looking for a UTF-8 text editor

Question

I am looking for a (simple) text editor that can handle text in different encodings in the same document.

I need to develop some sites with mixed Japanese and English text and the editors I have now (on an English Windows system) are unable to display the Japanese text. Jedit files don't display the Japanese text I have inputted but when I look at the file in a browser it shows up correctly. Gvim shows all Japanese text in the editor as question marks and also in the browser. In Gvim inputting the kanji works (you input the pronounciation and then press space bar to get the kanji) but when you confirm the kanji you want it replaces that kanji with question marks. (1 question mark for every kanji).

Can someone recommend me a text editor to edit html and php files that is able to display utf-8 encoded text and also save as an utf-8 file ?

thank you.

After reading about emacs I installed it. see below.

Thanks everybody for the hints. if you don't have a unicode font yet you have to find one online or buy one. here are the instructions to install the font on a windows system http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314960

jEdit I changed my font in Jedit to a UTF font and now the Japanese shows up normally. inputting the Japanese is still problematic as you don't see what you are typing. (to change your font to edit files go to Utilities -> Global Options -> text area select a Unicode font and you'll be able to see the Japanese characters.

gVim I am still trying to figure out how to add a font in gvim. Once I know how to do that I ll update this.

Emacs Emacs does not show the kanji correctly, they are displayed as ??? but at least I can see what I type in Japanese and select the right word.

so at this point I have to say that in jEdit I can see Japanese text but I can't input Japanese text. Gvim I can input Japanese text but inside the text area it is displayed as ??? and the same goes for Emacs. adding a font in emacs and gvim is sadly enough not a trivial task. At the moment I use notepad with the Arial unicode MS font and saving as UTF-8 file as my Japanese editor. Not ideal but at least it works.

Answer 1

Vim works fine for me as a UTF-8 text editor.

Firstly, you need a font that has the characters you are using. Choosing another text editor won't help you with this (unless it searches for other fonts for the correct characters when the font you are using doesn't have them). If you are using gVim, you can set the font like:

set guifont=Consolas

(This is not to say that Consolas is the font you want.) You probably want to put this in the .vimrc file so that it is always used.

Secondly, Vim needs to interpret the file as UTF-8, which it doesn't always automatically do. To make it do this, do:

set encoding=utf8

You can also see what encoding it is using with:

set encoding?

Answer 2

Try SciTE http://gisdeveloper.tripod.com/scite.html. It's just great ;)

Answer 3

Try EditPlus. It has specific support for HTML, syntax highlighting and can also work as a simple IDE for any compiler.

Answer 4

EditPad Pro ... is recommended for u

cheers ;)

Answer 5

I like jEdit for it's ability to ident wrapped lines. Really nice when editing XML files. A word of warning though: It's Java, so it's not light fast, like you would expect a text editor to be.

Text codecs are fully supported. It distinguishes between text files with and without the header identifying the file format (byte order mark), calling them UTF-8 and UTF-8Y. This is something that I'm missing in other text editors.