So many times when doing text editing work on Android, you wish to have a better text editor like notepad++ or all-in-one developer tools. But sadly Android doesn’t come with such a text editor. But there is hope!! There exist several alternatives to the official notepad application that we can use instead of the stock note pad app that comes with the Android platform.
One alternative is called Briefs and it is the best alternative for the default Android notepad. Here we will discuss how we can use the Briefs text editor in Android and what features this free and open-source app brings with itself.
If you are a web developer or simply someone who deals with a lot of code, then you definitely know the joy of using a good code editor. The reason is, it offers much-needed syntax highlighting, auto-completion, and other advanced features to make your life as a developer easier.
For regular computers, you have a lot of code editors to choose from like Atom, Sublime Text, Notepad++, etc. However, you will not always be in front of your desktop or may not always carry a laptop while you are traveling.
WHAT’S SO IMPORTANT ABOUT A TEXT EDITOR?
If you’re just writing an essay for your college communication class, then you’ll probably find that there isn’t much difference between a program like Microsoft Word and one like Atom.
Word allows you to format the document how you need, change fonts, add footnotes, and all of the other basics of document creation.
However, if you’re creating a personal website or doing anything that requires complex coding language, then you’re going to need a few more features out of your text editor.
This is what makes them so important!
Programers, editors, and content creators use text to create websites, programs, and blogs that funnel content to users all around the world.
Without the right program, none of this would be possible. This is why modern-day text editors cater to the needs and language of coding.
It’s also why the best text editors include features such as syntax highlighting, auto-indentation, and tools that help with debugging.
If you’re not new to coding, then you’ll understand what we’re talking about. If you don’t code, then you can still make use of certain text editors as they offer great functions and capabilities for the everyday user, too!
QuickEdit
QuickEdit is a fast, stable, and full-featured text editor for Android devices. It has been optimized for both phone and tablet, it’s of high performance and real-time feedback on large text files (more than 10,000 lines). The speed and responsiveness are very good if you compare them with other text editor apps on Google Play. It can be used as a text editor or code editor for normal text files and programming files. It will automatically detect the character encoding of your files, but you can still change it as you wish.
QuickEdit allows you to Access files from recently opened or added files collections, FTP, Google Drive, Dropbox and OneDrive and has syntax highlight for more than 40 languages like C++, C#, Java, XML, Javascript, Markdown, PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby, Smali, Swift, etc. QuickEdit has the ability to edit system files on rooted devices too.
AWD
AWD, also known as Android Web Developer, is a code editor and IDE (Integrated Development Environment) that supports web technologies like HTML, CSS, Javascript, JSON, and PHP. So, if you are someone that heavily works with these web technologies then you should give AWD a try. Being an IDE, AWD can perform error checking while or after editing the source files and also allows you to preview files within the app. AWD can integrate with your web server and connect to it in a variety of ways like FTP, SFTP, FTPS, WebDev, etc.
Other features of AWD are auto code completion, syntax highlighting, support for hardware keyboard and keybindings, search and replace with regex support, auto-saving, support for code beautification with a single tap, GIT integration, unlimited undo and redo, etc.
If you work with a lot of HTML, Javascript, PHP, JSON, and CSS then AWD is a good choice as it can also act as an IDE and show errors.
Price: The app is free with feature limitations and has ads. To remove ads and unlock premium features, you need to upgrade to the pro version by paying $6. The pro version gives access to features like code formatting, support for the hardware keyboard, color picket, git integration, auto-saving, ability to run PHP code, etc.
Notepad Text Editor
Notepad Text Editor is the bare essentials app of choice for scripters. It only supports a handful of file types (TXT, HTML, CSS, PHP, and XML), it has an outdated interface, and it doesn’t have many features — but it’s free and works in a pinch.
Download — Notepad Text Editor (Free with ads) [No Longer Available]
iA Writer
Well, iA Writer is one of the best word processors that were previously available only for Mac and iOS. Now the app is also available on Android’s Google Play Store, and it’s well capable of providing a distraction-free writing experience. The app right now focuses on both plain text and markdown editing. Apart from that, iA Writer also has a focus mode which dims everything apart from the current sentence or paragraph.
