Ask HN: Can you recommend me a fast, light text editor for Windows? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Can you recommend me a fast, light text editor for Windows?

72 pointssupersparrow172 comments

What do you guys use when you want to quickly open a file? I used to use VS Code for this purpose, but it's becoming more and more like an IDE and doesn't quite have the startup time that I would want anymore. Plus, it's a bit annoying when I already have a project open as it'll open as a tab and look as if it's part of that project if that makes sense.

Notepad almost fits my spec (startup time, simple, quick UI), but it doesn't have syntax highlighting or anything useful for text manipulation/navigation/etc.

I could never get along with Notepad++ - it's hard to explain why, because I can see it's a fantastic editor and is very popular, but it just doesn't fit into the way I work I suppose.

I think the main key points for me are startup time and syntax highlighting.

Thank you!

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Sublime Text (https://www.sublimetext.com/) is fantastic. Startup time is instant. RAM usage is low. It'll do syntax highlighting out of the box. And with a few extensions (optional) it'll do almost everything that VS Code does (sublime-lsp is key for IDE-like functionality). It's also great for large files so long as they'll fit in RAM.

Bonus: it works cross platform (windows/mac/linux).

+1 for Sublime.

I have yet to find it's max file size limit. It can seemingly open up literally anything with no perf impact.

I tried to open a 90GB file once (on a system with 16GB RAM), which it didn't like very much. It didn't actually crash, I just gave up on it before it completed loading the file (I suspect it may actually have worked eventually, utilising swap - but I imagine it would have been unusably slow). I think for such large files you really need an editor that doesn't buffer the entire file into RAM and loads chunks in from disk on demand.

That said, if your file is more reasonably sized (I've opened 7GB files no problem) then the performance and feature set you get is impressive. You can get instant scrolling to anywhere in the file, full syntax highlighting, find and replace, multiple cursors, etc all with reasonable performance. I find it does lag a little when making edits - especially with multiple cursors - but it's still quite usable.

> I think for such large files you really need an editor that doesn't buffer the entire file into RAM and loads chunks in from disk on demand.

That's what mmap does: maps the entire file into the address space of the process while letting the kernel load the pages as they are touched. I assume that would improve performance significantly but I'm not sure if anyone's tried it.

That would be read-only though, so not an ideal solution for Sublime. Although one could mmap and then reference the original from a structure describing how the file was modified.

However mmaping files which can be modified by another process concurrently is tricky. You can just get killed by SIGBUS.

>> I think for such large files you really need an editor that doesn't buffer the entire file into RAM and loads chunks in from disk on demand

It seems that vim could work this way as you are always dealing with a small section of text at a time. However, this seems not to be how it works.

Note: Sublime Text is proprietary software.

Indeed it is (and it's good that you mentioned this). I should note that the pricing and license terms are very reasonable:

- $99 (USD) for a perpetual licence for the current version at the time of purchase + 3 years worth of updates.

- Per-user rather than per-machine, so you can install it on multiple machines with a single licence.

Adding to this, while the software is proprietary the community mods/plugins/packages ecosystem is very healthy and easy to use. https://packagecontrol.io/

i wouldn’t call it healthy. the packages ecosystem is slowly dying and absolutely full of outdated, abandoned projects.

It's not at its peak for sure, perhaps aging, but still healthy enough to take a jog around the block.

SublimeLinter was modified 2 weeks ago, Side Bar Enhancements 1 month ago, Bracket Highlighter 2 weeks ago, etc.

Sorting by last modified on https://packagecontrol.io/browse/updated, you need to go to page 20 to find the ones updated more than one year ago.

Sublime Text may be downloaded and evaluated for free, however a license must be purchased for continued use.

For USD 99 you get three years of support for an individual license.

It's free though

When you try saving a file randomly you get pop ups telling you that you need a license. Eventually it gets so irritating you give up on sublime text entirely.

or, you know, pay for the great software you use?

I just got a license because it improved my life tremendously, but I can see that 70$ is a hefty price for individuals.

+1 for Sublime Text. Additional lesser known capability - it is possibly the best editor for gigantic text files. I have used it to open and edit files with 5.5 million lines, and it was reasonably fast. Afaik not many editors can even open very big files.

This is my use case for Sublime Text, if I get stuck with a massive file I go straight to Sublime.

but why is it your backup option? Any reason you don't use it as a first option?

