Someone reviewed v on Jul 5, 2022

Pros: 555

Cons: 555

Bottom Line: 555

harvaparva reviewed v22.20.0.36 on Oct 31, 2015

Best text editor out there, other products just don't have the same overall functionality in depth, we can all have our favorites but once you've paid your money and learnt the interface nothing comes close, Tip: Buy the
Unlimited upgrades option and never pay again

sn0wflake reviewed v22.0.46.0 on Mar 27, 2015

Used to be the ultra best editor before it became bloatware and free alternatives appeared like Notepad++.

harvaparva reviewed v21.30.1016 on Oct 31, 2014

I'd have to disagree with -1, I'm also a lifetime license user of UE, and started using about 15 years ago. The start up time on my system is under 3 seconds and loading large files is still on par with other editors.

I've tried other editors recently myself, such as EmEditor and Sublime Text etc, but they all seam to be lacking in the areas I use daily, such as simple to use templates, good macro control, embedded compilers using Tools Configuration etc.

Yes the start-up time on others editors may be faster but once you've waited a tiny bit longer, it's much more productive when editing, and with loads more features.

Having heard the tribal rivalries of other people favorite editors being better, once I've tried them, I just can't help coming back to the best, it may be expensive but you get what you pay for in life.

-1 reviewed v21.20.2014 on Aug 31, 2014

I have a lifetime license for UE. I love UE's features and its design. I've tried all the other text editors, including all the freebies that people rave about simply because they are freebies. None of them cut the turd.

The problem is that UE is a slug. It's aggravatingly sluggish. Not just to launch, but ... to do everything. Even scrolling in a large file is annoyingly slow in UE. It's just not a good user experience.

I also deeply despise the way they make paying users suffer in their attempts to curb piracy. Years ago, they added anti-piracy bloat and made launch times 10x slower. They still have that crap, but now, they also block other applications from having anything to do with the UE window. This means I can't use Actual Window Manager on UE, for one thing.

I'm seriously considering switching to EmEditor, even though that editor lacks some functionality I consider basic (FTP, a favorite file feature, etc.).

extremely well reviewed v21.20.1004 on Jul 23, 2014

UltraEdit v21.20 Changes (2014-06-26)
UltraEdit v21.20 includes over 150 improvements and fixes to the following:

Column mode editing / drag 'n drop
Quick column mode
Hide / show lines and code folding
Folding for block comments in HTML
Scripted find / replace
Perl regular expression find/replace
Find in files with customized output format
Shebang detection for syntax highlighting
Compare files (UC Lite)
Mixed line terminator handling
Open file under caret via context menu
Word wrap
Undo/redo
Hex mode
Themes and user interface
Menu access via key accelerators
OEM and special character input
File and selection sort
CSS color tooltips
Project and workspace reload
Status bar
FTP connectivity and transfer issues
Scrolling via mouse wheel in FTP dialogs
Stability and performance
And more...

http://www.ultraedit.com...dit/latest-changes.html

cyberguy reviewed v21.20.1001 on Jun 28, 2014

I've been using Ultraedit since about version 2 and have a lifetime license.

While the editor has a lot of useful features I can't find on any other editor, I find that those really useful features stopped coming at around version 12. These days it is so horribly bloated and slow to use that I have pretty much stopped updating even though it costs me nothing to do so.

For me this product stopped being a must-have editor at v12. Everything added since then is pretty much pointless fluff for me. Giving it a 3 since this software has stopped being innovative.

Hilbert reviewed v21.00.1033 on Feb 20, 2014

My view of this current UltraEdit 21.00.1033 has not fundamentally altered since my previous review of U/E 20.00 (hereunder), which is that it is now a huge overly bloated text editor that's grown like Topsy and thus somewhat disorganized and confusing to use (especially for the casual user).

This version of U/E adds a few new features such as improved 'Quick Find', 'Multi-caret' editing that allows—as its web site says—'multiple changes in different places in your file at one time'—a dangerous operation unless you're an experience user who is very familiar with what you're doing; and there's also changes to the inbuilt FTP client browser which U/E's site espouses as multi-pane with many improvements. (To me, the FTP section looks uncannily like a clone of FileZilla.)

UltraEdit is aimed at developers and such who spend considerable time editing, and it has an exorbitant price to match of $79.95. I have not had sufficient time to verify that the bugs which were present in v20 are fully ironed out in this version.

One of the major obstacles to using UltraEdit since version 17 is that the program is activated a la Windows which means that you can't move it around on a memory stick and such. Locking the product to a particular machine, is perhaps tolerable for programs such as Windows and Photoshop, but frankly it's quite ridiculous to do so for a text editor (for me, this is not a piracy issue—I've multiple legit earlier versions—but it's often impractical especially in the early stages of fixing/reinstalling a PC before U/E is able to go online to be validated, especially if the program's demo mode has already timed out). Even though I've access to lifetime upgrade licences, I still prefer to use version 16.20 as it's not encumbered with this ergonomically-unfriendly activation nonsense. [It seems, as a concession, U/E can now be installed on three machines, each with their own activation (perhaps activation was causing Ian Mead's sales to fall excessively).]

That said, in fairness to U/E, I should clarify what I said in my earlier review of v20. For the average user I'd still strongly recommend the freeware Notepad++ (or perhaps free RJ TextEd) in preference to U/E, but Notepad++ cannot handle very large text files without crashing (it's a design fault rather than a bug)—but UltraEdit can.

U/E has always been able to edit reasonably large text files of 10s to some hundreds of megabytes but until version 20 it's been a first-class dog at so doing. It was slow and unresponsive even with the large file settings enabled, and with really large files it'd take ages before the scrollbar would free up—and it if didn't then U/E had locked up altogether or crashed! For me, the solution was always the venerable 30+-year-old VEDIT to the rescue, as it would have no trouble with 2GB text files.

That's changed somewhat for the better with U/E v20 onward. I tried U/E 21 on an old mbox (Eudora/MBX) mail file of about 740MB, which is essentially a super-sized text file, and U/E 21 loaded it comparatively quickly and without fault, which is a considerable improvement over earlier versions before v20 (they would have had great difficulty with a file of that size). However, even though U/E loads the file it is almost impossible to slide the scrollbar through such a large file with reasonable granularity/fineness—ergonomically it's hopeless to use and the problem needs to be fixed in future versions.

In summary, for most users use Notepad++--it's free! For diehards and those with special requirements, use UltraEdit—but before you commit to it, I'd strongly recommend you try VEDIT. http://vedit.com/index.html

VEDIT is far from the classiest of editors but it's a true heavy-duty tractor of an editor with a long solid lineage (VEDIT pro64 will even edit 100GB+ file!!!), and it's a similar price to UltraEdit. Moreover, it's not encumbered with that activation nonsense (or it wasn't when I bought my last copy—v 6.1, the current latest version being now v6.23).

Hilbert reviewed v20.00.1037 on Sep 5, 2013

I'm still using 16.20 even though I too have a lifetime license (16.20 was about the last version that wasn't overly bloated). UltraEdit has gone from a must-have-at-any-cost editor to one that's passé. It's slow, buggy and overly convoluted. And most of the other resent criticisms from posters I'd generally agree with.

I too use Notepad++ for many jobs, it's come a long way, and it's free, and you can put it on as many machines as you like. Unless you've a very specific editing requirement such as the need to use a particular u/e wordfile then I'd recommend just using Notepad++.

cmhbytehead reviewed v20.00.1037 on Sep 4, 2013

I'm still running 19.10.0.1012. There is no update, and I thought the next one was going to be 19.20 anyway.

I've been using this for years. I have a lifetime license for it, and they have been responsive to my concerns (yes, UTF-8 can be problematic...). But I know it like the back of my hand. Changing over to something else, paid or free, would be a pain.

Although I am trying to learn some VIM.

TuxmanXP reviewed v20.00.1037 on Sep 4, 2013

Hm, well. At least it has become faster now.

ssb reviewed v18.10.0 on Jun 2, 2012

Buggy, slow, bloated cr@p

Inray reviewed v17.20.0 on Sep 4, 2011

@HeilNizar: There are many editors out there much better than the NotePad++ though UltraEdit is definitely not one of them.

UE not only is bloated, unreliable, slow and buggy but also suffers from a number of very serious encoding issues especially when using Unicode / UTF8. I've lost days of work in the past due to all these issues.

On the contrary, editors with full Uniscribe support like EmEditor and EditPlus as well as a few others like HippoEdit or AkelPad work great with Unicode, are light in resource usage and disk footprint and perform faster and much more stable than this junk.

HeilNizar reviewed v17.20.0 on Sep 3, 2011

Do some people still use anything other than Notepad++?!!!

pjafrombbay reviewed v17.20.0 on Sep 2, 2011

Simply:
1. Too big;
2. Too bloaty; and
3. Too expensive.

Try something Like:
1. EditPlus (http://www.editplus.com/index.html) or
2. TwistPad (http://www.carthagosoft.net/)

Both are full featured, light load on your system and relatively cheap.

Regards,
Peter

Inray reviewed v17.10.0 on Aug 5, 2011

UltraEdit used to be my favorite programmers editor for years; but not any more. I cannot stand any more the bloat, the slowness and all those silly bugs.

Hilbert reviewed v16.30.0 on Dec 6, 2010

Like emanresU deriseD I too have a lifetime license for UltraEdit and I've used it for many years (and it's still my default text editor) but I'm not so upbeat about it as him. I find myself agreeing more with ssb, as recent versions of UE are definitely buggy (and it crashes) and there's considerable bloatware not to mention that it now takes considerably longer to load than it once did.

