Colon is a flexible, stylish, cross-platform, Electron-based text editor that offers way more advantages than one might initially think.
Even though it’s mainly designed for text editing/text writing purposes (since it also boasts Real-time preview for Markup and HTML), Colon can also double down as a surprisingly competent IDE.
Looks and general feel
Being a modern app designed with web technologies, it’s no surprise that Colon looks rather good. The GUI is modern, sleek, and well-designed, boasting nice fonts and decently-sized buttons.
Colon follows the same successful recipe of various code/text editors out there. Input text in the central editor, use the side panels to manage your project, and get a preview of what’s happening on the right side of the GUI.
The Settings section is also quite well-thought-out since it allows you to choose from 7 GUI themes, as well as other interesting tweaks.
What it can actually do?
When it comes to the actual text editing jobs, Colon is by no means a top-tier app. However, it does provide you with various content-based suggestions, making the whole writing process a lot smoother and easier.
On the flip side, when it comes to coding, the app makes a lot more sense. For example, it offers syntax highlighting for over 100 programming languages and supports runtime environments with over 15 languages.
Other noteworthy features include code folding, autocompletion, useful tab management, a nifty auto-save feature, Discord-rpc support, a capable console (capable of running over 10 projects at once in various languages), and real-time code sharing options.
Colon also provides various templates for file extensions. One of the best features is the fact that Colon automatically detects the code language you’re currently using and activates the designated compiler for the said language. As mentioned before, this allows you to execute 10+ programming language codes simultaneously.
Conclusion
There’s no denying it – Colon is a decent Electron-based app that’s mostly intended for text editing, and project management purposes. What’s most interesting is the fact that Colon seems to be a bit more capable as a code editor than it is a text editor.
By doing this, it ensures a high level of flexibility, but there’s no denying that it somewhat sacrifices various functionalities that top-tier IDEs and code editors have. All in all, a good hybrid text/code editing app that works on all major OSes out there (Linux, Windows, and macOS).
