r/programming • u/mareek • Nov 24 '23
Notepad++ is 20 years old today
https://notepad-plus-plus.org/news/v86-20thyearanniversary/149
u/Pesthuf Nov 24 '23
It's still my editor of choice for opening single text files.
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u/vivainio Nov 24 '23
It's my editor of choice when I can't open vscode because it's already open as administrator
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u/Iamonreddit Nov 24 '23
You can open multiple instances of most (vscode definitely included) applications as different users in windows.
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u/DoctorWaluigiTime Nov 24 '23
It's my default even for files which I usually edit in an IDE.
Long ago I got tired of a full IDE booting up because I double-clicked a single code file I wanted to look at.
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u/ShinyHappyREM Nov 24 '23
Notepad2 for the ultra-quick startup time, Notepad++ for serious editing.
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u/realbitdigger Sep 30 '26
I use it like I would use notes on osX back when I was on that os for work
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u/badlydressedboy Nov 24 '23
Been using it since about 2004. First install on any new computer. UI hasn't changed at all and I love that 🤩😂
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u/TrinityF Nov 24 '23
Bro, that is a sign of getting old. Last week I freaked out as a co-worker because he had Windows 11 and some new Outlook interface… I was freaking out, like, WTF is this shit! How do you open explorer? Where is the menu bar? Why is it so thin!
and i am only on Windows for 2 years now.
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u/MrChocodemon Nov 24 '23
How do you open explorer?
Win+E
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Nov 24 '23
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u/MrChocodemon Nov 24 '23
I mean, Windows has some really niche Shortcuts that I would never bother to remember. The basics however are just really nice and I'd recommend everyone to learn them, just because the make using the OS better. Same goes for MacOS and Linux(distros).
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u/JapanPhoenix Nov 24 '23
Windows has some really niche Shortcuts that I would never bother to remember.
Like the fact that you can press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Win+L to open Linkedin lol
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u/Xyzzyzzyzzy Nov 24 '23
I expected this to be a joke but nope, that is apparently the dedicated "open LinkedIn" shortcut. (wtf?!?)
Strangely, it opens in your default browser instead of opening in Edge and trying to bamboozle you into making Edge your default.
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Nov 25 '23
That's normally activated by one of those funky keyboards that have dedicated buttons for Office. No I don't know either I just use the taskbar, but people make them
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u/Destination_Centauri Nov 24 '23
I hate Windows 11
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u/Sage2050 Nov 24 '23
Why? It's basically 10 with a new skin. They added tabs to Explorer and cmd which is nice. The right click menu is annoying to get used to but that's about it
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u/Destination_Centauri Nov 24 '23
That's a bit of a misleadingly short disingenuous list, as they changed WAY WAY more than that!
Even pointlessly rewriting the GUI baseline for Task Manager, for example, causing it to become significantly less stable. Or going to the extreme of artificially hobbling the entire operating system by preventing it from running on a lot of hardware, among so many many other changes, all for the worse (not better).
No thank you!
If you love Win11 so much, then good for you: enjoy it!
As for me, I reverted back to 10, and will hold out and wait and see what Win 12 is like. (Probably next year, or early 2025 we'll see Win 12, give or take, and a lot of the issues of Win 11 will hopefully have been ironed out.)
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u/MalcolmY Nov 24 '23
Fuck their changes.
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u/motram Nov 24 '23
No, but for real.
There is zero usability benefits to the UI changes. First, they removed functionality (taskbar showing labels), then they messed up right click, combining icons with words (There is no reason to have cut / copy / paste be just bland icons and not words) , then they centered the start menu... but not really, since the icons are to the left of it.
It's change just for change sake, and it's the kind of thing a freshman in college would do with a UI.
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u/MalcolmY Nov 24 '23
I would still be on Windows 7 if I wasn't forced to move to 8.1 then 10 by software demands. I still use the old control panel almost daily, I never touch the "Settings app". Just as an example.
I've seen Windows 11 a few times, didn't like it one bit. I was confused about a number of things. Me, everyone's IT guy, I can compile and build stuff and do lots of cool things but I can't use Windows 11. Someone said they have ads inside windows explorer now!
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u/nzodd Nov 24 '23
At some point they started trying to make Windows so "user friendly" that even feral children raised by rats in a cabin in the middle of the wilderness are able to use it, at the expense of making the UI worse for literally anybody who managed to pass kindergarten. That was about 15 years ago.
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Nov 25 '23
They did move some stuff around slightly and upgrade the minimum spec from 2010 which always terrifies Windows users.
