Notepad++

Posted on:May 07 2007

For some time at work, I used Ultraedit as text editor, but without a private license, I used a lot of alternatives from Emacs to a combination of Notepad and the VisualStudio editor for private work. But I just came across notepad++ (Warning, ugly website), and wow, I'm impressed, that's a nice editor.
It features a built-in hex editor, undo/redo, tabbed documents, dockable windows, UTF support, word wrapping, wrap/CR-LF view, formatters for dozens of languages, XML pretty printing, macros, run-shortcuts, plugins, and works nice with huge files. Everything wrapped in a very nice simple user interface. And it's not only free, but open source. Very cool.

Comments:

Yes indeed. It's a very nice piece of software. I use it for some time now and it worked always very well

Sylence

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2007-05-07 22:05:00

notepad++ like a lot of text editors out there, use Scintilla as text rendering and colour syntax plugin. So you must do as i did. Try Scite.

Warning: If you try Scite, your next entry in this blog will be: Scite rules

http://www.scintilla.org/SciTE.html

PD: Scite supports D syntax colouring.

BlaBla

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2007-05-07 22:08:00

I used to use it until i found out that there is a windows version of vim. I would give it a try :D

Regards,
Armin

Armin Ronacher

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2007-05-07 22:30:00

Yes, notepad++ is great. I tend to use it for non cpp coding like php, xml, etc, or even just for viewing cpp files.
If you do plenty of copy/cut and paste in notepad++, may I shamelessly introduce my multi-clipboard plugin:
http://www.peepor.net/loonchew/index.php?p=multiclipboard

loonychewy

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2007-05-08 00:35:00

Why does one need another editor when there is vim?
Seriously though Notepad++ is a damn good editor. But I still prefer vim because it has much more useful plugins, is basically feature complete and more efficient. (./q/@/etc..)

But vim needs more time to get used to, which obviously is a big disadvantage to new users.

haffax

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2007-05-08 00:57:00

Neat, but as already mentioned, it's all been done before.

I personally have fallen for Programmer's Notepad ( Oh my, I notepad for people just like me ! ... ) It has syntax highlighting in various languages, tabbed docs .. all that stuff. One thing it doesn't have tho, is hex (at least to my knowledge).
I've been using it for quite some time tho, and can surely recommend it. So in case you're tempted to have a look -> www.pnotepad.org

Wice

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2007-05-08 01:33:00

I`m using Noepad++ a lot. It is good editor indeed but it is NOT good with big files unfortunately. Try to replace text in 4-5 Mb file to knock it out :(

IPv6

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2007-05-08 03:10:00

@haffax: Sure, Vim requires some time to get used to it. But it's worth the afford.

Armin Ronacher

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2007-05-08 06:57:00

Vim absolutely rules. And it's the only editor that can be trusted when it comes to handling different charsets/encodings. Vim is the only editor where I can e.g. exactly control whether a BOM shall be written at the beginning of a file. All other editors I tried out failed horribly with such simple tasks.

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2007-05-08 08:52:00

I just wanted to say that I did NOT fake any of the former posts. They are all real! :-D
Honestly, knowing of all those vim users out there makes this world a little better ;-)

hybrid

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2007-05-08 09:18:00

well my choice of notepads alt is textpad. http://www.textpad.com/
It may not be the best. But i like it ;-)
I will give notepad++,vim and Scite a try

leo

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2007-05-08 09:50:00

one greate thing about ultraedit the column mode - i couldn't find it in the np++ featurelist

bifel

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2007-05-08 13:11:00

My problem using vim/emacs/etc is that there is no autocompletion like visual studio + visual assist x and i really need this think using big libs. or are there such plugins and i didnt find them???

mirlix

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2007-05-08 15:36:00

In term of text editors, I think TextPad is better.

nighthawk

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2007-05-08 16:19:00

mirlix, yes there are. Most are based on ctags, so here is a list of scripts using ctags: http://vim.sourceforge.net/scripts/script_search_results.php?keywords=ctags&script_type=&order_by=rating&direction=descending&search=search
But they are not better than what notepad++ does, which is itself limited in that regard. Code completion is more an IDE thing, not for a GP text editor, which doesn't have the necessary informations. From the listed plugins, I have tagexplorer installed, but use it rarely. It works well though. I haven't tried the other ones.

haffax

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2007-05-09 00:33:00

I was looking for an Ultraedit alternative some time ago and I am satisfied with PSPad now, have a look:
http://www.pspad.com/

riky_ho

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2007-05-09 09:18:00

@mirlix: ^X^O with enabled omnicompletion

Armin Ronacher

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2007-05-10 00:07:00

Interesting editor... Looks very similar to Notepad2. Here is the link: http://www.flos-freeware.ch/notepad2.html
Note: it also uses Scintilla :)

3ddev

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2007-05-10 01:15:00

I'm somewhat shocked and appalled you use notepad++, even more so that you even used Visual Studio. They suggest you program in WINDOWS. Honestly, as a programmer, you should really use Linux, and that means KWrite, GEdit, or vi (or vim).

Notepad++ is just a clone of KWrite and GEdit.

use linux for pr

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2007-05-10 03:07:00

visual studio is the one of the most used IDEs for gamedevelopment because it rocks, everyone used it for a time with visual assist x will agree.
I like linux really for the daily use for surfing,email, watching dvds etc. but it lacks simple a really good IDE, because this i have to use visual studio and windows for programming. anyone who know something like visual studio + visual assist x for linux/mac would help me a lot

mirlix

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2007-05-10 12:11:00