Optional code editor

Now a choice has to be made about code editors. Unity comes with a system called MonoDevelop. It is similar in many respects to Visual Studio. And, like Visual Studio, it adds many extra files and much girth to a project, all of which it needs to operate. All this extra girth makes it take an annoying amount of time while it starts up, before one can actually get to the code.

Technically, you can get away with a plain text editor as Unity doesn't really care. This book recommends using Notepad++, found at http://notepad-plus-plus.org/download. Free to use, it is essentially Notepad with code highlighting. There are several fancy widgets and add-ons for Notepad++ that add even greater functionality, but they are not necessary for following this book. If you choose this alternative, installing Notepad++ to the default location will work just fine.