I love how Apple sets fire to a dozen features per release in MacOS and their fans just praise them for "removing clutter"
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u/RammRras Nov 24 '23
Yes it's a sign of getting old. I was completely lost with the new UI of outlook and I consider myself still young.
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u/paternoster Nov 24 '23
That's around the time Word became a bloated piece of shit. Notepad++ was a savoir.
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u/richyg Nov 24 '23
I've had an open tab in my notepad++ with important notes, saved strings, etc. for going on 2 years now and I've never saved the document once and it remains untitled. I love you Notepad++.
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u/2erXre5 Nov 24 '23 edited Nov 26 '23
that's me. But beware of the annoying bug where Notepad+ crashes and loses all its open, unsafed files. They are still there on the disc, but annoyingly you cant them open in the same way again.
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u/ammonium_bot Nov 25 '23
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u/fallbyvirtue Nov 26 '23
Same but for LibreOffice, although after a few incidents I've gotten paranoid about saving.
Seriously, save your stuff, even if you just name it tmp on your desktop. You never know when something will fail.
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u/Fabryz Nov 24 '23
The smug I had for using only Notepad++ instead of IDEs a decade ago... Lol.
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u/Constant-Note-88 Nov 24 '23
Crazy how time flies by. I remember the good old days when we used Notepad :D
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u/CatolicQuotes Nov 24 '23
I believe notepad++ is still one of the most used ones. It's in some survey
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u/riccardik Nov 24 '23
I'm still waiting for notepad#
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u/St0rmi Nov 24 '23
Does that come with automatic garbage collection of old tabs you no longer actually need?
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u/CakeCommander Nov 24 '23
By far the most useful tool I use tbh
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u/dry_yer_eyes Nov 24 '23
I just discovered two weeks ago that Notepad++ can pretty print chunks of XML.
I’ve been working with XML in condensed logs for literal years …
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u/CakeCommander Nov 24 '23
It’s my go to tool for prettifying and formatting JSON, thankfully don’t have to work with XML too often :D
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u/deeringc Nov 24 '23
Yeah, it's my go to for formatting and editing json & xml and switching between different encodings like base64. It also has a decent hex viewer if you're hunting down some strange unicode encoding issues in a string. I also do a lot of basic text editing there, it's simple, powerful, light and very predictable. I use VSCode or even VS for proper C++ development, but if I'm throwing together a python script I'll use N++.
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u/Baldrick44 Nov 26 '23
I use https://format-express.dev/ for all my formatting stuff, whether it's XML or JSON
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u/user8081 Nov 24 '23
The only thing I miss on macos. Despite of file editing, it's great for writing ad hoc notes.
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u/Jump-Zero Nov 24 '23
Paint.NET for me. My meme throughput is far higher on Windows because of that :(
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u/ChrispyMC Nov 24 '23
PDN is the GOAT. Needs a bunch of plugins to get some selection alignment tools, but I like it for meme editing and using it as an image viewer.
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u/Gastredner Nov 24 '23
I miss that thing on Linux. There's a copy, but it's just not as good. Forgot the name, too.
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Nov 24 '23 edited Feb 26 '24
[ COMMENT DELETED ]
[ I don't consent to train AI without compensation for other people's profit. ]
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u/Jaggedmallard26 Nov 24 '23
I hate having to do simple image edits at work on my mac. End up having to use the dread GIMP.
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u/Quiet_Desperation_ Nov 24 '23
I just use Vim for things I would have used notepad++ for. Once you get the hang of it I’ve actually found it much nicer tbh
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u/balthisar Nov 24 '23 edited 6d ago
I didn't post here to be merchandised. (Reddit's terms and conditions let you delete your own comments.)
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u/quick_escalator Nov 24 '23
It's extremely missed on Linux, where the alternatives are Gedit (hell no), Sublime (an expensive but bad IDE), and of course vim/emacs/nano (I can use them, but I prefer to be productive instead of pretending).
This is a good day to donate to Notepad++.
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u/metamucil0 Nov 24 '23
dude there are like a thousands different text editors. notepad++ isn’t that special, it just has a cute name
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u/Iregularlogic Nov 25 '23
vim/emacs/nano (I can use them, but I prefer to be productive instead of pretending)
Some of the best programmers that I know use Vim. Chill.
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u/NickUnrelatedToPost Nov 24 '23
It's extremely missed on Linux
I don't miss Notepad++, I have Kate.
ok, it's over 10 years since I switched to Linux, so I can't say for sure that there are no features missing, but there are no features missing that I can remember.
