The ado-mode is a major [editing] mode for Emacs which allows truly good editing of Stata, namely do, ado, hlp and smcl files. Here is a screenshot to see what the highlighting does. The mode also handles indentation, date stamps, and includes templates for writing help files.
You can get the ado-mode package which allows the following to be done when editing Stata code in Emacs. Just click here, and then snag the entire folder named ado-mode. (I've not made a gz or zip or stuffit file of the contents, because I don't want to play with the end-of-line characters.)
if and while blocks get closed.Please let me know if there are any troubles with the installations, since there are little quirks with cross-platform Emacs stuff. Anyways, here are the installation instructions.
If you'd like to be notified when the package gets updated, click here to send an email to me. Please don't change the subject. Privacy? You bet. When the advertising trolls come around, I'll give them everybody's name except yours. ;<) The current version is 0.82.5.
If you are curious about Emacs, here is some more info. It's a little dated, but it conveys the feeling well. If you are sold, and want to get a copy, here are more instructions.
If you are intrigued about using editors for editing Stata code in a nicer way than the built-in do-file editor works, try checking out the unofficial FAQ on text editors and Stata.
Rather than download ado files via the web, use Stata's built-in method for managing user-written extensions: the handy net command from Stata 8 or net install which comes with Stata 6 & 7.
The site for using net from or net install is (note that Stata is capitalized... this is important, very important):
http://www.louisville.edu/~wrrisi01/Stata/Packages
So... if you are using Stata 8, for instance, you could type net from http://www.louisville.edu/~wrrisi01/Stata/Packages to get the list of available ado files.
You can find the list of changes to these ado files here.
UCLA has some good stuff on converting SAS files to Stata format. In fact, the UCLA site is a treasure trove of Stata knowledge.