With Intellisense, code folding, edit and continue, and a whole host of other features, Visual Studio is certainly the best IDE. However, for simple code editing, I often use UltraEdit. It has some great features not found in Visual Studio. One surprisingly useful feature is being able to select a column in the editor. Multiple cursors and column selection allows for versatile ways of editing. Ctrl + d will select the current word and each time the command is repeated, it adds the next occurrence of the word to the selection. Ctrl + click or middle-mouse click will place another cursor in the place that's clicked.
What is the best C++ IDE or editor for using on Windows? I use Notepad++, but am missing IntelliSense from Visual Studio.
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44 Answers
I've found the latest release of NetBeans, which includes C/C++ support, to be excellent.
Um, that's because Visual Studio is the best IDE. Come back to the darkside.
I personally like Visual Studio combined with a third party add-in such as Visual Assist (http://www.wholetomato.com/). I've tried a few of the others and always ended up back with Visual Studio. Plus, Visual Studio is a widely used product in development industries, so having experience using it can only be a plus.
The Eclipse CDT works well for me. It supports MinGW and Cygwin as targets. It also integrates well with CVS and Subversion.
The latest build, Ganymede, is available here.
There are the free 'Express' versions of Visual Studio. Given that you like Visual Studio and that the 'Express' editions are free, there is no reason to use any other editor.
I vote for Visual Studio, but it seems that C++ is treated like second class citizen (not the compiler and stuff but IDE support) compared to .NET languages like C#, but hopefully MS will do something about it by the next version of Visual Studio (new standard is coming and they promised that 10 should be new 6).
VIsual studio is by far the best IDE but you can also take a look at Code::Blocks
I prefer to use Microsoft Visual C++ express on windows. Though the 2008 ide is fine, the 2005 express has better support for many of the open projects which you might want to participate in. It's a pain to compile Firefox or a half life 2 mod on 2008. Also as a general tip when looking for software, I like to search wikipedia for 'comparison of ' In this case you would search comparison of Integrated Development Environments.
Hope that was helpful.
If you are interested in doing Qt development, then Qt Creator works fine and is free.
I think the debugger in Visual Studio (Express) is the killer thing that prevents me from using another IDE.
Visual Studio + Visual Assist X (http://www.wholetomato.com/)
There are some features in an IDE that are so transformative that you don't know how you lived without them. Integrated help was one. IntelliSense-like functionality was another. VS 6.0's Debug and Continue was absolutely killer. Visual Studio kicked butt for quite a while. Not bad, given the awful NeXTstep rip-off it all started as. (Or is it that memories of NeXTstep has faded until VS seems okay?)
Sure, there are much better EDITORS that VS, but as a complete package for Win32 development nothing seems to come close.
There are free Express editions now, but they seem pretty crippled.
I am quite enjoying Eclipse under Linux (and derivatives of it on Windows used in some FPGA vendor toolchains). I -really- don't like the lack of integrated MSDN-style help, though.
I think it's basically down to those two choices.
Emacs. Xemacs works fine under Windows. For using it as an IDE, I recommend running it under Cygwin.
The Zeus editor has support for C/C++ and it also has a form of intellisensing.
It does its intellisensing using the tags information produced by ctags:
Visual studio is the most up to date and probably 'best' free ide. Dev C++ is a little dated, and mingw doesn't compile most of boost, (except regex). Most of the other compilers are dated and fading, like mars and borland. But you can use whatever you like!
One that hasn't been mentioned is CodeLite, a powerful open-source, cross platform IDE. It has code completion amongst other features.
I will quote myself from this question:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/780837/what-is-a-good-linux-ide-for-code-completion/917854#917854
Someone already said this before me, but QtCreator is really good for Qt4 development.
Not only it has a really good code completion support. It also knows a little more about the code and what to complete then I thought I needed. For example it knows about slots/signals. This means that connecting slots/signals via code is much easier then before.
The code editing is really nice. I remember that when refactoring code, (a few variables starting with underscore) it remembered the cursor position between lines and this made the refactoring much easier. The code indentation is smart enough to not get in my way (KDevelop was configurable, but QtCreator learns how I code. At least it feels like it does).
Then there are the cool key combinations. Most of the functionality of the IDE can be accessed using shortcuts. The 'control+k' thingie is a nice thing, which some command line users would like, but I am more GUI oriented. I don't use it.
