Notepad++ for Editing

If you are writing code on a Windows platform, you will want a decent text editor.  The free text editor I like best is notepad++, available for free at this website:  http://notepad-plus-plus.org/

Click on the Download button on the left and select the latest version, the one with an installer is convenient.  I put the installer, npp.version.exe, into a Download folder and run a virus scan on it.  Double click on it and the installer will walk you through the installation.  You can edit text files by right-clicking on the file and selecting "Edit with Notepad++."  The editor displays line numbers by default.

Notepad++ has some advanced features.  I like the "Find in Files" feature. It is an excellent tool for editing simple programs, especially scripts that run in Windows.

Another feature I like is being able to open two tabs to the same file.  Each is independently scrollable.  This allows you look and edit two different spots of the same file simultaneously.  To create the second tab, follow this sequence:
View > Move/Clone Current Document  > Clone to Other View

If you code in Python, you will want to have good visibility and good control over white space.  I recommend these settings:
View > Show Symbol > Show White space and Tab
Settings > Preferences > Language Menu/Tab Settings > Tab Settings, check Replace by space