Looking for text editor with tabs, ruler, wrap

[Trucidation]

Hey guys, got a fairly simple request. I'm looking for a text editor similar to PSPad, that (1) allows you to open multiple documents (i.e. tabbed), (2) has a ruler, and (3) allows you to word wrap to the ruler.

You'd think this was pretty trivial, but surprisingly the several text editors I looked at didn't seem to support this out of the box. Or maybe my goggles are on too tightly.



As you can see in the screenshot, there's a nice ruler there in PSPad, and I've set the text to wrap to a specific column count (which I've highlighted using a red circle, in this case after 144 characters). I was thinking, surely this is a basic feature all the bajillion text editors out there have, right?

Strangely, the text editors I looked at either don't seem to have a ruler, or have tabs for multiple documents but don't allow you to shortcut switch between them (e.g. in PSPad I can hit Alt+3 to view the document in the 3rd tab), or force you to word wrap only to window size instead of letting you pick.

Reason? Well, as you can see in the screenshot, when I play RPGs I like to have guides on hand to look up - I've got 9 open there just for Star Ocean 2. But I'm also playing something else on another console, and I'd like to see the 5 guides for that one too. (Yeah, I'm a glutton.)

I wouldn't mind closing these 9 documents and opening the 5 for that other game, IF I could somehow get PSPad to remember these 9 (and the order they were opened in, i.e. the tab order). I don't know how to do that though, which is why I'm fishing for another text editor.

Ideas, suggestions?

Edit:
It'd be a better idea if someone can recommend an editor which can also remember which files you have open at once. That way, if I want to look at guides for yet more games, I don't have to keep installing more text editors... It'd be awesome if I could just flip between viewing X files for game A, then later Y files for game B, and then Z files for game C, all in the same editor. Way better than having to juggle multiple editors.

Edit 2:
Vaguely thought about projects and files associated with them, but I don't think this is the same thing. In any case, all my documents are lumped in something like c:\docs, and I don't want to organize them (ha!) because there are too many (>5k documents).

..........................................................................................

I figure I might as well post what I tested, so here there are, in roughly alphabetical order:

ATPad
Option to highlight the various kinds of whitespace in colour; awesome! Trivial to hunt down those pesky tabs and convert them into proper spaces. Sadly it only wraps to window.

conTEXT
Cool, a numbered ruler like PSPad. Also allows you to specify right margin, however it still only wraps to window width. I'm beginning to suspect "right margin" to most editors means printing margin. Shouldn't that be page right margin, or printing right margin, to avoid confusion? Meh. I mean, why worry about PRINTING margin, isn't this a text editor? If I wanted to mess with printing margins I'd use a full-fledged word processor.

EditPad Lite
I used this before moving on to PSPad. This doesn't have a ruler, and only wraps to window.

Notepad++
Looks ok, bajillions of plugins... but no actual window ruler, the TextFX plugin "ruler" is just a bunch of characters "1234567890" repeatedly pasted into the document itself like some kind of pseudo-ruler. Sorry, not acceptable, the ruler shouldn't be part of the document.

NoteTab Lite
Has a non-numbered ruler plus the option to wrap after a specified number of characters, but does not appear to actually do this. Tested with 120, yep, text still goes on to character 121 and further.

 

[MilesAhead]

Try PsPad with a monospaced font. The ruler gets thrown off by variable width fonts. Many editors the tab(as in hitting the tab key, not a separate window) stops won't even have aligned text if you use a variable width font.

 

[Trucidation]

Sorry >__> I meant tabs as in multiple documents, but I suppose most of them handle that. Problem is wrapping to rulers, and saving/loading particular batches of documents.

Most editors I've looked at don't feel as nice as PSPad, so I guess I'll have to manually keep track of which documents I want open then. Oh well.

 

[rerice]

I use Edit Pad lite, They also have a pro version which has options for just about everything you may want.

Give it a try. EditPad - Text Editor for Windows

Good Luck
Richard

 

[MilesAhead]

Sorry >__> I meant tabs as in multiple documents, but I suppose most of them handle that. Problem is wrapping to rulers, and saving/loading particular batches of documents.

Most editors I've looked at don't feel as nice as PSPad, so I guess I'll have to manually keep track of which documents I want open then. Oh well.

You didn't mention if you tried a monospaced font. A variable width font, the stuff is not going to line up. Guess I'm repeating myself.

http://www.urbanfonts.com/fonts/monospaced-fonts.htm

 

[Trucidation]

Yeah, I'm using courier. Again, I meant the document tabs; as in browser tabs. You know? Multiple documents. Not the text spacing tabs. I avoid using text spacing tabs like the plague.

rerice: I used EditPad Lite a long time ago, and I redownloaded it to check. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to have a ruler and it also only wraps to window. Dunno about the Pro version though, but I'd rather not use trialware.

Weird. With all those text editors out there you'd think rulers and wrap to ruler instead of window would be one of the basic features.

 

[MilesAhead]

Yeah, I'm using courier. Again, I meant the document tabs; as in browser tabs. You know? Multiple documents. Not the text spacing tabs. I avoid using text spacing tabs like the plague.

rerice: I used EditPad Lite a long time ago, and I redownloaded it to check. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to have a ruler and it also only wraps to window. Dunno about the Pro version though, but I'd rather not use trialware.

Weird. With all those text editors out there you'd think rulers and wrap to ruler instead of window would be one of the basic features.

I know what you meant. I mentioned tab char because tab stops are another instance where variable width fonts won't work.

I'd look for a PsPad extension or plugin or one of those rulers that's imposed from the outside by a hotkey app or external toolbar app.

edit:

Most editors I've seen with rulers are actually word processors. That's probably the only way to get pixel accuracy on the ruler/wrap is WYSIWYG graphics mode word processor.

 

[Trucidation]

Gotcha. I avoid variable width fonts for that reason, they mess up the columns on all those "hand drawn" tables.

Notepad++ did seem to have an appropriate plugin (TextFX) but apparently the ruler was just characters added to the document (like "123456790"); I'd prefer it in the document window instead of actually in the document.

 

[MilesAhead]

You might look on
SourceForge.net: Find, Create, and Publish Open Source software for free

 

[HammerHead]

More Editors

Here is a link to some more editors.

Best Free Programming Editor

 

[Trucidation]

Much appreciated, but there's an overwhelming number of them out there. I'll sift through 'em, but I really just want something like PSPad (i.e. tabbed docs and wrap to ruler). All those programmer features are overkill.

I'll post back here when I find some promising ones.

 

[alan10]

Yeah, I'm using courier.

I suggest you are wrong.
I believe "Courier New" is needed for a fixed width font, not "Courier".

Regards
Alan

 

[MilesAhead]

For testing alignment issues I usually go with Lucinda Console. If that doesn't align then it's not the fault of the font. Once you know what's what then you can switch to another font.

 

[brampeirs]

Boxer text editor

Maybe a little late to reply to this post, but you could try Boxer text editor.

You can download it here: Boxer Text Editor - CNET Download.com