Featured Freeware: NoteTab Light

Once you explore the power of NoteTab Light, you may find this text editor beautiful despite its hectic interface. At its core, NoteTab Light is to Windows' Notepad as an iPhone is to a rotary phone. NoteTab Light incorporates top-level tabs similar to most Web browsers, so that you can manage several different projects at once. It can automatically replace Notepad so that Notepad's icons open NoteTab Light instead--although this helpful shortcut trick doesn't work in Windows Vista.

However, it's more than a mere replacement. The left column displays a list of commands, called Clips, that do anything from inserting bits of text to generating code. Each library, the roster of which appears as tabs at the bottom of the screen, contains its own set of clips. The FTP library, for example, lets you create server profiles, connect, upload and download files, and issue various commands. The publisher's site offers many user-created libraries, or you can make your own. You can create your own clips, too. Designed for programmers, NoteTab Light's tabs and other higher functions should appeal to both coders and the rest of us who just want more out of a notepad.