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Notepad++ v8.2 Released
- Joyfield 5y agoUsed UltraEdit for years but for a couple of years my economy has been so bad I could not pay for the updates so I tested N++ and found it started up so much faster and had pretty much everything I used in UE.
- zibzab 5y agoAnyone here using N++ instead of an IDE for development? Do you use vanilla N++ or have added some extensions?
- notRobot 5y agoI use N++ along with NppFTP and PHP Autocompletion. I have NppFTP pointed to the `www` dir on my dev webserver, and it's so convenient to just be able to edit files in N++, and whenever I Ctrl+S, it automatically uploads and updates content on the server.
- neals 5y agoI used to hack away in N++ as Freelancer. At some point, I landed in a team for the first time, after hacking away solo for decades. It was like visiting a different planet. Fun experience. I got to see IDE's and even learned about NPM for the first time. Even though I was way more productive (...solo) they looked at me like I came from a distant tribe, with just Notepad and no formatting, code coloring, code completing, packagemanager etc.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y agoI use Notepad++ with NppFTP and TextFX, but I think TextFX is 32bit only and that most TextFX tools are integrated now anyway. I love it, and in my current investigation into the viability of switching to a Linux Desktop it's something I haven't found a good replacement for yet. Notepadqq looks like a Notepad++ clone but I'm wary of its use of Javascript and would have to convert my custom UDLs to CodeMirror modes. I'll probably end up just using Notepad++ with Wine.
- notRobot 5y agoWhen I'm on GNU/Linux, my N++ equivalent is Geany: https://www.geany.org/ https://www.geany.org/ It's a bit different in some ways, but works well enough. I haven't tried it, but it looks like there's an (unmaintained) FTP plugin for Geany: https://github.com/caiguanhao/gFTP https://github.com/caiguanhao/gFTP
- unwind 5y agoPlug, but if you're into Geany you might have a use for my "Gitbrowser" plug-in [1]. It's very light-weight (at the cost of features, it's really a browser and not a GUI for Git) and suits Geany just fine in my opinion. I especially like the "Quick Open" feature, which uses Levenshtein distance sorting to help you find a file from a few characters in the name. :) [1]: https://github.com/unwind/gitbrowser https://github.com/unwind/gitbrowser
- tveyben 5y agoI have similar thoughts - it would be great to hear if there is an in-significant overhead with wine…
- zibzab 5y agoWhy not just use Genome Text Editor or whatever its called?
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y agoI used to use it with Wine on Lubuntu on my laptop a few years ago[0]. As I recall the only problem I ever had with it was that context menus had a titlebar. I presume this was a quirk of the Window Manager. [0] before Lubuntu switched to Qt and, for reasons I still can't put my finger on, became a lot less enjoyable to use.
- e-master 5y agoI used to be a big time notepad++ user, but at some point decided to try to use VSCode as my go to text editor. The ease of use and the large number of good quality extensions more than makes up for the slight latency at startup. To my big surprise VSCode can easily handle files of the size of hundreds of megabytes, it’s just great. I like notepad++, but needless to say, nowadays I only start Notepad++ accidentally on my machine.
- ghusbands 5y agoThere's latency in every part of the VSCode experience, not just on startup. And the startup delay is bad enough that it needs a harsher word than "latency". I made the mistake of associating VSCode with *.txt files and had to quickly switch it to something else, as I was otherwise waiting each time I tried to glance at a text file. Programs like Notepad++ and Sublime Text come up instantly.
- cturtle 5y agoI agree that an electron-based editor is not as responsive as a native one, but the vscode devs have done a lot to make it as fast as it is. This talk [0] is a very interesting look into everything the devs do to make it startup quickly. [0]: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=r0OeHRUCCb4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=r0OeHRUCCb4
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- abrowne 5y agoMy workaround for the startup delay, since I use it so much, is just to autostart VS Code on OS login, and never quit. I basically treat it as part of the OS, which I've started to prefer: my computer boots up to the editor, like opening a notebook, rather than an empty "desktop".
- e-master 5y agoFair point. I honestly do not experience any noticeable latency after startup, but that is probably because my dev machine is so powerful (12 core intel core i7-8700 3.2GHz, 64GB RAM). Coincidentally I do have it associated with txt files, and as I said before I can’t complain, it works marvelously. To be honest, I’m general I’m with the native app crowd whenever we discuss pretty much any other Electron app, but VSCode is an exception to me.
- AuthorizedCust 5y agoI stopped using Notepad++ a while back, switching to VSCode as it gained maturity. Just curious, other than philosophical, why would a developer keep using Notepad++ today? What are its relative strengths?
