IDE Issues/Tips?

Hello,

I have used both Arduino IDE and the Atmel Studio 6.1 and wanted to know if there is anything that anyone can recommend that may be an alternative and more functional than either of these. I started using Arduino with the Arduino IDE, and liked its ease of use, but due to my lack of programming knowledge and inability to figure out how to change the theme file to switch fonts, I could not read that IDE well and switched to Atmel Studio solely for this reason.

I recently had been told to try Arduino IDE just to burn bootloaders when I was having trouble compiling a bootloader sketch, and when I burned a bootloader onto a 328 and went back to Atmel Studio to try to repeat ths process, it no longer would open a new Arduino sketch giving this error "Unable to create an Arduino project for ATmel Studio " I have uninstalled and tried on both 6.1, and 6.2 and got it to work ONE time on 6.2 randomly, and then tried to remake another new one and received the same error. If anyone has any tips or suggestions regarding a better text and theme for Arduino IDE, ideas how to fix my Atmel Studio (which I finally was getting used to), or other IDE's that you thought might be preferable, please let me know! Thanks!

I use the IDE (because it "just works") for verifying and uploading code but I use an external editor to create my code. There is a tick box in the IDE Preferences.

If you are a newcomer the IDE (with or without an external editor) makes it easier to get advice from this Forum because other contributors are familiar with it.

...R