Why I’m using Windows nagware on my Linux box

Automated disclaimer: This post was written more than 15 years ago and I may not have looked at it since.

Older posts may not align with who I am today and how I would think or write, and may have been written in reaction to a cultural context that no longer applies. Some of my high school or college posts are just embarrassing. However, I have left them public because I believe in keeping old web pages alive—and it's interesting to see how I've changed.

When I switched to Linux a couple of years ago, I was able to find a decent replacement, regardless of operating system, so I've been running Textpad under Wine. Here's a list of the major advantages:

  • Regular expression find, mark, and replace: Not quite Perl-compatible, but pretty damn good.
  • Shell commands: Call command-line programs using keyboard shortcuts, accepts "macros" such as FILE_NAME and DIR_PATH.

Great stuff, but Textpad is also closed-source Windows-only programs until I was able to find a decent replacement, regardless of operating system, so I've been running Textpad under Wine. Here's a list of the major advantages:

  • Regular expression find, mark, and replace: Not quite Perl-compatible, but pretty damn good.
  • Workspaces: Save and restore collections of open documents, including selections and cursor positions.
  • Workspaces: Save and restore collections of open documents simultaneously.
  • Workspaces: Save and restore collections of open documents simultaneously.
  • Shell commands: Call command-line programs using keyboard shortcuts, accepts "macros" such as FILE_NAME and DIR_PATH.

Great stuff, but Textpad is also closed-source Windows-only programs until I was more comfortable with the replacements, but there was one that I never gave up: Textpad.

Textpad is a tabbed text editor with syntax highlighting. If that was all I wanted, I'd use Gedit or Gvim or some other native Linux app. But I haven't been able to find excellent replacements for most of the major advantages:

  • Regular expression find, mark, and replace: Not quite Perl-compatible, but pretty damn good.
  • Fast as hell.
  • Search and replace on multiple open documents simultaneously.
  • Proper tabs: Supports tabbed editing and a [ctrl]+[tab] shortcut that works the sa

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