Confused looking for an editor? Here are the reasons for choosing Notepad++

notepad++ interface view

There are various web design software that you can use, such as Dreamweaver, Bluefish, Eclipse, CoffeeCup Free HTML Editor, but I prefer to use Notepad++ because of the various advantages that are very useful for web developers. Here’s a list of the advantages of the Notepad++ editor

1. Simple, fast and light/lightweight compared to other web tools such as Dreamweaver and Eclipse which require a fairly heavy loading time, especially for computers with simple specs.

2. Bracket Matching, used to display pairs for coding syntax, this function is very useful for programmers when reading coding because coding sometimes branches and we need to know when the syntax block starts and where it ends.

notepad++ bracket matching

3. Syntax Highlighting, is used to display colors in coding so that it is easier to read programming language commands.

notepad++ syntax highlighting

4. Syntax Folding, is used to hide certain coding blocks so that it will summarize the appearance of coding and programmers don’t need to see the coding as a whole, just the blocks needed.

notepad++ syntax folding

5. AutoComplete, is used to make it easier for programmers to write programming language commands.

notepad++ autocomplete

6. Function List, used to display a list of functions in a file, making it easier to search for certain functions

notepad++ function list

Here’s a list of very useful plugins:

1. Snippets, are used to store certain important functions so that there is no need to look for them again when needed, of course as programmers it is impossible for us to remember all these functions.

notepad++ snippets

2. Quick Color Picker++, is used to facilitate the selection of colors in the color code.

notepad++ quick color picker++

3. FingerText, is used to facilitate typing coding by registering certain words as triggers and replacing them with certain commands by pressing the Tab key. For example the word g will be replaced with $_GET. As a programmer who often struggles with coding, in making the web we often find commands that we often use, with FingerText typing coding syntax becomes very easy. Here’s an example of FingerText config replacing g with $_GET.

notepad++ fingertext

4. Tidy2, is used to make messy HTML coding neat. Sometimes we will encounter HTML commands that are messy and will take time to fix in order to make it easier to read HTML commands, so to speed things up we can use Tidy2.

5. LightExplorer, used to display folders and files just like Windows Explorer.

notepad++ lightexplorer

6. Zen Coding – Python, is used to facilitate typing commands / HTML syntax.

Example we want to make an order

zen-coding-notepad++ html

then we simply type the following command and end with the CTRL + SHIFT + ENTER

div#specs>p.intro+div>ul>li*5>a.item-price