BlueFish is a free and open source text editor supporting a wide range of languages, multiple document interface, powerful search tools, in-line checking and auto-recovery, and other features.
N/A
UltraEdit
Score 9.6 out of 10
N/A
UltraEdit is a text editor from IDM Computer Solutions headquartered in Hamilton.
BlueFish is a good basic HTML and text editor that is easy for all to use. If I need someone to grab a friendly editor, then BlueFish is the way to go. If you need an editor to fix a bunch of pages then this editor has a lot of functions that are not found it other editors. Stuff like HTML Tidy or functions that strip extra lines out.
UltraEdit is well suited for editing very large files. The macro editor is very powerful and easy to use. If one needs a quick-to-open text file editor, you will find UltraEdit much too slow to load. Compared to some free editors on the market, the basic individual user license is quite expensive.
Easily found and downloaded. If I need someone to go to the web and grab it I can tell them the URL. It is easily installed and one can be edited in minutes.
BlueFish is easy to use. It can have a non-technical user use it to edit config files or text documents and not have them frustrated. It has a friendly straight forward user interface.
BlueFish does a really good job editing HTML documents specifically. Probably one of the best HTML editors left out there.
There are WYSIWYG Open alternatives, some of which work perfectly as an Open version of Dreamweaver, but the only suggestion I would have is that Bluefish add a WYSIWYG tab, e.g. code/visual.
The color coding capacity is rudimentary and keyword based only. A good color coding mechanism should allow context.
With the latest versions, the top menu has a lot of big icons and has a user-friendly kind of look which impacts the actual text window. Most users don't fancy pretty icons and like efficiency over pretty buttons.
As a program UltraEdit comes ready to use out of the box and requires very little setup for it to be extremely useful. It's flexibility among a wide array of tasks and files makes it a go-to for all our troubleshooting and data viewing needs. Timely updates and great support.
As with most GNU GPL products support is top-notch. Documentation is fantastic, all functions are documented. Also, this product has been around for more than a decade so there is lots of stuff on how to do this or that with this tool. The only thing holding you back from support is your own drive to find a solution. RTFM, my friend.
Compare it to what I'd call its WYSIWYG editor, BlueGriffon. Again, the two are fundamentally different solutions. Use them together. Don't waste your money on Adobe or any other proprietary alternative.
I have evaluated Notepad++ as an alternative to UltraEdit. In some cases, such as loading time, Notepad++ is a superior product. However, in terms of editing existing macros, and editing very large text files UltraEdit is a much better product.