This release also brings fixes for commonly reported problems and bugs, and quality of life improvements to the features and workflows that need them most. All in all, we have a pretty hefty but varied release so we can hopefully provide benefits to most if not all of our users.

New “Start support request” command

Starting a support request automatically starts an email with your device details for convenience.

We’re starting 2024.1 with a new general feature that will help any of our users submit support emails to UltraEdit. A new command will now be available to make emailing us about functionality and product-related concerns easier.

To execute, you click the new command and it starts an email using your default email client. This email comes prepopulated with pertinent information such as program version, basic system and user information, and the like. 

This automatically fills in data that are usually relevant to support requests. This makes the overall support process smoother, which in turn quickens the delivery of fixes and changes as well.

Enhanced XML manager editing for attributes and values

For those using UltraEdit to view XML files, you can now also make changes to attribute values in the XML manager. 

While browsing the XML manager, and you see something you want to edit, you can now jump into this attribute value table and you can actually make a change.

This is the first of many possible changes planned for making XML use easier in UltraEdit.  For instance, if you have any suggestions on what else we should do for XML view, let us know.

New horizontal split view for Live Preview

Apart from the regular view where it’s split left and right, you can have live preview split horizontally.

A new addition to live preview added in this release is the ability to change the orientation of the live preview pane. This new feature allows you to view renderable files in horizontal fashion (as opposed to just the default vertical view.)

Access this new option under Coding Tab → Live Preview and select which orientation you would like to use.

New remote file upload/download progress bar in application status bar

New download status bar for FTP and cloud transfers.

In UltraEdit 2024.0, we added cloud storage support inside the editor. This made it easier to manage files across your local device and your cloud storage drives. After general availability, a number of users made  requests to add a progress bar to signify the status of file downloads. 

With this change it is now easier to see whether your files have finished downloading, or to see what percentage has been downloaded. 

This new status bar also works for file transfers using FTP protocols.

Compare Tool Improvements

There are multiple changes in this release aimed at making compares easier and better. These were based on the most popular user requests. Take a look at them below.

Compare tool configuration UI added to support any compare utility

Navigate to the Integrated applications tab and go to Compare tool. Specify the compare tool you want to directly access from UltraEdit.

This new command allows you to specify a third party compare tool and allows you to launch that tool easily. (This is if for some reason you prefer not to use the already integrated UltraCompare.)

To use this, navigate to the configuration window and click the check box under Integrations → Compare Tools. Input the path to the compare tool and the next time you execute a compare, it will use the new tool you have specified.

New compare file command added to file tab menu for easy access

Furthermore, to make executing compares between files easier, we’ve added an easier-to-access option under the File Tab. 

A new way access file compare is now available under the File tab.

Improved readability and usability of compare settings dialog

When doing compares, you can now drag the corner of the windows to increase its size. This improves how the compare dialog is shown. 

This change was motivated by quality of life requests from users who had long file directories. This change allows them to quickly see the whole file path without having to scroll through the entire text.

To access the compare dialog menu, click on the Compare tab on the home screen.

Quality of life improvements

We’ve categorized the following items as QoL changes. These can be either small changes or new features aimed at making usage and handling of the editor features a lot better.

Enabled horizontal scrolling using devices and gestures 

A new way of adjusting your view in UltraEdit has been added. if your opened file is horizontally long, for instance, in database files with numerous columns, you can now use other ways other than moving the caret with your keyboard or manually dragging the scroll bar with a cursor.

As of UE 2024.1, the following methods of scrolling will work for almost all devices and platforms supporting gestures such as:

• Secondary mouse wheel (left and right)
• Trackpads
• Preset gestures & scrubbing
• Custom keybinds and similar navigation devices.

This feature is enabled by default and you don’t have to set anything up. If there are other devices you would like to see supported, send us a message.

Protip: Try this feature out in combination with column mode—another powerful tool when it comes to dealing with large seas of text and data. 

New URL highlighting options and open URL commands

• New underline setting for URLs instead of highlighting

This simple change allows users to choose whether to highlight or underline text recognized as URLs. Change this setting by opening the configurations menu and under Editor → Advanced.

• New command to launch and compose emails

Similar to how you can open hyperlinks directly from inside the editor, you can now click on email addresses in the editor. Use the command Ctrl + Shift + Click on an email address and your default email client will open with the recipient address filled in.

Automatically recover previously open files after a crash without a prompt 

When UltraEdit crashes or closes unexpectedly (i.e. power outages, fatal errors, etc.), there is a prompt for the user asking if they want to recover the last saved or auto-saved version of the file. 

Users have requested for a way to automatically recover files without having to go through the prompt. We’ve added a new checkbox  in the popup so users can save their preference and automatically recover files should the unfortunate need arise.

Full cloud storage support in FTP Browser

In UE 2024.0, we’ve added cloud storage capability to UltraEdit. A little earlier than that, we’ve added the same to UFTP 2023.0. 

