I’m not a programmer but like a lot of people, I prefer to work in text editors, rather than word processors.
Finding a good text editor is kind of a big deal.
Basically, I want something responsive, semi-decent looking, and with a persistent spell check.
When in Windows, I use Notepad++, which isn’t ideal (you have to actively run the spell check), but is good enough most of the time.
Within Linux, I bounce between Scribes and gedit.
In earlier Ubuntu iterations, gedit seemed to get hung up on long URLs, which is annoying if you’re a blogger. That’s how I discovered Scribes, which is flexible and responsive.
As I upgraded Ubuntu distros, though, gedit seemed to get better.
When I switched to Xubuntu, I was hoping Mouspad, the native Xubuntu text editor, would prove to be eye-opening for me. Unfortunately, it’s just a plain text editor lacking customization and spell-checking.
So right now I’m back with gedit, even though it’s not Xfce native.
It runs just fine, though, so I guess I can’t complain, even though, obviously, it involves downloading some GNOME dependencies.
It would be great if Xfce had its own native version of something like gedit or Scribes, though. This way, people could work with a strong, versatile text editor right out of the box.
Most people just want a text editor to do very basic things, but there’s a growing segment of people who need something more robust out of their text editor. It would be nice for Xfce to have its own take on that text editor.
NOTE: I’m aware of Emacs and vi. Both are too complex for me. I spent about a year working with vim and GVim and at no time was I comfortable using either. I also failed at Emacs.