- brabel 5y agoDo you believe everyone should use the same editor and no alternatives have any reason to exist anymore? I used several editors (not Notepad++ since I moved away from windows many years ago), as they all have their own strengths and use cases where they are best at something.
- justsomehnguy 5y agoI can't be classified as a developer (though I'm occasionally write some code), but VSCode on my external monitor is unusable because it plainly ignores ClearType hints. All GUI text in it looks like I had a 24h marathon and didn't clean my glasses for a week. Everything else (including Notepad++, lol) on that monitor looks just fine. It works on integrated display, but thanks, I prefer 38" to 14".
- booleandilemma 5y agoI like it because it’s super fast, but the main reason is familiarity - I know how to do everything with it, and I haven’t seen a strong need for me to pick up another tool. I’m not interested in jumping on the VS Code hype train, and I already use Visual Studio.
- The_Colonel 5y agoNotepad++ is much faster than VSCode. For serious work I have Intellij, for quick things N++. VSCode fits nowhere for me. YMMV
- matsemann 5y agoSame. I don't program in N++, but use it to open random files outside the project every day.
- 5y ago
- bitigchi 5y agoThere is no other third party text editor more efficient and lightweight than Notepad++ on Windows. I only use Notepad++ on Windows, to save my CPU cycles and RAM.
- ComodoHacker 5y agoSciTE is more lightweight. Efficiency is about personal config and habits, though.
- ale42 5y agoSciTE is super light, but has less functions. Notepad++ is based on the same engine (Scintilla), though. Both are infinitely lighter than Electron-based editors...
- TonyTrapp 5y agoPSPad is very similar in both regards! If you are looking for a lightweight editor on Windows, give both a try. Though I found that PSPad has become a bit more buggy in more recent versions since 64-bit support was introduced (which, I think, has lead to several components being exchanged or upgraded, which caused these bugs). I ought to give Notepad++ a try again.
- maupin 5y agoPSPad used to be my editor on Windows until they added crapware to the installer. No idea if they still have it or not, as I immediately jumped ship to Notepad++ when I saw it.
- mjrpes 5y agoPSPad was nice, but I switched to Notepad++ years ago because PSPad would crash every so often and I'd lose whatever work I had done since the last backup. Notepad++ has never crashed for me.
- TonyTrapp 5y ago
- senectus1 5y agoI have never seen an app get so many regular reliable updates as notepad++ Those devs are machines
- notRobot 5y agoAgreed! And it's mostly just one dev! https://github.com/donho https://github.com/donho
- isuleman 5y agoWhen I was in college I used Notepad++ but now at work we are using VS Code and Visual Studio. Those days were gold :')
- nvr219 5y agoAbsolutely fantastic program. Would love a Linux equivalent.
- integricho 5y agoThere is also CudaText now, fitting somewhere between Notepad++ and VSCode https://github.com/Alexey-T/CudaText https://github.com/Alexey-T/CudaText
- capableweb 5y agoIndeed, seems similar to Sublime, depending on its performance. So in terms of bloat/complexity, the order of editors seem to be something like this currently: Notepad > Notepad++ > Sublime/CudaText > Visual Studio Code > Visual Studio (Proper)/XCode/Other full-blown IDEs
- trzeci 5y ago+1 On that. Cuda is the only editor that supports my work challenges, that is editing huge ASM.js files (100MB+) without any problem.
- capableweb 5y agoSublime should (at least time I tried it in Sublime 2/3) be able to handle almost arbitrary large files. So should vim/neovim, but that's a bit more different from your regular text editor.
- roosgit 5y agoYes, that's my experience as well, regarding Sublime. Although, for searching in large files, I prefer using ripgrep and if I know what I need to edit/replace, I tend to reach for sed.
- g8oz 5y agoIf CudaText could have separate panels for the file switcher and the function list it could tempt me away from Notepad++
- medo-bear 5y agowhen i started programing notepad++ was my go-to editor while sumatrapdf was my go-to pdf reader. today however i use emacs for everything except the browser and reading pdfs. i would still use sumatrapdf if it was available on gnu/linux
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y agoI concur, SumatraPDF is great.
- throwawayair557 5y agoOkular PDF reader from KDE is also available for Windows. It's FOSS. https://okular.kde.org/download/ https://okular.kde.org/download/ Edit: Wow I didn't know that SumatraPDF Reader is also FOSS. Awesome!
- g8oz 5y agoCan't live without it. Now if only the Markdown heading outlines in the function list panel stopped breaking after every upgrade I'd have no complaints.
