What program would you recommend I use to open the source .cs files?

[Crazyape98]

I'm sorry if this is posted elsewhere, but I have been looking without luck.  I'm meaning to get into modding this game and so I wanted to look at the source codes, but I need a program to open them.  I only ask which one you guys would recommend (preferably free)  my OS was recommending Notepad+, but I was curious if you would recommend something different.  Also, if there are any other programs you feel I would need to get started I would appreciate those too    Many thanks in advance.

[ItchyFlea]

You can use pretty much any text editor to open them, but if you made changes and wanted the game to use those changes, you'd need something like MonoDevelop to compile them.

As for the .XML side of modding, again it's pretty much any text editor. Notepad++ is a good choice in both cases.

[Architect]

Something I posted a little while back:

On a side not, as someone that uses Monodevelop with Unity extensively, and Visual Studios (free version) with this game, I can honestly say VS is quite considerably better, and you can quite easily choose the framework with which you wish to work with in it. I'd seriously consider using VS over Monodevelop even if you did stay with 4.0, it's just faster, crashes less, and is much better at secnod guessing your code (all of which are in my own experiences).

edit:
Oh, and VS is much easier on the eyes if you use a dark theme, less white glare burning into your retinas

[Crazyape98]

Thank you both, I will check out both mono develop and visual studios.