You may wonder why this hasn’t been in the integrated FTP browser inside UltraEdit. Well, that’s what we’ve added in this release. Starting from this release, the FTP browser will now work like its standalone counterpart: you can now find, move, and access your files in the cloud in the UltraEdit FTP browser. 

Other notable  improvements and changes:

Here is a list of other minor fixes and quality-of-life improvements based upon user reports and requests. If you have any questions or suggestions, please mail them to support@ultraedit.com.

• Improved code folding support for ASP code
• Improved positioning and selection range for “active line highlighting for wrapped lines
• Addressed selection issues with specific search ranges and EOF conditions
• Resolved discrepancies with differing search count results from different search features
• Addressed dialog control enable/disable state discrepancies with user tool configuration dialog
• Corrected negative column number display for certain HTML files
• Addressed multiple issues with display and editing with non-English text, code pages, and encodings
• Resolved multiple issues with tab settings and tab displays
• Resolved multiple printing issues with indentation, positioning, and wrapping 

What’s Next for UltraEdit?

In the last update, we mentioned how we wanted to depart from having a big dot release on the first version of the year and instead have more frequent bundles of smaller improvements.

The main impetus for that change was the allowance of more flexibility and more time for developing bigger features while at the same time being able to deliver important and timely updates and fixes. UE will most likely follow the same update format for the following updates.

This release has a lot of small tweaks but ironically is one of the biggest releases we had in a long time. User requests were at the forefront of the decision making for what was included in the release so we hope that most if not all of these changes will bring you some benefit in using UltraEdit.

You’ve reached the end of UE 2024.1 updates. But check out our August bulletin for a more comprehensive look at what’s coming for UltraEdit!

The post UltraEdit 2024.1 release blog appeared first on UltraEdit.

Read on further to check out what’s coming for UltraEdit in August and September. 

Dev Days of Summer Code Camp

Join us as we co-host the Dev Days of Summer Code Camp. The event is two weeks long and consists of live and on-demand developer content, all completely for free.

Enjoy a free platform for skill sharing and collaboration with some of the best developers and industry experts from a wide variety of coding disciplines. This event is open to all developers of all skill levels. We strongly encourage beginners and experienced developers alike to participate..

Here’s what you can expect from the event:

• Explore Diverse Topics: Join discussions on a wide range of subjects from cutting-edge tech to foundational programming skills in  our webinars.
• Interactive Sessions: Engage in Q&A sessions, hands-on tutorials, and collaborative projects with developer teams and experts.
• Network and Grow: Connect with fellow developers, share experiences, and build lasting relationships.

Coming soon: UltraEdit 2024.1

Once you’re done signing up for the event, you can check out this preview of an upcoming update  to UltraEdit/UEStudio. This update is coming this month and it will feature numerous bug fixes and even more quality-of-life changes. 

These were all carefully curated and chosen from the most popular user requests.  Similar to previous releases,  this will feature several small but beneficial improvements that are useful for a majority of users.

Here’s a sneak preview of what’s coming:

• A more streamlined support request submission system
• New supported gestures for mouse, trackpad, and other pointing devices
• Support for third party compare tool integration
• And a lot more!*

*There really is a lot more but we can’t share everything here yet. You just have to keep posted for the announcement blog post. Sign up for our newsletter so you don’t miss anything!

Teaser: Big development coming for UltraCompare!

Our next announcement is related not to UltraEdit but to its sister tool, UltraCompare.

For you keen eyed readers, you would notice in the previous section how we mentioned UltraEdit will add support for soft integration of third party compare tools—that is if for whatever reason you don’t like the already integrated UltraCompare!

But for those of you who can’t get enough of UltraCompare, even when you’re on other programs or apps… great news! In a few weeks, UltraCompare will start the pre-release for integration on a popular IDE program. (Hint: It’s a popular Windows IDE.)

The idea here is to introduce UltraCompare as a plugin for the IDE so you can do compares and merges right inside the program window—much like how you do inside UltraEdit. We’ll start off with basic features most likely but stay tuned for more developments!

Update to UltraEdit Academic Licensing

When you start off your career as a software developer, data analyst, or amateur coder, you most likely started off with a normal text editor for basic coding projects. And while that’s completely fine, wouldn’t you prefer having something as powerful and versatile as UltraEdit right off the bat?

UltraEdit has granted 50% sponsorship for students, teachers, and teaching departments. This allows young learners to fully experience tools and start practicing on professional-grade tools used in the industry.

Starting from August 17, UltraEdit will fully sponsor licenses for individual students and learners. This includes but is not limited to: high school students, university students, self-taught coders enrolled with valid educational email addresses, etc. 

Please visit our academic page when the program is live for more information.

Summary

Many exciting developments are coming to UltraEdit in this month of August (and September too! But we’re saving that for the next blog post). Please check back on our website and on our blog to keep up with the latest news. 

If you have any questions or suggestions, please reach out to us using our support address. 

