Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft is killing WordPad in Windows

bleepingcomputer.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 367 posts

Re: Microsoft is killing WordPad in Windows

#191

Post by DieBruderBauer »

breadwinner wrote: post #163

Microsoft is slowly removing features, but is it adding any notable features? Here are some examples of features I would like to see: - Native Markdown viewer and editor, to replace Wordpad - Disk space manager - graphically show where my diskspace went; allow me to find and delete large files - Restartable and reliable file copy (similar to rsync on Linux) - Notepad with same features as textarea element in browser,…

> - Disk space manager - graphically show where my diskspace went; allow me to find and delete large files

Try WinDirStat.

Re: Microsoft is killing WordPad in Windows

#192

Post by ipaddr »

no_wizard wrote: post #147
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, the difference is precisely that an abandoned FOSS program can be picked up by someone else; that this ability is not always used is beside the point.

Not always is a misnomer. It rarely if ever is. Anyone remember PhantomJS? It took years before a replacement emerged and nobody was willing to take in the project, and this was a critical piece of tech at the time

I had a copy and made changes to my fork when others stopped updating. Having a copy let me make changes that work for me. Running a replacement foss project is totally different beast and the time/effect involved is a lot different nevermind the marketing/rebrand required

Re: Microsoft is killing WordPad in Windows

#194

Post by 404mm »

xmonkee wrote: post #62
FredPret wrote: post #42

Off topic, but I'm loving the Mac equivalent, TextEdit. After trying every kind of fancy task management and note taking system from org-mode to Obsidian to Logseq, I now use a .rtfd (.rtf + images) on iCloud to act as a note-taking system / todo-list. I would have used pen and paper but I need to paste screenshots and URLs. There's an iOS app called RTF Write for 99c. Now I always have my notes, tasks, and shopping,…

why not use the notes app? you get in built folders and shari g options too

Notes would be a total killer app if it supported Markdown.

Re: Microsoft is killing WordPad in Windows

#195

Post by andersa »

xen2xen1 wrote: post #178
andersa wrote: post #169

I must be the only one who didn't know what a WordPad was before reading about it being removed on here. What do you use it for? I can't remember the last time I had to edit a text document that wasn't either pure text (like markdown), a pdf, or an office file. Some people mentioned ".rtf" files in this thread, but I don't believe I've ever heard of one of those being used for anything.

WordPad had one real use in my world: if you edited a Linux document in WordPad it was smart enough to not mess up the line endings CR/LF versus LF IIRC. It was nice to not have to worry.

But doesn't a basic text editor like notepad++, or sublime text, I guess nowadays people use vscode too, take care of that? Why would you want to use some kind of rich text editing program for those?

Re: Microsoft is killing WordPad in Windows

#196

Post by n6h6 »

GuB-42 wrote: post #57
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything MS does is for the business case. Wordpad, windows, etc exist only in a capitalist context and need a financial justification to exist. It was there exactly for the reasons you state, to kill the word processor market in Windows. Previously you had all these other players but Win95 came with Wordpad for free which had a lot of functionality. For pros, you could buy Word. I don't think we appreciate how man…

I don't think Notepad is going to be anything more than a basic text editor. It certainly gets new features from time to time, but it is more about making it usable in the modern world than adding advanced features like Notepad++ has. It does compete with Notepad++ in a sense that now, Notepad can actually edit text files, and if you want advanced features, there is VSCode. And I must admit that I don't have any use…

What exactly do you mean notepad can "now" edit text files? I'm pretty sure it could always edit text files.

Re: Microsoft is killing WordPad in Windows

#197

Post by fanatic2pope »

massysett wrote: post #114
codetrotter wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Install LibreOffice. If you were using WordPad before, LibreOffice will be a fine replacement for your purposes. https://www.libreoffice.org/

What’s the load time on LibreOffice these days? Years ago on Linux it took awhile. I use Notepad and Wordpad because they load fast.

The flatpak version of libreoffice write loads in about a second on my 5 year old desktop.

Re: Microsoft is killing WordPad in Windows

#198

Post by cyberax »

throwaway_75369 wrote: post #40

One interesting thing about WordPad (at least from the Windows XP / 7 era) was that it supported the complete OLE2 / ActiveX stack. This let you do all kinds of things like embed other types of controls (like canvases or images from Paint, or Excel tables) inside your document, and WordPad's UI would jump through all the hoops to update and transform into the embedded application's UI when that control gained focus.…

WordPad was an official sample application for the MFC and OLE: https://web.archive.org/web/20070429125746/http://msdn2.micr...

Re: Microsoft is killing WordPad in Windows

#200

Post by dryanau »

thordenmark wrote: post #193

WordPad was the only thing worse than MS Word. So good riddance. But Windows still desperately needs an ultralight word processor that can do more than Notepad. I dread Word even opening.

The ribbon and the dreaded save panel make me anxious just thinking about them. WHY is saving a so many clicks?!?
Post reply on HN