I'm in a search for a good general/development editor. Until now, I've been switching from on editor to another but would love to choose one and stick with it, because:



  • Instead of being an average user on many editors, I would rather be a power user on one editor.

  • I'd love to be able to extends my editor myself and I would be harder if I use more than one editor.

  • Tip 22 of the Pragmatic Programmer's: 'Use a single editor well' and these guys are usually right.


The editor should have the following functionalities :

  • Multi-platform: Linux / Windows, don't care about Mac OS I don't plane to use it, ever (I need a computer and Apple don't do computers)

  • Groovy aware: I need to be able to edit and execute script from the editor (keyboard shortcut is needed).

  • Should be able to edit, validate and format big XML files.

  • Less mouse usage is needed the better.

  • I would prefer a FLOSS software but if a killer editor get out there and give me all I want and possibly more I would gladly pay for it (but I need to be able to run it on multiple computer, include my work computer, like a the MyEclipse license: you can install it on any computer but you can only use it on one computer at a time).



My background in terms of editors:



  • I'm a developer so I came across a bunch of editors in my life.

  • I'm a Linux user for 10 years or so, I'm pretty familiar with vim on the command line (used gentoo for a few years before switching to Ubuntu).

  • My IDE of choice is Eclipse (Mainly because I think the eclipse's editor is way better than Netbeans's or IDEA's).



Today there is only two contenders of sinarf's editor of choice :

jEdit



  • I've used jEdit (mainly on windows) for some time now and I love the plugins.

  • It seems to have all the plugins that I need and more...

  • It's written in Java so it shouldn't be difficult to extends if needed.

  • Still too mouse oriented. (for example I didn't find a way to execute the current script with superscript without clicking on a button. It seems that this functionality is not available in shortcut configuration windows). I open a forum thread  http://community.jedit.org/?q=node/view/4464



gVim



  • I've used a lot vim on the command line for editing configuration file and do a bit a bash scripting. But I don't get gvim, it has very weird reaction when using a mouse.

  • It would be so cool to be a vim master. I'd love to be one of the cool kids, using the real grown up editor not the editor for dummies that everybody can use. Vim definitely have the "cool" factor in it's favor.

  • I'm not very familiar with all the vim tweaking but I'm convince that with a bit of work I can do exactly what I want with it.

  • Vim seems to be the best editor in terms of productivity but how many human been can master the tool in order to achieve this productivity? How long before I gonna be that productive? Will I ever achieve this goal?



For now, jEdit has a clear lead but doesn't using vim  would make me more special?

Any comment are welcome (even if you use a mac, I will assume that you don't know better).