What I really like, is the split window command. Yes, KDevelop3 does it, but not as nice as QtCreator. My favorite is control+e,3 which I use to display the header and implementations of my classes. Once again, the navigation here is the best I have seen (control+e,o).
It also has a nice SCM integration. I usually use SVN, and quite frankly it's not as good as I need: no shortcut to diff the project, no diff to commit the whole project, no option to commit several files.
I also don't like the 'total integration of external tools'. I still like the external QtAssistant - control+tab is easier to read large articles. But.... when you define a QString s, and 3 lines bellow you want to read the interface of QString, you put your cursor on 's' and press F1 - the assistant comes as a sidebar with QString's documentation. A huge advantage.
Want to follow a definition? F2 to the help. F4? Changes header/implementation (yes, eclipse does this better...).
The debugger is good. It's not as good as VisualStudio but ... it has support for Qt4 internals (you can see the value of QString and QList!).
I can continue... but IMHO you will need to give it a second and third try. It really is a good product. Not as flexible as Eclipse (hi ryansstack), but it's a really small, fast and young project. I stopped developing QDevelop because I really found what I was looking for.
ps: yes, I mean stopped developing QDevelop. I was in the development team.
My response is for Qt4 development only. Be warned.
SlickEdit is very cool, and does support something like intellisense. At my current company I now use Visual Studio, and I've mostly gotten used to it - but there are still some SlickEdit features I miss.
As a complete all-in one package, Visual Studio 2008 is the best IDE for C++ development with Windows
Visual studio is great, but there are few tricks you can enhance it with. SonicFileFinder is one - helps you to search source files by partial match. You can map solution-tree to Alt+1, partial filename search to alt+2, and properties-window to alt+3. These are the three most used windows.
Another great tool that is ofter misunderstood is ctrl+shift+F shortcut for searching file contents. People dont use because it's so slow, but my advice is - deal with it. Searching the whole solution (or even all files in project folder) is only slow the first time you use it. Consequitive searches are as fast as jump-to-definition-feature.
I've tried SlickEdit, Notepad++, emacs, jEdit and Visual Studio. VS wins hands-down for Best Windows IDE.
jEdit is probably the best GUI cross-platform editor/almost-IDE, and emacs is probably the best terminal cross-platform editor/almost-IDE. The advantage with using these is that when you jump to a Mac or Linux box, you know how they work.
I tried Eclipse, but it ran like a no-legged dog it was so slow, so I didn't use it much. Maybe tech is better now, but eh.
With Intellisense, code folding, edit and continue, and a whole host of other features, Visual Studio is certainly the best IDE. However, for simple code editing, I often use UltraEdit. It has some great features not found in Visual Studio. One surprisingly useful feature is being able to select a column in the editor. You can find and replace within the column (useful for tabs vs. spaces wars...) delete the column, etc...
How about CodeBlocks, i find it so fine with me, especially the new 10.05 version.
I would recommend C++Builder, from Embarcadero, for C++ work and there is also a free version available. If you prefer Visual Studio, download one of free express editions.
Here's another vote for Visual Studio. The debugger and Intellisense are definitely it's hallmarks. While other IDE's offer code-completion, I've often found them to be somewhat sluggish in this area for some reason (sluggish being a reference to the speed at which code-completion occurs and offers selections).
Other than VS, NetBeans is a good polished IDE and is updated on a very regular cycle.
I think it's largely a matter of taste, but I would recommend begginers to stick to a pure editor (vi, emacs...) instead of a full fledged IDE so they can figure out the whole toolchain that modern IDEs hide.
Just for the record, my weapon of choice is Emacs.
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personally i dont like microsoft......I hate to admit that visual studio is the best IDE i ever use.....Netbeans is gud but drasticaly slow....other free IDEs are useless..so people try to stick with VS....
The question says specifically IDE so I am guessing thats what you want. In that case, the main options are Visual Studio and Eclipse CDT as stated above. Of those, I personally prefer Eclipse. However, don't necessarily limit yourself to an IDE. I prefer to use vim as my editor and WinDbg as my debugger. For compilation, your project will probably dictate this. I currently use NMAke on the command line.
Use Visual Studio 2010. You can get the full version free with DreamSpark
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I searched for this and found Maudite's question about text editors but they were all for Windows.