The post UltraEdit Bulletin: Getting ready for August appeared first on UltraEdit.

Click here to download the new version.

Cloud storage integration

With cloud integration, you can get rid of productivity-crippling interruptions and search for files directly inside a window dialog in the editor. 

This is particularly helpful if you have multiple cloud accounts or if you haven’t mounted all your cloud profiles in your desktop. With this new feature, you can use the UltraEdit dialog as a hub to search all your files from any supported cloud service.

The following cloud storage services are available:

• Google Drive
• Microsoft OneDrive
• Amazon S3
• Dropbox

Application scripting additions

• New document properties

These set of new scripting parameters help you determine certain document properties for use in scripts. This includes certain properties such as when the document was created or modified or accessed, you want to know what the attributes of that document are.

Here is the list of new properties added in UE 2024.0:

• dateCreated
• dateModified
• dateAccessed
• fileAttributes
• owner
• syntaxHighlighting
• characters
• lines
• nonEmptyLines
• sLOC
• averageLineLength
• longestLine
• changedLines

• readText/writeText functions & getEnvironmentVariable function

There are also added improvements for properties and elements beyond the domain of the editor. This is for when you want to check for certain properties or parameters that are outside the opened file, you can use the following functions.

For example, you may want to know who owns the file, or what type of syntax highlighting is used. With these new functions you can adjust your scripting to discriminate various traits.

Scripting documentation.

LEARN MORE: For a complete list of existing functions and scripting you can visit Help in the editor. Alternatively, you can read this online documentation conveniently located in a Google doc. 🙂

Access the help menu in top right of application window, next to Support menu.

Updated standards for dockable window for SSH/Telnet 

For SSH/Telnet users and systems administrators, great news! UE 2024.0 brings more modern encryption and connection standards.

This comes at the heel of multiple user requests asking for bug fixes and QoL improvements. Alongside the fixes, the console has been updated to be on par with the latest industry standards and conventions for encryption and connection. The following have been added:

• Support for key agents
• Latest encryption standards

UltraEdit’s SSH console will now use SSH key agents, if present, when logging in to SSH hosts. A key agent centralizes and simplifies public/private key management by loading keys and prompting for required passphrases. Once loaded the keys can be used by any application that supports the key agent protocol.

It now leverages industry standard OpenSSH tools, included with Microsoft Windows, to support the latest encryption standards while also ensuring timely security and protocol updates.

Support has also been added for user specified custom settings and parameters providing access to the full set of OpenSSH configuration options, including SSH forwarding.

What’s Next for UltraEdit?

Historically, the first UltraEdit update of the year is a more condensed package that gives the foresight of where the updates will go for the rest of the year. (e.g. previous years had a theme around augmenting large file handling or the scripting SDK setup)

This release will mark a departure from that concept. UE’s product development will utilize smaller bundled but more frequent updates. This allows more flexibility and more timely improvements to be delivered—not necessarily at the expense of the overall work done in the editor year over year.

What does this mean to you? Well, for one thing, the development team will be more receptive to your feature requests and you can expect shorter wait times for simpler requests to make their way into the next release.

You’ve reached the end of UE 2024.0 updates. But we’re expecting the fruition of some of our foundational changes from last year to come incrementally—some are in the editor already!

Fixes and improvements

Apart from new features, this release has a lot of maintenance and improvement items. Here is a list of fixes and quality-of-life improvements based upon user reports and requests. If you have any questions or suggestions, please mail them to support@ultraedit.com.

• Honor Windows setting to hide cursor (mouse pointer) while typing
• Allow sorting by clicking on the column headers in the Windows dialog
• Add “Copy” button to Sum Selection dialog for total value
• Sum selection returns incorrect negative value
• Add link to main downloads page in Support menu
• Add ability to run PowerShell script from context menu in Project or File View
• Add “New script” as default PowerShell template
• Default language for syntax highlighting is changed if new wordfiles are added
• Second instead of first configuration item selected on using Find in Configuration
• Display issues with Manage Themes dialog on Windows 11 at 175% scaling and UHD resolutions
• Clipped labels in Modify Templates/Modify Groups dialogs at 125% scaling
• File extension based font setting is ignored
• URL selection is incorrect in Markdown file
• Default Template fails to appear, after closing and reopening the file
• Renaming a file is not reflected in file lists
• Creating a new template with the same existing template name
• “New script” default template does not appear for all applicable template groups
• UI elements not clearly visible after resizing Modify Templates dialog

Download UE 2024.0

The post UltraEdit 2024.0 release post appeared first on UltraEdit.

Almost exactly 30 years ago, UltraEdit’s original author Ian Mead introduced his new Windows text editor – at that time, a side project named MEDIT – to an online CompuServe software library with little more than faith and hope for its future. (You can still read his original inspiring story here). 

