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Notepad++ is 21 years old

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Re: Notepad++ is 21 years old

#51

Post by SoftTalker »

kevinsync wrote: post #40

I continue to use Notepad++ despite having tried every other editor and IDE under the sun. This, of course, drives every person completely insane when I explain that my "IDE" is: - Notepad++ for editing, pretty much stock, no plugins - command line for git and grep (Console2 or Git Bash) - File Explorer alongside Everything [0] for navigating files - Beyond Compare [1] for visual diff/merge - WinSCP/PuTTY for SFTP/SS…

I certainly respect that. Mine is emacs, pretty vanilla. I do use magit for git operations.

find/xargs/grep for exploring code, finding definitions, etc.

standard utilities (ls, cp, mv, etc.) in the shell for file management

Re: Notepad++ is 21 years old

#52

Post by interroboink »

One thing I really like about software is that it can theoretically live forever. I know bit rot is real, but with some maintenance, and even a quite small community, it can keep getting revitalized basically forever.[1]

The field is generally still young, so I look forward to good solid software just getting older and older and still working well. Makes it worth learning and internalizing.

C is in its 50s, and doesn't seem to be going anywhere (:

Part of what pains me about much modern software, with its always-online and tied-to-some-cloud-service nature, is that it tends to die. The learning you do goes to waste, when some fickle company pulls the plug in the future.

I like to build stuff that lasts, whether it's a cathedral or a bazaar, and I like to use stuff that was built in that way, too.

[1] Okay, forever is a long time. Maybe some day keyboards will be extinct, and that will make keyboard-centric software obsolete. Same could be true for screens, or even the broad architecture of computing hardware as we know it. But those changes tend to happen slowly, and there's time to adapt.

Re: Notepad++ is 21 years old

#53

Post by extraduder_ire »

quietbritishjim wrote: post #41
svara wrote: post #14

And yet, this text editor too loads the whole file into memory when you open it. No modern text editor really should do that and support files of essentially arbitrary size by loading at most a few gigabytes around the cursor.

It does have the benefit that if the file changes or is deleted then you can carry on working with the old version. (It notifies you when this and lets you choose whether to reload/close.)

Wouldn't windows not let you do that if the file is opened exclusively? I also assume you can retain a handle to a "deleted" file on windows, like you can on *nix machines.

Re: Notepad++ is 21 years old

#56

Post by squidgedcricket »

interroboink wrote: post #52

One thing I really like about software is that it can theoretically live forever. I know bit rot is real, but with some maintenance, and even a quite small community, it can keep getting revitalized basically forever.[1] The field is generally still young, so I look forward to good solid software just getting older and older and still working well. Makes it worth learning and internalizing. C is in its 50s, and doesn…

I love being a C developer. I'll still be using it when I retire, though hopefully mixed with Rust instead of C++.

Re: Notepad++ is 21 years old

#57

Post by the_hoffa »

adzm wrote: post #46

One of the things I'm most proud of developing is dark mode for notepad++, even though it was a relatively simple contribution.

My contribution was adding "scrollable tabs" to it way back in the day and fixing a nullptr reference .. I did enjoy how simple the code was to actually grok and maintain, especially compared to some other FOSS projects of the day

Re: Notepad++ is 21 years old

#58

Post by mmooss »

To help many here understand Notepad++, would someone introduce a curious Vim user to Notepad++? Please don't make it into what is better or worse, but what capabilities does each have that the other lacks (not an exhaustive list, of course), what do they both have but implement differently, what uses are in Notepad++'s wheelhouse, etc?

I've heard of it for years, of course, but I don't really know it beyond 'GUI advanced text editor'.

Re: Notepad++ is 21 years old

#59

Post by sigseg1v »

QuantumSeed wrote: post #33
mrmetanoia wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me too! It's my go-to large text file manipulator. It's also what I keep open all the time to paste things into since it's so easy to open a new tab and it keeps temp files of things i haven't saved until i've closed them and told it I don't want them saved, so it opens up with a decent history of crap I've been using until I'm ready to clear it.

For Windows 11 users, the latest Notepad.exe can also pick up where you left off the last time the app was closed.

I love it with the exception that one day, when it started to lag (my fault for opening up 400+ unsaved tabs), I realized there is no "Close All and Don't Save Changes" functionality. Clicked the "No" button around 80 times, searched for some registry or appdata hack to see if it could get rid of the rest which didn't work, and then sadly went back to clicking No for the rest. I'll try to avoid that in the future.

Re: Notepad++ is 21 years old

#60

Post by dkwr »

QuantumSeed wrote: post #33
mrmetanoia wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me too! It's my go-to large text file manipulator. It's also what I keep open all the time to paste things into since it's so easy to open a new tab and it keeps temp files of things i haven't saved until i've closed them and told it I don't want them saved, so it opens up with a decent history of crap I've been using until I'm ready to clear it.

For Windows 11 users, the latest Notepad.exe can also pick up where you left off the last time the app was closed.

Does it also offer syntax highlighting? One nice thing about Npp is not only the temp files and tabs, but also that it offers syntax highlighting if needed. Sometimes when viewing a large Json it's nice to paste it in, turn on syntax highlighting and finding the information needed.
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