6 ms·

If that happens Notepad++ will probably the first explicit GNU GPL product from MS.

by arunc 9y ago

maxxxxx 9y ago
It's still hard to understand that they haven't touched Notepad in such a long time. The effort to get a good editor must be tiny compared to a lot of other stuff they are doing. I am pretty sure I could improve Notepad substantially with just a few days of work.
- huehehue 9y ago
  I don't see why they would. Notepad is great if you want to do something really quickly w/ plaintext, and the fact that it doesn't really do anything else is the best part IMO. If you want nicer formatting you can use WordPad. Beyond that, there are a million alternatives (including the MS office suite)
  - maxxxxx 9y ago
    I think a system should come with a decent editor out of the box. I sometimes have to deal with locked down systems where I can't install Notepad++. So I have to choose between two bad options like notepad or Wordpad. Both at least 20 years old and unchanged since then.
    - jenscow 9y ago
      yes. at least put something decent on a server.
  - __s 9y ago
    Ever use replace all in Notepad, where it then begins slowly iterating, repainting at every step?
- da_chicken 9y ago
  Eh. The only thing I really miss in Notepad is the ability to easily view text files that have Linux line endings. That's really all I care about. For anything else I'll probably use Notepad++ or VS Code. The reality is that Windows isn't a text-based operating system, so a text editor with features isn't a vital component.
- cryptoz 9y ago
  > I am pretty sure I could improve Notepad substantially with just a few days of work. With the diverse and enormous install base that Notepad has, do you really think it would be that simple? There must be all kinds of localization concerns, legal concerns, trademark issues, patent concerns, design and Windows brand concerns, that must go into a core OS application update. I agree that Notepad should be updated. But updating a text editor preinstalled on Windows should be no easy feat for one person over just a few days. The repercussions of each change are potentially huge, and going in especially with a cavalier attitude of "it would only be a few days work to substantially improve" a piece of software used by hundreds of millions of people daily, definitely sounds like it wouldn't work out as easily as you'd expect.
  - maxxxxx 9y ago
    I was slightly facetious but compared to other changes this should be an easy one. It's probably one of the simplest changes you can make to Windows. I hope we can agree on that.
    - cryptoz 9y ago
      > It's probably one of the simplest changes you can make to Windows. I hope we can agree on that. I certainly do not agree with that! For example, Notepad has been one of the buggiest and weirdest pieces of software I used on stock Windows. It does weird things when saving files, like moving your cursor to another location, so if you are typing and saving and typing and saving you will end up with text misplaced all over and a bizarre file that has a weird back/undo history. With its large host of weird bugs I would not expect the current codebase to be simple to update, and surely you'd agree a rewrite of Notepad is more than a few days. I in no way think that improving Notepad would be one of the easiest changes to make to Windows. Sure, there would be harder things to improve I'm sure, but I don't see why it's a contest at all. Updating Notepad sounds like the opposite of easy to me. Improving Notepad for everyone who uses it, while not receiving millions of death threats for errors or bugs or unexpected, unwelcome changes in behaviour sounds nearly impossible to me, personally. Perhaps this is part of the reason it is so stagnant - MS sees little upside to making large improvements while seeing enormous risk. Just a guess.
- Endy 9y ago
