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Just to provide a diversity of opinion: I've heard basically nothing but positive feedback about Notepad++ over the years. However, I tried it out for about 10
by user3939382 3y ago
Just to provide a diversity of opinion: I've heard basically nothing but positive feedback about Notepad++ over the years. However, I tried it out for about 10 seconds before closing it and never looked back. The, what I call "millions of tiny buttons" interface is ugly and distracting. I've never liked IDEs or other apps with this UI style. I use a JetBrains IDE now that has just as many features but the UI is not cluttered with millions of tiny buttons and tool ribbons.
- AdamH12113 3y agoMy advice is to just turn the toolbar off (Settings -> Preferences -> General -> Toolbar -> Hide). I find it easier to skim through menus. You can turn off almost all of the extra UI elements if you want, which makes the interface very clean.
- j1elo 3y agoFunny that something as simple as hiding a toolbar requires diving through 5 steps. Doesn't it just offer that option upon right-click? It sounds natural and expected to me for a toolbar to do so.
- AdamH12113 3y agoIt's really two or three steps -- select menu item, dialogue box page is already selected by default, click on checkbox. I was giving the full navigation. Personally, I find that making every part of the UI an active control makes it easy to do things by mistake, especially hiding elements, which often doesn't have an obvious way to reverse the process. For one-time UI setup, I don't mind going through a dialogue box.
- wolpoli 3y agoI just tried it and was surprised that it doesn't offer Right-Click option to customize/turn off the toolbar. There was a period in Windows software when that level of customizability was expected.
- Topgamer7 3y agonotepad++ was really great for simple syntax highlighting on windows, when good clients were either slow or costed money. It supported a lot of languages.
- nine_k 3y agoAlso, the original Notepad++ is unabashedly native to Windows, with none of the limitations or expense of cross-platform toolkits like Qt. So it's lightweight and responsive even on lowest-specced boxes.
- circusfly 3y agoI use Notepad++ on Linux, ran the installer, works, it auto updates just like it did on Windows, WINE enables it to run just fine. I use it every day for small files like my TODO, Notes and Scrap files.
- gamepsys 3y agoI greatly miss those tool bars. I think it's ironic that modern UI strives to be less cluttered than ever before while computer monitors are larger than ever before. * They encourage curiosity about previously undiscovered functionality. It improves feature discoverability. * It's way easier to find the correct tool bar icon than trying to hunt for a feature inside the menus. * If some toolbars are highlighted or disabled can tell you information about the state of the document you are editing.
- nine_k 3y agoThere is no "One size fits all" UI, sadly. Absolute beginners should be shown a basic interface front and center, with a clear way to access more advanced features. More advanced users may benefit from a plethora of rich controls, all shown together. Experts may want to remove the visual clutter because they access features from keyboard without looking. Good software offers a way to achieve all of these, and often more customization.
- giancarlostoro 3y agoVisual Studio (not Code) lets you move it all around, remove pieces, and add things. It's one of the reasons I love Visual Studio. I otherwise use JetBrains for other languages, or when on other OS' it was a shame VS for Mac went away, but I assume adoption was not very high.
- jvanderbot 3y agoJust give me a view->toolbars-> checklist and I'll sort it out. FreeCAD does this well.
- benchloftbrunch 3y agoMicrosoft Office from 97 - 2003 handled toolbar UI almost perfectly in my opinion. As a young kid I discovered many advanced and obscure features of Word and Excel through the customize feature. I really disliked the relatively dumbed down ribbon UI when it first came out.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- simion314 3y agoMaybe you can customize it. I am not a user but you will avoid good programs because of this instant reaction. IMO, I would check if the toolbar and key shortcuts can be customized.
- CraigJPerry 3y agoThe new Jetbrains ui is hard to like. It’s form over function. The old ui (thankfully still available). Having to hover over a hamburger button just to cause it to draw the menu bar options then slide the mouse across to what you want is annoying. The new commit window alt+0 is better, the old modal always felt tacked on when everything else is a docked panel.
- indymike 3y ago> The new Jetbrains ui is hard to like. It’s form over function. I'd like my JetBrains IDEs better with a 10x speedup. The new redesign isn't bad if you memorize keyboard shortcuts :-)
- bboygravity 3y ago> The new redesign isn't bad if you memorize keyboard shortcuts :-) Contradictio in terminis
- j16sdiz 3y agoYou can use the keyboard shortcut with old UI. I still like at the old UI. When you do overlapping windows, those non standard chrome are great distraction.
- indymike 3y ago> You can use the keyboard shortcut with old UI That's the joke :-)
- nine_k 3y agoWith time, you start using the menu very rarely, because keyboard shortcuts are so much faster. No menu bar means more screen space when working on a laptop. I usually switch off the menu bar in Emacs, and I don't even know if it can be turned on in Vim.
- CraigJPerry 3y ago
- Dalewyn 3y ago>The, what I call "millions of tiny buttons" interface is ugly and distracting. That's a feature. It's a GUI harkening back to Windows Explorer Classic, aka the interface style used from Windows 95 through Windows XP.
- Grazester 3y agoI have used Notepad++ for more than 10 years and I don't think I have ever tried replacing my IDE with it. I don't think it should be use as an IDE replacement but a file editor.
- AdrianB1 3y agoIt is the other way around: 10 yeas ago I was using Notepad++ for writing small apps and I replaced it with IDE (VS Code). It makes no sense to replace a decent IDE with Notepad++.
- mysterydip 3y agoWhat you find ugly and distracting I find essential to functioning in the app. I can't stand it when I'm trying to find some feature that was hidden so the UI would look cleaner.
