Microsoft is Updating Windows Notepad Application For the First Time in Years (theverge.com) 248
Microsoft is giving its Notepad app for Windows a surprising amount of new features. From a report: You'll soon be able to do wrap around find and replace alongside the ability to zoom into text by holding down the ctrl key and using the mouse wheel to zoom in and out. Microsoft is also adding in extended line ending support so that Unix/Linux line endings (LF) and Macintosh line endings (CR) are supported in Notepad. The status bar will now be enabled by default in Notepad, and it includes the ability to display line and column numbers when word-wrap is enabled.
Repeat (Score:4, Informative)
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Re: Repeat (Score:2)
Vim is the editor for all hardcore editor fans.
Zooming into the future (Score:5, Funny)
It's about time! (Score:5, Funny)
Notepad++ (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like it will still be behind Notepad++ or even Textpad in functionality.
Re:Notepad++ (Score:5, Insightful)
I do like how lightweight the Notepad app is relative to Notepad++. I'd prefer they keep Nodepad very simple, though the line endings update is a good idea.
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What's Nodepad? ;)
Re:Notepad++ (Score:5, Funny)
I would imagine that my PC would weigh just the same no matter what version of Notepad I was using.
Well, that depends on how many 1s are in their binaries. Everybody knows it's the 1s that add weight.
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edlin (Score:2)
Well, don't forget Microsoft's take on ed. If you don't have any Windoze at hand, here's [angband.pl] my packaging of FreeDOS' remake.
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So what? It's a simple text editor. It does exactly what is needed.
It doesn't need bloat or "features". It allows one to get things done quickly without having to worry about this or that.
If you need functionality, use Notepad++. That's what it's there for. For the rest of us who want speed and ease of use, Notepad all the way.
Re:Notepad++ (Score:5, Informative)
So what? It's a simple text editor. It does exactly what is needed.
It doesn't need bloat or "features". It allows one to get things done quickly without having to worry about this or that.
If you need functionality, use Notepad++. That's what it's there for. For the rest of us who want speed and ease of use, Notepad all the way.
Notepad++ is just as quick and easy as regular notepad. You can use it for simple things just like Notepad. The advanced features may take a little more knowledge- but the basics that notepad has are in the exact same place on Notepad++. No learning curve needed, and it opens just as quick.
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Just as a follow up... (feel free to retest my experiment on your own PCs)... I completely unscientifically ran a test on my PC.
I put both Notepad and Notepad++ on my PC taskbar and tried to open them. Whereas they both open almost instantaneously- I think Notepad++ actually loads quicker than Notepad on my PC.
So, if you're trying to shave 0.05 seconds of waiting off your day, Notepad++ is for you.
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OK, now try it with a 100KB text file. Then try it with a 10MB text file. Notepad may eventually open the file, if you're lucky.
10MB Notepad++ is still using 200% more ram than notepad.
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Happily editing a 99 meg text file created in Notepad. It does take about 20 seconds to launch notepad to open it, but otherwise it works great.
Re: Notepad++ (Score:2)
Fast to open, my ass. Virtually every time I reopen Notepad++ it complaints about having to update all the plugins and the dialog blocks the app, forcing a decision which potentially had to update the whole application.
If I want a reliable, instant plain-text empty buffer for pasting or typing, MS Notepad is the way to go. I hope this update doesn't screw it.
Re: Notepad++ (Score:5, Insightful)
Fast to open, my ass. Virtually every time I reopen Notepad++ it complaints about having to update all the plugins and the dialog blocks the app, forcing a decision which potentially had to update the whole application.
If I want a reliable, instant plain-text empty buffer for pasting or typing, MS Notepad is the way to go. I hope this update doesn't screw it.
Your experience would be because you:
a) Have lots of plugins installed.
b) Don't even actually update anything- just skip the update everytime
c) or only use Notepad++ once a year so get caught with the update everytime you open it.