  I'm sorry for going off topic, but I keep seeing this kind of comment and I want to get an answer - how is Notepad not a good editor? It can take any ASCII/ANSI/UTF file and output it in plaintext. It has line-wrap as an option. It loads fast and can handle files of decent size without lag. Users can set display and print fonts, etc. I'm really lost as to why anyone says Notepad is not a good text editor for basic text. I've written entire websites in Notepad, not to mention it being my go-to writing tool for anything that doesn't need to be visually impressive or which I can add formatting tags to. I prewrite emails, cover letters, and long forum posts in Notepad. Heck, if I need a DOS batch file, I turn to either Notepad or Edit. On the other hand, Notepad++ takes much longer to load, has more UI elements, and generally makes it harder to do the one very simple thing I want it to do - allow me to create and edit plaintext. Notepad2 was better on the UI last time I used it, but still took longer to load.
  - freedomben 9y ago
    I agree with you actually. Back in the day I coded almost exclusively in Notepad when writing lots of HTML code and Basic code, for example. For the first year of Java I used it for Java because I wanted to really know the language (and without the help of an IDE, you get really, really good at spotting syntax errors and memorizing APIs). The simplicity was impossible to beat, and its ubiquity made it always available. Maybe that's why I use vim for everything now. It's like notepad but with much more efficient keybindings :-) P.S. I do use Intellij for java now when I'm writing Java code, mostly because I have to. That said, the feature set is amazing and for doing Java I'd probably use it even if I didn't have to because I'm spoiled. Still use vim for everything else tho.
  - abawany 9y ago
    Some things that I like in Notepad++: * Multi-window editing * Restoring workspace on load * Background, font, and default spacing options * Source formatting by source type These were just some basic things I used in the few times I used Notepad++ after hearing people talk highly of it; there are probably a ton more along with plug-ins but my usage was basic. It definitely made serious-ish development on Windows easier for me to do.
  - 9y ago
- badsectoracula 9y ago
  Notepad is just for taking quick notes and viewing text files and for that it is perfectly fine. It is my most used default Windows accessory (i do not include explorer on that of course) and even on Linux i install Leafpad[1] which is basically a Gtk2-based clone of Notepad and i use for pretty much the same reasons (taking quick temporary notes, writing out stuff, viewing text files, etc). I use another text editor for editing code (Notepad++ on Windows, Geany on Linux) that has a more busy and heavyweight UI that i am ok when working for long sessions. Notepad/Leafpad/etc is supposed to be as minimal as it gets, launch instantly, etc. The only things that i'd like is support for Unix line endings and perhaps autoindentation. But considering that Notepad is really just the `EDIT` window wrapped up in a toplevel window frame and i doubt Microsoft is going to touch `EDIT` anymore (which is sad but that is beyond the point and FWIW much harder than just improving Notepad itself) i'm fine with that. [1] http://tarot.freeshell.org/leafpad/ http://tarot.freeshell.org/leafpad/
  - freedomben 9y ago
    Interesting to hear of someone using Geany for coding on Linux. I used it briefly maybe a decade ago when I was still a vim noob. Glad to hear it's still around and used by at least one person :-)
- Fill1200 9y ago
  Notepad will be tabbed soon by Windows Sets. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/11/tabs-come-to-every-window-in-windows-10-sets/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/11/tabs-come-to-every-w...
- z3t4 9y ago
  Looking back I can't understand how I coded in notepad for several years until I finally had enough and asked around for a better editor. Back then it didn't even have "goto line". So I often counted the lines, and write comments like "this is line 500".
jhasse 9y ago
I think that would be the Hyper-V Linux driver: https://www.infoworld.com/article/2631026/server-virtualization/microsoft-releases-hyper-v-linux-drivers-as-open-source.html https://www.infoworld.com/article/2631026/server-virtualizat...

