Crimson Editor is an open-source text editor

Text editor

A text editor is a type of program used for editing plain text files.Text editors are often provided with operating systems or software development packages, and can be used to change configuration files and programming language source code....

. It is typically used as a source code editor

Source code editor

A source code editor is a text editor program designed specifically for editing source code of computer programs by programmers. It may be a standalone application or it may be built into an integrated development environment ....

, and HTML editor

HTML editor

An HTML editor is a software application for creating web pages. Although the HTML markup of a web page can be written with any text editor, specialized HTML editors can offer convenience and added functionality. For example, many HTML editors work not only with HTML, but also with related...

, for Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

. The author was Ingyu Kang.

History

The last formal release was in September 2004. On December 30, 2006, Ingyu Kang posted a message announcing Crimson Editor as an open source project. Crimson Editor is now being maintained and modified by the members of the Emerald Editor community.

Features

Crimson Editor features Windows shell integration, tabbed document interface, syntax highlighting

Syntax highlighting

Syntax highlighting is a feature of some text editors that display text—especially source code—in different colors and fonts according to the category of terms. This feature eases writing in a structured language such as a programming language or a markup language as both structures and...

, multiple undo/redo, column mode editing, bracket matching, auto-indentation, spell checking

Spell checker

In computing, a spell checker is an application program that flags words in a document that may not be spelled correctly. Spell checkers may be stand-alone capable of operating on a block of text, or as part of a larger application, such as a word processor, email client, electronic dictionary,...

, direct editing of text files in FTP

File Transfer Protocol

File Transfer Protocol is a standard network protocol used to transfer files from one host to another host over a TCP-based network, such as the Internet. FTP is built on a client-server architecture and utilizes separate control and data connections between the client and server...

 and the integration with compiler

Compiler

A compiler is a computer program that transforms source code written in a programming language into another computer language...

s. Unicode

Unicode

Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...

 (although only for the characters within the default character set of Windows) and various newline

Newline

In computing, a newline, also known as a line break or end-of-line marker, is a special character or sequence of characters signifying the end of a line of text. The name comes from the fact that the next character after the newline will appear on a new line—that is, on the next line below the...

s are supported. Crimson Editor also supports the use of macros. The built-in calculator

Calculator

An electronic calculator is a small, portable, usually inexpensive electronic device used to perform the basic operations of arithmetic. Modern calculators are more portable than most computers, though most PDAs are comparable in size to handheld calculators.The first solid-state electronic...

 can evaluate simple expressions. Basic mathematics

Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...

 function

Subroutine

In computer science, a subroutine is a portion of code within a larger program that performs a specific task and is relatively independent of the remaining code....

s, and date

Calendar date

A date in a calendar is a reference to a particular day represented within a calendar system. The calendar date allows the specific day to be identified. The number of days between two dates may be calculated. For example, "24 " is ten days after "14 " in the Gregorian calendar. The date of a...

 functions are also available.

Reception

Crimson Editor has been extensively reviewed and well received. It has been described as a very good editor and pseudo-IDE interface for programmers to use. It has been highlighted that it has a good set of features, syntax highlighting for lots of formats, and includes integrated FTP. However there are some memory issues with several (full project) files, and it sometimes crashes.

Emerald Editor

Emerald Editor is a text editor, that is under development, that has been substantially influenced by Crimson Editor. Available under the GNU General Public License, it will be an open-source

Open source

The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

, multi-purpose, functional text editor.