Alex Angelopoulos (aka at mvps dot org)
Give me a lever long enough
and a place to stand, and I will move the earth.
-
Archimedes
Golf is a game in which one endeavors to control a ball with
implements ill adapted for the purpose.
- Woodrow Wilson
This is the primary tool of a scripter.
If you run into occasional problems with Windows spontaneously resetting your preferred editor for script documents, Jim Warrington wrote a very nice mini-solution: a script to change the default vbs/js/wsc/wsf editor.
Deciding what "goodness" in a text editor means is difficult, even if we narrow it down to "a text editor used for assisting writing and viewing of VBScript code ".
The problem is not in finding metrics; the problem is in the variations in what different people find to be useful in a text editing tool. All people have different strengths and weaknesses; thus, the needs of everyone will vary. On top of that, relative use of a text editor for different roles is also a key factor which may influence this decision; in my case, I have a "preferred" text editor for VBScript but occasionally use another one for special tasks.
Line Numbering
Syntax Highlighting
Error Flagging
Integrated Execution/Capture
Tool Integration
Search and Replace
Completion
Comment Spellchecking
Deployment
Special Build Assistance
PrimalScript comes first because it is the Cadillac of script editors - although perhaps "Cadillac" is the wrong concept- it isn't a baroque luxury tool, it's more of a well-outfitted Range Rover.
It's everywhere and it is indeed a text editor. If you're going this low-tech though, I would recommend using "edit". With edit, you can at least control tab stop size and window colors.