If that happens Notepad++ will probably the first explicit GNU GPL product from MS.

by arunc 9y ago

If that happens Notepad++ will probably the first explicit GNU GPL product from MS.

It's still hard to understand that they haven't touched Notepad in such a long time. The effort to get a good editor must be tiny compared to a lot of other stuff they are doing. I am pretty sure I could improve Notepad substantially with just a few days of work.

huehehue 9y ago
I don't see why they would. Notepad is great if you want to do something really quickly w/ plaintext, and the fact that it doesn't really do anything else is the best part IMO. If you want nicer formatting you can use WordPad. Beyond that, there are a million alternatives (including the MS office suite)
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  I think a system should come with a decent editor out of the box. I sometimes have to deal with locked down systems where I can't install Notepad++. So I have to choose between two bad options like notepad or Wordpad. Both at least 20 years old and unchanged since then.
  - jenscow 9y ago
    yes. at least put something decent on a server.
- __s 9y ago
  Ever use replace all in Notepad, where it then begins slowly iterating, repainting at every step?
da_chicken 9y ago
Eh. The only thing I really miss in Notepad is the ability to easily view text files that have Linux line endings. That's really all I care about. For anything else I'll probably use Notepad++ or VS Code. The reality is that Windows isn't a text-based operating system, so a text editor with features isn't a vital component.
cryptoz 9y ago
> I am pretty sure I could improve Notepad substantially with just a few days of work. With the diverse and enormous install base that Notepad has, do you really think it would be that simple? There must be all kinds of localization concerns, legal concerns, trademark issues, patent concerns, design and Windows brand concerns, that must go into a core OS application update. I agree that Notepad should be updated. But updating a text editor preinstalled on Windows should be no easy feat for one person over just a few days. The repercussions of each change are potentially huge, and going in especially with a cavalier attitude of "it would only be a few days work to substantially improve" a piece of software used by hundreds of millions of people daily, definitely sounds like it wouldn't work out as easily as you'd expect.
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  I was slightly facetious but compared to other changes this should be an easy one. It's probably one of the simplest changes you can make to Windows. I hope we can agree on that.
  - cryptoz 9y ago
    > It's probably one of the simplest changes you can make to Windows. I hope we can agree on that. I certainly do not agree with that! For example, Notepad has been one of the buggiest and weirdest pieces of software I used on stock Windows. It does weird things when saving files, like moving your cursor to another location, so if you are typing and saving and typing and saving you will end up with text misplaced all over and a bizarre file that has a weird back/undo history. With its large host of weird bugs I would not expect the current codebase to be simple to update, and surely you'd agree a rewrite of Notepad is more than a few days. I in no way think that improving Notepad would be one of the easiest changes to make to Windows. Sure, there would be harder things to improve I'm sure, but I don't see why it's a contest at all. Updating Notepad sounds like the opposite of easy to me. Improving Notepad for everyone who uses it, while not receiving millions of death threats for errors or bugs or unexpected, unwelcome changes in behaviour sounds nearly impossible to me, personally. Perhaps this is part of the reason it is so stagnant - MS sees little upside to making large improvements while seeing enormous risk. Just a guess.
Endy 9y ago
I'm sorry for going off topic, but I keep seeing this kind of comment and I want to get an answer - how is Notepad not a good editor? It can take any ASCII/ANSI/UTF file and output it in plaintext. It has line-wrap as an option. It loads fast and can handle files of decent size without lag. Users can set display and print fonts, etc. I'm really lost as to why anyone says Notepad is not a good text editor for basic text. I've written entire websites in Notepad, not to mention it being my go-to writing tool for anything that doesn't need to be visually impressive or which I can add formatting tags to. I prewrite emails, cover letters, and long forum posts in Notepad. Heck, if I need a DOS batch file, I turn to either Notepad or Edit. On the other hand, Notepad++ takes much longer to load, has more UI elements, and generally makes it harder to do the one very simple thing I want it to do - allow me to create and edit plaintext. Notepad2 was better on the UI last time I used it, but still took longer to load.
- freedomben 9y ago
  I agree with you actually. Back in the day I coded almost exclusively in Notepad when writing lots of HTML code and Basic code, for example. For the first year of Java I used it for Java because I wanted to really know the language (and without the help of an IDE, you get really, really good at spotting syntax errors and memorizing APIs). The simplicity was impossible to beat, and its ubiquity made it always available. Maybe that's why I use vim for everything now. It's like notepad but with much more efficient keybindings :-) P.S. I do use Intellij for java now when I'm writing Java code, mostly because I have to. That said, the feature set is amazing and for doing Java I'd probably use it even if I didn't have to because I'm spoiled. Still use vim for everything else tho.
- abawany 9y ago
  Some things that I like in Notepad++: * Multi-window editing * Restoring workspace on load * Background, font, and default spacing options * Source formatting by source type These were just some basic things I used in the few times I used Notepad++ after hearing people talk highly of it; there are probably a ton more along with plug-ins but my usage was basic. It definitely made serious-ish development on Windows easier for me to do.
- 9y ago
badsectoracula 9y ago
Notepad is just for taking quick notes and viewing text files and for that it is perfectly fine. It is my most used default Windows accessory (i do not include explorer on that of course) and even on Linux i install Leafpad[1] which is basically a Gtk2-based clone of Notepad and i use for pretty much the same reasons (taking quick temporary notes, writing out stuff, viewing text files, etc). I use another text editor for editing code (Notepad++ on Windows, Geany on Linux) that has a more busy and heavyweight UI that i am ok when working for long sessions. Notepad/Leafpad/etc is supposed to be as minimal as it gets, launch instantly, etc. The only things that i'd like is support for Unix line endings and perhaps autoindentation. But considering that Notepad is really just the `EDIT` window wrapped up in a toplevel window frame and i doubt Microsoft is going to touch `EDIT` anymore (which is sad but that is beyond the point and FWIW much harder than just improving Notepad itself) i'm fine with that. [1] http://tarot.freeshell.org/leafpad/ http://tarot.freeshell.org/leafpad/
- freedomben 9y ago
  Interesting to hear of someone using Geany for coding on Linux. I used it briefly maybe a decade ago when I was still a vim noob. Glad to hear it's still around and used by at least one person :-)
Fill1200 9y ago
Notepad will be tabbed soon by Windows Sets. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/11/tabs-come-to-every-window-in-windows-10-sets/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/11/tabs-come-to-every-w...
z3t4 9y ago
Looking back I can't understand how I coded in notepad for several years until I finally had enough and asked around for a better editor. Back then it didn't even have "goto line". So I often counted the lines, and write comments like "this is line 500".

jhasse 9y ago

I think that would be the Hyper-V Linux driver: https://www.infoworld.com/article/2631026/server-virtualization/microsoft-releases-hyper-v-linux-drivers-as-open-source.html https://www.infoworld.com/article/2631026/server-virtualizat...