Moreover, it's getting hard to find one's way around UltraEdit and some of the newer features (such as the macro list pop outs are simply annoying and should be turned off by default). With UltraEdit, I've gone from a once devotee who would always load it as the first utility after the O/S installation to running it in parallel with the excellent freeware text editor Notepad++. I'm using Notepad++ more and more now, as frankly it's easier to use than UE.

Several weeks ago I had two somewhat unusual text editing jobs that I thought I could easily solve in UltraEdit (but I gave up and did it another way). The first being a large but damaged (cross-linked) email text file where I wished to remove all non-ISO/IEC 8859-1 text (i.e. the cross-linked gibberish), and the second being to paste a recovered word processing doc into UltraEdit and have it filter everything out EXCEPT printable ASCII. After looking around in the UltraEdit menus for a minute or so, I decided it was too messy and time-consuming, as it would involve me writing macros etc.

Despite its increasing bloat, UltraEdit, still has no simple way of filtering text. Why can't we have a simple feature in 'Find'/'Find and Replace' called 'Character Sets' that would find all non-printing ASCII characters (or vice versa), then display them in say a red color for easy identification and removal? Right, the latest UltraEdit releases have all the bloat without ease of usability.

Despite my criticisms of UltraEdit I do agree with emanresU deriseD that IDM's service is very good--it's both fast and efficient.

---------

P.S.: If I'm wrong about UE's filtering capability and it's really 'simple', then someone explain the obvious and I'll gladly correct my statement above. (Incidentally, the problem of filtering damaged files is now becoming a commonplace necessity with the increasing recovery of thousands of files from large crashed HDs. UE or not, I'd like to hear from anyone with a simple and quick solution.)

ssb reviewed v16.10.0.1036 on Jul 9, 2010

Buggy bloatware!

ecarlson reviewed v16.00.0.1038 on Apr 13, 2010

A++ for tech support. I reported the Spell as you Type bug in v16.00.0.1037 late yesterday afternoon, they quickly responded that they were able to identify the issue, and they notified me that they released the fix in 16.00.0.1038 this morning. Overnight service!

Boreth reviewed v16.00 on Mar 3, 2010

Boot 1-2 seconds, 20Mb file load less in than that, as many or as few toolbars as you want or need, an interface that can be adapted to my current use of the editor Ofcourse I have to admit that the 12Mb footprint is pushing my system to it's limits but then again maybe not. Bought the lifetime licence for $19.95 ages ago, never looked back.

emanresU deriseD reviewed v16.00 on Mar 3, 2010

It's funny how people rate. Someone cares about editing on a mainframe, so they give it a high rating. Someone else has vague notions that it handles syntax highlighting poorly, so he gives it a low rating. Someone inexplicably whines about the toolbars (despite the fact that the toolbars are 100% configurable). Someone else is too poor or cheap to pay for anything, so he throws a tantrum and also gives it a low rating. Yet another person runs a P-16 from 1987, so he complains about the startup speed. I'm not immune to rating based on what I care about, but I still think it's funny.

5 stars for a well-supported and full-featured editor. I don't equate "has features I probably won't ever use" or "is over 2-KB in size" with "bloated". That's just simple-mindedness.

I have a lifetime license for UltraEdit and have been a registered user for a full decade. I've tried all the other editors mentioned by the cheerleaders below, and they all have their own issues and limitations. And none of them can match UltraEdit's feature set or its support.

Inray reviewed v16.00 on Mar 3, 2010

Still bloated and buggy as hell.

NotSoSkilledUser reviewed v16.00 on Mar 3, 2010

Very overbloated text editor, I'll stick with it just for the Column mode and its related stuff: selecting/deleting/copying/aligning a rectangular portion of text, inserting a column of numbers and so on...
I'm guessing why no other editor has such fatures... Hey you folks of the Notepad++ development team... CAN YOU HEAR ME???? =)

Stephen Bungert reviewed v15.20.0 on Oct 21, 2009

I am now forced to use this editor at work in stead of EditPad Pro. UE sucks, it is amazingly slow, there are so many toolbars that the toolbars are almost unusable, start up takes so long I can go make a cup of tea. The syntax highlighting is terrible. maybe if you have never user a better editor you would find this great, but after years of EditPad Pro I can see how bad this programme is... the search and replace is truly awful, like using MS Word. I am very suprised that it is so bad, as I have heard good things about it. At least my company can't make me use it at home!

lzvk25 reviewed v15.10.0.1025 on Jul 30, 2009

I don't know, but this is the only text editor that can edit files using FTP against a MVS Mainframe. There are lots of text editors that can edit through FTP against Unix and Linux, but MVS Mainframes, only UltraEdit.
BTW, try the new SORT function, this is the very first time I see it implemented the way it should be and it is extremely useful to load really big database tables.

dhry reviewed v15.10.0.1018 on Jul 15, 2009

I'm going to have to agree with Scatmanjohn Dingledoo on this one. UE does take a couple of seconds to start up but certainly not ten, and I've got a 2.1ghz dualcore. Chances are the slow startup is a viruschecker, malwarechecker or maybe a work drive located on a network share. UE's definitely the best and most full-featured editor out there but it is starting to get a little bloated. Free stuff? I'd probably go for either Notepad2 with codefolding, or else PSPAD. Notepad++ is off my radar on principle, until the author figures out that it's a bug to have http:// links clickable but https:// ones not (and god I hope Mr Caleval shows up here with his, quote, 'masturbatory' comments - had a great laugh at the one he posted on Notepad++ recently).

Another nice editor to try, which starts up pretty much instantaneously: Editplus (www.editplus.com). Based purely on two things: startup time, and linespacing being a little tighter than other editors, that's the one I'm using at the moment. At least until the trial period runs out..

emanresU deriseD reviewed v15.10.0.1018 on Jul 14, 2009

Weird. I have a circa-2000 2.1-GHz single-core system, and UltraEdit 15 loads in less than 2 seconds. (It's actually pretty close to 1 second.) This is on subsequent runs, though, NOT the initial launch of UltraEdit. There's something wrong with your installation... I'm not going to be a jerk like most people and laugh at you... What you're seeing is either a bug or caused by something else on your system.

I've had my trouble with UE but I'm sticking with it for the foreseeable future. I've tried all the others and they suck in their own ways. Only UE has everything I want.

Oh and I love dihrtys nickname for me! (Seriously) :)

blackz0r reviewed v15.00.0.1047 on Jun 5, 2009

Latest version takes over ten seconds to load on a 3GHz machine, which is completely unacceptable. This is most assuredly the best text/code editor available, but the ever-growing bloat costs it a star.

emanresU deriseD reviewed v15.00.0.1047 on Jun 5, 2009

Well, because Notepad++ is not the "best editor ever". Silly.

slushdot reviewed v15.00.0.1047 on Jun 5, 2009

why bother when you can use the best editor ever, notepad++?

emanresU deriseD reviewed v15.00.0.1035 on Apr 16, 2009

I had UE 14 installed, and then I installed this update... I was 95% sure they'd wipe out my entire toolbar config, and sure enough, they did. No offer to convert the toolbar into the new format. They also wiped out my tool configuration (Advanced > Tool Configuration).

How nice of them.

The user who mentioned that UE locks files even after those files are closed is correct. UE does that, and it can cause serious problems. How many times I've had a file open in UE, closed it, then had locked file problems (sometimes it screws up an uninstall). It's annoying as hell, to understate the problem. And it shouldn't be hard to fix, IF THE PROGRAMMER WERE TO DO HIS JOB! (I am talking about file handles, not folder handles. I know they have an FAQ item on this and it DOES NOT APPLY. It's also a lame cop-out.)

eaves reviewed v15.00 on Apr 3, 2009

Updates for the purpose of having a new version to sell. Change for the purpose of change. Feature bloat.

I look at all the new versions of UltraEdit, and I have yet to see one that provides a reason to upgrade from the copy of version 12 that I have.

Were I starting out anew, I'd probably look at something else for a text editor.

xrmbx reviewed v15.00 on Apr 2, 2009

different look, same old annoying bugs... opening 20 files at the same time via ftp, and the config on a network-drive reads/writes the config a million times, makes it slow... apparently they dont even look at the bugreports/input you send them... well, still using it, but could easily go back to version 7

ssb reviewed v15.00 on Apr 2, 2009

Version 15 comes with updated user interface but the same old crappy editing engine. Great job IDM...

Undesired Username reviewed v14.20.1 on Nov 26, 2008

I take back my point regarding file handles... That version still didn't close them properly. I have not tested this version yet, but I'll bet my dominant arm it still hasn't been fixed.

But I still like it. Probably 90% of the reason is simply that I'm used to it and have configured the hell out of it, and don't feel like starting all over with an editor that didn't even exist when UltraEdit was already at version 6.

Queue the freeware and EmEditor recommendations...

Undesired Username reviewed v14.20 on Oct 7, 2008

Many of the ratings below are overly harsh, but I know where the sentiment is coming from. Consider that this version, 14.20, is the first one in which UltraEdit correctly closes file handles when files are closed. To me, that's a serious--and seriously annoying--bug to linger for year after year.