In the burgeoning software industry of the 90s, UltraEdit found quick adoption with both individuals and larger companies for its reputation as a performant, versatile, and trustworthy text editor – something that still holds true today. For many users, UltraEdit’s ability to open large files of any size thanks to its novel disk-based approach to editing was (and still is) compelling enough to make UltraEdit the editor of choice for engineers, teams, and even entire corporations.

Initially introduced as a 16-bit application for Windows 3.1, UltraEdit kept lockstep with technology with the release of a 32-bit counterpart for Windows NT/95 and adopting a “-32” suffix to distinguish the two versions. Several years later, a 64-bit version would follow and is now the standard version in use.

As UltraEdit continued to grow in popularity, Ian recognized the need to build a team and organization that could service the many aspects of the growing product. This entailed many hires for various roles across engineering, QA, customer support, and marketing, as well as a partner and vice president, Richard Knott, to help steer the vision for UltraEdit. Believe it or not, UltraEdit’s first hire, Troy Pennington, is still with us today as QA and Support Manager!

These three decades have seen some major milestones: we released UEStudio, a version of UltraEdit with additional developer power tools. We brought UltraEdit’s sister product UltraCompare to market, as well as several other products including UltraSentry (now EOL’d), UltraFinder, and UltraFTP. We stepped into the Mac and Linux space with multi-platform offerings of UltraEdit and UltraCompare. We celebrated our one millionth user…now, many times that. We heard from customers about how our products were being used in NASA’s Mars rover program, genetic sequencing in the human genome project, and many other fascinating scientific and technical projects.

Throughout the journey, we’ve steadfastly centered on our “north star” instilled by our founder years ago: always do what’s right for the customer. And while interpretations of “right” may have varied, what hasn’t changed is our commitment to actively listen and promptly respond to your valuable feedback in service of that core value.

That brings me to the very best part of this 30-year celebration: you. I am extremely grateful for our loyal customers who have helped us become what we are today. Many of our biggest product advancements and breakthroughs are thanks to you: your posts, your emails, your suggestions, and your willingness to work directly with us in understanding your unique needs and challenges. We embrace that spirit of cooperation and collaboration. It fuels us every day. For our part, there’s nothing more satisfying than hearing from a delighted user who’s solved a unique challenge with our “Swiss Army Knife” text editor. 

So while there have been many transformative changes over these years, including a transition to new ownership, our mission and vision remain unchanged. Our team is still largely intact…and growing! Our core values established by our founder 30 years ago still guide us. We’re excited about what the future holds for our products and our customers (stay tuned!). We will continue talking to you about the problems you’re facing in your daily work and what we can do to help you solve them. And we will continue doing what’s right for you, because if we’ve learned anything through this journey, it’s that if we take care of our users first everything else will follow. Thirty years of text editing excellence and success have proven it.

We hope you enjoy the 30th major release of UltraEdit in v2024.0. And thank you again for an amazing three decades. Here’s to three more! 🥂

The post 30 Years of UltraEdit appeared first on UltraEdit.

UE 2023.2 brings forth two long awaited features: First up, an overhaul of the macros interface aimed at making editing and saving macros much more intuitive and easier to use. Secondly, we have our first set of features based upon the newly developed plugin architecture, mainly as a proof of concept—users will be able to submit and share their own plugins later down the line. Lastly, a couple of key bug fixes and an application icon update round up this release.

Download the latest versions of UltraEdit and UEStudio now.

Macros: Updated interface for writing and editing macros

UltraEdit supports macro recording to execute those pesky tasks of repetitive nature. With macros, you can record a set of keystrokes and presses and instruct it to repeat for a chosen number of times.

In 2023.2, the user interface and setup for macros has been redone from the ground up. The objective of this overhaul is to streamline the operation and make the execution process more intuitive. Here is a breakdown of the changes:

• New global and individual settings
• Gathered the main functionalities into a single location
• Condensed most of the options from the ribbons into better-timed dialogues
• Reduced number of windows

Sneak peek of overhauled macro UI. The dialog options have been redesigned and rearranged for ease of use.

Tech Preview: New features using new plugin architecture

This new plugin architecture was first teased in UE 2023.0 and UE 2023.1. With it in place, the editor would have more capable and performant scripting capabilities—and thus more flexibility in the features and functionality possible. 

This release highlights the first set of features based on the new architecture (intended as proof of concept of features not natively hard coded in the base editor). It may be prudent to know that even with this new technological foundation, users will still be able to access and use these features as they would normally.

Here are the new features in UE 2023:

• Code surround

Surround code or text with the character of choice. Choose from a number of options such as quotation marks, parentheses, square brackets, curly brackets, etc.
We are adding a shortcut to do this too.

Code surround options available.

• SQL formatter

This feature reads through a SQL command script or a dump file and makes it more human-readable. It reformats, shortens, replaces long strings, or adds indentation, spaces, and breaks. It will do whatever will make the file easier to comprehend

Reformat SQL files into a more human-readable style.

• JSON to XML

Takes a raw JSON file and reformats it into an XML form. Some use cases include formatting JSON files for simplifying the process of adding entries to a website or a news feed-type application or web resource.