Monospac
Monospace is another best distraction-free Android text editor available on the Google Play Store. The great thing about Monospace is its user interface which looks carries a minimalist and clean look. Apart from that, Monospace can be used as both a standard text editor and markdown formatting. Apart from that, Monospace also has features like a hashtag-based organization.
Writer Plus
If you are searching for a simple-to-use and lightweight text editor for your Android smartphone, then you need to give Writer Plus a try. Guess what? Writer Plus is another best text editor and markdown text editor app available on the Google Play Store, which brings combined features of both iA Writer and Monospace listed above. The key features of Writer Plus include basic markdown formatting, night mode, folder organization, etc.
ACode
If your primary function is around blog development like mine, this is an ideal editor for you.
Acode is a minimal open-source text code editor with little language support. It can let you edit any kind of source file like python, CSS, Java, PHP, etc. However, it is only able to run HTML, Markdown, and Javascript files. You can see website previews and even console messages.
Moreover, a code also supports keyboard controls like Shift, Esc, etc. The app is totally ad-free and even supports syncing projects from GitHub via the Git utility
Price: Free with no ads.
Dcoder
Dcoder is a mobile coding IDE especially designed to hone your coding skills on mobile. It is a complete package to learn and comprehend the programming languages from a wide range e.g from C to Ruby. It includes a Rich text editor supporting syntax highlight and packed with all the necessary tools required to give you all the edge an IDE or Code Compiler can give. The compile process is made through cloud APIs, which means that these features aren’t available without the internet.
Not only you can code, but you can also debug the code to see compilation errors and Result on the same screen. It’s more like a port of your favorite Code Editors like Notepad++ or Sublime Text with compilation power. It offers Custom Themes too, Editable font Size for the Editor, and much more. This app offers in-app purchases.
Quoda Code Editor
Quoda is a sophisticated and easy-to-use source code editor or IDE, much like Notepad++, Textmate, or Sublime Text, with integrated support for SFTP/FTP(S) servers and cloud storage (Dropbox and Google Drive). Other features include downloading URL source code, Code-completion, auto-encoding detection, brace matching, auto-indentation, line bookmarking, colour picker, HTML formatting, and even more – many of these unmatched by other Android IDEs or text editors.
If you want to code productively away from your PC, Quoda is a must-have, allowing you to carry a text editor and IDE like Notepad++, Textmate or Sublime Text in your pocket to code when on the move.
JotterPad
JotterPad is another best text editor which you can use for distraction-free text editing. Guess what? JotterPad is known for its creative flair over its counterpart in the list. Like all other text editors for Android, JotterPad also offers users basic markdown formatting and exporting features. Besides that, basic text editing features of JotterPad includes phrase finding, keyboard shortcut, custom fonts, style customization, etc.
DroidEdit
If you are searching for a simple-to-use text editor for your Android device, look no other than DroidEdit. It’s one of the best text and code editors for Android that supports many programming languages. It supports the most popular programming languages like C++, C#Java, HTML, CSS, Javascript, Python, Ruby, Lua, AND MORE. Some of the key features of DroidEdit include Auto & block indentation, search & replace function, character encoding support, and more.
Turbo Editor
Well, Turbo Editor is an open-source and powerful text editor app for Android. The app supports syntax highlight for XHTML, HTML, CSS, JS, LESS, PHY, PYTHON, and more. The great thing about Turbo Editor is that it automatically detects the encoding. Apart from that, some other features of Turbo Editor include unlimited Undo & redo, Go to Line function, Read-only mode, many customization options, and more.
Code Editor
Code Editor is an optimized version of a regular text editor, but it focuses more on coding. The great thing about Code Editor is that it packs every feature that a programmer needs for coding. Some of the key features of Code Editor include syntax highlighting, auto indention, code assist, unlimited undo & redo, and more.
Conclusion
Are you looking for the best text editor for android? Whether you are a programming geek or not; the first thing that’s important for every programmer is the text editor that he/she uses to write code. It is because your productivity depends on your work environment to produce high-quality code. This is why it’s important to have a good professional text editor installed on your computer.
It’s not easy being green. At least, not if you have to deal with Android’s built-in text editor. While it does the job just fine, it’s very limited. Luckily, there are other editors you can use to help you write code on your Android device. Here are some of the best ones…