除了Linux，UltraEdit在Windows和Mac OS X中也可用，虽然在应用程序中并没有包括，但在启动时也有详细的用户指南。为了辅助用户，UltraEdit保存了一个常见问题的数据库，一系列关于多种特定功能的详细信息的有用提示，用户还可以在论坛版块彼此帮助。另外，付费用户也可以通过邮件从开发者中获取支持。
Despite all their powerful extra-curricular activities that might even displace full-blown apps across several genres, there will be times when you just need to use these text editing behemoths to read, write, or edit plain and simple text. While you can use all of them to enter text, we are evaluating them for access to common text-editing conveniences.
Gedit which is Gnome’s default text editor, supports an undo and redo mechanism as well as search and replace. It can spellcheck documents in multiple languages and can also access and edit remote files using Gnome GVFS libraries.
You can spellcheck documents with Kate as well, which also lets you perform a Google search on any highlighted text. It’s also got a line modification system which visually alerts users of lines which have modified and unsaved changes in a file. In addition, it enables users to set bookmarks within a file to ease navigation of lengthy documents.
Sublime has a wide selection of editing commands, such as indenting text and formatting paragraphs. Its auto-save feature helps prevent users from losing their work. Advanced users will appreciate the regex-based recursive find and replace feature, as well as the ability to select multiple non-contiguous spans of text and act on them collectively.
UltraEdit also enables the use of regular expressions for its search and replace feature and can edit remote files via FTP. One unique feature of jEdit is its support for an unlimited number of clipboard which it calls registers. You can copy snippets of text to these registers which are available across editing sessions.
**Verdict:**
- Gedit: 4/5
- Kate: 5/5
- Sublime: 5/5
- UltraEdit: 4/5
- jEdit: 4/5
### Our verdict ###
All the editors in this feature are good enough to replace your existing text editor for editing text files and tweaking configuration files. In fact, chances are they’ll even double up as your IDE. These apps are chock full of bells and whistles, and their developers aren’t thinking of stripping features, but adding more and more and more.
At the tail end of this test we have jEdit. Not only does it insist on using the proprietary Oracle Java Runtime Environment, it failed to install on our Fedora machine, and the developer doesn’t actively engage with its users.
UltraEdit does little better. This commercial proprietary tool focuses on web developers, and doesn’t offer anything to non-developer power users that makes it worth recommending over free software alternatives.
On the third podium position we have Gedit. There’s nothing inherently wrong with Gnome’s default editor, but despite all its positive aspects, it’s simply outclassed by Sublime and Kate. Out of the box, Kate is a more versatile editor than Gedit, and outscores Gnome’s default editor even after taking their respective plugin systems into consideration.
Both Sublime and Kate are equally good. They performed equally well in most of our tests. Whatever ground it lost to Sublime for not supporting macros, it gained for its keyboard friendliness and its ease of use in defining custom keybindings.
Kate’s success can be drawn from the fact that it offers the maximum number of features with minimal learning curve. Just fire it up and use it as a simple text editor, or easily edit configuration file with syntax highlighting, or even use it to collaborate and work on a complex programming project thanks to its project management capabilities.
We aren’t pitching Kate to replace a full-blown integrated development environment such as [insert your favourite specialised tool here]. But it’s an ideal all-rounder and a perfect stepping stone to a specialised tool.
Kate is designed for moments when you need something that’s quick to respond, doesn’t overwhelm you with its interface and is just as useful as something that might otherwise be overkill.
### 1st Kate ###
- Licence LGPL/GPL Version 3.11
- www.kate-editor.org
- The ultimate mild-mannered text editor with super powers.
- Kate is one of the best apps to come out of the KDE project.
### 2nd Sublime Text ###
- Licence Proprietary Version 2.0.2
- www.sublimetext.com
- A professionally done text editor that’s worth every penny – easy to use, full of features and it looks great.
### 3rd Gedit ###
- Licence GPL Version 3.10
- http://projects.gnome.org/gedit
- Gets it done from Gnome. It’s a wonderful text editor and does an admirable job, but the competition here is too great.
### 4th UltraEdit ###
- Licence Proprietary Version 4.1.0.4
- www.ultraedit.com
- Focuses on bundling conveniences for web developers without offering anything special for general users.
### 5th jEdit ###
- Licence GPL Version 5.1.0
- www.jedit.org
- A lack of support, lack of working on Fedora and a lack of looking nice relegate jEdit to the bottom slot.
### You may also wish to try… ###
The default text editor that ships with your distro will also be able to assist you with some advanced tasks. There’s KDE’s KWrite and Raspbian’s Nano, for instance. KWrite inherits some of Kate’s features thanks to KDE’s katepart component, and Nano has sprung back into limelight thanks to its availability for Raspberry Pi.
If you wish to follow the steps of Linux gurus, you could always try the revered text editors Emacs and Vim. First time users who want to get a taste for the power of Vim might want to consider gVim, which exposes Vim’s power via a graphical interface.
Besides jEdit and Kate, there are other editors that mimic the usability of veteran advanced editors like Emacs and Vim, such as the JED editor and Joe’s Own Editor, both of which have an emulation mode for Emacs. On the other hand, if you are looking for lightweight code editors check out Bluefish and Geany. They exist to fill the niche between text editors and full-fledged integrated development platforms.