Format JSON files to XML files for easier processing in web-based applications and other similar platforms.

• File splitter

Splits a file according to user-chosen size or number of lines. Using this feature executes a file splitting operation on an arbitrary file and splits it into chunks.
A/N: this might be the first user-submitted plugin because this is based on a script originally written by one of the users in our community, Mofi.

Users define number of lines per chunk.

• Tabs to spaces (leading)

Converts tabs found in the start of a line or file into spaces. UE also has similar functionality for trailing tabs/spaces.

BONUS: Default shortcuts for new plugin features
You can use keyboard shortcuts to use the new features. See the list below or type “plugins” in the command palette:

New UltraEdit Icons

We’ve heard the feedback. UltraEdit is having a new set of icons based on information reported by the community. If you’re out of the loop, some users have reported that they dislike the icons we’ve introduced when we updated the website earlier this year—you can read here for the complete context.

New set of icons to be used in UE 2023.2 and onwards. From left: All Access, UltraEdit, UEStudio, UltraFinder, UltraCompare, and UltraFTP.

What’s Next for UltraEdit?

You’ve reached the end of UE 2023.2 updates. But we’re expecting a lot more for UE in the next year. With the new plugin architecture in place, it’s the best time to let us know what features interest you—or you might make one and share it with the community yourself with the upcoming Plugin SDK for all UltraEdit/UEStudio users that’s coming in 2024!

Watch the webinar from the developer team themselves to learn more!

Fixes and improvements

Apart from new features, this release has a lot of maintenance and improvement items. Most notable are FTP Browser using dockable window font for local/remote panes and configurable font settings for the FTP browser windows.

Here is a list of fixes and quality-of-life improvements based upon user reports and requests. If you have any questions or suggestions, please mail them to support@ultraedit.com.

• Files saved without an extension erroneously have CSH extension
• Hang when trying to access Find history
• Alt shortcuts added to macro play dialog
• FTP Browser now uses dockable window font for local/remote panes
• Extension is incorrectly added when file is saved
• Expose current tab stop value in scripting API
• Reproducible hang when inserting comment on last line of file
• Resolved intermittent startup instability
• Brace matching is incorrect in PHP when strings include braces

For more information about the previous update ( UE2023.1), head over to the previous announcement blog post here. Click the download button below to download the latest version of UltraEdit.

⏰ LIMITED TIME ONLY!⏰

The post UltraEdit 2023.2 release blog appeared first on UltraEdit.

This release is also focused on keeping features and functionality up to date to the latest standards. It also improves overall stability of the program based on the majority of our user reports. Browse the bug fixes and improvements section below to see the full list.

Download and try UltraCompare 2023.1 now.

Merge into New File

File compares in UltraCompare allow selective merging of differences between 2 or 3 files. However, if you’ve ever wanted to compare or merge files without altering the original two files, then this update will make it more convenient to do so. 

This new option, accessible from the folder compare context menu, allows you to create a separate individual third file so you can get a merged version without affecting the original two files.

Expanded Compare/difference alignment methods

UltraCompare now offers 2 difference alignment methods to accommodate data and line differences with efficiency and improved human readability. UltraCompare has traditionally used the Myer’s Difference Algorithm which efficiently finds the longest common subsequence. While this algorithm is fast and accurate, its comparison and alignment of differences at any given local point, meaning within a relatively short common range of lines between two files, may not match human readability expectations. Enter the Patience Diff method which does produce more human readable and expected difference matching and alignment. It accomplishes this by looking only for common elements between 2 sets of data. 

One of the most popular use cases for a diff tool is using it for analyzing source control versions.

Changes in source code are usually defined by blocks or sequences of altered code. As a dev, you see code in blocks of functions or sections, so mentally you might want your diffs to be done this way as well, as opposed to a top-to-bottom comparison of each character in the files.

UltraCompare can now be ordered to use the Myer’s algorithm or the Patience Diff algorithm for a more “context-accurate” result. This new way of aligning and showing results may be desirable for some use cases such as those mentioned above.

For contrast: The Myer’s compare algorithm goes through each character one by one, checking for differences. 

Access this new option via: Settings → Compare → Alignment method.

Integrated dockable PowerShell window

Following from recent UltraEdit updates, comes added support for an integrated PowerShell instance inside the compare UI. Instead of launching a PowerShell manually, a dockable PowerShell window can be initiated using the Layout → Terminal ribbon command.

With this new feature, you can execute command line tasks without having to navigate out of the editor. (We’ve added new command line options—more in the next section) 

New command line options

UC 2023.1 also comes with a number of new command line options—primarily based around Git commands. See the list below:

• -bt Ignore tabs
• -gitcp Compare to previous version
• -gitcu Compare to unmodified
• -gitor Open local repository

“Compare as” context menu command for Folder mode

If you are on folder mode, when you launch a comparison, you can now right click on a file and specify what type of compare to execute. You can choose from the following modes:

• Text compare mode 
• Binary compare mode
• Table compare mode (Excel and CSV)

This is file specific so you can easily swap compare modes in your sessions.