Regarding the general notion of "bloat" (a favorite term for self-appointed software experts): Some people think that FTP support in a text editor is "bloat". Well, they used to, anyway, when UltraEdit added that feature. But when applications like EditPlus have similar features, well dontcha know, it's no longer "bloat"! Time to start ragging on other points.

These people must enjoy doing things the hard way. I bet their cars also have no stereos, nor heating or A/C. (After all, a car is to get you from one place to the other, not to keep you comfortable or entertained, right?)

zhouzh2 reviewed v14.10 on Aug 27, 2008

UE does support large file handling.
See "IDM Computer Solutions frequently asked questions" below:

Regarding large files, UltraEdit handles files in excess of 4GB. UltraEdit is disk based. This means it only loads small portions of the file at once into memory so it does not use all the memory and stop other applications from running. However, it does make a temporary copy of the file to achieve this and this can take time for large files.

There are several options you can change to optimize the handling of large files. More information is available at our large file handling power tip.

eaves reviewed v14.10 on Jul 2, 2008

I could say that I "was" an UE user, but I still am a UE user. I still use UE version 12. I have no plans to upgrade beyond version 12 because of the gratuitous addition of unneeded features just to sell upgrade licenses every year.

I thought I would never say this but specious bloating has struck UltraEdit.

zridling reviewed v14.10 on Jul 2, 2008

I have two lifetime licenses to UltraEdit, but I agree with the consensus here: begging for the new codes every year is a major hassle, and they seem to upgrade on a calendar, not on a true feature set, and oh yeah — it's overpriced like far too much shareware these days. I'm amazed at how dev after dev kills their own golden goose with unending price increases. Enjoying EditPlus myself.

templar™ reviewed v14.00b on May 18, 2008

I'm using version 11. That's not perfect but at least it's zippy and has most features i need.

Beyond that version, it just gets crappier. Slower, more clunky and less stable.

And at that price? FORGET IT! They better wake up their idea. I'd pay at most $9 for this thing.

guti reviewed v14.00b on May 17, 2008

I was an UltraEdit user, but some time ago, I migrated to EmEditor.

Almost al things in UE has been said: Useless new features, new bugs, old bugs not fixed, lower speed, problems with big files, ...

UltraEdit is still my secondaty text editor, only to cover still some missing features on EmEditor, but if you are looking for full unicode support, bigger files capacity and speed, EmEditor is your choice.

You can read a small review, plus speed comparinson in spanish here: http://guti.bitacoras.co...ntry=entry080228-151009

YouAreBeneathMe reviewed v14.00b on May 16, 2008

What MorningStar doesn't seem to realize is that UE also has an option to load files directly from disk. See File Handling/Temporary Files. So, that complaint is a whole lot of nothing.

But I am not immune to UE's bugs. They are significant and extremely annoying. And I am also tired of the "where's my wordfile?" game each time I install a new version of UE.

What other reviewers neglect to mention is that those other editors have their OWN problems. Yet they talk about them as if they are some sort of panacea.

MorningStar reviewed v14.00a on Mar 23, 2008

I've used UltraEdit for more than a decade now, and it has saddened me to see it slide so far. Back in the day, it was the fastest, most useful editor around. But now...

Over the past few years (since about version 10 or 11), I've noticed UE getting buggier. I kept downloading the new versions, hoping that they'd fix the regex bugs, or add better large file support, but instead they keep adding more features, instead of stabilizing the ones that are already there. I can't count the number of times UE has crashed or corrupted large files while applying a complex regex.

In particular, UltraEdit has caused the last few months to be very frustrating for me. I've been using it to edit very large text log files (up to 2Gb each), and for this it has proven itself frustratingly worthless. Each of these files can take 5 minutes or more to even load, and then further minutes to seek to anywhere in the file (eg. by line number)... and this is on a workstation class machine with 4Gb of RAM. Further, when trying to use search and replace with the perl regex engine to make sweeping modifications to the files, UE crashes frequently. But I'm editing huge files, so this would be par for the course, right?

So imagine my surprise when, on a whim, I downloaded and installed EditPad Pro, and it was able to load the same 2Gb files in seconds!! (Ok, so the whole file wasn't loaded in a few seconds; instead the file was progressively loaded over perhaps 20 seconds... which is still miles short of UE's 5+ minutes).

Even more, EditPad was useful immediately (again, unlike UE), even before the file was fully loaded, and was even capable of seeking throughout the (loaded portion of the) file, without further minutes of loading.

(btw I'm no expert or advocate for EditPad; I am only using it as an example of what is possible... and particularly what should be possible for a company with IDM Software's resources.)

Despite all the above, I'm still going to give it 3 stars because IMHO it still passes as a 'Decent' editor... but it sure is a long way from the 'Excellent' editor it used to be.

coolticker reviewed v14.00a on Mar 19, 2008

I have to agree with many users here, UltraEdit 9.20b was that last "nice" version, bloatware started with version 10/11, version 14 is useless compared to freeware solutions like ConTEXT or NotePad++

ssb reviewed v14.00a on Mar 18, 2008

As usual, I have to agree with zridling's review.
UE used to be a pro-class developers editor, famous for its bug-free and ultrafast editing engine.
Unfortunately that's not true any more! It became just another bloated "bug-collection-ware", useless for any serious job.

@why hello there: I can live with bloat, not using some of the features I don't need. The actual problem with Ultraedit is that all "features" I do need and use are either slow, non-existed or buggy as hell.

* NOT RECOMMENDED *

zridling reviewed v14.00a on Mar 18, 2008

What pjafrombbay said: Editors are such a personal thing.
________________________________________________
Used to love this editor, but it suffers from that disease known as feature-dumpitis. And now that it no longer handles large files, I've no use for it in my work (data editing). EmEditor and the recently updated EditPlus are both highly customizable and more powerful than UltraEdit now.

pjafrombbay reviewed v14.00a on Mar 17, 2008

I have a look at Ultra Edit each time a new version comes out thinking "will I -- won't I". I even download a copy occasionally for evaluation. However, when it comes time to fork over my credit card details I think to myself "what's it got (that I need) that EditPlus (http://www.editplus.com/index.html) hasn't got and is it worth the money" -- the answers are generally "nothing" for the first question and "no" for the second question.

Editors are such a personal thing -- I don't care what anyone else uses, but I like what I get used to!

Regards,
Peter

why hello there reviewed v14.00a on Mar 17, 2008

Oh who cares if it has features you don't use, even if those features are buggy? Oooooooo... It has built-in FTP support! BLOAT! BLOAT! GET THE PITFORKS AND TORCHES! BLOOOOOOOAT!!! How about just... NOT USING THOSE FEATURES?

roj reviewed v14.00a on Mar 17, 2008

I completely agree with preinterpost.

I used this back in the day up to versison 9. That was when all the new "features for the sake of features" crept in and that was it for me. Now I use either ConTEXT or PSPad and they do everything a text editor should (true column editing being the exception) without the bloat and myriad new "features" which must always be fixed because "the more complex you make something the easier it breaks".

Two words for this app:

"Jenny Craig"

THREE stars.

lzvk25 reviewed v14.00 on Feb 25, 2008

How curious ? Here we meet again, Mr. zridling. Once again you are trashing a perfectly fine editor while on the other hand you are trying to sell your under-powered EmEditor, conveniently, you do not mention that some features that UltraEdit already are integrated as a default, you are selling them separately. Of course, also the concept of "fight" for a lifetime license, again conveniently you don't mention that it only consists on doing a "cut & paste" every time there is a major version change, I guess that's too much for you.

preinterpost reviewed v14.00 on Feb 25, 2008

Used this about 8 or so years ago. Since then it got too bloated/pointless. Either you use a real word processor or a lighter text editor. I highly recomment (free) Notepad++ instead.

comeoffit reviewed v14.00 on Feb 23, 2008

I'm not sure what you guys are whining about, especially zridling. I have a lifetime license, and I've called upon it several times now, including just now for version 14. I submitted my details using a brain-dead-easy submission form, and received my new registration information almost immediately. I've never had a problem with this.

As for editing large files--again, WTH are you talking about? I just opened a 7-GB+ ISO file and I'm viewing it just fine in hex mode. And as a test, I just created a ~60-MB text file and it also works fine. And they each opened instantly. Maybe your settings are screwed up, your systems are crap, or you have a chip on your shoulder.

I did find a bug regarding the new "Environment" feature.

The only other thing I've noticed is that this version starts noticeably quicker for me.

ssb reviewed v14.00 on Feb 23, 2008

Just a few minor new "features" but still the same old crappy editing engine. No more large file support, extremely buggy unicode, highlighting and folding.

I wonder what's going wrong with IDM people. They had one of the best selling editing applications and they f***ed it up! Well done, folks!

NOT recommended!

zridling reviewed v14.00 on Feb 22, 2008

Wow, this is too bad. Even though I have a lifetime license (which you have to fight IDM for each version, and they're in no hurry to get it to you), this program now costs twice as much and will not load a large file. Where's the advantage?

De Julien reviewed v14.00 on Feb 22, 2008

A perfect example of WHY shareware sucks. They have to keep on adding useless crap to get the bucks rolling.

tranglos reviewed v13.20a on Jan 5, 2008

UE may have been top of the line at one point, but today its age shows. Completely broken syntax highlighting (try XML!), no "document classes" (groups of settings applied per file type), and nagging usability issues like no Yes to all/No to all buttons when closing editor with many files open and changed. The latest version has a nasty minimization bug too, where UE minimizes to taskbar but does not release focus - you still need Alt+Tab to actually switch to another application.