As you have no doubt guessed, I am trying to find out if there are any text/code editors for the Mac besides what I know of. I'll edit my post to include editors listed.
Free
- Aquamacs and closer to the original EMacs
- TextMate2 - GPL
Commercial
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Thank you everybody that has added suggestions.
closed as not constructive by Bo Persson, Flexo♦, casperOneApr 2 '12 at 19:34
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39 Answers
I haven't used it myself, but another free one that I've heard good thing about is Smultron.
In my own research on this, I found this interesting article:Faceoff: Which Is The Best Mac Text Editor Ever?
I thought TextMate was everyone's favourite. I haven't met a programmer using a Mac who is not using TextMate.
- Emacs
- Vim
But I use TextMate, and can say that it is, without a doubt, worth every penny I paid for it.
Sublime text is awesome (http://www.sublimetext.com/2). Excellent search features, very fast and lightweight. Very decent code completion.
I also use RubyMine and WebStorm a lot (http://www.jetbrains.com/). They are excellent but not all purpose like TextMate.
I've tried Komodo out a bit, and I really like it so far. Aptana, an Eclipse variant, is also rather useful for a wide variety of things. There's always good ole' VI, too!
If you ever plan on making a serious effort at learning Emacs, immediately forget about Aquamacs. It tries to twist and bend Emacs into something it's not (a super-native OS X app). That might sound well and all, but once you realize that it completely breaks nearly every standard keybinding and behavior of Emacs, you begin to wonder why you aren't just using TextEdit or TextMate.
Carbon Emacs is a good Emacs application for OS X. It is as close as you'll get to GNU Emacs without compiling for yourself. It fits in well enough with the operating system, but at the same time, is the wonderful Emacs we all know and love. Currently it requires Leopard with the latest release, but most people have upgraded by now anyway. You can fetch it here.
Alternatively, if you want to use Vim on OS X, I've heard good things about MacVim.
Beyond those, there are the obvious TextEdit, TextMate, etc line of editors. They work for some people, but most 'advanced' users I know (myself included) hate touching them with anything shorter than a 15ft pole.
CotEditor is a Cocoa-based open source text editor. It is popular in Japan.
Best open source one is Smultron in my opinion, but it doesn't a torch to TextMate.
There's a new kid on the block - PHPStorm. I used it for a whole year. Its not free but offers an individual license of 49$ for a year, free for Open Source Developers.
- Speedy for an IDE - Its based on Java so looks somewhat like Eclipse/Netbeans but smokes them to dust in terms of speed (not as fast as Coda/Textmate as this is an IDE).
- Keyboard shortcuts galore - I seldom touched the mouse while developing using PHPStorm (that's what I didn't like about Coda)
- Subversion support built-in - Didn't need to touch Versions or any other SVN client on Mac
- Supports snippets, templates - zen-coding is supported as well
- Supports projects, though in separate windows
- File search, code search
- code completion, supports PHPDoc code completion too
- BBEdit makes all other editors look like Notepad.
It handles gigantic files with ease; most text editors (TextMate especially) slow down to a dead crawl or just crash when presented with a large file.
The regexp and multiple-file Find dialogs beat anything else for usability.
The clippings system works like magic, and has selection, indentation, placeholder, and insertion point tags, it's not just dumb text.
BBEdit is heavily AppleScriptable. Everything can be scripted.
In 9.0, BBEdit has code completion, projects, and a ton of other improvements.
I primarily use it for HTML, CSS, JS, and Python, where it's extremely strong. Some more obscure languages are not as well-supported in it, but for most purposes it's fantastic.
The only devs I know who like TextMate are Ruby fans. I really do not get the appeal, it's marginally better than TextWrangler (BBEdit's free little brother), but if you're spending money, you may as well buy the better tool for a few dollars more.
jEdit does have the virtue of being cross-platform. It's not nearly as good as BBEdit, but it's a competent programmer's editor. If you're ever faced with a Windows or Linux system, it's handy to have one tool you know that works.
Vim is fine if you have to work over ssh and the remote system or your computer can't do X11. I used to love Vim for the ease of editing large files and doing repeated commands. But these days, it's a no-vote for me, with the annoyance of the non-standard search & replace (using (foo) groups instead of (foo), etc.), painfully bad multi-document handling, lack of a project/disk browser view, lack of AppleScript, and bizarre mouse handling in the GVim version.
jEdit runs on OS X, being Java-based. It's somewhat similar to TextMate, I think.