- I probably see a window telling me to upgrade one time out of every 2 or 3 hundred times I use Notepad++
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This whole argument seems as weird as. I use notepad for temporary one page junk. I use notepad++ for editing larger unformatted text only documents. For more than that I use libreoffice https://www.libreoffice.org/ [libreoffice.org]. The only reason I use M$ notepad is because it is there and a decades of habit, otherwise I would use notepad++ (basic install) https://sourceforge.net/projec... [sourceforge.net]. I would not bother with M$ notepad if I had to download it, just wouldn't be worth that effort.
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Honestly, notepad is great even for large files etc. The only application I can think of that handles large files much much better than Notepad is Fhred but that's a hex editor and it cheats by not actually opening the entire file when it's not needed.
I just wish they'ed fix the confusing rendering bugs that occur if you save a word-wrapped file then edit the last few lines then save again. Since WIndows 2000 or XP when they broke that I only use notepad with word-wrap turned off.
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Sounds like it will still be behind pico or even nano in functionality.
FTFY
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My immediate thought when I read this story was, "Why didn't they make a fast/stripped-down/lightweight version of Visual Studio Code instead?" Like... strip out the GIT support and in-app terminal and all that stuff, but keep things like syntax highlighting and comparing two files. I mean, they already have an open source text editor that's much more useful, so why not reuse some of that code?
I suppose there's some value in a text editor that literally just edits text without anything as fancy as syntax
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I thought you meant Notepad2 [flos-freeware.ch] for a moment there. It has syntax highlighting and other nice features, and I'm running it now with about 3k of text open and it's using 1MB of memory.
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Visual Studio Code is based on Electron framework. It is basically Chromium browser with NodeJS backend. That always will be bloated and slow. Doesn't matter - you can strip Visual Studio Code to just a blinking pixel but being based on Electron it still will be a cow.
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Why would anyone use vim in cygwin? Just go to vim.org and get the win32 gVIm yeesh.
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Notepad++ is majorly behind in functionality. Whenever I go to a computer I don't normally use or administer I can't even find the executable. Useless!
Macintosh Line Endings? (Score:5, Informative)
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Does anyone at Microsoft
...cares? No.
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Let me use a quote from the late Phil Hartman from SNL
Oh but hey, I'm just a caveman, been frozen for almost a thousand years, and just been all thawed out.
Notepad has plugins now??
Thank you, I'll be here all week.
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I asked them about that 2 months ago https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.c... [microsoft.com] to which the reply was "You are right but we needed to keep it simple.".
So they know, and they forge on ahead regardless. I predict many future files will be sent to Mac users with CR EOL.
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Macintosh
I don't think I've heard the term Macintosh for 15 years, so I think they understand it quite well.
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And that's because the official branding started to shift from Macintosh to Mac around the 10.0 era, right? 10.0 is when the line ending changed from the 0x0D inherited from ProDOS to the 0x0A used by UNIX.
Side effect (Score:2)
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Re: Side effect (Score:2, Funny)
And after the trial period ends, you need a Notepad 365 subscription, for $2.95 per month, which includes a cloud drive with 640k of space.
personally I prefer notepad just as it is. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's installed on every windows machine and always works and is very light. It's the one application that Microsoft really hasn't touched and guess what..it works the same as it always has.
Now they're touching it, it'll snowball and eventually be moved into an AppX application with a tiled interface with ribbons and Cortana build into it.
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and eventually be moved into an AppX application with a tiled interface with ribbons and Cortana build into it.
I only skimmed TFA, but this update *does* include Bing integration. Because, for the last 30 years, that's exactly what people have consistently been asking for!
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I only skimmed TFA, but this update *does* include Bing integration. Because, for the last 30 years, that's exactly what people have consistently been asking for!
All that means is you can highlight some text and CTRL+E or go to the Edit menu and it will open up a Bing search in your browser with that text as the search term. Nothing fancy.
AI (Score:3)
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Bury it (Score:4, Interesting)
How is this even a news on ./ front page?
A modern minimalistic graphical text editor should be able to:
Now what about this new Notepad?