Sublime Text has a small, maybe old, number of plug-ins.

This is my goto as well. There are other Windows-exclusive options but it being cross platform makes it a no-brainer for those bouncing between OSes, since things like configs and plugins can be easily shared between machines.

It also eschews Windows’ notoriously dodgy text rendering in favor of its own which means that it doesn’t share text rendering quirks with e.g. Visual Studio (the full fat IDE, not the electron thing). When doing C# work I wish I could transplant Sublime’s editor view into Visual Studio because it’s just so much better.

Gotta throw my vote in for this, too. I have been a paying user since the first version, after leaving Textmate. I daily drive VS Code now for the remote experience, but Sublime blows it away in performance. Even on the nicest hardware imaginable there is noticeable input latency on virtually all tasks in vscode.

+1. Great, solid editor, and the extension ecosystem is great, plugins for pretty much anything you'd need.

Just tried to load an .EXE and it only seemed to list as binary when loaded, that's OK but is there a 'load as text' option? Forcing text mode is sometimes useful when recovering damage files (loading a PDF seems to work as text). Sorry if I've overlooked something major.

File > Reopen with Encoding > UTF-8 (or pick your encoding of choice)

OK thanks, thought it'd be in the View menu or such. Seems a little odd that it's so obscure.

You'd usually look up stuff like that with a shot in the dark into the fuzzy-searching command bar, I believe it's available with ctrl+shift+p? It's been a while since I've used sublime.

Thanks, will try it.

Just tried it - as advertised! Much more responsive than VsCode. Replacing it for editing one-off files.

Now, we need a project-editing IDE like JetBrains with better responsiveness.

Showing an OOM lower RAM and CPU use in the Task Manager.

Vim has been already mentioned several times (in terminal context), but if you want you can use GVim (https://www.vim.org/download.php#pc).

IIRC, by default, you'll get behavior similar to Notepad (so, things like ctrl+c/v will work, you don't need to learn Vim stuff). At least that was the case when I tried a few years back. If not, you can explicitly use easy mode to get this behavior. But of course, I'd suggest to learn Vim to get the best out of this editor :)

+1 for gVim on Windows. I'm a long time terminal vim user on Linux but I've found gVim to be a good fit for developing on Windows.

I would recommend hooking your compiler output up to the quickfix window so you can hop around to error messages. Other than that the stock setup will probably be a good base to go from.

I've used a tiny subset of vim for about 20 years that sits just above plain vi. It has been a very comfortable place to be. And it works well on Windows with gVim as mentioned.

Suggest installing git for windows (since you are probably already using git anyway), and then create a bash profile in Windows Terminal. Then you can just use vim in the terminal like Linux/macOS. I personally dislike opening a UI when I am doing stuff in the terminal. As a plus, it looks great.

+1 for GVim. Every time I'm forced to work on Windows OS, I first install GVim.

My google-fu can be quite bad, but so far I don't know way to search in Vim with fixed strings, not with regex - quite often I do want just to copypaste some string and not to bother on escaping dots or any other chars. Dumb simple search like Notepad do. Do you know the trick?

Take a look at ‘nomagic’ or \V.

From what I read before, it still has special meaning for backslash

> Use of "\V" means that in the pattern after it only the backslash has a special meaning. "very nomagic"

which is not "put whatever is in your clipboard and it will have no interpolation" thing from my PoV

For a big file GVim is the only way for me! Everything else crashes.

I've been using Notepad++ for text editing for the past 10 years. It is simple, lightfast and simple. I recommend you give it a try and see if it works out for you.

Came here to say this. NP++ is fast, simple, and works.

OP says they can’t deal with it but I don’t understand the reasoning. Possibly startup time but you only do that once per boot up? I don’t get it really.

N++ is not super fast to start, but I generally open it once and leave it on. And I guess you can reduce start time by disabling some stuff, just like any other editors.

If startup time is his main concern, then a copy of the ancient TextPad might better suit his needs.

I like it better than Sublime - it's much lighter. I write scripts in .Notepad++, as well as use it just like Notepad, which I don't like.

Notepad++ is extremely light, but has some basic code highlighting, refactor shortcuts, etc.

It really works well with Windows.

For example, if windows update decides to reboot your machine your unsaved files will NOT be lost.

On Linux there are a few notepad++ workalikes. However for that particular feature I found the mousepad text editor to be the best.

