Komodo Edit: Free Cross Platform Programmer's Text Editor

Originally published on: 3/11/2007 6:46:28 PM

I'm still oscillating between several text editors, unable to find *all* of the features I like in any one place. That's not new territory for me. After all, my ideal OS is a stone soup combination of Linux, Windows and Mac. They all offer things worth having that the others don't have. However, given that I *do* use all 3 platforms, and do much of my work (and play) in a text editor, finding a new contender that's cross-platform is a good thing. I don't care how great Textmate is, if I'm sitting at a Linux machine, it doesn't do me any good.

ActiveState (if you've done any Perl on Windows, you've bumped into these guys) have had an IDE product for a while, priced in that $300 range. A couple of weeks ago, I got a product announcement that they'd released a free programmer's text editor, with the typical goodies: syntax highlighting, autocomplete, custom keybindings, all the "normal" stuff.

Komodo Edit has support (including auto-complete for most) for Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Tcl, HTML, CSS, XML, Javascript, RHTML, Template-Toolkit, HTML-Smarty and Django out f the box. The auto-complete works much better out of the box for PHP here than in many of the other options. Theoretically, there can be lots of other support added as well. That's because Komodo Edit is written in XUL (like Firefox and Thunderbird) and it can be extended just like those other platforms: with Javascript and XML. There aren't many extensions yet, but that's the case with any new platform, so I'll be watching for developments in that area.

Overall, I think they struck a nice balance of features in the free editor vs. the $295 full IDE. You can see a comparison of the feature differences, but it basically boils down to things like a full debugger, regular expression toolkit, and a code browser. They're the kind of features that most individual developers can do without. And, if you *do* need them, you are probably in a position to justify the price tag.

Definitely worth a look, especially if you don't want to fiddle with settings to get lots of good functionality. Besides, it's free. So, if you don't like it, delete it and move on.

Comments

clive
commented on 4/10/2007 I am rather disappointed that Komodo is billed as a programmers text editor yet it doesn't seem to have the slightest notion of how to cope with 'C' or C++ source code. Sort of fundamental to a programmers editor.

So for someone who is allergic to both Vi and Emacs variants where do I find a decent cross platform text editor. Note I have tried Jedit which is currently my number one contender but for various reasons I just haven't been able to Jell with it.

Franck
commented on 3/13/2007 I agree with you that most free "advanced" free editors will provide all needed features for a mainstream developer. Komodo is a nice product.

andhapp
commented on 3/14/2007 Have you tried e-texteditor...I think it does the job very well...however at this point I haven't looked at Komodo edit so I might change my mind...

http://www.andhapp.com/blog/Future_is_bright_Future_is_ETextEditor/33

kongmeng
commented on 3/14/2007 There's always VI, http://www.vim.org.

evanx
commented on 3/14/2007 jEdit is a great crossplatform editor, but the why anyone wouldn't use Netbeans in future i wouldn't know - it has project to support all popular languages. I suppose if you have a limited computer with very little RAM, then.. well here's your sign ;)

Thom
commented on 3/15/2007 How long have you been using this for? I've had it a couple of months now, and it was all good. but now I',m being pestered to buy a license, and can't run Komodo anymore?!

I thought it was free, but apparently it isn't. I'm trying to install the latest beta now.

J Wynia
commented on 3/15/2007 Were you using a beta? Often beta's expire, even for free products. I'm using the 4.0 release and not one of the betas, but have only been using it for a couple of weeks or so.

Martin
commented on 3/14/2007 Thanks for the tip! Looks great. I'm using those three operating systems as well (just like you), so I'm also always looking for the perfect, cross-platform editor.

J Wynia
commented on 3/14/2007 @adnhapp: I've tried e-texteditor, but it's not free (I used to use and pay for EditPlus, but I'm sick of having to retrieve keys or buy another set for another machine) and Windows only.

The 3 I'm currently flipping between are: ScITE, jEdit and now Komodo.

@kongmeng: Yep. vi and emacs always come up in these conversations. However, neither one matches my way of working and I'm not willing to spend 2 weeks getting nothing done for the sake of being able to wear the "I use vi" badge.

The 3 I'm using are a nice hybrid of keyboard/mouse functionality where, if you know the keyboard shortcut, things go faster, but you can stumble your way through using the mouse.

@evanx: Yep, jEdit is one of the others that I toggle between. I have taken a quick peek at the new Netbeans, but haven't looked enough to be able to weigh in.

There's also Eclipse, but it always takes too long to get it configured for anything other than Java.

To me, the ideal editor is one that lets me get work done on the first day it's installed, without slowing me down. Then, as the days go by and I figure more stuff out, I can speed up.

Anything that makes me take a productivity hit for even a day is probably going to get tossed aside.