Doesn't need to be Notepad++ (Score:2)
That said, with what they've done to basic apps in Windows 10 (Solitaire having to be downloaded from the Windows Store and having ads anyone?) (and general user hostile changes through Win 10) I don't trust Microsoft to not fuck up Notepad. If those will be the on
Remember PFE ... (Score:3)
...? I used the hell out of it.
As Windows matured, I moved further and further away from the OS, but DOS and PFE [pcministry.com] did some very neat shit for me back in the day.
Note: Although other good free editors probably exist now,
I've left this review here to possibly use as a comparison test,
or in case someone might still be interested in finding an editor
for older (Win9x?) 32-bit machines; probably with little memory.
Don't let the title fool you! This editor is not just for programmers.
It has all the standard functions that any good text editor should have and a whole lot more! This excellent program is free for any use!
Line endings (Score:2)
it better be win32 or least keep the old one aroun (Score:2)
it better be win32 or least keep the old one around.
there needs to be an basic text editor that does not need the store framework.
Wow. (Score:2)
Thanks (Score:2)
These seem like minor changes but they are the most important ones. First thing I install on any computer I use regularly is win32pad which is old itself but is what Notepad should have been.
Unix land ending support and displaying the line #'s/cursor position are must haves in a text editor.
I don't care what anyone says (Score:2)
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Quick place to jot down a note, batch file, registry fix, vb script, etc... I use it almost everyday sometimes many times a day.
Oy! Nifty feature but Notepad now has to... (Score:2)
... interpret keyboard/mouse events to zoom the displayed text? I'd think that would be better done by the OS+windowing system and made available to all applications (it would be a boon for the sight-impaired, no?). MS would rather this have this re-implemented in every application? This seems to go back to the days when each and every Windows application had to re-invent printing. Having problems printing from WordPerfect? Did you configure the print settings? Trouble printing from that whiz-bang graphics
Still no spellcheck? (Score:2)
If I want VIm (Score:2)
Unix line endings as standard (Score:2)
Can we now get to a world where everyone uses Unix line endings? Where we can get rid of the reams of stupid code everywhere to deal with differing line endings? Where we stop wasting thousands of man-hours on line endings issues? Please god can we do this now?
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EMCAS key binding support? (Score:2)
E-mail (Score:2)
Zawinski's Law [catb.org] demands it.
Bloat (Score:2)
The last and best application to ruin... (Score:2)
I still use it regularly. Or I did. Oh well.
Still no autosave? (Score:2)
Re:It's about damn time! (Score:4, Interesting)
Dunno what took so long, but I love both this and the line number / character count with word wrap enabled.
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I care. Notepad is just so lightweight and instant that it's still my go-to for simple text files, scripts, etc. on Windows.
Another plus is that it's a lazy little slut so you can open up multiple copies of the same file as it's being written. It doesn't care about locks or anything. It'll just read what it can see and display it for you. This does have the drawback of potential confusion over which version is the latest one or which is the one that matches what's on disk. (The solution to that is to o
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It also can open binary files, and I have encountered cases where being able to edit a binary in a locked down environment was very useful (corrupted application had a specific log format, and if it wasn't perfectly intact, the program would just exit without any warnings.)
Re:No one cares... (Score:5, Insightful)
Notepad is probably one of very few apps that is used constantly, in the manner you described. It's familiar, quick, convienent and in many cases totally sufficient for the things you use it for. This hasn't gone unnoticed by Microsoft.
All the telemetry collected by Windows is telling them there's an application that they haven't properly monetized. There are ads in Minesweeper and Solitaire, but Notepad is far more useful and you spend more time looking at it. And they know. The telemetry tells them what apps are running and for how long.
They are 'updating' the Notepad application to include hooks to their advertising framework. It's no use displaying ads in places people aren't looking, and you're looking at Notepad. And they know, and soon you'll be looking at advertisments, jammed into whatever "helpful" widget is added to "help" you. Because it looks like you need help, and you're going to get it, whether you like it or not.
