Text Editor with Scripting…for Linux

Question

For a while now, I have been using UltraEdit on my Windows box. The ability to write scripts with a familiar language (JavaScript) has proved to be extremely useful. The only problem is that I cannot use it on my Linux box at work. Is there a comparable text editor that runs on Linux and has an integrated scripting engine?

Not breaking the bank and being cross-platform would be great.

EDIT:While recordable macros are great, I use the scripting engine much more.

Answer 1

If you don't need really complex scripting, vim/gvim allows you to record a keystroke sequence and play it back. And you can give a repeat count on the playback, so you can record an operation on one line, then repeat it for the next 10,000 lines in one step.

Answer 2

Vim is omnipresent and vimscript is really easy and text-editing oriented: http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/usr_41.html

That comes by default. You can also use Python, Ruby, Perl, Scheme... but that requires compiling.

Python might be a good choice, since omnicomplete requires it. I run a separate binary for omnicomplete anyway since I like the ultra-lean vim for other usage, check here: http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Compile_a_separate_copy_of_Vim_for_Python_coding

Honestly I haven't used python to script vim per se. I usually code, python or not, with vanilla vim and no auto-complete. I do however call python and any other command from vim to process my files line by line, might reply with more about that if you are interested, but that doesn't require to compile anything, works as is.

EDIT: if you want a point-and-click editor, you can run Cream on gVim http://cream.sourceforge.net/download.html I still think that vim takes little time to get used to and is VERY worth learning, more so considering you can use your basic vi knowledge to connect to a server via SSH no problem, and it's installed in any *nix. I like knowledge I can reuse, saves me time and trouble long term.