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Comment by choicenotchance | Hacker News Reader

Never heard of UltraEdit in 10yrs of my career, or came across it when searching for editors and IDEs.

That is what I wonder, UltraEdit is really nice.

I have no relation to them by the way, latest version that I own is 26 something. While the latest release is 28 something.

Maybe it is because 28 years ago, when it first released, internet was just starting.

Sublime is "only" 13 years old, so internet was already very much mainstream.

But it is really good. Very fast. I love the column mode.

If I search for UltraEdit in HN, the latest post if from 10 years ago, when they announced the Mac version:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2019148

Crazy.

That's incredible.

From the website it looks like a Windows-oriented tool. If it weren't for your product I wouldn't have even guessed they had a Mac version. I bet they'd do much better with adoption if they customized their homepage screenshots to the platform viewing the page…

For others curious about Column Mode, here's their link with a nice video: https://www.ultraedit.com/support/tutorials-power-tips/ultra...

Apparently in VS Code you can do similar things: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/editor/codebasics#_column...

    1. Hold ⇧⌥ and drag for box select.
    2. Press ⇧⌥⌘↓ for "column select down"
    3. Run "Toggle column selection mode" and ⇧↓.

(Still looks like UltraEdit has some very powerful features for manipulating text in columns, like aligning whitespace).

TIL. Looks great!

It could be because they started as a Windows only product, then they produced a Linux version, and finally the Mac version.

I have only used the Windows/Linux versions. By the way, with one license you can use all 3 platforms.

I actually use the Portable Windows version, for when the company I work for won't allow me to install software :)

Indeed, I purchased a perpetual Ultraedit license for Windows, Mac and Linux many years ago. I like the hex editing, huge file support, column editing.

In VSCode you can also middle-click (the scroll wheel on a mouse) and drag to do column select.

But what I lick of UE is that you can do everything with your keyboard, no need to use the mouse.

The same is true of the "column edit" functionality in VS Code. I don't think there's anything that requires the mouse, especially since from the keyboard you can invoke the command window to run any function.

But VS Code is what, 3 or 5 years old? When I was searching for a text editor, this was 20~25 years ago!

For sure. I was more pointing out a feature I find helpful (and one I didn't know about for a while) than trying to "convert" you. Use what works for you!

In Notepad++ you would just alt+drag, no need to enable a special mode. It looks pretty much exactly like what's in that video.

Or alt+shift+arrows if you don't want to use mouse.

I can answer from my experience.

I've learned about mac text editors from online ruby on rails tutorials. Both TextMate and SublimeText put me in awe, coming from windows based development they seemed much more polished. It was specifically marketed as distraction free and a lot of my university peers preferred them over whatever tutors were trying to push down our throats (mostly eclipse at that time).

I'd hazard a guess it's just marketing that makes the difference in popularity. I've seen both Sublime and TextMate being used a lot in talks. They tend to present very well in, ehrm, presentations. Try doing that with UltraEdit. Toolbars and other "cruft" get in the way

I used ultraedit like 15 years ago, but switched to notepad++. I think due to performance problems. I don't like sublime3, too much tinkering via a command line.

Yeah, notepad++. I also tried it. The price was better (free), but it lacked column mode, "reformat paragraph" (it basically takes separate lines and makes it into a paragraph), and trim trailing spaces, at least when I tested it, which I used a lot.

Column mode and trim spaces have existed in notepad++ for years, but may be a bit hard to find.

I just checked, and that may have improved: both are on the Edit menu, bottom half.

Yes, I couldn't find at the time how to use them. I am talking again probable 15 or 20 years ago, so it might have been version 0.1 of N++.

I remember using it in 1999 it was outstanding compared to what else was available on windows and I’m not a vim/emacs kinda person. Might give it another try

You've probably never needed to work with really large files or edit/examine a fie in HEX, it really shines for these use cases.

It's not really an IDE and I've never used it to write code.

UltraEdit was the best editor for Windows in the late 90s early 2000s. I remember asking my boss for it.

The niche it filled was surpassed by Notepad++ and other free tools.

Just wait until 2030+ and then you may be the metaphorical boomer sticking with software no one else has heard of!

I mean, Emacs is a bit like that. Newer text editors and Vim captured all of the younger generation. I haven't met anyone using Emacs as their daily driver, except professors.

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