- yndoendo 3y agoTo me it is a tool for select jobs. Mainly use it for parsing log files. Handles gigabyte files ease unlike Windows notepad. It also is great with regex searching to filter useful log content with cascading results. Temporary scratch pad, for constructing SQL statements, that retains unsaved files upon OS or user closing. Not my go-to for coding and project maintenance. Still a great tool.
- roland35 3y agoNotepad++ is what I have for any random file format I need to right click and open quickly!
- delfinom 3y agoThere's Emedit as a commercial notepad like tool. It's even better than notepad++ for large files because it'll stream in the data as you scroll rather than trying to load all of it at once.
- ajolly 3y agoCheck out klogg for log viewing on Windows, I recently switched to it.
- porphyra 3y agoTiny buttons toolbars were the norm for decades in, say, Windows Explorer and Microsoft Word, before Microsoft transitioned to the "Ribbon" style in 2007. Personally I think that people who enjoy those buttons do so for nostalgia reasons, but they are not the worst to use once you remember where each tool is and what each tool's icon looks like.
- j1elo 3y ago> Tiny buttons toolbars were the norm for decades (...) before Microsoft transitioned to the "Ribbon" style in 2007. The Ribbon still feels to me like that "new thing" Microsoft did since some version of Office... and you're telling me it was 2007?!! Oh my... A bit before that time I already moved to Open/LibreOffice, and never really used any Windows past 7, so I've missed a whole UI paradigm transition that now makes Windows feel like a complete stranger to me.
- porphyra 3y agoThere's now a whole generation of 20 year old programmers who have never used the toolbars of the 1990s and early 2000s.
- StuffMaster 3y agoPull-down menus are so obtrusive! You SHOULD prefer to hunt and hunt and hunt for the button you want. The future is now and it sucks.
- jccalhoun 3y agoIt depends on what you use it for, I guess. I'm not a programmer so I use it as a replacement for windows notepad. I don't know what most of the buttons do and I just ignore them.
- circusfly 3y agoRe-training propaganda: [only the JetBrains products should be used, repeat after me...].
- aveao 3y agoNpp is a code editor, and you're comparing it to an IDE. Apples and oranges.
- jraph 3y agoBoth are fruits. The comparison applies here I think :-)
- user3939382 3y agoThe code editor is the primary function of the IDE. I did mention other apps because I wasn’t making that direct comparison but if I was I’d say it’s more like a peeled orange (the code editor) to the unpeeled orange (the IDE).
- soupbowl 3y agoTakes one second to disable all that. I've used notepad++ forever and not once have I used those buttons, indeed they are useless. Your opinion is valid but I never understand using a tool with options and acting like the defaults are the only option.
- lukan 3y agoThat is true, but it takes more than 1 second to find out about it.
- j_maffe 3y agoI think the users a software like NP++ is aimed for are willing to spend more than 1 second to find out about this option. It appears that you're not one of those users ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- lukan 3y agoYeah, and it also appears that the things how they appear to you, might be wrong. I know about that option as I use npp since well over a decade. But I can still say the general interface is bad and I only use npp via key shortcuts. And if there are other options that provide a clearer initial experience, I can see why newcomers choose those instead.
- publius_0xf3 3y agoAs a longtime Notepad++ user, I hate those buttons as well. Fortunately, the settings contain the option to hide the menu, the icons, the buttons on the tabs, the status bar, etc. resulting in a very minimalistic experience, which is how I use it. I recommend giving it another look.
- HumblyTossed 3y agoI hate cluttered flat surfaces as much as the next guy, but I don't put my toaster away when I'm not using it. It's stays right on the counter because it's convenient for it to be there.
- user3939382 3y ago> I don't put my toaster away when I'm not using it I actually do lol
- exodust 3y agoAren't you just generating crumbs at two locations now? The kitchen bench and cupboard? Possibly the floor too due to moving the toaster?
- Fnoord 3y agoAll depends on how much space you got (and large space needs cleaning). I have a food dehydrator. It is a nice tool but too large so it is in the attic, gathering dust. I also have two airfryers. These are used daily. However the toaster is rarely used. Only thing is, would you put such away when still hot? Needs to cool down first.
- codexb 3y agoNotepad++ originated at a time when there weren't many code editors for most of the new, growing languages (perl, python, js), or for editing xml and json, especially on windows. Many of the "good" code editors were expensive and enterprisey, or they were limited to linux, or they had an extremely steep learning curve (vim, emacs). Notepad++ worked on everything, was free, installed quickly, and it was fast. I've used it to replace hardcoded values in binary files before. I think most of the people who are praising it are remembering how valuable it was 20 years ago. I don't know anyone that still uses Notepad++.
- AdrianB1 3y agoI have it on a few thousand servers in my department, mostly as a Notepad that can do more, like comment color or editing small config files of all sorts. It is far from the days I used to write entire small apps in Notepad ++, but we still use it and there is no plan to replace it unless they do something that puts us in danger (ex: stop fixing bugs/security issues).
- themadturk 3y agoIt's been the "standard" editor at my place of employment, but no one objects to other editors or IDEs being used instead. Our workstations are all Windows, so it's a decent default to install for everyone.
- EMM_386 3y ago> The, what I call "millions of tiny buttons" interface is ugly and distracting. I agree. I used to use N++ when that sort of interface was common everywhere. It didn't look as out of place. These days I find it too jarring and either use Sublime Text 3 or just regular Windows Notepad for scratch notes (now that it doesn't prompt to save on close anymore). No buttons.