As for many of you that watched video tutorials done by me over the years, one thing you probably have noticed, the one consistent thing, has been the editor I have been using. I have been using the same code editor for 14 years now, back when I first got the Macromedia 8 suite. Dreamweaver has been my go-to editor since then, and have tried out many others, but everything else just felt to fall short of what I could do with Dreamweaver. Well, unfortunately, Adobe decided to stop selling their products, and instead, are renting their software. I refuse to rent software and refuse to support that ecosystem, so I went on a quest to find something that was as good as I have, but without the rental ecosystem.
Well, I will put my list in order from my overall favorite, to my least favorite, (but still good), and a short stent on my experience with it and a link to the download.
Mind you that this is not just 5 min of testing and that's it, though some that I installed and then uninstalled was less than 5 min, but I been working on this for weeks/months so everything in this list have gotten a fair try.
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My top code editor comes from actually the last company I would have thought, Microsoft. This code editor is the closest I have found to what I have been using for the past decade+, and the best part of it is, it is open source. This powerful code editor offers so much, and with its extensive library of plugins, makes it my top choice and is recommended for those that want to learn to code more than just a few minor edits here and there.
Pros- Extensive library of plugins
- comes with a dark mode right away, (may not be a big deal for you, but for me, it's a huge +)
- Lots of documentations and videos on it to make learning it a bit easier.
- Open source and Free
Cons- Collects Telemetry for debugging - (
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- Extensive library of plugins
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This is my #2 choice. I have been using Sublime Text for a few years now off and on. I think its great and when I am doing a video or live stream and I wanted to show work using something you guys can download and use, Sublime Text was my go-to program. There was a few things that fell a bit short with me on the program which made it not become my replacement.
Pros- Free currently
- Comes with a dark theme by default
- Lots of helpful tools that makes coding go faster.
Cons- Won't be free forever it seems. ( Sublime Text may be downloaded and evaluated for free, however a license must be purchased for continued use. There is currently no enforced time limit for the evaluation. )
- Customization / Tools are a bit lacking.
- Free currently
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No, this isn't the battle bot, but a pretty basic, but good editor. It's IntelliSense completion has done a decent job for me thus far. Though lacking a bunch of features I like from the other two, this one here was a good lighter editor that just does what it's supposed to, I only used this for about a week, off and on, and just couldn't bear to make it my daily, (missing too many features I have come to love and need.)
Pros- Free
- Comes with a dark theme by default. (probably noticing a theme here.)
- Clean and simple
Cons- Not feature rich like the others.
- Can be a bit more difficult to get it the way you like, (too many things turned off and hidden by default).
- Also collects telemetry for bug reporting, can be disabled.
- Free
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I have had this one as well for a few years and just found this one to feel the oldest and just not overall friendly in the way I need it. It seems more for those that don't do much coding, but needs something to help out with doing edits when they need to. What I mean is that there are not many big features that I use are in it, but does support syntax highlighting as well as a few other features.
Pros- Free
- Does have a bunch of features, (it's no slouch)
- Does have plugins and is opensource.
Cons- Feels like it was made 15 years ago and hasn't evolved like the other. For those of you that have used RavenNuke, its like using that vs Evo where we used Ajax and jQuery to make things easier here.
- Can be a bit more difficult to get it the way you like, (too many things turned off and hidden by default).
- No real dark themes I could use, making everything on the program dark. I am sure there are ways, but I am saying there is nothing there by default. The default dark themes only effect the editing window and not the program colors.
- Free
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This one, I have the least amount of time on. It'is a text editor which basic features of an integrated development environment which has basic tools and features, but nothing really jumped out at me as a "great" feature.
Pros- Free - sorry can't add more because it's like NotPad++
Cons- Same as Notepad++ mostly
- Feels like it was made 15 years ago and hasn't evolved like the other. For those of you that have used RavenNuke, its like using that vs Evo where we used Ajax and jQuery to make things easier here.
- Can be a bit more difficult to get it the way you like, (too many things turned off and hidden by default).
- No built in themes that I found. Everything has to be downloaded then entered into a folder. Most programs have stopped doing that in the past few years.
- Free - sorry can't add more because it's like NotPad++
That there are my top 5 editors I recommend. I did test others, but I only wanted to post my top 5 because the others I personally wouldn't recommend. There were a few that I found other suggested, and I went to use them, just didn't work as intended, and had one that just wouldn't install. Some were made out to be one thing, but were another, and then there was one, that is more powerful than anything mentioned, and really is more for more advance stuff. That program is
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If you're wondering on why "Dark Themes" are on my Pros and Cons list, it's because the white background is going to stress your eyes more than the dark, and if you're able to have the whole program dark, rather than just the work area, that is a bigger + to me.
If you're wondering, VS Code will be my new go to editor for now on.