Richard Lewis wrote:
Perhaps text editors are just too fundamental a tool for people either to make a big fuss about them (though emacs/vi flame wars would suggest otherwise) or to spend time developing new ones.
Personally I do a lot from terminal windows (oftenvia SSH) and frequently
fire up a textmode editor within the GUI.
But for a lot of things I think a good GUI editor ought to be better
(anything presentational, like syntax highlighting, printing, etc works better in a GUI even where >it can be done from textmode, imho). After all, lynx (and others like it) are really good browsers when you need them, but I still use Firefox for day to day browsing! >I also have one eye on a desire to convince others to move away from Windows and they're not likely to be tempted by textmode.
I should probably try to get my head around emacs, having never learnt to
love vi (from a terminal I tend to use joe, having had exposure to Wordstar compatible editors >in the dim and distant past).
I have to admit that I'm a die-hard fan of the text-mode editor for everyday use. So as not to give the game away, I'll only mention that I tend to use one beginning with 'v' and ending in 'i'. Having said that, large and complex XML files are not fit for human consumption and might use the help of a good GUI ...
It has always amazed me that, considering the prevalence of XML, open source 'industrial quality' XML editors are scarce. I came across one recently at http://xml-copy-editor.sourceforge.net/. I've not had the opportunity to give it a good test drive, but so far it looks promising ...
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