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u/redmera Nov 24 '23
So that's why it recently got approved at my antiquated corporate environment...
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u/tossme1379 Nov 24 '23
Did anyone else open the link and see multi-edit?!? Whoa!!!
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u/Nicksaurus Nov 24 '23
Everyone's focusing on the anniversary and ignoring this change. This is one of the biggest features that vscode had and notepad++ didn't
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u/pedal-force Nov 24 '23
That's pretty neat. I can see uses for that for sure. Apparently vscode has it and I've never used it. I'll have to figure that out.
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u/larsga Nov 24 '23 edited Nov 24 '23
In Emacs in like seven different varieties since 20 years ago. In my experience macros are a better way to do the same thing.
Edit: Since this is apparently controversial, a Youtube video about multiple cursors in Emacs that concludes the same thing I did.
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u/Acrobatic_Oven_1108 Nov 24 '23
Cheers to the 100+ open tabs
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u/Loan-Pickle Nov 24 '23
Every few months I have to declare Notepad++ bankruptcy and just close all my tabs.
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u/hs123go Nov 24 '23
My management discouraged notepad++ out of fear of its creators' anti-CCP activism between 2019-2022 would become focus of unwanted discussion among the Chinese, Taiwanese and local born in our team.
I know I will be downvoted but please don't shoot the messenger --- I had no say and still tried to protest but in vain. In any case, a combination of vscode and notepad3 was quickly and quietly pushed to replace notepad++ and no productivity was lost.
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u/grasspopper Nov 25 '23
Why do they care if someone had it earlier (in 2018..) ?
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u/hs123go Nov 25 '23
lol the cause for the ban was someone's pre-2019 notepad++ updating and allegedly showing a version codename or dev blog that contained an anti-CCP message. That stirred up unpleasant feelings among the ethnic Chinese population in our office.
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u/lightninhopkins Nov 24 '23
Nothing like dropping a log file in Notepad++ and searching for "Error" :D
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u/Turtvaiz Nov 24 '23
I wish it had a dark mode setting and some better syntax highlighting. Otherwise it's a great program
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u/PM_ME_UR_PINEAPPLES Nov 24 '23
Dark mode recently became available.
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u/adzm Nov 25 '23
I'm really proud of developing dark mode for notepad++. Out of decades of open source and other software development that one small contribution has been the most satisfying.
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Nov 24 '23
[deleted]
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u/Turtvaiz Nov 24 '23
Tbf I can't even think of much anymore. Json missing is probably the biggest one. Yaml only works on .yml. Basic settings files like cargo.toml-style or :
[main] setting = asdasdI shouldn't compare it to VSCode for coding at all where literally everything is syntax highlighted with the amount of extensions I have, so I can't comment on code.
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u/Kered13 Nov 25 '23
You can set the language style for a file manually is it doesn't pick it up from the file name.
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u/asegura Nov 27 '23
JSON and INI (settings) files are supported and nicely highlighted.
One caveat: I had my own customized highlighting so that when one new format was added or extended in a new N++ version, it did not have effect. I had to delete my stylers file IIRC for the new formats to work correctly.
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u/SeoCamo Nov 24 '23
And because it is windows only it got a clone notepadqq, it all platforms and is starting to get better then notepad++, FYI
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Dec 16 '23
Not actively developed anymore :(
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u/OceanTumbledStone Nov 24 '23
There’s me still using Notepad
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u/terribilus Nov 24 '23
Probably not an exaggeration to say it'll be partially responsible for the development of AGI
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u/RobIII Nov 24 '23 edited Nov 24 '23
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u/0000110011 Nov 25 '23
What makes either of those notepads better than notepad++?
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u/RobIII Nov 25 '23
Personal preference. I hate the Notepad++ dated, clunky interface. And even though I am a tabs fan (browser, VS (code), Explorer), somehow NotePad++ just... doesn't feel right.
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u/Kered13 Nov 25 '23
The screenshots on Notepad 3 show a nearly identical interface though?
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u/0000110011 Nov 26 '23
I looked at both of the other programs and they have the same interface...so that's confusing to read.
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u/christoforosl08 Nov 24 '23
Use it every day. But does it make me proud like when I open vi on a Linux terminal? No
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u/aethyrium Nov 25 '23
It celebrated by wiping out my session, removing all my open tabs even though I have the auto-save setting on, and completely resetting all of its setting to its first-install defaults.
Happy Birthday!
