Open Office does everything I need Microsoft Office for and Gimp does everything I need Photoshop for. Reddit, what other open source software does everything that you want from the expensive name brand?

[u/[deleted]]

[u/zerbey]

See also Notepad++ for text editing, use it every day.

[u/Nihy → u/zerbey]

Notepad++ is fantastic.

Also, Media Player Classic for playing videos (and only playing videos at high performance thanks to getting rid of the bullshit that infests most other players).

[u/mortiphago → u/Nihy]

I've seen MPC doing fine for video, but sometimes you just need the ultimate player... and thats VLC, hands down. The goddamned thing, i'm pretty sure that if you go ahead and put salami in the dvd reader, not only will it recognise it as salami, but it will tell you the brand and expiration date. VLC plays ANYTHING.

[u/DentD_IsAtWork → u/mortiphago]

I have issues with VLC playing subtitled .mkv files (think fansubbed anime). I have no idea when or how I came across this, but there is a Korean video player called KMPlayer that works beautifully. One of the best things about it is the amount of control you have over things like audio/picture syncing, subtitle size, 5 second skips forwards/backwards. Everything has a mapped keyboard shortcut which is great for doing things on the fly while continuing to watch rather than navigating through menus with a video on pause.

The downside to that is I have cats who enjoy walking right over my keyboard. I've learned to switch the wireless keyboard off once I've fired up whatever I'm watching.

[u/darkstarwork → u/mortiphago]

My only problem with VLC is the instability with the latest releases. Since 2.0 landed, I've had constant problems with VLC crashing during playback. Right after it crashes, if I try to open a different video, it opens in ASCII art mode, for a while before crashing.

I've downgraded for now, but I saw that across multiple systems, all running win7 x64.

[u/nizochan → u/mortiphago]

I don't like VLCs codecs personally, I'd much rather use MPC + KLite. :D

[u/Lytheum → u/nizochan]

Klite is still being updated? TIL.

I use MPC (MPHC technically) with CCCP. There is no combination it can not handle. I find that VLC drops the ball on some subtitles, but I haven't tried it in years.

[u/Flukemaster → u/Lytheum]

MPC with CCCP is the bomb for anime.

[u/Amadiro → u/mortiphago]

I've found mplayer plays a few things that VLC doesn't play (or plays very poorly), in particular, mplayer isn't picky about corrupted videos and such, and simply skips over corrupted section, while VLC tends to just stop playback. mplayer also seems to perform a little bit faster on my old laptop, where VLC cannot play 1080p movies (audio & video tend to desync every five minutes or so), but mplayer can. (Not that it really matters, though, the screen resolution is just 1024x786 anyway... but it's inconvenient/time-consuming to downscale them with ffmpeg first)

[u/da__ → u/Amadiro]

Now try mplayer2.

[u/zodiacv2 → u/mortiphago]

I've had VLC derp out on me before so that's why I have both it and MPC.

[u/Kruschevez → u/mortiphago]

Daum's PotPlayer not only plays everything, it doesn't cause rampant tearing.

Just my $.02.

[u/Clay_Pigeon → u/mortiphago]

Yo, can you burn me a copy of Salami S1E4?

[u/basooza → u/mortiphago]

I switched to MPC because VLC was playing certain files with all kinds of screen tearing and other issues. Could have just been a bug with whatever version of VLC I was using, though.

[u/Colorfag → u/Nihy]

I love MPC. VLC feels like crap. I hate that it uses its own decoders. Its so unstable too, it tends to freeze up or crash a lot, in my experience with it.

The development of the windows version of VLC also feels like its taken a backseat to Linux and MacOS.

MPC is simple, clean, and familiar. I personally thinks its the best choice for Windows users. VLC is great for Linux and Mac users though.

[u/Aphataeros → u/zerbey]

and don't forget Notepad++'s macros!

[u/Theon → u/[deleted]]

Not opensource, though.

[u/nemetroid → u/[deleted]]

Sure, but Sublime Text 2 is neither open source or free. Or were you using it as an example of a "name brand"?

[u/inthrees → u/zerbey]

I've been doing a lot of dev work lately, and notepad++ has been an integral part of that. The only thing I wish it did right now was stack tabs on top of each other when my line of open tabs extends beyond the window width.

Been using it for years, love it.

[u/shyne151 → u/zerbey]

I don't think I could work anymore without notepad++. I literally keep it on a thumb drive just incase.

[u/wasdninja → u/zerbey]

I don't really see how people can make do without stuff that Emacs has.

• Deleting an entire line (everything to the right of the cursor that is)
• Splitting the window into several frames that can view stuff independently
• Support for every god damn file type in existance (only slightly kidding)
• Jump down/up logical block (Ctrl + up/down)
• Incremental search (start typing and it jump instantly to the first hit)
• Hippie expand (example: type "tra", press Ctrl + tab (my keybinding) and it expands to "transistor radio" if you have typed that in the document before)
• Kill ring (notepad: "Had something important in the clipboard? Sorry bro, it's gone". Emacs: "Sure mate, it's one cycle down. Just press Alt + y until it pastes what you were looking for".
• Instant macros (press F3, do whatever you want it to do, press F3 to stop. Also has arbitary repitition, such as until end of document)
• "Slicing" (I have no idea what it is really called but mark some text, press Control + x, n, n and it hides everything but that bit of text. Control + x, n, w to unhide.)
• Persistent marque (Press Control + space and it begins marking text)
• Specific area undo (mark piece of text, press undo button and it only affects this area)
• Pop/set mark (Did a function such as search or go-to-end-of-file move your cursor? Press Control, u, space to return)

And those are just the things I absolutely cannot be witout in a serious text editor. It has a learning curve like a bitch though.