My rating reflects the one high point: as far as I've been able to test, UE correctly recognizes and supports UTF-8 files with and without signature, and does not add the signature to a file that originally didn't have it (doing so would break builds with some files I have to work with). Apart from EmEditor (which has its own issues), UE is only Windows editor that handles cleanly all UTF-8 and Unicode files. Well, maybe VI does too, didn't check :)

zridling reviewed v13.20a on Dec 6, 2007

Still my second fav next to EmEditor, but no longer opens large files, making it useless for my purposes.

Tarun. reviewed v13.20a on Dec 5, 2007

I used to use this and tolerate the bugs, then I discovered Notepad++. I've no regrets in leaving UltraEdit behind.

ssb reviewed v13.20a on Dec 5, 2007

Still broken Unicode/UTF-8 support, broken code folding, many unfixed bugs.
UE used to be my favorite text editor for many many years, but not any more. In its current form, UE is not an editor, it's a ...bug collection.

No rating better than 1, until IDM rewrite their buggy editing engine from scratch.

extremely well reviewed v13.20 on Oct 20, 2007

I absolutely love this text editor, for at least 7 years now. My fav improvement here -- "- Prompt only once for autosave on new document". In other words, I can completely retire notepad even for quick-jotdowns (copy-pastes) of text I don't even WANT to save longer than 5-15 mins of use. Wonderful.

Oh wait, actually I cannot retire Notepad cuz I cannot right-justify Hebrew text. (Existing Right-justify paragraph feature doesn't change text input direction.)

v13.20

- Find improvements
- Favorites button for Search and Replace
- Find in Files in a separate thread
- Find in Files to optionally pick up word
under cursor
- Search string now displayed in 'Not Found'
dialog box
- Options for auto-reset of find settings in
configuration
- Macro search string no longer added to Find
history
- Persistent Selection
- Allows selection of text without use of shift
key
- Selection persists until:
* Another selection is started
* Selection is cut, deleted, or pasted
- Selection can be extended at a later time
by selecting persistent selection again
- Persistent selection anchor point can be reset
by ctrl-left mouse click
- Option to alphabetize Tabs automatically on
file open
- Visual indication Macro is being recorded on
status bar
- Configurable auto-complete results
- SSH/Telnet now allows ctrl+insert copy and
shift+insert paste
- Autosave when UE window loses focus
- Prompt only once for autosave on new document

gehtnix reviewed v13.20 on Oct 16, 2007

ejanzzen, if you need a simple texteditor that is
somehow similar to windows own notepad, but with
advanced features, then try "TED Notepad".
It is 161 KB only. You will find it here:
http://tinyurl.com/2vo8bw (redirects to fileforum).

Ultraedit is much more than a notepad replacement.
It is a programmers editor with many useful featu-
res, is a hexeditor, can compare files, uses macros
and so on. I rate it 4, as "NoteTab Light 5.5" is
free and does a lot of things that you would expect
from an editor.
I can't give any opinion about UltraEdit being bad
coded or not at THIS place.

ssb reviewed v13.20 on Oct 16, 2007

No better rating than 1, until IDM rewrite from scratch their buggy editing engine.

ejanzzen reviewed v13.10a on Jul 16, 2007

I gave up after v.9.20b ... A texteditor above 10MB is unacceptable. What is this; a small Office Suite?

utomo reviewed v13.10a on Jul 15, 2007

This is a good editors.
but it need to improve, as now mostly user need easier editor. as there is many visual programming tools.
UE need to improve the XML editing, with tree view and other easier ways.

zridling reviewed v13.10a on Jul 13, 2007

I will continue low ratings until UE's power is restored! I also hate that even though you purchase a Lifetime license, you have to hassle them to get the license updated from IDM. The only reason companies do that is to discourage you from buying into that.

To date, the only TRUE, hassle-free lifetime licenses are XYplorer file manager and WinRAR.
________________________________________________
13.10a Changelog:
— Added menu/toolbar icon for Show Spaces/Tabs command
— Added support for column mode to Goto line/col select in a Macro
— Added remember font option in ASCII Table dialog
— Added key mapping support for Show Line Endings
— FTP/SFTP Enhancements
- Updated SFTP component
- FTP file open issue in Explorer view when connecting to MVS server
- Improved support for adding FTP files to projects
- Enhanced upload,download, and open functionality
- Improved handling of file save upon application exit
— Updated SSH/Telnet component
— Improved Syntax highlighting support for code folding, multi-line strings, and function list
— Improved caret positioning/display
Alignment/positioning issue when Show Spaces/Tabs enabled
— Removal of Recent Files menu entries with Clear Histories function
— Scroll thumb positioning for Perl regex find target
— Disable Save All command after saving all open files
— Display of utf8 file following Conversions to ASCII
— Find/Replace and Find in Files/Replace in Files improvements
- Improved support for regular expression find and replaces
- Unexpected prompt when opening Find or Replace dialog
- Improved Handling of "Results to Edit Window" functionality
- Other minor changes
— Issue with Ctrl and/or Alt and any cursor key in key mapping
— Undo issue with Word wrap with auto line indent
— Bookmark edit and save with no file edits
— "Add or Remove Programs" not displaying UE icon
— Unhandled exception when concurrently backspacing from end of file while selecting text with mouse
— Other minor fixes

cricri_pingouin reviewed v13.10 on Jun 15, 2007

Ack, yes, I tried opening a 330MB file with this version, and it choked :( I had to kill the process. Note that I feel like 13.00a is also slower on this 330MB file than it used to be :(
If they don't get this fixed quickly, then PSPad will get a boost in user base.
Other things I find better in UltraEdit at this point: supports AStyle, easier to script (partly due to proper documentation), file comparison (although UC light is not really great), and of course code folding.
*EDIT* BTW, it opens quickly for me too on a P4-2.4 with 768MB of RAM, hardly an overkill mahcine.

zridling reviewed v13.10 on Jun 14, 2007

moeb1us, I won't deny that EditPlus is fantastic and has been for many years, but the bloat of UltraEdit comes from its IDE overhead now. I'm giving it a 1 because this version crashes when opening large files, which was THE ONE reason I loved UltraEdit so much. The next version of EmEditor is set to take UltraEdit's place for good as a text editor, since it will not only handle large files (as in very large), but still costs only $40 for EmEditor Pro.

moeb1us reviewed v13.10 on Jun 14, 2007

Why is this software 10+MB for a text editor?

guys EditPlus recently just added code folding.
The reason I ditched editplus for UltraEdit was code folding, anyway during that time UltraEdit kept on getting more bloated with each release, I sent them several emails about there code folding bugs, I even had to send my PHP code and show them exactially how it breaks on their program lol, so yeah 2 more versions later...not fixed, and even more slow loading, @ zridling its probably loading fast for you because you're running a gaming machine to run a sluggish app like this.

Anyway EditPlus 4 life people, it still fast as it ever was.

zridling reviewed v13.00a on Apr 18, 2007

Hmmm, no problems here. Opens instantly, and it all works for me. Are you guys sure you're using 13.00a?

Nadee reviewed v13.00a on Apr 18, 2007

Totally agree with ssb. IDM should consider fixing the existing issues in the software before introducing new features.

We don't want a bloated up piece of software that taken up several minutes to start.

The greatest ever editor loved by many seems to becoming unpopular due to lack of proper planing by its creators.

ssb reviewed v13.00a on Apr 17, 2007

To IDM authors, with all my respect:

First, get a new debugger and someone who knows how to use it!

Prefer beta testers with experience on C++ programming, not ignorant enthusiasts.

Fix the folding bugs
Fix the highlighting bugs
Fix the text rendering issues
Fix the (countless) UTF-8 / Unicode bugs
Fix the slow startup issue
Fix the bugs of builtin SSH or remove it. Currently it only increases startup lag.
Fix the bugs in scripting
Remove that damned IE toolbar. UE is a programmers tool not a kids-only freeware.
Get serious with your products

Listen carefully what your customers say.

comeoffit reviewed v13.00 on Apr 12, 2007

Downhill, indeed, and picking up speed.

Quite a few users have slow-startup issues:
http://www.ultraedit.com...le=viewtopic&t=4404

I'm all for piling on new features, but not at the expense of performance. No, the answer is not to stop adding or refining features. The answer is to care about quality and performance, too!

bournex reviewed v13.00 on Mar 19, 2007

Disappointed long-time ultraedit user. Twistpad is my newfound friend... ok, I admit it. It lacks some of the features in ultraedit but it has some pretty darn nice ones of its own. And it's cleaner and lighter!

justme123 reviewed v13.00 on Mar 17, 2007

I used to love UltraEdit, and now I have ~8 second startups too! I've seen mainframes boot faster than this digital turd with no quality control loads.

vcorvinus reviewed v13.00 on Mar 15, 2007

I paid $50 for lifetime UltraEdit updates a couple years ago. I think it may be time to move on to a different product.

I am sure zridling cannot be including startup times in his judgment that UltraEdit 13.0 is "superfast". That, or something really strange is going on with my system. Each version of this program starts slower than the previous, to the extent that version 13.0 takes 7 full seconds to start on my system, even when started natively (with no file open). Yes, I actually timed it with a stopwatch.

I do not want to leave UltraEdit running all the time, so do not suggest that as some lame workaround. A 7-second startup time is insane for a text editor. Microsoft Word 2002 starts much more quickly than UltraEdit--even the very first time I run it!