I use neovim. The plugin system has really grown.

* I use Packer for plug-in managment: https://github.com/wbthomason/packer.nvim

* I use Mason to install LSPs, linters and formatters: https://github.com/williamboman/mason.nvim

* I use nvim-treesitter for better highlighting: https://github.com/nvim-treesitter/nvim-treesitter

Windows version comes with a QT GUI build too (nvim-qt)

I use Notepad++. It is pre installed on all systems at the workplace.

If you do not like it, there is http://www.pspad.com/en/

Unfortunately I am not sure if it is still in development.

Any discussion about editors on windows is incomplete without https://www.ultraedit.com/

No affiliation with the mentioned products.

Sublime Text. Hands down.

https://www.sublimetext.com

- Instant startup.

- Very fast.

- Well-built software.

- Handles everything I throw at it; a lot of which would render other editors unresponsive.

- Great plug-ins.

I've used Sublime Text and have been recommending it to others since the first version. I still recommend it above all other text editors; especially for folks working on a Windows machine.

If you want GUI and a working and extensive syntax highlighting, your options boil down to Scintilla-based editors, which means Notepad++, Geany[0], TextAdept[1] or Notepad3[2].

There's also lite-xl[3] and CudaText[4], which are not based on Scintilla. Lapce[5] also looks promising, although it's slightly stretching the "light" condition.

For years, AkelPad[6] was considered to be the best substitute for the bundled Notepad, but it hasn't been updated in a while, although it still works absolutely fine in that role.

For the console, Helix[7], Micro[8], Moe[9] are all possible options which will work in cmd.exe out-of-the box.

Regarding vim/nvim - I had some issues with plugin-heavy configs running on top of Cygwin, but YMMV.

0. https://www.geany.org/download/releases

1. https://github.com/orbitalquark/textadept/releases

2. https://github.com/rizonesoft/Notepad3

3. https://github.com/lite-xl/lite-xl/releases

4. https://cudatext.github.io/download.html

5. https://github.com/lapce/lapce/releases

6. https://akelpad.sourceforge.net/en/download.php

7. https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/releases

8. https://github.com/zyedidia/micro

9. https://github.com/fox0430/moe/releases

You don't need cygwin or msys to use [neo]vim.

Vim is actually quite pleasant to use standalone until you reach for a shell and find cmd instead of bash - at which point cygwin/msys/etc. find their usefulness.

+1 for Geany; I don't think it gets as much attention as it deserves.

Notepad3. Looks and behaves like Windows notepad but with syntax highlighting, regex search, optional dark theme, lightweight native-built code that launches instantly, and all the other modern features you expect.

https://www.rizonesoft.com/downloads/notepad3/

I now run entirely on Linux. But before that I used Notepad++ for 12 years and finally switched to "Notepad3" 2-3 years ago. If you use an IDE for heavier tasks, "Notepad3" is excellent, much faster and cleaner than Notepad++ and other Windows editors.

Presumably it's called Notepad3 because Notepad2 was taken?

I haven't tried Notepad3, but I've used Notepad2 for years and preferred it to Notepad++. Great little editor. Bonus: no installation needed (useful if you don't have admin privileges on the machine).

https://www.flos-freeware.ch/notepad2.html

(Last updated 2012, but don't let that put you off. Solid little editor.)

Maybe I'm too old school but notepad2 gives me better experience than notepad3.

Notepad2-mod [0]:

Features:

- Code folding

- Support for bookmarks

- Option to mark all occurrences of a word

- Word auto-completion

- Syntax highlighting support for AutoHotkey, AutoIt3, AviSynth, Bash, CMake, Inno Setup, LaTeX, Lua, Markdown, NSIS, Ruby, Tcl and YAML scripts

- Improved support for NFO ANSI art

- Support for replacing Windows Notepad using a clean, unintrusive registry-based method

- Other various minor changes and tweaks

Bonus feature for myself: I can install it on any Windows computer and most non-tech users will not know the difference, but when I have to help them solve system problems, I get all those features!!

[0]: https://xhmikosr.github.io/notepad2-mod/

I used to use VS Code for this purpose, but it's becoming more and more like an IDE and doesn't quite have the startup time that I would want anymore.

VS Code on my Mac starts in about 2s, and that's with half a dozen plugins and a couple of language servers. That could be quicker but finding a new editor seems like overkill if it's similar for you. I suspect the startup time could be optimized if you really wanted Moar Speeds.

