SlickEdit is one of the most powerful programming editors available today, and one of the most flexible. SlickEdit contains hundreds of options to let you work your way. Most people don't have time to read the whole user guide. Take a few minutes to go through the Quick Start Configuration Wizard, and you'll be up and running with SlickEdit in no time.

CUA is the default emulation, which provides key bindings familiar to Microsoft Windows users. Emulations are provided for other popular editors including Vim, GNU Emacs, Brief, and more. If you are already an experienced user of one of these other tools, you will find that these emulations will help you get up and running quickly. Otherwise, you may find that the CUA emulation is best.

Context Tagging creates a database for all the symbols in your code. This allows SlickEdit to rapidly jump from a symbol to its definition or show a list of references. Other features, such as completions, also use this information. To properly work with your code, SlickEdit will need to tag the libraries associated with the compiler you are using. Click Tag Compiler Libraries to begin that process. If you choose to skip this step now, SlickEdit will automatically tag your compiler libraries if you are using Microsoft Visual Studio, GNU C/C++, or Java. For other compilers, you can tag them later by selecting Tools → Tag Files and then clicking the Auto Tag button.

Many users are particular about the colors they use. On this form, you can select a color scheme that will be used to color all editor windows. You can also select your symbol coloring scheme, which defines how different symbols are detected and colored. Preview your selections in different languages using the preview window and the language combo box.

Fonts are another matter of personal preference. The Quick Start Configuration Wizard lets you choose different font styles for Unicode (HTML, XML, etc) editor windows and Non-Unicode editor windows. Use the preview windows to view your selections in the languages of your choice.

SlickEdit features many options to control your editing experience. On this form you can set three important ones for all language modes. Normally these are set one language at a time. You can set the following options: Indent settings - controls your indent amount and tab size, as well as whether you would like to indent using tab or space characters. Brace style - controls the location of braces in C-style languages. Syntax Expansion - specifies whether or not you want SlickEdit to automatically expand block structures like if or for for all languages. This option uses a tri-state checkbox. A check indicates that Syntax Expansion will be turned on for all languages. Unchecked indicates that it will be turned off for all languages. When it is grayed in, the individual language settings will be retained and no changes will be made. Line Numbers - controls display of line numbers for all languages. This uses a tri-state checkbox. A check indicates that Syntax Expansion will be turned on for all languages. Unchecked indicates that it will be turned off for all languages. When it is grayed in, the individual language settings will be retained and no changes will be made.

This screen lets you select the file types that will be automatically opened in SlickEdit.

To get the most out of SlickEdit, we need to tag your source code files. This is done automatically for files that are part of a project. This lets you use powerful features like SlickEdit's Symbol Navigation to quickly jump from a symbol to its definition or see a list of references. It is critical that you use the correct project type. Click Launch Project Setup Wizard to choose the right project type based on the language and compiler you are using.

Supports Git, Subversion, Perforce, Mercurial and CVS.