- gnuj3 5y agoOh boy that brings me memories. Been MacOS user now for about 8 years and completely forgotten about this gem. Glad they keeping it alive and well.
- behiri 5y agoI used Notepad++ for almost 10 years, just for viewing text files because of its right click context menu option and performance. but few weeks ago I decided to try sublime which is good but still notepad++ if faster. (sublime takes a few seconds more to load)
- pdevr 5y agoOne of the best light-weight editors for Windows devices. Textpad is the next best, probably. The key feature for me is saving unsaved files when you close the editor. Notepad++ does it, Textpad doesn't. For everything else, they are on par.
- philonoist 5y agoHa! They haven't released anything since 2017 except the one they did yesterday. I am lucky to read your comment. Now its testing time.
- gdulli 5y agoIf you mean Textpad, they released 8 updates in 2021 alone: https://www.textpad.com/news https://www.textpad.com/news
- philonoist 5y agoOh?! That is strange. I mean look at this - https://www.textpad.com/download https://www.textpad.com/download
- kasperset 5y agoRarely do I see a mention of Ultraedit. Although it is a paid software, it was nice and polished as expected. However, I have very limited experience with it. Any thoughts?
- pjmlp 5y ago20 years ago it was everywhere on the offices I used to work on, it was quite good. No idea where it stands nowadays.
- Cwizard 5y agoIt is still the default text editor in our office
- ziml77 5y agoI tried it a couple years ago, but the only reason I saw to use it over other options is the support for loading massive files. Opening up a gigabyte+ log file is easy for it. But that's not all that compelling since I'm not looking to edit logs. I can use BareTail or similar programs for that.
- szszrk 5y agoOh my. I used to have a license at some previous work. I was able to read two 2GB text files and do a graphical diff on those, while using a 4GB laptop on Enterprise Windows Vista. That thing was polished as hell! But "never" versions broke a bit that experience. I found it horrible to work with proper syntax highlighting and modern things like that, though. At least back then.
- jonathanlydall 5y agoUsed to use Notepad++ a lot, but these days I mostly use VS Code. One of the things that really frustrates me about Notepad++ is the way it does updates, even though the app's auto-updater initiated the installer, I still have to click through all the steps of the installer as if it's the first time it's being installed, quite tedious. I would ideally like it to be done silently in the background, but I would still be very happy if after clicking a confirmation dialog in the app to do the update, the installer would just run unattended and re-launch the program automatically.
- generationP 5y agoThat, and the fact that it asks you immediately on program start (which is probably the worst time for an interruption!) and there is no easy way to come back to the update option if you answer "no".
- spapas82 5y agoI was using Notepad++ as my primary code editor for python some years ago. It was working good (still does) but missing one crucial feature: Fuzzy file find. It would be great if Notepad++ could somehow detect a .git file in the same or a parent directory of the file I was editing and allowed me to quickly open files from this project by searching their filenames. Similar functionality to the Ctrl+P keyword in VSCode or the ctrlp plugin in Vim. I don't know how difficult this is to implement but it will really improve the Notepad++ code editign expierience much more!
- tpoacher 5y agoI always confuse Notepad++ with Notepad2. Both nice, but I prefer Notepad2 on the rare occasion I land on windows and need to quickly download a proper editor to quickly edit something. Occasionally I install ++ by accident and then go "augh, I meant the other one".
- philonoist 5y agojEdit,gEdit,Kate,Npp, and even nagware like sublimeText were rage just a decade or two back because of the huge plugin ecosystem and they were quick heavy lifters. Even the plugin authors were responsive using some heavy php/java forums. Hackathons and Competitive programming at CodeForces was a feast for us. We were timed and teamed. The setups were above editors or very simple IDEs like Zeus or Leo with almost zero additional cognitive burden. Some even used some esoteric inbuilt editor + FarManager + ConEmu because that is how they were developed for, it seems. It was as if their extended hand, one of them said. What?!! Those were the days man!
- jordiburgos 5y agoWhen we will have the version for MacOS or Linux?
- Kuraj 5y agoCould be tricky. As I understand correctly it uses Scintilla for the core text editing functionality, which is cross-platform, but the UI is written using native Windows APIs.
- errantmind 5y agoFunny how I've drifted into using multiple text editors for different purposes over the years. * Vim as default * VSCode for Rust, the integration with Rust Analyzer is seamless. Semantic highlighting theme availability is also top notch * Sublime Text for temporary or unsaved files and small file regex * Notepad++ for huge file regex Each in their right place (for my purposes anyway).