Plus, it's a bit annoying when I already have a project open as it'll open as a tab and look as if it's part of that project if that makes sense.

There's a setting called "Open Files In New Window" that's defaulted to Off that might solve this.

Additionally, length of buffer scrollbacks, maximum file size, especially update check sequencing can, eyeballing it -- quadruple startup time.

There's a huge difference between 2 seconds (even 1 second) and practically instantaneous. It changes everything.

Also worth mentioning: I for one am using a pretty slow computer, and VS Code is unusable. Like most editors and IDEs. But stuff like sublime, vim, NP++, etc. are a pleasure to use.

I used to use Notepad2, which is a bit like Notepad++ but I liked the interface better. It is no longer developed but there seem to be a couple of forks.

https://www.flos-freeware.ch/notepad2.html

https://www.reddit.com/r/software/comments/nxpmis/notepad3_v...

I've used SciTE for years. I originally came across it looking for a lightweight, cross-platform editor that had a small footprint, regex replace, and find in files capabilities.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SciTE

EDIT: just noticed you mention syntax highlight. No love there, sorry.

SciTE [0] does have good syntax highlighting for many languages.

It does struggle with very large files, though.

[0] (better link) https://www.scintilla.org/SciTEDownload.html

You are 100% correct. My mistake. I was thinking of something else for some reason. That's what I get for trying to socialize before I've finished my morning coffee.

I’m surprised no one has mentioned EditPad Pro:

https://www.editpadpro.com/

It’s old (and old fashioned) but still updated, very fast, and designed for convenience. It has syntax highlighting.

VS Code has long since replaced it for me, but if I were looking for something faster to go with VS Code in Windows, I’d put it on the list.

I've never used the Pro version, but I have used Edit Pad Lite. It ended up being one of the only editors that didn't crash when attempting to open a 500MB file.

Agreed, thanks for posting so I didn't have to.

Feels like a one-man show/passion project, which I enjoy.

I'm a long time user of EditPad Pro. I use Sublime Text and VS Code as well, but one thing I find EditPad Pro particularly good for is modifying the syntax highlighting schemes, or writing my own, which seems to be a more involved process in other editors.

Search/Replace feature is really dockable, fast, powerful and well done in this editor. Creating/modifying syntax highlighting is easy and you can share them. Encoding detection and support is very good. Adding tools you call from it or where you pipe content is a brease. Definitely my favorite editor.

> ...Notepad almost fits my spec (startup time, simple, quick UI), but it doesn't have syntax highlighting or anything useful for text manipulation/navigation/etc.

There is Notepad2 (or rather Notepad2-mod). It supports syntax highlighting, it's based on Scintilla. Has most of the basic features needed for code editing, except perhaps for rectangular select, which is not often needed in routine code editing. It's very much a standalone exe with a config file, no plugins.

https://www.emeditor.com/ is fast and versatile but looks a tad outdated with many modal dialogs etc.

It's outrageously fast at opening multi-gigabyte-sized files.

This has been my go-to editor on Windows for the past 20+ years. https://www.contexteditor.org/

You can also make your own pretty easily using lazarus/fpc and the free synedit component.

I use Emacs now but I used Textpad (https://www.textpad.com/home) for a long time. It's a very light editor with syntax highlighting and large file handling.

Textpad is good for large files but that is the only thing I use it for (F5 to search - are you kidding me). Also, I don't think it is free.

If you are familiar with vim[1] and like the command line, you could try either vim for windows or eventually helix[2]. There also is emacs[3]

If you prefer GUI, I think Notepad++[4] is the best editor you can get, but there is also Sublime[5] (like already mentioned), Visual Studio Code[6]. Some people like jEdit[7], but that's not my personal favourite.

[1]: https://www.vim.org/download.php

[2]: https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/releases

[3]: https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/

[4]: https://notepad-plus-plus.org/downloads/

[5]: https://www.sublimetext.com/

[6]: https://code.visualstudio.com/

[7]: http://www.jedit.org/

Notepads for a UWP/"modern" look - https://www.notepadsapp.com/

Notepad2 - Old, not developed anymore. But is a standalone exe and super fast. - https://www.flos-freeware.ch/notepad2.html

+1 for Notepad2. Super fast. Has MVP set of features. Can hook Notepad so it replaces it completely.

