Textadept

The first and main thing you need to know about Textadept is that it isn’t meant for regular computer users. What we have here is a fast, minimalist and extensible text editor that’s meant to be used by programmers. Even changing the built-in GUI theme requires a bit of coding, so Textadept is definitely not something for regular computer users.

One of Textadept’s many selling points is that it is a cross-platform application. This of course means that it is available for multiple operating systems: Windows, Mac, Linux and BSD. Textadept is also available as a terminal version, something that will come in handy if you have to work on remote machines.

If you’re the kind of person who doesn’t like cluttered interfaces, you’re in for a treat. Textadept has a tabbed interface that’s best described with three words: sleek, simple, minimalist. As mentioned above, themes are available for the interface. The three built-in themes are: light, dark, and terminal. Instructions on how to switch from one theme to another are available in this Textadept Manual.

There’s lots to like about Textadept, from a functionality point of view of course. This text editor’s list of features gone on, and on, and on. Here are some highlights: it’s fast without needing much RAM and CPU, offers code autocompletion and syntax highlighting, understands the syntax and structure of more than 100 different programming languages, recognizes hundreds of file types, doesn’t need to be installed, runs on multiple operating systems, and more.

Textadept is free software. If you like it and would like to support its development, you could make a donation or purchase the Quick Reference eBook.

Textadept ticks all the boxes: it is very fast, it has a minimalist interface that helps you focus on your work, and it comes with tons of features that programmers will appreciate. And it’s free too!