Being a professional Drupal web developer, I try to practice my skills in as many environments as possible. That way if the need arises, I can still do my job efficiently. Because of this, I switch between a Macbook Pro laptop and my Windows Workstation to work with HTML, CSS, and PHP code. I choose to use a Linux web server environment, more commonly referred to as a LAMP stack. I do this because of the many advantages of running a Linux web server, which include security and advantages with running Drupal, more specfically Drush to manage my Drupal sites. I have heard a lot of good things about the Notepad ++ source code editor and Windows Notepad replacement, but just finally decided to check it out today. I have to say, so far I am very impressed.  Learn more about why I switched after the jump.

I used to use the Crimson Editor, which is a great , but the last update for the program was in like 1997, so I am sure it has some security issues. The continuation of the project,  Emerald Editor, doesn't seem to be recognized as a safe program by Windows 7 because of no publisher ID or something. I have tested it and there are no problems with it, but it's just annoying to have to allow it each time I want to use it. Instead of continuing to get a headache from trying to use one of my favorite Windows Notepad replacement and source code editing programs, I have chosen to move onto Notepad ++.

Notepad ++ has all the features you are looking for in a great Windows source code editor, including syntax highlighting, line counting, and tabbed editing. Along with the features you expect from a top source code editor, Notepad ++ also has some fairly advanced features such as searching with regular expressions and macro recording. Notepad ++ is based off of the Scintilla editing component and is compiled with C++. It also seems that Notepad ++ is a green program, as they have optimized the program routines to use the least amount of processing power as possible, without losing out on user friendliness. This in turn lowers the power consumption while editing code. Notepad ++ is also available in several languages. Since Notepad ++ is an open source, GPL, source code editor, html editor, and Windows Notepad replacement, they encourage others to create translated versions.