I prefer sometimes a plain text editor when editing scripts and HTML files. I have been using a plain Textpad software. Sometimes, I need a color coding and some help for editing for instance HTML and PHP scripts. Thus, I tried to use Notepad++ which is an enhanced notepad that comes along with Windows System.

The Notepad++ is an open source project which is free to use and it serves as a replacement for the Windows Notepad. What I like with the editor is the syntax highlighting and syntax folding which supports a lot of languages like HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, ASP, XML, SQL, and more. I could easily check out which of the elements for example are not properly closed. The color coding also is so helpful. Notepad++ also comes with auto-completion features for commands of the languages supported. The regular search and replace, plus a bookmarking feature. Multi-view, allows comparison of documents edited side by side.

Those are just a few of the features that I like in Notepad++. Notepad++ is truly a Windows Notepad replacement which is improved tremendously for productive coding work. You can download for free Notepad++ from the sourceforge.net site.