Textplorer

HomePage | RecentChanges | EditorIndex | TextEditorFamilies | Preferences

 Windows text editor with color highlighting for structured data files

 Author:   Henry Kellner
 Homepage: http://www.moosware.net/Textplorer/
 Family:   MicrosoftWindowsEditors
 Platform: Windows
 License:  Freeware for non-commercial use

Textplorer is a versatile Windows editor which really has not received the recognition it deserves. The program is written by Henry Kellner, and is free for noncommercial use. Paid registration is encouraged for future program development and required for commercial use.

Its most useful feature is its ability to show every byte of a file and especially to do colorized highlighting of structured data files, not only for fixed-length fields but also for variable-length fields.

In the screenshot below, the image on the top left shows a variable-length data file which uses semicolons(;) as field separators and newlines as record separators. Notice how each separate field is not only colored differently, but also that there are field descriptors (Typ, Name, Strasse, etc.) above each field. I have used this to make sense of comma-separated files which have 40 fields and thousands of records. It's really helpful!

In the middle-left image, you'll see that Textplorer has no problem handling binary data, and it will display each Carriage Return (0x0D) and Linefeed (0x0A) in a file. I'm also pleased with the red "cross-wires", which are especially visible in the top-left and bottom-right windows. The cross-wires can be toggled off, but when they are on, they help you line up sections of program code or structured data with great ease. As you can see, context-sensitive syntax highlighting makes this a very attractive package, which is a free download with no nag-screens.

 Screenshot: