supports a large variety of programming languages from C++ over php to Hypertext, batch and Assembler.

One interesting feature of Scite is the ability to compile or run source files directly from within its interface if the programming environment is installed on the computer system. The output is directly shown in the editor’s output pane.

Console commands are available as well for users who prefer to work from the command line. They can be used to perform different commands like replacing text in files, searching for phrases, opening a document or to load a previously saved session.

Windows users can download a related program from the same developer called Filerx which adds project management and macros to the Open Source text editor. Scite is available for download at the developer’s website. The program is fully portable and compatible with Windows XP and newer Microsoft operating systems.

It is not the first application to provide users with these options, we have reviewed several programs like PyRoom for Linux or Write Monkey for the Windows operating system.

Crea Writer launches as a full screen application that can either display a selected background image or a white background. Users who donate can change the background colors and other settings of the program (for instance reversing the colors to a black background and white text color).

The controls are not shown in full screen mode unless the mouse is moved to either side of the screen. All controls are then displayed in a left and right sidebar with the left bar containing text formatting controls and the right file operations and options.

The standard version is limited compared to the version that users get when they donate. It for instance lacks hotkeys, auto saves, some text formatting controls, the break timer or the configurable display colors.

The background image can either be disabled, set to be transparent or exchanged with another image. The text component is not nearly as complex as that offered by Word or other word processors. It lacks some features that one would expect from text editors like the ability to create chapters or to include images.

It should be sufficient for users who only want to write text in a minimalistic distraction free environment. But then again, using Notepad in full screen mode has nearly the same effect.

Crea Writer can be downloaded from the developer’s website. It works with most Windows operating systems.

Here is a tip on how to get the same result in Microsoft Word. The easiest way to make Word jump to the last cursor position in Microsoft Word documents is to use the keyboard shortcut [Shift F5].

Pressing [Shift F5] in a recently launched Word document will place the cursor at the position of the last change in the document. Word will only record changes to the document this way. Simply placing the Word cursor in the Word document is not enough to make [Shift F5] jump to that position.

The other requirement is that the document needs to be saved in doc format. Word cannot perform the jump to the last cursor position if a txt or rtf document is loaded into the text editor. This little keyboard shortcut can be very useful in large Word documents that are edited over time.

One application that does this job very well is PyRoom. PyRoom is a simple to use application that serves as a text editor that takes up your entire screen. There are no window decorations, or minimize buttons, or anything that will get the application out of the way – unless you close the application. So for those who need a distraction from the distractions, PyRoom just might do the trick.

Because you are using a text-based editor, you should expect that the files you write in PyRoom are going to be flat text files – in other words, no formatting. Of course you can always open that text in your standard word processor and doctor it up all you want.  Now, let’s take a look at installing and using PyRoom.

Installation

As you can imagine, the installation of PyRoom is pretty standard. Since this is a text-based editor, let’s install from the command line (instead of the GUI). Here are the steps (for installing within Ubuntu):

1. Open up your terminal window.
2. Issue the command sudo apt-get install pyroom.
3. OK any dependencies that will be needed.
4. Watch the installation fly by.

That’s it.  After PyRoom is installed you will find the executable menu entry in the Office sub-menu of the Applications menu. If, for some strange reason, you can not find it you can always open the “run” dialog with the <Alt>F2 keyboard combination and then enter the command pyroom to start the application.

Using PyRoom

Figure 1

When PyRoom starts you will see a nearly blank screen (see Figure 1). Here you can see I have added a bit of text just so you can see how PyRoom  looks. What you will also notice is the complete absence of everything you have grown accustomed to with applications. That’s the whole point.

The first thing you will probably want to do is get to the help menu. All commands are executed with the help of the <Ctrl> key. To get to the help menu hit the combination <Ctrl>h which will give you a listing of all the possible commands for PyRoom.

One of the cool features of PyRoom is that you can keep multiple buffers open so you can work on more than one file at time. To move back and forth between buffers you would hit the <Ctrl>Page-Up or <Ctrl>Page-Down. Either of those will move you between your buffers.

Of course the most important key combinations are <Ctrl>s for saving and <Ctrl>q for quitting. You can see the entire list from the help screen.

A few configurations

Figure 2

If you hit the <Ctrl>p combination you will bring up the Preferences window (see Figure 2). In this window you can configure a few items (you can see the General configurations in Figure 2). You can also configure a theme for PyRoom. From the Theme tab you can choose a preset them or you can create your own personal theme.

Final thoughts

I am a big fan of minimalism and zero distractions. Of course using today’s desktop, it’s practically impossible to avoid all distractions when you’re trying to concentrate. PyRoom offers some respite from the usual suspects and allows you to concentrate on your work – not your Tweets and Facebook status.

Data, that is text mainly, is entered in Dasher by moving a pointer to the appropriate chars that appear on the right side of the application’s screen. The developers claim that experienced users can write up to 39 words a minute when using the computer mouse and 29 when using a motion detection device. It is probably better to visualize the way it works, below is an animated gif explaining the concept.

Dasher has been designed for situations like these:

• when operating a computer one-handed, by joystick, touchscreen, trackball, or mouse;
• when operating a computer with zero hands (i.e., by head-mouse or by eyetracker);
• on a palmtop computer;
• on a wearable computer.

It basically works by moving the pointer on the character boxes that appear on the left side. Dasher is using language predictions to determine the most likely and less likely chars giving the most likely chars more space in the interface. The program will also learn over time so that new words become easier to write the next time.

Users who want to try out Dasher should know that they need to spend quite some time before it becomes easier to work with the software program.