As a software engineer, you likely have a preferred platform of choice, such as Linux, macOS, or Windows, that you adopted several years ago.
It’s possible that the platform you chose initially won’t be your final choice. For example, the operating system you select for work may differ from the one you use in your personal life. Additionally, you might be part of a team of developers who all use the same software.
Fortunately, there’s the notion of cross-platform, which implies that a program isn’t restricted to a specific operating system. This was considerably less prevalent in the past but nowadays, developing a cross-platform app is almost indispensable if you want your software to be acknowledged.
Awareness of this is primarily limited to developers. Many of the commonly used programs are now accessible across a variety of platforms. This holds for all source code editors as well. Several of the world’s most widely used code editors can be used on a range of operating systems.
Let’s now examine a few of the most renowned code editors that can be accessed over multiple platforms.
Visual Code Editor
Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code is widely regarded as one of the best code editors available. Its vast range of features includes code refactoring, syntax highlighting, integrated Git management, and debugging. A notably outstanding feature is IntelliSense, which provides intelligent completion based on variable types, function definition, and imported modules.
Visual Studio Code supports an extensive range of programming and scripting languages, including Python, C/C++, C#, Java (via an extension pack), Go, Dart, PHP (via an extension pack), HTML, JSON, Julia, Less, Markdown, PowerShell, SCSS, T-SQL, and Typescript. If your preferred language isn’t listed, check the VS Code Marketplace for available extensions.
Visual Studio Code provides an exceptional user experience with its broad spectrum of features. It is user-friendly, possessing both an attractive design and practical functionality. This editor is highly desirable, especially given that it is available for free.
ATOM
Atom is a free, open-source, and cross-platform code editor that was originally utilized internally by GitHub’s employees. In 2023, the company chose to make the technology available to the public, and it has been widely well-received ever since.
One of Atom’s UI highlights is the ability to break the window into several panes, allowing developers to perform diffs more easily and quickly. Furthermore, Atom features a built-in package manager, intelligent autocompletion, file system browsing, search and replace functionality, Git and GitHub integration, and a wide array of themes, plugins, and other customization options.
Atom Editor provides benefits that are valuable for developers at all levels of experience. It can be further customized with its vast spectrum of extensions and is compatible with an assortment of languages and frameworks, including Node.js, CSS, and JavaScript.
Elementary Text Editor
Sublime Text is a highly customizable and cross-platform code editor. Unlike Visual Studio Code and Atom, it isn’t free and necessitates a one-time license fee of $99. Nevertheless, Sublime Text is frequently deemed a top pick owing to its robust features and greater level of complexity compared to other alternatives.
This software contains various functionalities, including tabbed editing, adaptive matching for quick command invocation through keyboard shortcuts, GPU rendering, Apple Silicon support, tabbed multi-selection, context-sensitive auto-completion, support for TypeScript and TSX, an updated Python API, improved syntax highlighting and definition, auto-saving, spell-checking, macros, and support for a broad range of programming languages, such as AppleScript, C, C++, CSS, Diff, Erlang, Go, and Groovy.
UltraEdit
UltraEdit is a commercial and cross-platform code editor available for purchase. A one-year license is priced at $99.95, while a lifetime license is available for $119.95. UltraEdit is very customizable, including a variety of pre-made themes, and providing the capability to generate your own.
UltraEdit gains fame due to its array of remarkable features, such as column mode which enables editing along the Y-axis in any document, multi-caret/multi-select, integrated FTP and SSH support, 4K UHD support, one of the fastest find features in the market, fully integrated file comparison, OS integration, elegant handling of large files, including files of up to 10 GB and larger, hex editing, and support for XML, JSON, and syntax highlighting for almost any language. It also offers layouts, smart templates, function listing, and macros.
Brackets
Brackets is a code editor designed specifically for the necessities of front-end and web developers. It may be the perfect editor for those who regularly work with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
Aside from the ability to divide brackets along vertical or horizontal lines, these tools also provide a feature for inline editing that shows all selectors linked to a particular ID. For example, selecting a specific CSS ID and using the inline editor to observe the associated selectors.
Brackets provides various features, such as support for preprocessors, browser synchronization through Live Preview, a wide selection of extensions, compatibility with JSLInt and LESS, and a rapid editor. Nonetheless, it is vital to recognize that this editor is unsuitable for operation in a production environment.
Conclusion
Regardless of your requirements, there is a cross-platform code editor accessible to cater to your necessities. All of the aforementioned editors are excellent options to take into account. It is essential to guarantee that the editor you pick is appropriate for your project. You can be confident that the editors are effortlessly downloadable, installable, and usable on any operating system with no compatibility obstacles.