I have a bookmark done with below text. I use it more like whiteboard in Zoom calls than a note-taker. But it's fast and clean.

data:text/html, <html contenteditable>

EditPlus. Been using it for almost 20 years now. Hands down the best software for text editing I have ever used. It's lighter than Notepad++. Editplus along with Faststine viewer is the reason I am not moving to Mac as my primary OS.

I'm guessing you mean the FastStone image viewer - I love it too. I hadn't heard of EditPlus before, but I should look into it. (I've been using the free EditPad Lite for the past 15-20 years for quick editing and, for more lengthy work, MicroEMACS under Cygwin or less frequently JASSPA MicroEMACS in Windows proper.)

I would recommend looking at the Fast Colored Text Box ( https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/161871/Fast-Colored-Tex... ) It is a .net control that has built in syntax coloring. Some of the sample code are full fledged editors.

If you are doing html and occasionally for other purposes foxe html editor is highly underrated. http://www.firstobject.com/dn_editor.htm

Here are a few lesser known editors/IDEs.

SciTE: https://www.scintilla.org/SciTE.html

Kate: https://kate-editor.org/

Geany: https://www.geany.org/

Last one comes from my OS/2 memories, it has been ported to Windows and runs fine also on WINE.

MED: http://www.utopia-planitia.de/indexus.html

If we're looking at obscure, then I think cudatext https://cudatext.github.io/ deserves a mention.

Agreed, Kate and Geany are the ones that came to my mind. They are fast and full featured.

Wow, lots of responses, thank you everyone! I will have a look through this rather extensive list of options :D

I've been migrating my jEdit install for more than a decade now.. it's Java but the load time isn't terrible, I have a habit of leaving a window open anyway. It's rectangular editing mode is very useful, it has plugins, e.g. to diff 2 files, HyperSearch is like grep, you can even copy the list of search hits into the clipboard.

Maybe N++ has all these features, I use it too but haven't learned how to diff or do rectangular selection/editing.

Notepad2.exe. Easy installation. Download the .zip file which contains the .exe and .ini file. You might have to spend a little bit of time telling Windows to open .txt, .html, etc. files with Notepad2 rather than Notepad, but other than that, it just works. https://www.flos-freeware.ch/notepad2.html

Ultraedit32

Fast. Simple. Can also be a hex editor. Can open multi-GB files with no issues.

Sublime Text still rocks.

saw https://github.com/lite-xl/lite-xl a few days ago posted.

Seems pretty fast, and has some plugins that might also add additional functionality. seems great for the occasional file edit without the vscode startup times.

Multiple editors, depending on what I want to do:

- VSCode: JavaScript/Python dev - Notepad++: Fast copy/paste, JSON formatting, document viewing, or converting from a rich-text format to plain text for pasting in a web comment. Because it also saves tabs, it's helpful for temporary sticky note type text. I rarely ever code here. - textEdit: On Mac because it's easier to type here and then paste into HN comment. - Visual Studio: C# development

Use the venerable GNU Nano editor on the terminal.

You can get it easily via gitbash (https://gitforwindows.org), or WSL, or cygwin or ... dunno.

You can also try compiling it for windows directly. Nano provides some Win32-specific stuff on its website (https://www.nano-editor.org/dist/win32-support/), but I haven't tried them, since nano through gitbash worked fine whenever I've needed it.

I'm just using vim any time, works on any kind of machine, all configuration is just single copy-pasted file and everything works the same. Startup time is better than instant, also it is only around 20MB. Syntax highlighting and all cool features out of the box. Intellisense, LSP easy installable and work much faster than VSCode. Yeah the controls are a bit confusing at start, but interactive tutorial is perfect and you learn all basic features in 20 minutes

Bonus: opens 16.84 GiB files and processes billiards of lines in a matter of seconds

Notepad++ is too heavy for you? Try textpad :)

https://www.textpad.com/home

Used it alot at uni, it's notepad with tabs and syntax highlighting.

I use Notepad2. It’s a reasonably powerful editor like Notepad++ (in fact it uses the same text editing library), but all the extra features can be hidden or disabled until it looks just like stock Notepad.

I like SciTE (it's not as popular as Notepad++)-- https://www.scintilla.org/SciTE.html

Big fan of https://github.com/lite-xl/lite-xl

Ticks all boxes: Small, Fast & Light.

