- An editor that can show different line-endings (cr/lf) and it must be possible to between them (nice to have - switching that independently for each open file).
- Text search per file, per project and per solution.
Nice to have:
- Correct syntax highlighting
- Find definitions/declarations in c++ code correctly
- Free software
- Cross platform support
- Support for different compilers
- Show potential compile errors already on typing (in VS since 2010 I think, that feature alone made me use VS again more regularly)
- Debugger with the features of VS (fast, most useful data shown automatically or with mouse-over, easy to edit values, easy to copy&paste parameters + values + stack, easy to add watches with right-click, remembers breakpoints&watches&active windows between debug sessions, comfortable conditional breakpoints and watches)
- Nice support for disassembler (stuff like showing c++ and it's asm code mixed)
- Locking window layouts (missing that in VS where I mess up my layout by dragging windows accidentally all the time)
- Configuration files that don't cause troubles when working in teams (troubles I've seen with IDE's in the past had been user-specific settings being in project-files and path-settings not written in a OS independent way so each time someone checked in from another all paths got changed again)
- Allow putting project files in any place independent of where the sources are (seen that one several times - IDE's that insisted of placing their project files in the root of the project)
- Plugin-support