I'm just back from vacation and feeling rejuvenated, so I think it's time to make some progress on an old issue - text editors. I've been able to narrow the field down a bit. Remember, my criteria (from my editor page) were:

• Graphical, but doesn't require me to use the mouse
• Fast
• Cross-platform, to include Windows and Linux at a minimum
• Extensible, using a real language. Python, Scheme, or Haskell would be fine
• Supports syntax coloring, macros, smart indent, code folding
• Works (or can be taught to work) with any programming language
• Supports Unicode, or at least UTF-8
• Completely customizable, menus- and key- wise

Some of them have changed a bit over time. For instance, I now think that dynamic typing is a dead end, so Scheme and Python are not acceptable extension languages for me anymore. Also, I've decided that I'm okay with using a Java-based editor so long as it's fast enough (and some of them are, now). Since I'm now looking at JVM-based editors, that means I can write plugins and extensions in Nice, which to my eye is the finest programming language currently available for the Java virtual machine.

So at the moment, my two favorite contenders are Eclipse and JEdit (thanks to Mark Evans for suggesting the latter). I'll be looking into both in more detail now, to try to figure out which one suits me best. If anyone has other ideas (other than Emacs or Vim, I've tried those) about good editors which meet the criteria above (whether or not they're written for the JVM), let me know. Thanks!