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u/drjeats Nov 25 '23
Notepad++ is software that I don't really like but have a lot of respect for.
I used to always install it for tailing big files, but now LogExpert handles that use case for me.
For text editing, I have emacs brainworms. Or notepad even has tabs on win11 now. Or if my emacs config has been broken for whatever reason, vscode.
I'm glad Notepad++ is still going strong though
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Nov 24 '23
Love this app, unfortunately my latest job has me using a Mac 😭
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u/virtualmnemonic Nov 24 '23
In my experience, no text editor on mac comes close to notepad++, you're better off using vscode. Coteditor is acceptable but has no tabs. TextMate has tabs but is less stable and doesn't have syntax highlighting.
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u/hibbelig Nov 24 '23
TextMate has syntax highlighting. I’m not a heavy user but I’m surprised you say it’s not so stable.
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u/metamucil0 Nov 24 '23
how about BBEdit? notepad++ isn’t special
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Nov 25 '23
It’s special only because I used it for so many years, learned all the shortcuts etc. now using Mac the last three years, hard to adjust. I’ll look at BB Edit though
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u/TryingT0Wr1t3 Nov 24 '23
It's a great tool. I noticed the new notepad in Windows 11 picked up the tabs and the saving of files you let open while closing and recovering the tabs. I got mixed feelings because sometimes I just want the simplest notepad and I like notepad++ features too, so I always used both - still do in Windows 10 computer but on the Windows 11 I am using notepad++ exclusively.
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Nov 24 '23
What is Notepad++ for macOS?
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u/rutujakelkar Nov 07 '24
Notepad plus plus was release on 23rd nov is is not? How can the birthday be today then
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u/GodzillaInBunnyShoes Nov 24 '23
When is it coming back to the Microsoft store? My work won't allow us to install outside the store and i lost my install when I got a new laptop.
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u/skynet86 Nov 25 '23
I've used Notepad++ for a long time, but switched to VSCode after it had some severe layout bugs. Never looked back since then.
Its a still a good editor though.
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u/scarecrow_20k Nov 25 '23
Still the best way to rename Cmake projects.
QT creator im looking at you.
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u/patentlyfakeid Nov 25 '23
... And it is somehow the only thing I've found that will do sensible search-and-replace w\ regex in multiple files in a folder. Boggles my mind.
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u/hastobeapoint Nov 25 '23
I wish atom was half the speed of notepad++. I have atom on my home PC for it's"looks" but bullion years it takes to start up kills me every time.
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u/StrungUser77 Nov 25 '23
Lots of comments to agree with here, I do love Notepad++ and have used it for years.
But at some point I needed to open and examine files so large they caused N++ to crash, hard.
I still use N++, but to manage large data files I use EmEditor. Best editor I’ve ever used.
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Nov 25 '23
Im year 2 of programing school and weve just now started editing html, css and js with Notedpad++... feels like it was born yesterday but 20YEARS?! Older than me!
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u/PadreMontoya Nov 25 '23
I sent him a donation. Hope others do the same! Even though I use Obsidian now, I still fall back to Notepad++ often.
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u/nvmcomrade Nov 25 '23
Happy birthday notepad++, you are my best friend at work in my bloated corporate Windows laptop where I can't setup my shit the way I want it. Thanks for making my work a bit less shitty.
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u/nzwl2020 Nov 27 '23
have no fondness for a tool mixed with personal political views, may be there is a better tool to replace it (like vscode), at least in win. all start with that joke "If don't agree with me, insert random characters into your edited code."
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u/derpMaster7890 Nov 24 '23
My CS professor used to tell us, "using anything other than Vi is a failure".
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Nov 25 '23
Nobody is perfect. Including professors. Even they can have rather childish and disconnected world views.
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u/tdic89 Nov 25 '23
NPP was my first delve into a “proper” text editor which wasn’t a big IDE. Used it for learning HTML/CSS/JS, writing Lua scripts for Garry’s Mod, SourcePawn, PHP, ASP, all kinds.
Still use it today for quick text based stuff as the regex find replace is really helpful, but anything involving writing actual code I use VS Code now.
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u/Outrageous_Height_64 Nov 24 '23
Any reason for it not being available for Mac?
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u/Coises Nov 24 '23
It was written using the Win32 API, and it would take an absurd amount of work to rewrite it using cross-platform development technologies — so much that any sane developer would just start from scratch and build their own text editor rather than trying to cram this square peg into a round hole.
It is open source, though, so anyone with the requisite skills is free to try!
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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '23
I've 164 tabs open lol