Editra looks interesting, but I've not tried it myself.
TextMate not for 'advanced programmers'. That does not make sense, TextMate contains everything an 'advanced programmer' would want. It allows them to define a bundle that allows them to quickly set up the way they want their source code formatted, or one that follows the project guidelines, quick easy access to create entire structures and classes based on typing part of a construct and hitting tab.
TextMate is my tool of choice, it is fast, lightweight and yet contains all of the features I would want in a tool to program with. While it is not tightly integrated in Xcode, that is not a problem for me as I don't write software for Mac OS X. I write software for FreeBSD.
Definitely BBEdit. I code, and BBEdit is what I use to code.
You might consider one of the classics - they're both free, extensible and have large user bases that extend beyond the Mac:
- Aquamacs - emacs for OS X (emacs in a shell window is also an option)
- Mac Vim - VI with a Mac-specific GUI (vim in a shell window is also an option)
I prefer an old-school editing setup. I use command-line vim embedded in a GNU Screen 'window' inside of iTerm.
This may not integrate well with XCode, but I think it works great for developing and using command-line programs. If you spend any significant time working in a terminal, GNU Screen is worth the 30 minutes it takes to master the basic terminal multiplexing concepts.
Coda's great for PHP/ASP/HTML style development. Great interface, multiple-file search and replace with regexp support, slick FTP/SFTP/etc integration for browsing and editing remote files, SVN integration, etc.
It now supports plugins and the plugin editor can import TextMate bundles, so there's a bright future there. There aren't a lot of must-have plugins yet because the plugin support was newly introduced with version 1.6 a few months back. It's a popular app, though, so I expect more in the future.
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The 'killer features' for me are:* Seamless editing of remote files* Code navigator (symbol browser; pane that lists functions etc)
Most people aren't really into using symbol browsers but as I have to maintain a lot of unfamiliar code I find them invaluable.
I'm not sure that Coda has the 'raw power' of TextMate though. I plan on getting familiar with TextMate next.
I make use of Komodo IDE. It supports a huge number of languages, and is customisable but is a bit expensive (my company bought me a copy). A really good alternative is the free version called Komodo Edit. Loads really quickly and has a decent feature list and I find myself turning to it rather than the full IDE for a lot of jobs.
I actually prefer EditRocket over TextMate. I use it on both my Mac and Ubuntu machines. It is nice to use the same editor on multiple operating systems.
Textmate is state of the Art editor, but if someone is thinking about developing on several platforms without awkward memory eaters monsters like jedit, eclipse, netbeans etc take a look at geany (geany.org). It is free. The only problem the editor has not esthetic look and feel on Mac OS X :)
Fraise is a nice free option. It has some rough edges, but you can't beat the price. I believe it's a fork or successor of Smultron.
I use Eclipse as my primary editor (for Python) but I always keep SubEthaEdit handy as my supplemental text editor (free trial, 30 euros to license). It's not super-complicated but it does what I need.
Another vote for Smultron. I used it when doing some XQuery programming and being able to define a keyword files for syntax color highlighting was great.
Best Free C++ Editor
I have installed both Smultron and Textwrangler, but find myself using Smultron most of the time.
I would love to use a different editor than XCode for coding, but I feel, that no other editor integrates tightly enough with it to be really worthwhile.
However, given some time, TextMate might eventually get to that point. At the moment though, it primarily lacks debugging features and refactoring.
For everything that does not need XCode, I love TextMate. If I had another Mac-user in my workgroup I would probably consider SubEthaEdit for its collaboration features. If it is Emacs you want, I would recommend Aquamacs (more Mac-like) or Carbon Emacs (more GNU-Emacs-like)
I've been using BBEdit for years. It's rock-solid, fast, and integrates into my Xcode workflow decently well. (I'm not sure anything integrates into Xcode as well as the built-in editor, but who has time to wait for the built-in editor?)
For small team projects which don't use a source control system, or for single user editing on multiple machines, SubEthaEdit comes highly recommended.
Best C++ Ide For Mac 2017
Eclipse and Netbeans have text editors among a whole lot of other stuff. I don't think you would want to wait 10 seconds for your text editor to become ready :/...If you are going to spend some serious time coding then spend some time and learn to use vim (emacs too but, I recommend vim)