Back when I was stuck with Windows (and also not the biggest fan of Notepad++) I used Gedit2 which I carried over when I started using Linux. It had syntax highlighting, plugins, a file browser. It was great!

There was some version where they absolutely neutered it (I think it was Gedit3) and I haven't looked at it since but maybe they've re-added the lost functionality (though I doubt it.)

Lapce. It's still early days but if you're looking for basic editing with syntax highlighting it's already there and is very fast.

I use Notepad++, but looks like you've tried.

For ornery files (usually 50+ MB XMLs), I've used an editor in WSL (like nano). Is WSL an option for you?

no need for WSL. you can use nano directly, or through stuff like gitbash.

I haven't used it, but I've heard 4coder [0] is very good.

Edit: That points to the handmade network, where I first heard of 4Coder. The actual site is [1].

[0]: https://4coder.handmade.network/

[1]: https://4coder.itch.io/4coder

>I could never get along with Notepad++ - it's hard to explain why, because I can see it's a fantastic editor and is very popular, but it just doesn't fit into the way I work I suppose.

NPP is a very solid program once you get over a small learning curve. Try following along with a few YouTube videos on NPP before you dismiss it entirely.

I really like it too and I found the auto detection and highlight choices mostly great, and I’m a novice. Not exactly sure what they don’t like about it.

For me it is the tabbed interface. I want each file in its own window.

Notepad2 feels more like original Notepad beefed up, rather than a completely different application like Notepad++.

Oh don't get me wrong, I definitely haven't dismissed it and it's had years of use of my 20+ year coding career, but it has never felt quite right for the way I work.

Download git for windows (https://gitforwindows.org) since you are probably using git anyway. Then create a profile in Windows Terminal for the included bash.This includes vim which works beautifully out of the box with Windows Terminal (syntax highlighting, etc).

I use geany on windows too. It has tabs, syntax highlight, can be configured to run/build/etc on keystrokes, (open new terminal or use the output window), handles projects, can search in multiple files, etc.

Although its text manipulation could be better, it doesn't have multiple cursors for example.

If notepad++ doesn't work for you then you probably aren't really looking for a fast, light, text editor. But you really need to explain how it didn't work. It has syntax highlighting, it is easy to use. I can't imagine how you don't get along with it.

I mostly use Notepad++ on Windows but on Linux I really like TextAdept - https://orbitalquark.github.io/textadept/ (it has a windows version but I never tried it)

gvim is plenty fast but i guess for the majority of people notepad++ is the recommendation to make

Notepad++ would fit the bill, if it didn't pester me with an update every time I start it.

I use neovim when I need to just quickly edit files and IntelliJ for my full ide on Windows.

Some weeks ago, there was a post here about CUDAText. It is a fairly light weight editor.

Back in my windows days, I used Metapad for this(https://liquidninja.com/metapad/). I even changed the notepad.exe file to metapad.

I have the same feeling about Notepad++ (in part because it is Windows-only), and for years I have been using SciTE which I found to be no-nonsense editor that does everything I need an editor to do (and just a bit more).

Sublime Text is still my goto for large files and as a scratch-pad type text editor

Yeah, one "killer" feature of Sublime Text is that you don't have to save files - it will restore even unsaved buffers when you restart it. Not sure if other editors have copied this feature like they did with others (goto anything, command palette, minimap, ...)

I actually VS Code as my "general text editor", but not IDE which is relegated to VS still. Notepad++ is what I use for anything big enough for Code to croak on, which is not very big, tens of MB or so and more.

vim / Windows Terminal is what you want.

Vim and Sublime Text

Vim because it’s already on almost every Linux ditro, and if it’s not, it’s extremely easy to install.

And Sublime if I have a GUI and really need to write out a long script that’ll take me longer than a week.

Helix editor: A post-modern text editor.

https://helix-editor.com/

It looks great with an interesting UI and a powerful use of terminal.

I usually use vim on windows but if that is a hassle, there is KDE Kate. That is a very good editor. Definitely one of the best editors if you do not care about plugins that much.

Keep using VS Code, make files open in their own window via setting. Why would you not have VS Code open at all times anyway? (As you might with an emacs server).

SciTE, Textadept, Programmer's Notepad.

I keep text editor always open (for note taking), so maybe that's why it opens files faster than with a cold start.