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"All the telemetry collected by Windows is telling them there's an application that they haven't properly monetized"
Can you, or anyone for that matter, back up this declaration? People are constantly making statements such as this with absolutely no proof. Telemetry is not all bad. And MS has publicly stated that any telemetry data they may collect is anonymized and nobody has ever proved that statement false. I know accusations have replaced facts and reason in today's fractious and increasingly belligeren
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Telemetry is not all bad
Straw man. No-one claims it is 'all' bad. And if it were opt-in like so many 'would you like to send anonymised data so we can improve product X' then there would be no outcry. It's the fact that not only is it not opt-in, it's a constant effort to remain opt-out.
has publicly stated that any telemetry data they may collect is anonymized
Corporations make statements all the time. Some are even true when they make them. A change of 'direction' and whatever promise or guarantee that was made may change. Without notice. Given that Microsoft has a history of 'changing direction', dropp
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Anyone who's used a computer for 20 years could tell Microsoft that Notepad is useful, yet abysmally out of date.
They needed their spyware to collect telemetry for years before they would acknowledge what people have been talking about for decades. Sounds perfectly reasonable that they don't give a crap about the quality of the product or what their customers think, and it's all about fine-tuning the marketing and exploitation strategy.
Telemetry fucking sucks. If you NEED it to know what your customers wa
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They are 'updating' the Notepad application to include hooks to their advertising framework.
You're another one of those people who looked at a youtube video and made your tinfoil hat out of aluminium right? That was wrong. They need to be made out of tin to keep the government out of your brain.
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Re: No one cares... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: No one cares... (Score:4)
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^^^ This. My favorite locked-down machine trick is one where they "only" let you have admin access to Notepad, which is plenty of access once you open up Notepad's "file open" dialog and essentially get to have admin access to File Explorer.
Also a trick when you boot from a windows install DVD, and drop to command prompt (shift+F10). You can open Notepad, and use file-open as a rudimentary file manager. It's actually embarrassing that the recovery environment doesn't give you normal windows explorer window.
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If you drag a file to the toolbar (ribbon) in Wordpad, it will open instead of linking / embedding.
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95?
There's a 95???
Goddam, I'm using 3.1.
3.0 had this aggravating shit in File Mangler where it refreshed every time I switched into a new folder.
3.1 fixed that.
Maybe /. will post a story on how to migrate from 3.1 to 95.
I'm pumped.
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Don't skip 3.11 ! You'll miss out on all the nice networking stuff.
Re: Hopefully this update will be for Windows 95 (Score:2)
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Windows for Work Groups!
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From chaos into a beautiful disaster. Should just sever TBH.
Re: Hopefully this update will be for Windows 95 (Score:2)
X11 with fvwm as window manager and I'm good.
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Re:Standard MSFT Logic (Score:4, Insightful)
Is this where I point out that people have wanted Notepad to handle different line endings correctly for a long, long time?
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Textpad is paid software and notepad++ has syntax highlighting neither are really in the same class as ms notepad but you are not wrong a good basic text editor that's not third party wouldn't be bad. I imagine MS hasn't updated it because there were so many other options available and it wasn't and still isn't a selling point for MS Windows.
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You can do whatever you want, it doesn't change the fact that OP's bullshit about "crap nobody asked us for" and "unsolicited changes" and whatever else is full of shit. If you'd like to move the goal posts though, go right ahead.
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And once they get to highlighting, plugin support, multi-file support and macros,
They will call it Visual Studio Code which has most of that and some other stuff you didn't mention. There would be no point for them to put all that in notepad it's supposed to be a basic text editor; compilers, debugging, intellisense, extensions doesn't sound very basic and it's available in another ms app.
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I'm supposed to install some bloated IDE just for syntax highlighting? Sorry, no sale.
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How will that work when the Magnifier is used? It better not interfere with the Accessibility options. There is no better way to piss off visually impaired users than to fuck with their tools....
A Lot of applications already use ctrl+scrollwheel for zoom control.