As far as bugs go, I have a couple really annoying ones I've been putting up with for a long time. IDM support is very responsive, but they always claim "we cannot reproduce that". This is even the case when other users have reported the same bugs in their forums. Very aggravating.

There is no better-featured or more capable text editor out there. And I am not one of the many idiots who slams software for being "bloated" with no real reason. But 7-second startup times and one unresolved perpetual bug after another is too much for me.

The stupid MSIE toolbar is included in the installer, but there is an option to deselect it, and in fact, it is not installed by default. Still, I think it's ridiculous that they include it--or even have it--at all.

Now go ahead, zridling, take this software review personally, and then attack me personally. After all, it's what you do.

cricri_pingouin reviewed v13.00 on Mar 12, 2007

There is no doubt that UltraEdit is an excellent all purpose editor. Whoever says that PSPad is better in terms of functionality is simply lying.
However, at $50 (and not $35 as stipulated in Betanews), it's steep. Besides, for this price, you get updates for *rolls drums* one year! After that, updates can be purchased for $25. UltraEdit can also be purchased with unlimited updates for *rolls drums again* $150!
This is way too much. I agree that UltraEdit is very good, but it doesn't justify an investment anywhere close to $150.

ssb reviewed v13.00 on Mar 7, 2007

@zridling,
>> ...there is no Yahoo toolbar; never has been

Have you seen this? ( http://www.ultraedit.com...pa=showpage&pid=186 )
It's nothing more than the Yahoo toolbar, modified a bit by IDM (using Yahoo SDK) and embedded into UltraEdit's installer. A common marketing practice for freeware and adware authors, though unacceptable in case of a "serious" payed application like UE.

According UTF-8 bugs, I assume you're not using UltraEdit + UTF-8 with non-Latin characters. If you did, you should know that UE UTF-8 implementation is full of nasty bugs. Personally I've sent tens of bug reports to IDM and they were able to reproduce them. With only a few exceptions, most of these bugs still exist in latest UE builds, even in v13.

BTW, no need to mention other well-known unfixed UE bugs (buggy folding and highlighting, slow rendering etc)...

Many years ago, I stopped using my previous favorite editing tool (Edit+) and switched to UltraEdit simply because it was a better programmers editor. Nowadays, I switched back to my old Edit+ license just for one reason; I cannot stand UE bugs any more!

zridling reviewed v13.00 on Mar 6, 2007

Wow very nice, with lots of cool UI improvements for Vista. Still superfast and very powerful. Not sure what the previous two commenters are talking about since they're the same person. The UTF-8 bug was limited to an old version with an odd setup and there is no Yahoo toolbar; never has been.

Try using the program before lying about it. And while you're at it, check out PSPad, it's pretty fantastic in its own right if you hate paying for shareware.

clokwise reviewed v13.00 on Mar 6, 2007

I still refuse to pay for my copy, in v12 I encountered some serious bugs which have partially or totally destroyed my documents. UTF-8 handling has been iffy as well - though much improved over earlier versions. I've brought these bugs to the attention of UE team, lets hope v13 finally fixes them.

UPDATE: I've installed v13+1 and it just ate my document after 5 hours of editing. The bottom half of my document is all garbage. It's been randomly doing this since version 12 - so I've been using v11 until I upgraded today because of this bug. I'm so upset that I've come back here to warn people to avoid UE until this bug is fixed or you may be the next victim.

ssb reviewed v12.20b on Jan 6, 2007

@utomo
According UE bugs, I've sent many detailed bug reports to IDM authors. Most of them were verified and confirmed by UE developer. Do you want to know how many have been fixed? NONE!

And I don't mean simple eyecandy issues but serious problems with UTF-8 encoded files, Undo, code folding, syntax highlighting, rendering delays and others.

Instead fixing these (and other) issues, IDM authors have added an IE Yahoo toolbar.
What a great professional feature !!!

With all respect to UE author, some of us (their clients) want an editing tool that simply works alltime. UltraEdit used to be such a tool in the past, it served me well for more than ten years. Unfortunately it is not any more, at least for me.

utomo reviewed v12.20a on Oct 27, 2006

To HelgeFossmo:
Yes I know that the Ultra edit already implement the code folding. Which is a great features.
and I see that it is famous enough by looking the counter. Maybe I just mis the date :)

***
What I request now is the code folding must working correctly. It is great features, but it need to work correctly to make it usefull, otherwise it will make people hate it.
Some people still reporting the code folding Bugs.
Unfortunatelly the reporter did NOT giving more info. I hope the reporter contact the Ultra Edit, http://www.ultraedit.com/index.php?name=Contact
and explain to them what is wrong, and email them the code/ screenshot which causing the problems. to make it easier to track the bugs.
by doing that we can expect to have better Ultra edit in future.

Ultra edit need to test the code folding with various languange such as C, XML, Java and others. maybe they can find some bugs.
For testing, Ultra Edit can try the OpenOffice.org source code which can be downloaded from http://ftp.stardiv.de/pu...Office.org/stable/2.0.4/
I hope it has enough source code for testing :)
It has various language, which can represent many language.

I hope we will see better UE soon. Good Luck

HelgeFossmo reviewed v12.20 on Oct 13, 2006

Great programmer editor!

Utomo said:
"I don't know when they Add the Code Folding features, which I request at version 12.00."

Code folding was already in UltraEdit before version 12.00, it's strange you have missed it.
See this picture for example:
http://www.ultraedit.com...&album=6&pos=10

utomo reviewed v12.20 on Oct 13, 2006

Really Great Editor.
I don't know when they Add the Code Folding features, which I request at version 12.00.

Look at the screenshot view history. it look like this features is popular enough. and need to be improved, to make it more nice and useful.

and also because XML become popular, and it will be the future. I hope Ultra Edit also add more fetures for XML editor.

Good Luck.

zridling reviewed v12.10b on Sep 1, 2006

Code-folding bugs? Yeah right. Note the new way of opening and closing documents. Now that's cool.

ssb reviewed v12.10 on Jun 6, 2006

Excellent editor in terms of functionality but its Unicode/UTF-8 implementation as well as code folding still have countless bugs.
I missed the old (pre v7) versions, those days UE used to be rock solid and extrmemely fast.

dreadlox reviewed v12.10 on May 17, 2006

To: extremely well
Use the find-function and check the option "List lines containing string". Search for "todo" and you'll get a list of all lines containing "todo".

Best text-editor ever btw! :)

extremely well reviewed v12.10 on May 16, 2006

I think that should be 12.10, latest ver. Superb application now with clipboard managing! One thing is missing, though - keyword analysis, so I could type [John] or [Todo] all over the place then click on those tags and see a list of all textlines with those tags. Maybe in v13?

utomo reviewed v12.00a on Apr 30, 2006

It need improvements so we can hide and view a groups of code by click a - and + symbol

Edit ML have this features, but there is no news about editM anymore and it only for XML.

Hope Ultra edit will make such features.

The screenshot still version 11.

sn1p34 reviewed v12.00a on Apr 30, 2006

PSPAD does offer colum editing, but I do not find it as smoth as Ultra edit.

1) In Settings -> Program Settings -> Editor - Behaviour, make sure the box "ALT sets Column Mode" is checked.
2) In the editor, hold down Alt before clicking to select text. You can now select text in a column, without disturbing the text on either side of the column; you can copy, cut, or paste it to your liking.

This is a great program bu its geting a 4 because of its cost, PSPAD basicly does everything this program can, and its free.

tannenwheel reviewed v12.00a on Apr 30, 2006

yup, the column _editing_ mode of ultraedit is a genius feature. as far as i know it can be found only in crimson editor and cream(gvim). i can't live without this feature. its the only reason why i use ultraedit, cause i like some slimmer editors better.

dont mix column editing with well known column or block selection, its not the same. try it.

@sn1p34 above ...

i told u not to mix selections with editing a column, but try what the later means ;)

okay, maybe we should call it collumn-typing to be precise.

you get a thin cursorline ranging over a few lines and can type letters tabs or "backspaces" in each of the lines.

maybe you think thats useless but if it was i would not use it ceaselessly.
one needs to try it.

aditionally you can select cut copy paste blocks like in other editors.

you can also fill in numbers or algin blocks to the left or right.

sn0wflake reviewed v12.00a on Apr 30, 2006

Does PSPad or Notepad++ have the column editing feature?

nRadeo reviewed v12.00a on Apr 29, 2006

The ultimate Editor! Theres no better, just waiting until its free, that would be nice. But, until today, its rental for every cent ^^

yagood reviewed v12.00a on Apr 29, 2006

PSPad is free and has more features.

rezus reviewed v12.00a on Apr 29, 2006

Notepad++ is better

zridling reviewed v12.00a on Apr 28, 2006

Solid. Toolbar lock is returning soon. Here's the 12.00a changelog:

