271–280 of 367 posts
One of the great things of the windows builtins is trustworthyness: they're always there. Even if notedpad++ is miles better, it can't always be installed, e.g. on a server.
This is the sort of non-consensual change that is the hallmark of proprietary software and drives me towards using free and open-source software every chance I get. I love WordPad's simplicity, and I'll miss it.
It seems strange to call it "non-consensual" for them to not maintain a now-little-used application in perpetuity.
But even if that was not the case, it is a change in a user's workflow that they did not request.
Is this a high bar I have set for the developer? Yes, perhaps it is.
And yet I believe in it and stand by it in my projects.
I consider it my responsibility to accommodate the user, and not the other way around.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The crucial difference is that with FOSS, unless a piece of software has some particularly gnarly and/or finicky dependencies, you can easily bypass whatever is in your package manager's repositories and just use the version you want (by compiling it from source, or by using a ready-to-use version provided directly by the maintainers of the software itself, which is often, if not always, a possibility), regardless of…
"(by compiling it from source, or by using a ready-to-use version provided directly by the maintainers of the software itself, which is often, if not always, a possibility)," This is fine for those of us who know how to compile the source or find a ready-to-use version. Trouble is, I've often been in situations without updated sources being available and or where maintainers haven't been contactable. Ordinary users a…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Wordpad was on every windows machine from 1995 onwards - no need to install anything on a machine you might not even be able to, and unlike notepad it could open text files from unix machines properly
Now I believe at some point in the last decade or so notepad was upgraded to be able to open those files so it’s no longer a feature. I dropped windows well before those other editors came out so not sure exactly when notepad was fixed, but I do remember using wordpad to read files
This is a shame. I still use is to open RTF and DOCX files.
Wait, it opens files made with Microsoft Office? I thought it refused that and only did rtf and text files like html, txt, etc. Is this perhaps new or do I just misremember?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The crucial difference is that with FOSS, unless a piece of software has some particularly gnarly and/or finicky dependencies, you can easily bypass whatever is in your package manager's repositories and just use the version you want (by compiling it from source, or by using a ready-to-use version provided directly by the maintainers of the software itself, which is often, if not always, a possibility), regardless of…
"(by compiling it from source, or by using a ready-to-use version provided directly by the maintainers of the software itself, which is often, if not always, a possibility)," This is fine for those of us who know how to compile the source or find a ready-to-use version. Trouble is, I've often been in situations without updated sources being available and or where maintainers haven't been contactable. Ordinary users a…
>There’s no reason to be outraged by this decision Actually, I have a reason to be outraged by this decision. I like using WordPad, and it will take me time and effort to find an adequate replacement for a simple note-taking application.
I want to add to this, to address all the "just ..." suggestions posted in reply. This change constituties a NON-CONSENSUAL CHANGE to my computing environment. My workflow is broken, and I have to fix it. This is one of the million paper cuts by which my relationship with Windows was broken. This is why CONSENT is important in computing. It is absolutely fucked up, and I won't tolerate it.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/UseTerms/Retail/Windows/11/U...
"6. Updates. The software periodically checks for system and app updates, and downloads and installs them for you. You may obtain updates only from Microsoft or authorized sources, and Microsoft may need to update your system to provide you with those updates. By accepting this agreement or using the software, you agree to receive these types of automatic updates without any additional notice."
If you don't want this kind of thing to happen, don't use proprietary software that requires you to to agree to it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I want to add to this, to address all the "just ..." suggestions posted in reply. This change constituties a NON-CONSENSUAL CHANGE to my computing environment. My workflow is broken, and I have to fix it. This is one of the million paper cuts by which my relationship with Windows was broken. This is why CONSENT is important in computing. It is absolutely fucked up, and I won't tolerate it.
The user consented to it by agreeing to the EULA: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/UseTerms/Retail/Windows/11/U... "6. Updates. The software periodically checks for system and app updates, and downloads and installs them for you. You may obtain updates only from Microsoft or authorized sources, and Microsoft may need to update your system to provide you with those updates. By accepting this agreement or using the soft…
But I agree with you that this abuse is a symptom of proprietary software.
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...