Still Looking for a Text Editor?

From time to time, it comes a moment when you have to sit back and enjoy the finest things in life, and I am not talking about a glass of good wine and a good meal, a show or a safari. I am talking about our virtual lives and the enjoyable things that you can encounter as a computer user.

Sometimes, the finest things in life are exactly the simple ones...or those that look simple at first sight for most people. In this case, I am talking about text editors, and my choice is called RJ TextEd. The good part is that this program is much more than just a text editor, and the goodies are just about to reveal themselves, but first, we have to find out more about the program itself.

RJ TextEd's last version is labeled 3.71 and you don't have to pay a single penny for it. A free text editor is not something out of ordinary, but what about having a built in file manager, Web browser, a complete CSS editor and even some more? The program's installation kit is pretty large for such a program, having 8MB in size, but the setup process is very easy to complete. Now, what should we expect here?

The program's interface is somewhere near outstanding. To be more specific, this is much more than what you'd expect from a text editor. RJ TextEd's interface is skinnable, and this should say a lot about it. Since you can have this program look the way you want, what about its ease of use? No problems here, everything is well organized and one or two mouse clicks away. Almost every additional feature that has a place on the interface can be hidden, so you can have the program look like a shiny Notepad or like the Christmas tree. Now, let's see how the features part is, shall we?

First of all, the list of file types supported is impressive. Of course that a lot of ASCII text files can be found there, starting with the good old plain text TXT files and going all the way down to XML and XSL files. For most file formats found on the way (HTML, CPP, PAS, JAVA and many more), the program supports syntax highlighting. When exporting files, you can even encrypt them, but then you will only be able to open them using this program.

Ok, so we can edit text files, search and replace inside them and so on. What about HTML files editing? Good question, and the answer is also a good one. You can preview HTML files inside the built in browser, take advantage of the full featured CSS editor, the Table Editor or the Lorem Ipsum Generator. The things don't stop here, this is only the beginning. Just check the Html menu and you'll understand what I want to say...

We have a text editor, a built in Web browser, a preview tool, but what about having a file manager into our text editor? Great idea, especially since this is a two panel file manager, not just a file browser placed into a narrow panel. The most amazing part is that the keyboard shortcuts that you should be used to, like F5 for copy or F8 for delete, really work! I am speechless, nothing more!

Of course that behind the excellent features and customization possibilities (you can add new dictionaries, language packs, skins and syntax files), some problems exist, small or big, and this is what we should discover in the conclusions area. Before moving on, I must say that this program is an excellent companion to PSPad in the freeware world, and the good part is that they are different enough to keep their individuality.

The Good

RJ TextEd grows on you with each menu you open and each feature you get to discover, has an excellent interface, a wide range of features and even a well done Help file. To draw the line, this program is completely free.

The Bad

I can't think about any feature that I would like to see here, although PSPad has some that I didn't find here, but it's the same the other way around too. When opening the File Commander or the built in browser, I noticed that the program suddenly starts to take around 90-100% of my CPU power, which denotes a serious problem. If this is solved in the next versions, I may even reconsider using PSPad...

The Truth

Despite its CPU usage problems, RJ TextEd is a great program. Try it for yourselves and don't forget to enjoy the process. Good luck!

Here are some snapshots of the application in action: