My favourite text editor is Notepad++. If anyone else uses this on sketch files, you can have syntax highlighting by making a small change to the "langs.xml" file:
In the line
<Language name="cpp" ext="h hpp hxx cpp cxx cc" commentLine="//" commentStart="/*" commentEnd="*/">
add ino to the file extensions list, i.e.
<Language name="cpp" ext="h hpp hxx cpp cxx cc ino" commentLine="//" commentStart="/*" commentEnd="*/">
Re: Editing with Notepad++
Not to hijack your thread, but here are my choices:
For most programming (particularly PHP) I use a somewhat-outdated program called Winsyntax (http://www.winsyntax.com). Sketch .ico (and .pde) file types can be added to the C code parser to highlight code text. It's a fairly lightweight program, but I find the context-sensitive PHP help useful when writing that code.
Remember that every installation of the Arduino IDE contains an early version of "Programmers Notepad" (http://www.pnotepad.org), which has a rich variety of features included. Find it in your installation package at C:\Program Files\Arduino 1.0\hardware\tools\avr\pn\pn.exe (or whatever your particular installation path is). This program is highly configurable. Current stable version (available via download) is v2.3, while the version that ships with the Adruino IDE is v2.08.
~Anything~ has got to be better than the stripped-down Windows Notepad!
Re: Editing with Notepad++
~Anything~
has got to beis better than the stripped-down Windows Notepad!FTFY
I firmly believe that the best software is the one that you're familiar with (provided it will actually do what you need, of course). I use Notepad++ fairly heavily, I prefer the hassle of loading the files in both the IDE and NP++, and then saving, switching and uploading, to fighting the barely adequate editor built in to the IDE.
And yes, I accept that editor preference is a hotly disputed topic, which is why I phrased the comment fairly carefully.