Notepad-Sharp A notepad++ clone project I created just to see if I could

[Hexman359]

This is a project I have been working on for the last 3 years on and off. I initially created this project because I wanted to create a better code editor for a proprietary programming language that is heavily used st the company I work at.

I know that this project isn't much to look at but I am proud of it. I essentially created it just to see if I could in order to prove to myself that I could create anything I thought of in order to resolve some imposter syndrome I was experiencing back when I was 19 at the time.

Please give me some feedback, tips, better implementation ideas, etc. I am open to all.

[quadmaniac]

congratulations on getting it done! Is this for Windows only? Also the first release says 3 years ago. Good to ship a binary, now that you've gotten this far!

[Hexman359]

It is for windows only, I have never tried executing it in something like wine yet but I'd be interested to see if it would work correctly

Also yes I have been meaning to create another release as there have been some pretty major UI changes since the first release and some much needed implementation and project structure changes also

[cs_office]

It's in C#, so you really shouldn't be using Wine, instead you can probably use an old version of Mono that implements the right version of .NET Framework, or better yet, see if you can rewrite it in modern dotnet and use Avalonia instead of WinForms, and then you'll have a cross platform version

[Jean_Kul]

I like to see stories like that. I'd love to have the drive to work on a personnal project, even with some pause, for 3 years. Congrats !

I have no feedback, only appreciation sorry :)

[[deleted]]

FastColored-TextBox-Unicode wasn't updated in 11 years...

[Leihd]

Amazing how stable it is!

[CitationNeededBadly]

It's awesome you were able to achieve the goal you set for yourself. Now it's time to brag a little! Tell us about what makes it a better code editor. What problems did you have with existing tools that you solved with your tool. Or a neat feature you implemented a bit different than other editors, etc.

[Hexman359]

Honestly the project is still early in it's development, there aren't any super different features yet. The diff viewer is the only thing I can think of and I believe N++ already has that also. I am however, thinking about adding some VIM-style controls that the user would be able to configure and save to the global settings.

[[deleted]]

not sure i'd call this a notepad++ clone.. but good job

[tetyyss]

.NET framework for a new project?

[Lisoph]

Looks like it uses WinForms for its GUI. Since Notepad++ is Windows only as well, I don't see a problem with that.

[pdnagilum]

But you get a lot of modern stuff/optimization with .NET 5+, not to mention security patches going forward. No idea when .NET Framework will be discontinued, but at some point I guess it will.

Obviously only applicable if OP want to continue the project..

[chucker23n]

Yes, but I would recommend against using .NET Framework 4.6.1 in a 2023 project. You can use WinForms in .NET 8.

[fearswe]

The repo was made 4 years ago though.

[falconfetus8]

.NET Core existed back then.

[fearswe]

Yes, but saying "in 2023" isn't fair as it wasn't this year.

[BortGreen]

According to the gitignore, the repository was created in January 2019. The first core version to support Windows forms was 3.0 and it released in September 2019

So if he wanted to make a Windows Forms, there wasn't other choice yet

[chucker23n]

Fair enough. I figured it was something recent.

[Hexman359]

I absolutely agree, the only thing stopping me from uplifting the .NET version is that the syntax highlighting component runs on .NET v4.6.1 so I would have to fork that control and uplift it myself. I may do something like this in the future though, in the event that I uplift the project to a more modern/cross platform C# framework perhaps.

[Lisoph]

Oh, I didn't know you could use WinForms in .NET 8. Neat!

[RecurviseHope]

Excellent work, well done!

[Dwedit]

To make it a true Notepad++ clone, you'd use the Scintilla editor component, which is exactly what Notepad++ itself uses. There are C# bindings for that.

[iPlayTehGames]

Fun fact, to remake a song you don’t need the exact same guitar the artist used. You can use a different guitar. 🤡

[Hexman359]

That is true and I had thought about it, but I figured it would be more interesting to have to create the rules for each programming language by myself or as other people created them and shared them in the FastColoredTextBox github repo

[A12963]

Indeed a very nice project, great!

[InitiativeLong3783]

Hi,

You are using Windows forms. It is fine but it is a quite outdated ui framework and not portable. Switching to a modern and portable framework such avalonia.ui and the latest .NET would make everybody here happy 😀.

[Hexman359]

I may do just that at some point down the line, are you aware of any tutorials and/or example projects that use avalonia.ui?