What’s Next for UltraCompare?

The changes in this release apply to both Windows and Mac versions of UltraCompare (with the exception of the PowerShell update which is Win-specific). Linux will follow suit late this year or at the beginning of next year. We are hoping to have complete feature parity sometime soon.

If you have a suggestion on how to improve UltraCompare send us an email. Send us your ideas on what you want to learn more about UltraCompare or any of the products under UltraEdit’s suite of tools. Have specific questions? Let us know what tutorials, blog posts, or even webinars you want.

Bug Fixes and QoL Improvements

• Compare engine improvements
• CTRL+Z results in undo of ALL session edits, not just the last one
• Add support for “Use bold font for differences” for binary/table modes as well
• Allow users to merge “fake lines” over content in file compare to delete content in target file
• Impossible to enter =! in quick find dialog
• Attempting to compare specific RAR archives fail
• Repeated crashes during specific folder merge
• Timestamp difference enhancements suggested for comparing FAT to NTFS folders
• When adjusting columns in one table column widths should be automatically matched in the other table
• Improved application stability
• Allow customer to specify folder that should be used for temp files
• -nonrec should force non-recursive compare but doesn’t work
• Sync rules are empty after install

The post UltraCompare 2023.1 release blog appeared first on UltraEdit.

In this article we discuss why a text editor like UltraEdit has placed an emphasis on security, and why it is even doubling its efforts to do so.

How is a software considered secure?

First of all, it is necessary to define what constitutes a secure software. A dictionary defines secure as “the state of being free from danger or threat.” In software, there is hardly a time when users or programs are not exposed to vulnerabilities—whether it comes from malicious actors or unintentional errors made by users themselves. 

In that case, it may be prudent to consider that having security-hardened software does not mean that security attacks and dangers disappear; instead it describes the innate ability of a software application to resist and prevent the unnecessary damages from the inevitable dangers of cybercrimes.

In the case of UltraEdit, our working definition is as follows:

A software program can be considered security-hardened when it undergoes a comprehensive set of practices and measures to protect it against potential threats and vulnerabilities, during and after development.

The cybercrime scene and cybersecurity industry

Security is one aspect that is often  overlooked when choosing text editors. The possible surface area of attack for a program run locally on a machine is arguably lesser than say, a cloud-based network system.  This holds true for UltraEdit as much as it does for other developer tools. 

However, trends in the software industry indicate an increasing reliance on software interdependence. New software is built upon both previous and current technology creating a web of software dependencies. The popularity of open source software and components have greatly accelerated the speed of development, reduced the outright costs, but has exponentially increased the potential surface area for attack as well.

This has prompted companies, businesses, and even the US government a campaign to move to zero trust models in order to curb potential open source threats and minimize the resources needed to alleviate damages from data breaches. To put this in perspective, the global average data breach cost was $4.35 million in 2022.

The Cybercrime Magazine reports that in 2004, “the global cybersecurity market was worth $3.5 billion” but in 2018, you can see that spending has dwarfed that almost eighteen times over at $66 billion. 

Investments in cybersecurity, while on the rise, is a tricky subject for businesses. Most of a company’s budget for IT and software development is allocated for tools and training. It’s straightforward: investing more usually results in increased productivity; on the other hand, investing in cybersecurity can be harder to justify—it’s an apparent financial sinkhole with no apparent benefits until something does go wrong. 

Read on further to learn more about threats and vulnerabilities in cybersecurity. Hopefully, if you are a business owner or a developer yourself, you will realize that the damages from a security breach will far outweigh the expenses of investing in even the most fundamental security fortifications.

Threats and vulnerabilities in text editors

Cybercrime takes on many forms: social engineering, network hacks, fraud, espionage, and a lot more. Each product or software in a business’ software supply chain should theoretically be as fortified as possible. It would not make sense to invest thousands of dollars on cloud security only for your system to be breached because you did not have multi-factor authentication for its employees in place.

Take for example a text editor that at its core serves a basic need of editing plain text data—it should be fairly simple to secure it and the data it edits, right? Yes, but be that as it may, the needs of users change and demands for more complex functionality dictate that the technology (and cybersecurity measures) has to evolve as well, thus the term software development. Text editors do more than just edit text nowadays (Lines blur between text, code editors, and IDEs). Auxiliary components such as HTML live previews, scripting and macros, and even hex editing may very well be considered essential.

This demand for extensibility has given birth to editor and IDE plugins—pieces of software created by the open source community that users can download from a plugin marketplace. Editor plugins and extensions provide exceptional flexibility and customizability to tailor fit any user’s specific use case. (This is so much so that UltraEdit is planning on creating its own ecosystem of plugins—more on this later).

