So I was watching some advanced JQuery tutorials and the developer was on a mac, and used a program that allowed him to type macro text, like "img" and hit tab, and the text would become a full <img src="" alt=""> tag with the cursor in the src value.

This would dramatically speed up development time for me if I had this for HTML, CSS, and PHP. The ability to customize macros would be ideal for me (like mIRC script alias'), and I've been tooling around looking for something like this. A lot of programs do something similar, but it all seems like a poorly implemented afterthought in many of the programs.

Does anyone know of a streamlined IDE that provides a straight-forward customizable auto-complete? If not, perhaps I could convince you programmers to develop a simple text editor with me? Basic syntax highlighting, project handling (associated css and html), templates, and macros would be all I really need, myself. I'm certain lots of fellow freenode #CSS guys would appreciate something a little more fine tuned for windows.

Strictly PHP: PhpED
PHP/HTML/CSS: PHPEdit
Free Alternatives: Aptana, Eclipse with PHP addon.

Aptana is a very good IDE, although it does annoy me sometimes. Why, for example, does it insist on making a bunch of random file associations when I explicitly told the installer to not make any associations?

Visual Studio is also really good. You might try Visual Web Developer 2008 Express.

I find Aptana to be highly bloated. I want an IDE that does the very basics, otherwise I'd just use notepad.

Generally, for what you are looking for (which is called numerous things such as Code Assist, Intellisense, etc), is not found in "basic" editors.

PSPad is an editor that might do the basic completion for you, (you hit ctrl+j, not tab) but it's nowhere near the level of, say, PHPEd's completion, which completed used variables/arrays/classes/functions you made in your project, follows includes, etc.

So let's (read: you guys) make one!

NotePad++ is pretty neat in my experience.

They offer completion if this is what you're looking for:
http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/commun/screenshots/scrsh_autocomplete.gif

Also Crimson Editor is Rather Darn Good, I'm not sure if it completes offhand or not but I think so.

Or, you know.. gVIM [eg I have it set to turn br into <br />]

That's pretty much it, but I want to be able to customize macros so I can build an entire tagset by just typing "my" and hitting tab. Layout an entire menu system, type menu5, hit tab, and get my custom menu setup.

PSPad will let you add any macro you like, and it's a helluva lot better than NotePad++ IMO. (As a matter of fact, I don't think there's a thing PSPad doesn't do that Notepad++ does, and it's still got a small memory footprint and quick launch.)

Kate (with plugins) will do what you want.

...as usual, along comes GBK with a suggestion for a Linux application, even when he knows full well that the OP doesn't run Linux.

Then you don't want an IDE, you just want a fancy text editor.

To me, intellisense is a God-send. No way in hell am I going to remember all HTML/CSS/Javascript keywords and functions.

Edit:

Had you said VS 2003/2005, I would have advised caution. But I think they've really cleaned up the HTML editor in VS 2008. You can use it to generate a really robust (ASP.NET) website.

Kate runs on Windows too.

Yeah, with Cygwin.

Or with KDE 4.0!

Not really, read Kate's website. It's not out yet. Besiides, nearly every editor on this thread so far is superior to Kate already.

The editor you saw in the video is called TextMate and it's really good, I've actually paid for a copy of it.

There's a couple of clone editors for windows, one's called E and the other is intype. E is the only one that's actually been released though, it supports TextMate bundles as well.

http://www.e-texteditor.com/

Holy ****, that's exactly what I want. Thanks Detty. I'm going to use it for the 30 days, and if it seems as useful as I thought it'd be, I'm going to buy it. Awesome. The multi-select thing is brilliant.

Edit: Remote document editing FTW.

PSPad does all of that... for free... >.>

/me gives up

http://caladbolg.net/scite.php

scite with snippets