What makes a good editor?

[iSeriesCodePoet]

What features have people found that make a good IDE or editor for java? I really like the method prompting, syntax highlighting, and built-in debugger.

I have tried:
Forte/NetBeans - Slow loading but good solid editor. I like the method prompting. Free.

Intellj IDEA - Trying out right now, so far I like it. I like the method prompting. Also will hightlight methods and class that are not defined, which is kinda cool. Loads quite fast. However it is not free, $99 for academic price and $299 for regular (I think).

jGrasp - I haven't really used it at all. No method prompting and other cool features. Free.

VisualAge for Java - I haven't really used it. Is there method prompting? What other features make VAJ better than others, if it is.

Eclipse - Anyone using it? How does is compare with the others I mentioned?

I guess I am really looking for the "nuts and bolts" of what editor makes java programming the easiest and fastest. Mike Wills
AS400 Programmer

Please, if you find my post useful, let me know.

 

[idarke]

I use Zeus (

http://www.zeusedit.com),

which is a good fast basic editor with customizable syntax coloring. It has no wizards or helpers to speak of (there's a macro language I haven't touched). I use it because it emulates my beloved "Brief" editor from my C days.

I also use WebGain 4.1a (ex-Visual Cafe), which is slo

http://wwwww

when you have the method prompting turned on and has poor "Brief" emulation (again, my hot button).

I'm trying out eclipse to replace Webgain, and I'm very pleased with it so far. The editor is decent and fast, but not very customizable. You pretty much work the way it wants you to. It has some very sophisticated features - class tree views, pop-up javadocs, etc, but it's not for beginners, though. It's complex. It's also very much beta so far - my version has some problems. But it's free!

You can get an eval version of pretty much anything. Try some out.

 

[OttSens]

Visual Age is in fact a good ide. Howerver they are
rather far behind in there support of new language features.

It does have code completion and all the other stuff you
mentioned and most important it has version control built
in so you don't need to implement a cvs repository or alike.
Great debugger also.

IBM has turned over further development to some other
company now but you can still find links to the old vaj
on the ibm site. The demo is full funcitonal but limited
to 600 classes.

I'd also try oracle's jdeveloper. It's a huge download
but it's free.

What I think is most important (and stands as the biggest
embarassment to us java programmers) is the absolutely
bloated memory hogging slow state of most java ide's that
are written in java. Few are a decent advertisement for
java.