Product Reviews

EmEditor 3.28

• By Mike Gunderloy
• 11/06/2002

Yes, it's another text editor. You might think after all this time that there are too many text editors -- but like many of the rest, EmEditor has some nice features all its own. One nice thing is that they've packed a lot of functionality, including impressive control over the display, color-coding for multiple languages (including nice touches like properly color-coding script within HTML), and a macro recorder into a relatively tiny space: the executable is 300 KB, the whole install under 2 MB. The small size goes along with nice speed and some other unusual decisions - most notably the use of SDI instead of MDI for the interface.

If you need more functionality, you can get some of it from plug-ins, dynamically loaded bits of code that can do things like manage browsers, spell check, and so on. The plug-in API is open if you'd like to extend the product yourself. Also of note is excellent Unicode support, though it's distressing that Microsoft still doesn't include a Unicode font with the operating system.

Other features you might find useful are OLE Drag and Drop, easy customization of the interface, the ability to switch code pages used for displaying the current file without reloading, and a taskbar icon that gives you access to recently-edited files. There are some compromises that make this less-suited as a programmer's editor. For example, there's no source code control interface. But for a quick text editor, it's a nice piece of work. EmEditor is shareware, so you can download and try it before deciding whether it's worth the $30.