Review: E Text Editor 1.0
Editor: E Text Editor 1.0
Version: 1.0.1
Developer: Alexander Stigsen
Platform/OS: Windows
WYSIWYG: No
Price: $34.95 USD
I first previewed e back in December, and while I thought it looked promising, it was buggy and costly for a beta. Four months later, e’s developer, Alexander Stigsen, changed his focus from collaboration to TextMate compatibility and I purchased the beta, which I’d initially balked at. Since then, on an almost weekly basis, new features have been added to e and it’s become my main editor. E is a code monkey’s dream.
What I Like
- As I said in my initial preview, e is TextMate for Windows and it sports my favourite TextMate features:
- TextMate bundles and snippets (you’ll never go back after using this style of snippets).
- TextMate syntax themes (I’m superficial — I admit it).
- Column selection and editing (simply a brilliant feature on any editor).
- Bracket/quote auto-complete and automatic indenting.
- Code collapse.
- Out of the box, e has one feature sorely lacking in TextMate: E supports multi-text selection (yes, I know about the Duane Johnson bundle, but E’s implementation is far more intuitive). If you hold down CTRL, then double-click/select multiple words, you can then edit all of these words at the same time. Clear as mud? Watch the video.
- E’s undo system is very good. You can see a visual list of your changes, even where edits forked off in different directions. The undo history is saved with your file.
- E’s find and replace gives you immediate visual feedback, highlighting found queries as you type. This is especially helpful when you’re using regex to search. I love this!
- Smart wrapping. I don’t know why more editors don’t have this. See what I mean.
- Despite my earlier criticism, e is pretty affordable, especially now that it’s out of beta.
- Unbelievable release cycles — I don’t think Alexander sleeps. While in beta, a new update was released almost every week. Stagnant, e is not.
- E is under 5MB to download.
Gripes
I’ve only got two gripes:
- E is pretty slow to load on my machine — sometimes up to 25 seconds. Not a huge deal, but if I just want to open a file to quickly take a peak, I’ll use something like NotePad++ instead.
- I forget the second one.
Wishlist
- Find in files.
- Faster load times.
- Bracket highlighting.
Overall
Go get the trial and test it out. If you’ve used and like TextMate, but work primarily on a PC, you’re going to like e. The price is good and the editor is solid. E’s features, such as the bundles and snippets, make coding a pleasure and really speed up your work. Alexander has promised some great new features in the upcoming versions, and frankly I can’t wait; E has been one of the best software investments I’ve made.
5 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Great review. I think one of the most promising things Alexander has in the pipeline is a Linux version, thus completing the “Textmate Compatible” ecosystem. Plus e is the one thing, apart from Photoshop, I really miss on Ubuntu. I could probably learn to live with GIMP in place of Photoshop, but I know I couldn’t live without e. Once e is on Linux, there’s going to be little to keep me from switching to Ubuntu as my work environment of choice.
Comment by Charles Roper — August 10, 2007 @ 5:16 am
[...] a good review of E here. Installation was smooth and the auto-update of my existing cygwin installation was pretty slick. A [...]
Pingback by link[rel=’developer’] » Textmate on Windows - Introducing ‘E’ — August 16, 2007 @ 8:16 pm
I use e Text Editor daily for HTML, PHP, GROOVY, TEXT, pretty much everything.
I made a web editing application for html that ties this editor into my online CMS applications.
Comment by Tony Landis — November 28, 2007 @ 1:00 pm
Great Review.. I have been looking for something like TextMate for my PC.. dreamweaver is a pig, and Notepad++ really lacks features… Will be testing it today!
Comment by Ben May — October 3, 2008 @ 4:40 pm
I like e-texteditor, but I have had a really crappy customer service experience. I am having an issue with the editor and sent multiple emails to the developers. I have no received any reply. That right there is enough to make me wish I hadn’t spent any money on it.
I would not recommend this application to anyone. I have been unable to open it (it errors), for going on a week now, and have not even received any reply to my emails.
Comment by Matt — November 9, 2009 @ 10:20 am