Our publishing workflow includes Windows and Linux machines (there are some Macs, but not in a critical workflow). Many texts include both English and Khmer and are tagged in XML.
The XML Copy Editor is the best cross-platform open source XML editor I've discovered. It uses the Scintilla editing component, which is generally good for Unicode, but which does not allow the display of non-printable or invisible characters, such as U + 200B (space with zero width) and U + 200C (zero-invisibility). Khmer does not separate words with a spatial symbol, as Western languages do, so ZWSP is used in electronic texts so that applications can easily break lines.
Ideally, I would edit the markup and content in one editor, but understanding XML is sometimes less important than being able to display invisibles. (OpenOffice.org Writer and Microsoft Word are the only two applications that I know that will display ZWSP. They are not suitable for markup and text manipulations that need to be done to prepare manuscripts for publication, unfortunately, although I think that they OK for authoring.)
I tried a promising editor last week, but the regular search and replace operation, which came second in TextPad 4.7.3, lasted more than twenty seconds. Therefore, I want to mention that the speed and ability to process large (up to 150 MB) files is also a concern.
Is there a good, fast, free, or not too expensive text editor with versions on Windows and Linux, and possibly with a Mac too, with Unicode support and the ability to display invisible ones like ZWSP? Does it have syntax highlighting, can handle large files and is configured enough so that I don't rip my hair upset?
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