I'm in the process of rebuilding my laptop (Lenovo T60) and our new development machines. As part of the build, I've been looking at a replacement editor for our old friend, notepad. We have historically used notepad as the lightweight text editor to modfy files such as xml, web.config, .webpart or even xsl in the past, but while notepad has its uses, it also has the huge limitations (e.g line numbering, tabs, colour formatting) etc.
I've chosen Notepad++ and have to say I'm pretty impressed. It is prett lightweight, has all of the above features, plus more. Some of the key highlights I'd point out...
Colour formatting - you can choose the language (e.g. development language not locale) and have colour formatting.
So if we are editing SQL we get...
SELECT CISF_CLINICAL_SERVICES.Clinical_System_Code, CISF_CLINICAL_SERVICES.ABC_ServicePlan_Code,CISF_CLINICAL_SYSTEM.Clinical_Name
FROM CISF_CLINICAL_SERVICES
INNER JOIN CISF_CLINICAL_SYSTEM
ON CISF_CLINICAL_SERVICES.Clinical_System_Code = CISF_CLINICAL_SYSTEM.Clinical_System_Code
WHERE CISF_CLINICAL_SERVICES.Team_Code = '1'
If c# we get...
public DataSet GetWSSFilesFromFolder(string WebName, string FolderURL, string MetaData)
{
bool metaData = Convert.ToBoolean(MetaData);
//assumes that the SPSite URL is defined in web.config
string spSiteUrl = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["Novotronix.WSS.DocumentService.SPSiteUrl"];
}
The application also has a number of add-ins available, a great one being able to compare two files. This is great when looking at differences in suorce code from Source Safe
For me, the syntax highlighting saves having to load Visual Studio to get legible code if you just want to view / copy etc.
An alternative could TextPad (which Dave would prefer :) )