However, plugins and extensions also greatly increase the breadth and scope of code that needs to be vetted for security, vulnerabilities, and potential development flaws. When using plugins, users waive some semblance of access to their source code in one way or another. To counter threats, plugin ecosystems and marketplaces establish guidelines and prerequisites before you are able to publish a plugin. Some ecosystems are more lax than others, while some require stringent processes before you are even allowed access to their software development kit (SDK) packages. (Examples: Visual Studio IDE Extensions guidelines and Google’s Chrome Web Store Extensions requirements)

Why security is important for UltraEdit

Software security is an interconnected chain of defenses and failsafes.

As a commercially supported software, we believe that UltraEdit should bring confidence and peace of mind to all those who use it. In the text editor space dominated primarily by open source programs, UE has the unique advantage of having a dedicated team of developers advance, manage, and fortify all of its features right from the start, minimizing zero day vulnerabilities.  

UE is a tool used by a variety of users, for many different purposes that even the creators of the tool may be unaware of. Some of these use cases may be simple everyday tasks, while others will be working with highly sensitive information or business-critical assets.

Furthermore, with ever increasing reliance on information technology, so should the standards for software. Take for example the industry shift and interruption brought about by the pandemic. Remote setups are generally more convenient but they are a security nightmare. Every employee with remote access can be an exploitable crack in your company’s security chain. Employee training and preparation is necessary but a foolproof system and software design is impeccable.  

This emphasizes the importance of security, not just for a text editor, but for software in general. However, UltraEdit is committed to making sure that it will not be a cause for concern for any of its users and customers. As a result, it has become one of the best open-source alternatives that is on par in terms of versatility, but still provides the benefits of dedicated customer support and security associated with commercial software.

UltraEdit’s Security Tools and Features

Software programs and developers employ a number of tools and techniques to harden their cybersecurity. UltraEdit employs the following three-tiered approach to harden its software security:

• Manual and Peer Review
  Every source code commit or edit for any of the UE tools undergoes intensive review by the developer themselves before it is passed to senior developers for scrutiny. This check filters out the most apparent and probable issues.
  
  A company or developer without this step will have credibility issues.
• Static Application Security Testing (SAST) tools
  UltraEdit uses a dedicated source code analysis tool to scan source code for possible vulnerabilities. These help detect issues that are laborious to check manually. This involves  filtering out common software errors such as obsolete programming techniques, memory leaks, buffer overflows, race conditions, and the like.Most companies will have SAST tools as it also provides a predictive summary of how efficient, maintainable, reliable, and portable the examined source code is.
• Software Composition Analysis (SCA) tools
  Next up, UE looks at its external dependencies. UE is not an open source software but it does use open source components. This is one of the more crucial steps that not every company will have. This type of scan cross-verifies each and every line in UE’s open source dependencies with a database of known vulnerabilities maintained by security professionals. This database is continuously updated so that security issues can be detected and mitigated as part of the standard product build pipeline.

A source code analysis tool will detect issues and provide general instructions on how to fix the potential issue.

Summary

Summing up our discussion, a text editor like UltraEdit places an emphasis on security because (1) it is necessary in this day and age where every user and company is reliant on technology and (2) because our users deserve the best and most secure system possible.

The goal posts for software security continuously move forward and no single version of any software will be 100% secure. That is why it is of the utmost importance to have a robust and stringent development process for UltraEdit. This article discussed UE’s general approach to security, and there are many threats and security issues that may arise in the future, but rest assured that the UE team will provide more than complete coverage with the best available security technology.

The post Keeping your files safe: Why UltraEdit, a text editor, invests heavily in security appeared first on UltraEdit.

We will be focusing on PowerShell scripts as an example. Specifically, we are creating scripts, editing them, and running them using the integrated PowerShell window right in the editor.

Here is a rundown of what you can expect to get from the webinar:

• An introduction to the power of command-line tools
• See script execution inside the same editor workspace
• Learn how to access and setup the integrated PowerShell terminal
• A sneak peek to the PowerShell integrations and developments planned for the UE suite

Webinar Schedule

Date: Thursday, September 21, 2023
Time: 10 AM Central Time (5 PM Central European Time)
Duration: 1 hour (~30 mins presentation, 30 mins Q&A)

Presented by:
• Bradley Hawkins, Product Manager, UltraEdit
• Ben Schwenk, Chief of Staff, Idera DevTools & UltraEdit
• Johnny Pickle, Chief Architect, UltraEdit

This webinar has concluded. If you missed it,  you can scroll down and watch the replay, skim through the highlights, and access the presentation slide. 

Webinar Slides

Replay

The post Power Up with PowerShell: Exploring the new integrated terminal in UltraEdit 2023.0 [Webinar Recap] appeared first on UltraEdit.

Here is a sneak peek of what we are looking at for the visual changes:

… and here is the current one we are using for comparison:

The team at UltraEdit has decided that the icon work—both in product and on our website and other channels—needs to be updated for better user experience. But before we implement these new changes, we would like to ask for your feedback.

