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I always wonder why text editors keep appearing all the time, because I think the market is full already, but with every new program from this category that I discover, I get a different answer. Usually, I get answers that I don't expect, and it seems that today's text editor, called simply "E", is trying to redefine text editing for programmers.


Setup

E has just left the initial beta period and released the first public version was out. That happened about a month ago, and the current version of the program is 1.0.3. The setup package of the program has 4.5MB in size, and installing it is very easy, as I was expecting, but to take full advantage of the advanced features, you are also asked to install Cygwin. Of course that you can skip this step now and do it later, so it's your choice.

The full version of the program is priced at 34.95$, and the trial available for download on the official site is fully functional for 30 days. These being said, let's talk about E's interface...


Interface

When I fired up the program for the first time, I was simply shocked. E has one of the most space-effective interfaces I have ever seen, but that doesn't take away a single bit of its power, because you can add to the main window various panels, as you need them. Even better, these panels can be undocked and dragged wherever you want to place them on your desktop. This is not something new, of course, but I must confess I like it. Anyway, a toolbar would be nice to have, and I wasn't able to find it anywhere, but there are plenty of keyboard shortcuts available...


Features

Text editing seems like a really simple task, but it can get pretty nasty, when it comes to syntax highlighting or encoding. While writing a book with E doesn't seem like a good idea to me, editing code is for sure something that at least 90% of its users will do with it. I know this may not be the only text editor able to do this, but it's the first one I remember that gives you the chance to use a full range of UNIX shell tools in a Windows program and this is only the beginning...

Everything can be customized, starting with the plethora of keyboard shortcuts and ending with the coloring themes or bundle commands included in E. While most computer users will probably raise an eyebrow when hearing about bundles, those that use lots of programming langugages and use to write scripts to enhance their coding activity in powerful text editors that can be found on Linux or Mac computers will surely be glad to see this implemented in a Windows software.

At last, managing large projects in E is very easy. Just press Ctrl+P to bring up the Project pane, and take over from there. While not highly interactive, like the rest of the program, the project management system allows you to easily manage projects with a large number of files and group your data as you wish.

Of course, there are still lots of things to discover, and some of them that I was surprised of finding them to be "missing in action", but now the time has come for some conclusions...


The Good

E is a text editor that's completely different to most Windows text editors. While having the ability to use multiple tabs for editing multiple files or a nice HTML preview, E packs a powerful set of features for hardcore programmers.

The Bad

For me, E's price seems a bit high, and I found its documentation to need a lot of work, because a decent help file is always better than a Wiki site that tries to replace it.

Conclusion

If you're not an experienced programmer, probably E is not your thing. Working with it was interesting, but I got a small headache, especially due to its documentation and keyboard-oriented style of interaction with the user. Well, it seems my favorite text editor survives another challenge... but I strongly advise you to grab E and give it a try, only if you are a coder, as I said before.

Developer: E Text Editor
Price: 34.95$
Trial Link: Download