Paddy

Text editors are by their very nature simple programs; they're made to handle text--often code--that does not require formatting or embellishment. Paddy takes the simplicity of the text editor format and adds a few useful features, many of which specifically have coders in mind.

The program's interface is plain and looks like most other programs of this type: a large, empty text field, and a handful of menus across the top. This isn't Notepad, though; there are some pretty interesting features in those menus. In addition to changing fonts, users can change the color of both the background and text. The MRU--or Most Recently Used--list lets users view and open the files they've most recently been working with. For the seriously geeky there are several decoding options, including HTML hex code, script hex code, Rotate13, and Base64. Users can also insert dates, insert and delete line breaks, and insert strings of text. For the most part Paddy is pretty self-explanatory, although we do wish that the program came with a Help file; there are a few features that will likely be familiar to coders but unclear to everyone else. Overall, Paddy isn't a particularly impressive program, but it's not bad if you're looking for a text editor with a few extra features.

Paddy comes as a ZIP file and is accessible after extraction with no need for installation, making it a perfect program to keep on your thumbdrive. We recommend this program to everyone.