Url for Textadept: https://orbitalquark.github.io/textadept/

It's a cross-platform, open source editor written and configurable in Lua.

GVim. Pops open in half a second flat, almost without fail.

https://neovide.dev is great and super fast. It's a wrapper for neovim.

Before Sublime Text I did use - PSPad http://www.pspad.com/en/

I've used EditPdPro forever, there is a free light version.

https://www.editpadpro.com

TED Notepad and Notepad2 (which has a number of more featureful forks) are two other Notepad-like options that aren't Notepad++.

Have you tried disabling extensions in VSC? It normally starts quickly so if you’re otherwise happy with it I would try that first.

Can you configure VSCode so that when opening folder/workspace, you have pre-configured extensions to enable? And default window could have none, yeah.

It bugs me that every extension I install is by default enabled and I have to disable them per project explicitly.

And I have same pity as op : vscode open is not instant AND it opens the file not in new vscode window, but some unrelated window which I used to open specific folder.

Otherwise VSCode is great.

Edit: Looks like ongoing effort is in progress to tackle extension problem: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/40239

Notepad++ for anything quick and relatively simple (though plugins extend it a lot). VSCode for any real code editing work.

I'm wondering if you could launch VSCode with flags like:

$ code --no-extensions --no-lang-server

And then alias that command to `litecode` or something

>> I could never get along with Notepad++ - it's hard to explain why

Many commenters: "use Notepad++" :)

Because it is awesome to be honest.

It is not an IDE. I would not write anything on it for coding purposes.

But config files, any reasonable sized text file. Notepad++ has you covered.

Don't try to create your own colour scheme or language tho. It is kind of a nightmare.

If someone has used something for a long time and still do not like it, it's unlikely that they will change their mind.

OP clearly doesn't know what he wants.

Agree, this is ASK HN after all. They do know what they don't want, however (Notepad++ or VS Code). So, we should stop telling them to use Notepad++ and/or VS Code.

Sublime maybe

Yes, or an open source alternative such as https://cudatext.github.io/

Hmmm, that one looks interesting! And written in Lazarus/Object Pascal, so cross-platform... Have to give it a try someday!

EditPad Pro. I also never got along with everyone's standard choice Notepad++

sublimetext3 is what I use

Notepad2. It’s Notepad with all the missing features.

Sublime Text

Atom if you need something free.

Brackets for HTML/CSS (also free).

emacs FTW.

I love Emacs, and I use it for everything, but it doesn't fit OP's use-case. Emacs startup on Linux is pretty fast these days, but it's painfully slow on Windows. Real Emacs users just never close it, but that's not how this guy wants to work.

Can you not run emacs as a user-level session service on windows like on standard linux, where the startup time cost only occurs once at session logon, and then all future emacs windows are just "clients", and start up near instantly?

Yes, but I inferred from the question that this is not the kind of thing OP wanted to do. That may be a mistaken assumption on my part. It's also not the clearly best path on Windows that it is on Linux. On Windows, for example, 'emacs --daemon' leaves a command window running rather than forking into the background, and a variety of other issues.

runemacs.exe starts up almost instantaneously for me on a 5-year-old Dell laptop and Win10. Maybe two seconds from typing em.bat myfile.java to seeing my file presented and ready to edit.

I usually install Emacs on whatever platform I'm given: Windows, Linux, Mac. It's the only editor that I can use consistently across systems. Usually I copy my .emacs file as well, to get all my preferred mappings etc.

Do you use many Emacs packages? My Emacs dashboard on Windows says "120 packages loaded in 22.7 seconds". On a ThinkPad X230 running Linux, the same config starts in around 2 seconds.

I will say that 'runemacs -Q' on a few-years-old Dell desktop does start in about 2 seconds.

just a few add-ons, mostly stock Emacs. 22.7 seconds sounds unusable, I will agree.

It's normally fine given I usually only start it once a week.

Exclude windows defender from scanning emacs install location.

My sporadic 1 minute 50 seconds startup time went to less than a second when I forbade Windows Defender to ever scan Emacs' installation folder for viruses.

Atom - https://atom.io

TextPad - https://textpad.com

Notepad++

Very fast, lightweight. Been using for 15+ years

Notepad.exe ;)

No one mentioned Light Table?

editplus.com

Finally somebody else who knows editplus! I used it a lot

Notepad ( from win 7).

Sublime text ofc

Try UltraEdit.

Sublime Text