Please read through this forum post to know more about why we are revising our icons. Please also leave your feedback on the same thread if you have any comments on the icons.

The post Revamped UltraEdit Icons—Your Feedback Appreciated! appeared first on UltraEdit.

Download the latest versions of UltraEdit and UEStudio now.

Enhanced Large File Mode

All settings used to optimize UltraEdit for large files is found in one convenient location.

For those unaware, large file mode is primarily based around disabling temporary files and a number of features. 

Temporary files (or temp files) are “backup” files that UltraEdit creates and uses during your editing sessions on a per-file basis. When a file is opened, changes are stored on the temp files, not on the actual file on disk. This technique is essential for core editor functions such as undo and redo, but also consumes more system resources. Temp files should not be used for super large files because of memory limitations and possible performance hits.

Usually, disabling temp files (large file mode) is an adequate measure to be able to open large files with reasonable performance. But for extremely large files (starts at around 4GB), there are other features such as line numbers and code folding that can be disabled to help with the performance. (See screenshot for full list)

In 2023.1, UltraEdit now adds an enhanced version of large file mode. Users can now save valuable memory and system resources by choosing features to disable automatically once a file size threshold is reached. There is no longer a need to manually enable and disable features—something especially useful if you are tabbing through multiple large and small files in an editing session.

Users can set the file size threshold and choose which features are auto disabled by navigating to Advanced → Settings → File Handling → Large Files.

If you want to learn more about how UltraEdit automatically optimizes for large files, watch this explanation by product manager Brad Hawkins.

Replace once option added

Replace once is a new quality of life option that applies when iterating through find and replace results. The difference with regular replace is that this new feature disables the automatic scrolling—very useful if there are lengthy intervals between find results in very large files. With this feature, you can find and replace and quickly make your edits on the replaced line.

Using replace once: Clicking the new button automatically closes the find and replace window and jumps your caret to the replaced text.

Improved URL highlighting

URL highlighting and quick open URLs were features added in UltraEdit 2022.2. In this update, the highlighting function has been improved to properly accent the whole URL regardless of the directory length and/or any additional parameters appended to the base.

As a reminder, use Ctrl + Shift + Click to use this feature. 

Environment variables for backup directories

If you’ve used UltraEdit even once, you would notice that it has automatic file backup functionality in place that preserves your currently opened file. You can even arrange for incremental backups, creating a sort of versioning system with this feature. 

In 2023.1, we’ve added environment variables for backup directories. This is useful if, for example, you are an IT admin setting up a basic config for a number of systems. With this new feature, it is no longer necessary to explicitly call out the exact directory of a program or system. 

These backup files are stored in a default backup directory that can be specified by going to Advanced → Settings → File Handling → Backup.

Fixes and UI improvements

Here is the list of minor fixes and quality-of-life improvements based upon user reports and requests. If you have any questions or suggestions, please mail them to support@ultraedit.com.

• Improved detection of PowerShell scripts
• Addressed crash when loading specific project data
• Fixed selection after spell checking “Change” doesn’t work correctly
• Fixed “Right-click”…”Only if Ctrl is pressed” spell check option not working
• Fixed focus is in wrong pane after opening file from FTP and invoking Find dialog
• Fixed display standard deletion confirmation message box when “Remove Script” is selected
• Added setting to specify the number of recent projects shown in list in ribbon/submenu
• Improved C# function detection for function list
• Fixed spaces at beginning of lines are dropped when inserting templates
• Fixed dragging a selection in column mode and dropping it doesn’t work as expected
• Fixed find next (F3) with unlimited columns not working as expected

What’s Next for UltraEdit?

You’ve reached the end of UE 2023.1 updates but you’ve also reached the part where we tease some of the features and plans we have for the upcoming release. Why? Well because you can lets us know what features interest you. 

On the top of our coming soon list is a revamped icons for the UE suite of applications as well as their corresponding file association icons. Some of our users liked the updated icons but many more did not. You’ve shared your honest and justified opinion on the new icons and we’re in the process of redesigning them. We are not fully reverting to the previous iconography (we still feel that an update was necessary) but we are addressing many of the usability issues pointed out by our helpful community. Expect this update as a hotfix for 2023.1 or in UE 2023.2.

Here are some of the other features we may have in store for you, with no specific timeline in mind:

• Code Surround
  surrounds a selection with a context specific symbol delimiter such as (),[], or {}.
• SQL Formatter
  formats SQL queries into a human readable yet still syntactically correct form
• JSON to XML/HTML converter
  Converts JSON files to a more presentable, human-readable form
• File Splitter
  A baked-in feature version of a script we shared in our webinar. Splits large files into chunks.

Do any of these features interest you? Have any suggestions on what we should work on next? Help shape the next releases by emailing support. For more information about the previous UE update (2023.0), head over to the previous announcement blog post here. 

The post UltraEdit 2023.1 release blog appeared first on UltraEdit.