Vim, the editor

Vim is the editor that I use for most text editing. I did try out Emacs for a while, but it didn't stick. I know a lot of good people who like Emacs more, though.

LyX, the WYSIWYM LaTeX editor

LyX is a WYSISYM editor that "combines the power and flexibility of the TeX typesetting system with the ease of use of a graphical interface". I have used it since the year 2001 and can vouch for its ease of use, power and flexibility, as they say in the ad.

Inkscape, the open source SVG editor

Inkscape is an SVG editor that is quite versatile and intuitive. And the textext extension allows one to put re-editable LaTeX objects into pictures, so, for example, we can use proper subscripted variables as labels instead of the lame "v1, v2".

A semantic checker for LaTeX...

Great for finding many of the small errors that one makes with LaTeX, such as putting a space, instead of a ``~'', before a reference. It even finds if you type $ln$ instead of $\ln$ ! And it integrates very well with LyX: ChkTeX

... and what the different errors mean.

An explanation of the probable causes of each error message thrown out by ChkTeX, and how to fix these errors.