Textpad vs. UltraEdit

[Trinition]

I've been asked to do a sort of rapid comparison of text editors, evaluating them on certain features some of the users currently use. At this point, I think UltraEdit is winning, but I want to make sure, from the TextPad community, that I haven't overlooked anything.

The features that UltraEdit does have that I haven't seen in TextPad are:

1. Fuller support for regex (greedy/non-greedy, multi-line, Perl-style character classes (i.e. \w \W \d \W etc.).

2. FTP open/save

3. File comparison (i.e. diff)

All of the other key features, both editors seem to have (MDI interface, macros, toos, sorting, syntax highligting, etc.)

I suppose some of the above features might be able to be accomplished in TextPad with macros, tools, etc. Am I off on this?

[talleyrand]

1) Character classes are supported. Check your help file
2) Can be handled via batch tools
3) Ctrl-F9

This has also been discussed elsewhere on this forum.

[Trinition]

I know that there are certain character classes supported, such as [[:alpha:]] (I think I might have the syntax wrong), but to my knowledge there is no support for the Perl/Java-style shorthand of the single-charcter expressions for character classes, such as \w, \d, etc. The disadvantage for me is that I cannot copy&paste the same regex's used in programs into TextPad and vice-versa.

Having not spent much time in the TextPad community, is the author flexible and reponsive to feature enhancements, such as one I might make for Perl5-style regex support? After all, it's not just character classes that concerns me, but also greedy vs. non-greedy regexs, for example, where there is a difference between A.*B and A.*?B -- the former would return "ABCAB" from "ABCABC" whereas the latter would return "AB".

[s_reynisson]

I'm starting with what I find most important, the "author flexible and
reponsive to feature enhancements". You are in an excellent position to
compare this for Helios, look at jeffy's list, at the bottom there's a list of
implemented features. Scroll down pls, it's long, the latest is from Friday,
January 23, 2004. You can also compare it with this.

From TP's help file:
TextPad's regular expressions are based on POSIX standard P1003.2, but
the syntax can be that of POSIX, or UNIX extended regular expressions
(the default). The choice can be made on the Editor page of the Preferences
dialog box.

For the "Perl5-style regex support" I would mail TP and ask them and at
the same time start a poll in the Enhancement Suggestions forum. Make sure
the poll contains the standard five options so that it will be included in the list.

Did you mean "A.*B and A.?B"? This returns ABCAB and AB in TP.

[Trinition]

First, let me say that the "poll" and ranked list of poll features is very interesting. I did see a Perl5-RegEx support listed as an invalid poll, which I'm guessing means soemoen didn't create the poll correctly so we don't really know how desirable it is (although teh fact that the poll hasn't been corrected gives some indication).

But when I went back to UltraEdit to test my greedy/non-greedy regular expressions, I realized I was wrong. It's not UltraEdit which supports this (although it does still support the short-hand character classes), it was jEdit (which uses ORO underneath, I think, or maybe the JDK 1.4 regex package). jEdit was a very full-featured editor, but its organized poorly, and because of Sun's lack of focus on Java on the desktop, it's a behemoth to run compared to TextPad, UltraEdit, etc.

Anyways, maybe I'll look into starting a proper Perl-5 RegEx poll, if I figure out what a proper poll looks like

So your feedback has caused me to realize a mistake which narrows the gap between UltraEdit and TextPad, showed me you can do comparisons (but UltraEdit's output is easier to visually analyze compared to the standard DIFF output of TextPad), and that TextPad appears to be very responsive to suggestions (I haven't yet formed an opinion on UltaEdit's responsiveness).

Thanks for your replies!

[s_reynisson]

Yes, there is a valid poll out there! Add support for Perl5/JavaScript regular expressions !
A "proper poll" simply contains five options, you can put any text on them.
Clearly you don't need to post another one, sorry for the mix up.

[zridling]

The biggest difference for me between the two text editors is that UltraEdit is both more customizable and (far) more powerful. In other words, UltraEdit can handle large files with great ease and speed. TextPad's interface is slightly more elegant, but its keyboard shortcuts are not not fully customizable, for example. I often work with large files throughout the day and TextPad just doesn't have the muscle to get the job done. For light duty use, however, I recommend TextPad anyday. See my own website below for a comparison of all the top text editors.

[mo]

Just one feature in TextPad makes it the one for me every time I look elsewhere, which has been often: The clipboard library. Long drop down lists of tags is a major hassle compared to a list made yourself that is sitting open there, that can be changed for a list of tags from another document type, and that can even be a list of one's own scraps (and there is one there that records the history of the clipboard.)

A second invaluable feature which I am not sure exists or does not exist in other editors is the ability to define one's own document type and set up preferences with regard to it.

[zridling]

Excellent website, by the way, Mike (www.buddhadust.org)

[Tomas Eklund]

If you want really good regexp-support in a text editor, you sould take a look at .... It's not as feature-packed or as customizable as TextPad though.

[taguchi]

There's a great extended review of the two at:
http://www.donationcoder.com/Reviews/Ar ... index.html

[cincyreds]

There's a great extended review of the two at:

Hardly an extended review. The only editor they even outlined was UltraEdit and provided only a few inaccurate bullet points for all the rest.

Looks more like a review by someone HEAVILY biased towards UltraEdit.