Can't they just leave it alone?
Windows 11 Notepad to support Markdown
311–320 of 558 posts
Re: Windows 11 Notepad to support Markdown
#312I was about to make a joke about how I'm surprised they haven't shoved Copilot into Notepad yet, but surprise - they have ( https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/enhance-your-wri... )
This might be the reason for Markdown support, LLMs love it.
Me, too. Oh my god, I might be an LLM.
Re: Windows 11 Notepad to support Markdown
#313Don't forget Wine ships a faithful notepad.exe reimplementation. It should run just fine on Windows
edit: just checked the version that ships with Steam on Linux, yep, works great in a VM
Re: Windows 11 Notepad to support Markdown
#314i used notepad for the first time in a decade, and it's awesome. mine supports markdown, and tabs.
Re: Windows 11 Notepad to support Markdown
#315Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that different people want different things. It seems to me like these days the idea of software being a personal expression is in vogue more than not, but there are always going to be those who want that and those who don't. That said, if software is a personal creative expression, one must be prepared for the possibility that some people aren't going to like what one has to say. Often when the politics angl…
Where is the place you'd like to see someone say "Declare variables, not war"?
On their blog I guess? Not in my text editor, that's for sure. I'm busy trying to get work done; I neither have time for nor want to hear about the author's opinions on current events.
Re: Windows 11 Notepad to support Markdown
#316notepad is supposed to be like the 'nano' for windows. it's already bloated. But this is just following a pattern, the enshittified even calc.exe and mspaint. Previewing pictures in windows is shamefully slow because the previewer is also a bloat. My diagnosis is that Microsoft doesn't have good technical leadership. It has spread the risk of bad decisions by individual leaders by spreading it amongst too many decisi…
> You know how they name everything terribly? that's trying to capitalize on existing branding.
It's funny because they are actively destroying existing branding these days. Like how they renamed Office after their failed AI assistant, rather than the other way around.
Re: Windows 11 Notepad to support Markdown
#317It doesn't support basic code/monospace blocks using backticks:
> Unsupported Syntax Detected
> This file contains syntax that isn't fully supported in formatted view. Some content may not render as intended, and switching views could modify parts of your original Markdown. Do you want to continue?
Re: Windows 11 Notepad to support Markdown
#318Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course. Story about Windows 11 someone has to chime in "just use Linux". I welcome it, because hopefully that will be less people having a meltdown over an icon on a menu bar.
It's not just an icon in the notification area though! There's a keyboard shortcut for it. I never figured out quite what it was, but every now and again Copilot would open itself while I was using Visual Studio or Emacs on my Windows 11 desktop PC. I assume I'm either hitting the shortcut, or a ghost key on my keyboard is stepping in and hitting it for me. (I could never reproduce this by pressing Windows+C.) Copilo…
A keyboard shortcut? Damn, that's horrific. Terrible terrible stuff.
So instead of troubleshooting you went straight to "oh my god this is the end of days!" These seem like obvious user error or at worst bugs.
Not to mention you've pivoted from Copilot in Notepad to Copilot in general. Which are not the same thing. Copilot is a brand name and various instances of it are not connected at all.
Re: Windows 11 Notepad to support Markdown
#319When I do agentic development with Claude Code, I use notepad to read/edit the .MD files, so this will make my life a little easier.
Why not use VSCode? It has native Claude Code integration and is literally designed for Markdown from the ground-up.
I probably will! Just new to Windows (back after 15 years) so still getting set up. I might prefer full Visual Studio; will see.
Re: Windows 11 Notepad to support Markdown
#320They’re turning Notepad into what Wordpad was (or was supposed to be). Now everyone looking for the light weightiest *.txt editor must find a new tool...
I like EmEditor, it has a compact ui and some useful features, and 16TB file support -- https://www.emeditor.com/
The whole point of Notepad was its bare bones simplicity. EmEditor looks like it’s loaded full of stuff, and has a subscription fee.
Assuming most people don’t need to open 16TB files, they might as well use VS Code.