If you’ve ever needed to edit your theme files, whether using Blogger, WordPress or any other system you ought to know that you should only use a simple text editor like MS Notepad or Wordpad, instead of a full word processor which can insert extra formatting and ‘break’ the file.

However, these simple text editors can be a little too basic, making it hard to find the code you are looking for (especially if the theme author has presented their code in a solid chunk), and if you get a helpful error along the lines of ” a fatal exception has occurred on line 47″ then you are left counting down the screen with your finger, trying to find the correct line.

If you have experienced this, then you will love Progammer’s Notepad.

Programmer’s Notepad is a simple text editor with a range of powerful functions: At it’s simplest, it will show the line numbers, so you can head straight to the piece of recalcitrant code, along with colour-coding various elements within the page so that you can see what parts of the code relate to each other - ’syntax highlighting’.

It’s ideal for editing Blogger HTML templates, WordPress PHP and CSS files, and loads more. If all you want to do is insert a badge into your template, PN will make it easier, and if you want to write some code from scratch, this will feel like luxury compared to MS Notepad.

It’s another great, free, Open Source program and is highly recommended even for only occasional dabblers.