- Issue with ctags working correctly with perl regex.
- Issue involving switching between ue, unix, and perl style regular expressions.
- The affected areas include find/replace, macros, function list, and ctags.
- Missing scrollbar in List Lines Containing Strings on Windows 2000
- Issue with auto-recovery and multiple instances
- Issue with multi-character brace matching
- Issue with multi-line replace all
- Crash with find/replace dialog
- Convert to fixed column scan in large one-line file
- Message prompt when opening a file without temp file
- Resize issue with favorite files dialog in Windows classic view
- Issue with Find in Files to Edit window
- Issue with cursor down in Chinese
- Positioning issue after replace in spell checker
- Issue with Search setting 'Continue at End of File'
- Focus issue with Find/Replace dialog
- Import of UE settings
- Select issue with block mode Indent/Unindent
- Crash in Replace/Replace in Files
- FTP mode for FTP linked folders, should always use binary mode
- FTP file tree view support for MVS servers
- Crash in FTP file/folder rename
- Comment remove working differently from toolbar than from menu
- Tandem cursor in Hex Edit view with nothing selected
- Localized tooltips when hovering over main toolbar
- Issue with horizontal scroll thumb and long lines
- Brace matching with Perl hash dereference
- Replace/undo issue with unicode files
- Save As with UTF8 to UTF16/BE/UASCII
- Issue with Find/Replace In Files and display to edit window
- Issue with Find and Replace dropdowns on Win2K
- Display of List Lines Containing String for high ASCII characters
- Issues with Perl regex and exception handling
- A number of issues with using anchors ie ^ and $ in perl regex
- Issue with newline characters in 'list lines containing' dialog
- Issue with empty replace string in 'replace all in open files'
- Certain issues with perl regex find over multiple lines
- Crash in FTP file/folder rename
- Replace/undo issue with unicode files
- Save As with UTF8 to UTF16/BE/UASCII

nefarious1 reviewed v12.00 on Mar 21, 2006

IMO the best of its kind, but has a few bugs that have persisted version after version after version.

And the fact that you can't lock the tab bar irritates me. Every couple days, I mistakenly drag it just enough to make it become floating, then I have to screw around rearranging everything.

Boreth reviewed v12.00 on Mar 17, 2006

The first program we install on any new system, have used and updated UEdit since the floppy days.

zridling reviewed v12.00 on Mar 16, 2006

If you ask me to choose any three programs I could not live without, UltraEdit would be first on the list. Responsive development with attention to detail, power, and speed make version 12.x fantastic. I work with very large raw data files and as always, UltraEdit can open an 8Gb file almost instantaneously! I bought a Lifetime license many years ago, and IDM still honors it unlike every other software company that either "reinterprets" what Lifetime means or merely changes the product's name to get out of such licenses. Use it and you won't ever bother with another text/hex editor.
____________________________________
[CHANGELOG]: NEW FEATURES FOR V12.00 INCLUDE:
* Perl-compatible Regular Expressions/Real Unix-style regular expressions
* FTP/SFTP Enhancements:
__FTP Accounts shown and accessible in File Tree View
__FTP Settings may now be in user definable file
__Ability to link local folder and remote folder and upload/download files between remote server and local system

* Find/Replace enhancements:
__Much improved UNICODE support
__Dialogs have full UNICODE support
__Highlight all found occurrences of string

* Auto-recovery of modified files after system/application crash

* Multiple backup files/versions on save and/or auto-save

* Increased User and Project Tools to 25 each

* New Macro commands:
__*IfFTP to check if file is an FTP file
__*IfCharGt to check if character is greater than value
__*IfColNumGt to check if column number is greater than value

* New improved dialog for User and Project Tools

* Improved (Aspell) Spelling Support

* Code folding support for ignore strings and comment strings

* Enhanced support for UltraCompare Professional including 3-way compare

* Right-click compare from UltraEdit File Tree View

* All menus and toolbars switch together when changing user profiles

* Animated dialogs

* New file tab look (legacy tabs remain if you want)

* More docking options than ever

UTAKER reviewed v12.00 on Mar 16, 2006

very nice but the price is too high

Zerbe reviewed v12.00 on Mar 16, 2006

Nice app, just a little too expensive for me. PSPad is free and can do almost the same things. The only thing I miss is code folding, but I wouldnt buy UE for just that. I would buy it if it was $40 for lifetime upgrades, but not for $100 like it is now.

paul_ray reviewed v11.20a on Dec 11, 2005

I have been using UltraEdit for about five years. I have tried other editors but UltraEdit is better for what I need than the others.

I use different languages each day (VB, FoxPro, C, HTML,SQL) and it is nice to be able to use the same editor for any language.

Being able to edit 500 meg text files is very useful. We had a problem with a download file from the mainframe recently. There were EOF markers in the file that should not have been there. Our programs that import the data would stop when it saw an EOF maker. With UltraEdit I was able to find the EOF markers (using HEX and ASCII modes). I then passed these records to the mainframe group for corrections.

With version 11's code folding, this has been a big plus. It makes it easy to collapse a long 'case' or 'if' code.

The project is my favorite feature. With one process I am involved with it has around 25 programs. Being able to see all programs at once, searching the project is great.

I have a macro that will add or remove the quotes and variables around a SQL that is embedded in a FoxPro or VB code. With SQL statement running around 50 lines this macro takes about a second. Doing this by hand would take about five minutes.

The template function is very nice. I have my commonly used code in different templates. I can then insert this into any program I need.

With a 45 day free look, you should download it (and the correct word file for your language) and try it. You will purchase it before the 45 days are over.

MorningStar reviewed v11.20a on Nov 30, 2005

Changelog, as requested:
* Fixed stuck mouse pointer issue with file tabs
* Fixed delay when issuing keyboard/toolbar commands
* Fixed new line painting corruption issue
* Corrected "style" keywords in the wordfile
* Fixed issue with high CPU usage in conjunction with HTML toolbar
* Windows list will now display correctly on Window menu
* Fixed single click maximize issue
* Fixed issue with config options not being saved
* Fixed issue with multiple embedded asp statements in one HTML line
* Fixed reverse auto brace match lines separated by a soft line wrap
* Corrected labeling of the HTMLImageButton command
* Fixed Goto column number to start at column 1
* Fixed Collapse-all with identical open and close fold strings
* Fixed missing open windows list
* Fixed right click menu configuration crash

DudeBoyz reviewed v11.20a on Nov 30, 2005

Changelog for 20a anyone?

A bit cluttered and perhaps overwhelming, but very powerful and flexible. Tradeoff is certainly worth it.

I really like that you can wrap/unwrap paragraphs very quickly. Great help with usenet posts when combined with search and replace.

LeXTeRiTY_X reviewed v11.20 on Oct 25, 2005

Worth every cent it's paid for, although right now I'm used to using PSPad's userhighlighter for adding/removing highlighted keywords on the fly.

sn0wflake reviewed v11.20 on Oct 23, 2005

Great application but costs money and is a nightmare to configure as there's literally hundreds of options. I've switched to PSPad now.

pyridox reviewed v11.20 on Oct 23, 2005

I don't do much "plain text" editing, but if you do, this one performs very nice.

mackley reviewed v11.20 on Oct 23, 2005

I used many text editor... but UltraEditor is the Best !

zridling reviewed v11.20 on Oct 23, 2005

What omV0 said!

omV0 reviewed v11.20 on Oct 22, 2005

Simply the best editing tool around. I've been using ultraedit for many years and can't imagine my life without it. In fact, the ONLY reason i reinstalled windows after using linux is because i couldnt get by without ultraedit (which does not support linux). Please make a linux version!

HelgeFossmo reviewed v11.20 on Oct 22, 2005

best programmer's editor ever! perfect for web developement since it support open from&save to ftp's, also support revisioning control programs etc, got all features you can dream of even code folding :)

darthbeads reviewed v11.10c on Sep 21, 2005

Uuummm. Great editor -- frankly more robust than my needs, so the price is just too high. PSPad does everything _I_ need, so I am happier with it's feature set and price.

ddebidin reviewed v11.10b on Aug 27, 2005

This is another great editor, quite fast and efficient. It has an amazing feature set and options. It features a professional interface that is quite quick to adapt to.

zridling reviewed v11.10b on Jul 27, 2005

UltraEdit didn't win the 2005 SIA Award for Best Application for nothing.

Here's the Changelog for 11.10b:
__ Fixed multi-line quoted string issue in mutli-language file
__ Fixed on paste line ending conversions on Windows 9X
__ Fixed issue with trailing spaces in FTP filenames
__ Added error message to differentiate between folders and groups in new folder dialog
__ Fixed heap corruption in undo buffer, specifically search/replace operations on files with long lines
__ Fixed issue with missing Red/Green/Blue bitmaps in color selector
__ Added crash dump feature
__ Fixed filtered display of project folder subdirectories
__ Fixed Find in Files, Function list, and Ctags when searching project folder subdirectories
__ Fixed highlighting issues and crash of FTP/SFTP Save As with syntax highlighted files
__ Fixed conflict when changing desktop background color on XP systems
__ Fixed SFTP truncated or missing filenames in file listing
__ Fixed UTF-8 false positive detection issue
__ Fixed synchronization issue with multiple instances of UE
__ Fixed simultaneous opening of multiple files with a single instance of UE
__ Removed f90 and f95 from the default FORTRAN_LANG file extension list
__ Explorer view will now update correctly when drives are added/removed from the system
__ Fixed relative path issues with project tagfile/wordfile
__ Fixed drag-and-drop when selection is top line of display and mouse is clicked left of first column
__ Installer fixes; added All Users desktop shortcut, fixed Admin issues with start menu shortcuts
__ Fixed update of function list in multi-language syntax highlighted Unicode files
__ Corrected multiline-string switch for unknown languages
__ Added check for attempting reindent selection of lines >20k characters
__ Maintain text selection while scrolling through large unicode files
__ Fixed Undo issue with converted UNIX files
__ Fixed screen jump when folding/unfolding code near the end of a file
__ Improved SFTP support for VAX/VMS
__ Fixed Aspell issue with single quotes causing false positive
__ Fixed crash with scrolling through code folded sections of file
__ Corrected painting issue when code folding sections >75k
__ Fixed brace matching in non-syntax highlighted files
__ Fixed crash when pasting UTF-16/UTF-8

Inray reviewed v11.10a on May 14, 2005

UltraEdit is one of the best editors in its class. It is not free, not skinable, not open source, Not a ...toy just a real tool.

httpd.confused reviewed v11.10a on May 12, 2005

I really wonder... Why does roj always sound so angry? Why does he complain about so many things, but say that other people (like me) are "whining" when they do the same?

