Text editor allowing cursor to be placed anywhere with a click

Question

I'm looking for a Windows or cross platform text editor which let's you easily place text anywhere with just a click to place the cursor, without having to tab or space your way over. Similar to mspaint or Photoshop, where you can place text in arbitrary locations without having to manually tab white space around.

Answer 1

You can do this with any recent version of Microsoft Word by double-clicking anywhere on the page. This adds any required lines between the top of the document and the point that you click, as well as automatically set the indent correct for that line to allow text insertion in arbitrary locations.

Answer 2

You can use NotePad++:

• free
• Windows
• can enable virtual spaces with this hack:

1. Install NppExec plugin

2. Go to Plugins -> NppExec -> Execute

3. Enter the following code:

   // ensure console stays hidden
   NPP_CONSOLE 0
   
   // enable virtual spaces (cursor past end of line) outside column edit mode
   SCI_SENDMSG 2596 3 0
   
   // SCI_SENDMSG == send message to Scintilla edit control
   // 2596 == the message we're sending is SCI_SETVIRTUALSPACEOPTIONS
   // 3 == send the value (SCVS_RECTANGULARSELECTION | SCVS_USERACCESSIBLE)
   // the default value is 1 (just SCVS_RECTANGULARSELECTION) for
   //   virtual spaces in column select mode only
   // you can find these values by poking around the source code a bit, or
   // see http://www.scintilla.org/ScintillaDoc.html
   

4. Click the Save button at the bottom, and give the script a name

5. Now go to Plugins -> NppExec -> Advanced Options

6. On the right, under "Execute this script when Notepad++ starts", select the script name you just saved

7. Click OK, close/reopen Notepad++, and enjoy ;)

Answer 3

You can use Microsoft Visual Studio:

• windows
• limited gratis version available: Visual Studio Express (which has enough features for beginners). Besides Express there's Pro, Premium and Ultimate.

Go to: 'Tools' --> 'Options' --> Text Editor --> All Languages and check "Enable virtual space".

Demo:

(I tried with Microsoft Studio 2010 Ultimate, I don't know about previous versions)

As for other IDEs, Eclipse and Sublime don't seem to have any option or dragging for that enabling white space.

You'll still have to add the line breaks yourself.

Answer 4

In all versions of Microsoft Word you can place a text box in your document, and move it around.

You can easily format the text box (remove borders, change color, change text wrapping, etc...) and the text (change font, size, etc...)

This might not be the one-click solution that you would've liked, but in Paint and Photoshop you first have to select the 'Text' tool before you can click somewhere to enter text, so that's more than one click anyway.

Answer 5

It's a notetaking app rather than strictly a text editor, but Microsoft OneNote allows this. OneNote actually creates a textbox to contain the text or images when you click someone in the page.

These days Microsoft OneNote is free if you don't mind storing all your documents on the cloud.