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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