EMPU

What makes it possible for you to interact with your computer, regardless of purpose, are dozens of lines of code. These are special functions and expressions used by developers to create applications and video games. Multiple programming languages can be used, each with its own set of rules. You can practice your programming skills with applications like EMPU, a little bit more than a plain text editor.

In terms of design, the main window poses no accommodation problems whatsoever. Most of the space is your canvas, with line numbering to make code identification easier, an upper toolbar to quickly initiate different functions, as well as a file manager to navigate through project resources with ease.

One of the application's strong points is file support, letting you work with an impressive amount of documents like TXT and RTF, with the majority of flexibility provided by programming languages it's familiar with. This comes in handy if you're looking for an alternative IDE, especially because of the built-in syntax highlighter.

If used for programming, it's best you select the language used right from the start. Choices are abundant, with entries stored in major categories like programming, scripting, markup and miscellaneous, each fitted with some of the most popular and common languages there are.

As mentioned above, syntax highlighting is amongst the features in the basic set and although colors can't be modified, other tools like autocompletion, smart indentation or line wrapping definitely make up for any missing minor visual tweaks.

To make editing easier later on, you can take the time to tidy up the code. Dedicated tools let you remove unnecessary spaces, line endings, modify encoding, replace tabs with spaces, unindent using backspace or show indentation guides.

When you think your work is done, you can take it for a spin with the built-in compiler. Errors are displayed along with info as to why and where. You can manually define build commands to properly assemble your code in a running executable.

Taking everything into consideration, we can say that EMPU is a powerful IDE that can be used to not only edit existing scripts or code documents, but also create ambitious projects from scratch. The whole experience is greatly enhanced by the support for popular scripts and programming languages, with the possibility to generate the final result thanks to an implemented compiler and builder.