I actually do use most of UltraEdit's features. Not all of them, every day, but all considered, I use most of them at least occasionally.

And I'd also take the cheapo route and switch to ConTEXT, but then I'd be screwed when I needed something like UltraEdit's built-in FTP support, effective large-file support, or any of the other things that only appear in the best of the breed.

Sorry, these things really do define UltraEdit as the "best" text editor. If a lesser application suits your needs, that's cool, but it's still a lesser application. I can't afford a Mercedes, and my GMC is good enough for my needs, but I don't kid myself into thinking that my GMC is still somehow "the best".

Oh, the tired price argument... No, it doesn't make sense to figure it into a rating. I understand that price is a factor in deciding what software to use, but price is the one thing that varies completely by the individual, and also the one thing that each user can decide entirely on their own.

It would be so nice if I could always simply look at software ratings, find the best, and then weigh in how much I was willing and able to pay... But no, I have to look at ratings, and somehow guess how rich or poor or cheap each reviewer was, and how much they figured price into their rating. Since I'm not a cheapo who desperately clings to freeware, whether it's crap or not, sifting through reviews by people who are is an exercise in futility for me.

Or, if I'm wrong, then every software site ought to remove all "Price" columns in their software listings, and not let you sort on it. You can only sort by "Title" and "Rating". That's all that matters, right, since people insist on rolling up price into their rating?

Well, I want to be able to find the best-rated software, and then figure out how much I can or am willing to pay. Makes sense.

zridling reviewed v11.10a on May 12, 2005

Wow roj, that's a truly specious argument. So because I may not use all of OpenOffice's features, I should instead use something else? Programs aren't designed for one individual's needs, but rather for many general users' needs. If you're happy with freeware alternatives, good for you! I'm surprised you didn't choose PSPad instead. ConTEXT, on the other hand is hardly sufficient, lacking column mode, Hex mode, code folding, virtually nonexistent macro and scripting, and it does not allow you to undo changes past the save point.

Next time, however, save us the "Because it costs me one dime, I don't like it" speech. We've memorized it by now.

betadaemon reviewed v11.10 on Apr 17, 2005

I really have to agree with the previous review. I have one multi-purpose editor - UltraEdit-32! It edits humongous files, provides syntax highlighting for everything under the sun, and is *lightning* fast.

Once you own UltraEdit-32, you need no other editors again. Ever.

ghammer reviewed v11.10 on Apr 17, 2005

Compare this great tool to VIM? Ha, ha, ha!
Not in the same league. This is THE premiere editor, hands down.

Um, freeware zealots, you need to remember,
free does not equal good automatically.

Some only think of cost, those people get what they deserve in many cases.

UltraEdit-32 is without peer. Yep, you may get this or that in some other tool. Get all that UE brings, then come tell us all.

jungle! reviewed v11.10 on Apr 16, 2005

Still, it is is no match for Vim, which is free.

zridling reviewed v11.10 on Apr 16, 2005

Among other things, this small update adds a great new icon set. By "chunky" roj, do you mean too many features? Yea, that's a big problem with software these days. httpd, this version has a "Check for Updates" option in the Help menu now. UltraEdit is faster than it's been in several versions now, but get ready for UEStudio later this year, which should be fun. UltraEdit will remain the core of UEStudio's IDE, which will allow UltraEdit to continue its existence independent of UEStudio for those who don't need the kitchen sink of coding, but UltraEdit's development will be the same as UEStudio's. Finally, IDM recently announced that they will produce a native Linux version in 2006 — yes!

httpd.confused reviewed v11.10 on Apr 16, 2005

Why does IDM have an UltraEdit new release mailing list at all? They only send email messages for major updates. Minor updates are made available every few weeks. They say they're afraid of bugging customers. But, uhh... Who is going to sign up for an update notification list, and then complain about one email every three weeks?

I know that this version has an update check, but it's not automatic.

Whatever. Great editor. I don't get the references to bloatware... The main EXE is just over 2-MB in size, and this version is faster than the one prior.

You can get "most" of the features in UltraEdit elsewhere, but what if you want all of them? The FTP support, format support, blah you can read about or discover the features on your own...

Regarding Vim, here's what I saw in a review of it:

Column mode: No.
Hex mode: No.
Searching: poor
Undo: Yes, past save point.
Macros and Scripting: custom vimscript
User Tools: couldn't figure out.
Code Folding: No.

But hey, it's free, right?

The people who claim that [this] or [that] freeware editor is "just as good" or "better" are the same ones who could get by with Notepad, because obviously they don't do any serious editing, especially involving code or very large files.

CTzen reviewed v11.00b on Apr 6, 2005

I'm using Ultra-Edit for about 9 years. And it just keeps getting better. IMHO, it's one of the best text editor out there.

httpd.confused reviewed v11.00b on Apr 5, 2005

"I wasn't impressed w/ it myself..."

Let's see... A review of a text editor, from a person who can't even be bothered to type out the entire word "with", who rates poorly but gives no details whatsoever.

Gee, I bet this quality of acerbic indictment would send IDM back to the drawing board.

JeRrYFaR reviewed v11.00b on Mar 25, 2005

I wasn't impressed w/ it myself..

I think EditPlus is a much better editor..

CyberHobo reviewed v11.00b on Mar 24, 2005

Very nice at what it does. One of my top 5 favorite editors.

shawkins reviewed v11.00b on Mar 24, 2005

I've always loved this editor. My petty little beef with previous versions was the ugly, ugly UGLY installer. Glad it's back to looking professional :-)

cyberguy reviewed v11.00b on Mar 24, 2005

It is a fine editor that does almost everything I need. What it doesn't do, I don't use often enough to miss it. The price is ok too - far cheaper than many shareware competitors.

bugmenot reviewed v11.00b on Mar 24, 2005

Simply the best editor available...

jungle! reviewed v11.00a on Mar 8, 2005

zridling says "NO OTHER TEXT EDITOR EVEN COMES CLOSE TO ITS FEATURE SET, PERIOD."...

Hmm, I guess he has never heard of Vi, GVim, Emacs, or even Jedit... All of which are free. Add to that, there is nothing that UE can do that those editors cannot. And to use those aplications, not only do you not have to pay every year for license renewal, you dont have to pay one cent!!

If you want to compare it to other shareware editors, then it doesnt even compare to MultiEdit or Visual SlickEdit.

I think it is a good editor, but I simply dont get this cultish worship of it either.

zridling reviewed v11.00a on Mar 3, 2005

Cool. Let's get back on topic by listing the fixes for this 11.00a update, which can be found at:
http://www.ultraedit.com...p;pa=showpage&pid=1

httpd.confused reviewed v11.00a on Mar 2, 2005

Yeah, and they also say that "off topic reviews will not be tolerated", hypocrite. Stop giving zridling a hard time. Oh cool, now a bunch of us have naughty reviews here. Happy?

ghammer reviewed v11.00a on Mar 2, 2005

zridling- I do look at the overall. But rehashing what you can find on the vendor's website is ludicrous. And the people who run this site seem to agree:

"The reviews are meant as a resource, not as a bulletin board, and review space is limited."

So, like I said, good, bad, rate it. But kindly quit writing novels where a few lines will do.

You want to praise or poor mouth an app? Cool, most vendors have forums. Use 'em.

zridling reviewed v11.00 on Feb 10, 2005

A much bigger and better screenshot is found at:
http://www.anova.org/software/appgifs/ue02.png

UltraEdit is by far the most powerful and flexible text/hex editor on the market today — NO OTHER TEXT EDITOR EVEN COMES CLOSE TO ITS FEATURE SET, PERIOD. If you're happy with freeware text editors compared to UltraEdit, then I'm betting you're happy driving your 1979 Ford Pinto, too; meaning you don't really understand what a powerful text editor can do, children should stick with Notepad and its freeware/OS equivalents. UltraEdit is so useful that it stays open on my desktop all day. It's extremely fast, and once customized, just a lot of fun. With fully customizable menus, toolbars, keyboard shortcuts, help files, it also includes a tabbed Explorer, Project, and Open files. Built-in file compare, advanced macro creation ability, CSS Style Builder, movable document tabs, FTP, and fully collapsible code folding for any function or structure make this version a standard that will not soon be surpassed. When creating or opening files without a temp file in the buffer, users can easily create and open files well in excess of 4Gb — I opened and scrolled to the bottom of a 4.25Gb file instantaneously! Why would I need that? I work with database and CSV files many of which start at over 2Gb in size. I dare you to try to open anything larger than a 50Mb file on other text editors without them choking. I then significantly altered the file and saved the changes, and that took less than seven seconds. That's real power, not marketing hype. UltraEdit comes with a lifetime licensing option (for little more than twice the price) and is great for everything from simple text to XML/HTML/CSS creation to format stripping. Its text editing features are so robust that I personally know of more than twenty published authors who now use UltraEdit with which to write their works — it truly clears away all the formatting and layout clutter and allows writers to set up the program however they wish, and just write. Thus, UltraEdit is the Photoshop of text editors. Only EmEditor is close, but IF AND ONLY IF you don't need UltraEdit's broad feature set or its deep text editing features. Finally, IDM listens to its users and responds to their needs with updates and through carefully planned upgrades, and the program is consistently updated for bugs and improvements.

