True column-mode (block-selection and editing) text editor solution?

In windows, I used to use a text editor called crimson editor which featured the best column-mode editing support I have yet to use.

When enabled via a simple Alt-C shortcut, selections could be made with the mouse or cursor keys and they would be visual blocks rather than wrapped-lines.

These selections could be deleted, moved, copied, pasted, and all of the operations just made sense. You could also just start typing, and you'd get a column of the characters as you're typing.

There are multiple ways of getting parts of the these features working separately discussed on this forum thread, but no one has yet to provide a solution that provides this all-encompassing and easy-to-use method.

If someone could point me to a gedit plugin where this work is actively being pursued, perhaps I could help with the coding myself. If someone is aware of a text editor that already provides this full functionality, I'd appreciate the info. Running crimson editor through wine and the close-but-not-quite multi-edit plugin for gedit are the temporary solutions I'm 'getting by with' for the time being.

UPDATE (2012-11): I'm now a very happy user of sublime text. It supports excellent column-mode editing and works on all three major OS platforms without any issue. Highly recommended!

Solution 1:

geany

is an integrated development environment that provides good column editing support which is worth checking out (an example here)

Simply put, press down Alt+Shift instead of just Shift while making selections to invoke column mode. One important limitation is that the edits in column mode are (as yet) not undo-able.

To achieve the same with the mouse, hold down Ctrl while selecting. This actually works with most Scintilla-based editors (including SciTE and Geany).

Solution 2:

To edit columns, I use vi / gvim. It takes a bit of learning to get used to vi, but in the end many people find this to be their preferred editor.

Specifically within vi you can use CTRL V to highlight columns in visual mode, then you can edit it as you would expect. I use this all the time for adding and removing comments, or indenting functions i.e. CTRL V (highlight a column) SHIFT I # ESC will comment out that entire column.