text editor suggestion?

[Ben Finney]

John Salerno <johnjsal at NOSPAMgmail.com> writes:

> Here are my criteria:
> 
> 1. syntax highlighting (highly customizable)
> 2. auto/smart indenting
> 3. ability to run script
> 4. light-weight text editor, not an IDE
> 5. cross-platform (not really necessary, but nice)

The two big names in text editing, Vim and Emacs, will both meet these
criteria easily. They also have the advantage that you'll find one or
the other, or both, on just about any Unix system intended for use by
a programmer.

> I've tried vim, but I really don't feel like taking the time to learn 
> how to use it, given that I just like to casually program (not to 
> mention that I prefer to use the mouse when navigating a document 
> sometimes).

Both Vim and Emacs operate fine with the mouse, if asked to do so.

For Emacs, you simply run it in the context of an windowing
environment and it will use a bitmapped graphical window.

For Vim, you need to run 'gvim' to get the bitmapped window (later
versions may attempt to do this by default, I'm not sure).

There is also an enormous amount of support for both these editors,
for all manner of text editing tasks, available online. It's a good
idea to learn at least one of them very well, rather than learn a
bunch of less-popular editors for specific tasks.

-- 
 \        "I saw a sign: 'Rest Area 25 Miles'. That's pretty big. Some |
  `\                   people must be really tired."  -- Steven Wright |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney