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[SOLVED] Time to replace Notepad, what is the best "Code-Viewing" software?


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Hello All,

 

I'm a designer who taught myself HTML/PHP/MySQL and some basic web developing. I'm slightly anal and always hated the way the WYSIWYG editors like Dreamweaver layed out the code. So, for years I've just used Notepad and "hand" coded everything.

 

However, the other day I was on a friend's Mac browsing the internet with either Safari or FireFox, and when I went to "View Source", instead of the bland .txt file I'm used to seeing in IE... I got a nice little color-coded display of the code. I do a lot of Flash/ActionScript work, and Flash does the same thing with the ActionScript... color-coding keywords, comments, strings, etc. which is infinitely helpful in proofing/troubleshooting. So, it occured to me that there HAS to be some "code-editing" (not sure of the proper term) software out there that I could use to edit my ".html" files instead of Notepad.

 

So, I wanted to get any suggestions on which software package(s) I should be seeking out?

 

1) The FREE-er the better

 

2) I work mostly with HTML/PHP/MySQL with a sprinkling of JavaScript; so it would be nice if the software was able to recognize a variety of programming languages in the same ".html" or ".php" file and color the code accordingly?

 

3) It would also be nice to do some simple testing of the ".php" file locally, like checking the code syntax to make sure I didn't forget a semi-colon or something.

 

Thanks!

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