On the point of upgrades-by-time vs. upgrades-by-version (httpd.confused), the developers I keep in contact with say the advantage to this is that they're not rushed to produce a new version every year or every two years no matter what, and with revenues made more consistent by yearly pricing, they can focus on interim updates rather than bringing out a "thinly-featured" version upgrade necessitated by a schedule which pleases no one. I strongly disagree with the practice because users often feel they're getting shortchanged. If they have to, the upgrade timetable should be for no less than two years, not one. Oh, and ghammer, sorry for the extended review — I'd hope users can come here to learn more about the positives and negatives of each app and then test it further on their own system. If you don't like comments, just restrict yourself to reading the rating (4.7/5). And don't miss all the industry awards (not just little website awards) that UltraEdit has won on its own website every year.

ghammer reviewed v11.00 on Feb 9, 2005

UltraEdit-32 has been and continues to be the standard by which all editors are measured.

And you know, I'm tired of 3 page "reviews". Good app or not? Broken in some critical manner?

Otherwise, who actually cares about your affinity for freeware, cross-platform, or seamed stockings?

Re-read the Note: when posting.

httpd.confused reviewed v11.00 on Feb 9, 2005

I have no idea what roj is talking about with the marriage reference, but whatever.

UltraEdit is the editor that all others are compared to. It gets mentioned in reviews of all the other editors, and people are always saying "It does everything that UltraEdit does except for...". Then they whine about the price.

Well, boo-hoo and guess what, UltraEdit does it all. You may not use all the features, but it makes zero sense to reduce your rating based on what other software is available.

Or, let's say that Program A comes out today. It's great, so you rate it a 5. Then, the next day, Program B comes out, and it's almost as good. What do you do, go back and change Program A's rating to a 4? Sounds like a great time killer to me--you could spend 18 hours a day on this site alone, constantly changing your reviews.

Then there's the even-move-senseless habit of rating on price. I won't give that full treatment here, but anyone who does rate on price has a lot of work to do when the USD falls against the Euro. Stupidity defined.

Freeware vs. shareware: Yeah, there are a lot of great freeware software products out there. But how many of the freeware text editor reviews have the "not quite as good as UltraEdit" disclaimer attached to them? Then there's the whole idea of responsibility. If UltraEdit has a serious bug, the developer has a responsibility to fix it. (No, duh, that doesn't mean they necessarily will fix it.) They also have a responsibility to provide support. Freeware products? I just wish I had a dollar for every time I read the disclaimer "This is developed in my (increasingly depleted) spare time. I will try to fix bugs and respond to support requests, but make no guarantees."

I do hate the greedy 1-year "free updates" license. It never made a damn bit of sense to me for upgrades to be based on time, rather than version. (So, I guess if Tim in quality control takes a week of vacation at an unfortunate time, I can miss out on a major version update as a result.) But good software is good software.

Oh, and ghammer--speaking of the "Note", you should read it, too. You made an off-topic comment as well.

jungle! reviewed v11.00 on Feb 9, 2005

Actually, UltraEdit is not the most powerful text editor on the market today. Vim and Emacs are. On Windows, GVim blows UE away in terms of productivity.

Then come Visual SlickEdit and MultiEdit in terms of extensibility, power and productivity.

paul-white reviewed v10.20d on Jan 15, 2005

I bought version 6 and upgraded to versions 7,8 and 9 but I'll never upgrade to version 10 or higher. The program has got an outdated interface and in my opinion is very much over-rated now. The final straw was the removal of the poor file comparison function and replacing it with a very much poorer version and then releasing Ultra-Compare and asking me to pay for it!

UltraEdit has had its day, yes it edits files but then do so many other better programs, not all of which ask you to pay for an upgrade every year.

zridling reviewed v10.20d on Dec 22, 2004

10.20d adds beefed-up UNICODE support along with faster load speed and multiple tab stops make this a nifty update. For me, UltraEdit is THE best text editor around, period.

CyberHobo reviewed v10.20d on Dec 22, 2004

My editor of choice. It replaced NoteTab Pro on my system.

httpd.confused reviewed v10.20d on Dec 22, 2004

Give me a break; Scite is a shadow of UltraEdit. Just because something free is available, doesn't mean the for-pay alterative isn't as good or better (if that was the case, no one would ever get married!).

UltraEdit is a world-beater. In-place editing via FTP, column mode... the list goes on and on. So keep your open source garbage and get used to the fact that it's free for a reason.

HaST reviewed v10.20d on Dec 22, 2004

Try SciTE. It's free and open source.

http://www.scintilla.org/SciTE.html

betadaemon reviewed v10.20c on Sep 20, 2004

Really, really nice software. Highly recommended. The feature set, syntax highlighting for all kinds of files, ability to edit 4gb files, all for $40 just can't be beat!

I dare anyone to find a better deal. UltraEdit is the real deal!

zridling reviewed v10.20c on Sep 19, 2004

10.20c has been out for over six weeks! For a better screenshot, visit:
http://www.anova.org/software/index01.htm#text

ssb reviewed v10.20 on Jun 22, 2004

What can i say, UE is probably the best generic programmer's editor currently available. It has no powerfull fetures like SlickEdit or MultiEdit, but beats them all in small footprint, speed and price.
Just one complaint. Latest release (10.20) becomes very slow on startup and quite stiff when used with programmer's tools like debuggers.
Why Ian ?

cricri_pingouin reviewed v10.20 on Apr 21, 2004

This software is very good and my editor of choice. It is not especially cheap and I don't know what a user meant by "Lifetime License" since I didn't find this option, but you get free upgrades for ONE YEAR ONLY (hence the 4 stars rating).
Another alternative is TextPad, slightly cheaper (by $5), similar upgrade issue, and not really as good.
This is why UltraEdit is, and will probably stay for some time, my editor of choice :)

Jeffsoft reviewed v10.20 on Apr 20, 2004

simply powerful!

zridling reviewed v10.20 on Apr 20, 2004

Comparing UltraEdit to SlickEdit or CodeWright is a bad comparison, like trying to compare Windows Write to Microsoft Word. UltraEdit is both amazing and powerful and to date no other text editor can come close to its customizability, HTML, HTML-stripping, and large file handling capabilities. Best of all, IDM offers a Lifetime License for it which is divine. If you use a text editor, you should be using UltraEdit, period.

Here's what IDM offers on the purchase/download page of its website: "We do offer unlimited upgrades for 2 1/2 (2.5) times the registration cost, which entitle you to upgrades for the life of the license at no additional cost." (Therefore, a lifetime license.)

guti reviewed v10.20 on Apr 20, 2004

I have been using Ultra-Edit since version 6 when I left alone my beloved Qedit for DOS.

Nowadays I haven't found any similar product that can do quick and full featured edits.

For coding I still prefer Codewright, or SlickEdit, but Ultra-Edit is great for simple file editing.

lzvk25 reviewed v10.10b on Dec 10, 2003

Extremely useful program. It's FTP support is extraordinary, not only you can dump vi forever, but you can also edit mainframe files !!! It is the only text editor I know that it is capable of doing this.

Bwian reviewed v10.10a on Oct 22, 2003

Makes me want to become a Text editor myself

scodan reviewed v10.10a on Oct 10, 2003

Let the kids rave about their k3w1 freeware Notepad replacements of choice--those of us who need real power (like a built-in FTP client, column mode, advanced file change management, format conversion, and so on) know where to look.

ssb reviewed v10.00c on Jun 14, 2003

What can i say about UE, it's the best programmer's editor available. Don't search for a better tool.

loranger reviewed v10.00c on May 7, 2003

the only one.
(sorry, vi... but we're talking about windows®)

bsf reviewed v9.20 on Oct 3, 2002

i liked it.

but how to acquire a licsence from Japan?

arcticice reviewed v9.20 on Oct 3, 2002

Any better?
No?

Thought so!
Hey, guys... buy it, don't steal it!
These guys really deserve their money.

Bjoern

klumy reviewed v9.10 on Jun 5, 2002

The No. 1 of Textediting tools around the net.

BoNeLeSS reviewed v9.00c on May 11, 2002

A must have

Error404 reviewed v9.00b on Apr 30, 2002

My favorite all around editor :)

DANIELRI reviewed v9.00b on Apr 30, 2002

I agree this program has potential, im connected to the internet directly over a LAN can get the cannot connect :( shame i give it 2 coz of the potential

Some_Guy reviewed v8.20a on Sep 25, 2001

Looks very cool, I'll have to try it. Right now for hex editing I use Hex Workshop 3.10 & for other ascii material, I use EditPlus 2.10c

Could this replace Hex Workshop?

jcollake reviewed v8.10b on Jun 30, 2001

UltraEdit rules.

c1zorro reviewed v8.00 on Dec 9, 2000

I really love ultraedit is really good and very light

darkmuck reviewed v8.00 on Dec 9, 2000

A solid program with many features.