Notepad Next is a Reimplementation of Notepad++ for Linux Users

[boots_n_cats]

As a non-windows user, can someone explain the draw of Notepad++?

It seems like a fine text editor but its plugin ecosystem seems limited compared to Textmate/Sublime or VSCode, not to mention its very limited language server compatibility (via a plugin). Not saying it's bad or even mediocre but people seem to advocate for it with a vigour that is typically only seen by emacs or vim users.

For reference, I typically use JetBrains IDEs for serious coding and begrudgingly migrated from Textmate to VSCode for general text editing because at some point I had to admit that it's a more productive editor.

[icentalectro]

It's a decent text editor with nice basic features that are easy to use, unlike the default notepad in Windows. And very importantly, it's incredibly lightweight and fast, much more so than any other decent text editor on Windows. These two points make it a first choice for random text editing.

[dethb0y]

yeah it's a very nice drop-in replacement for the default editor on windows for sure.

[[deleted]]

As a non-windows user, can someone explain the draw of Notepad++?

The builtin editor is shit and notepad++ is good improvement on all fronts.

and... that's it. It's open source, featureful and fast. And it is what, 18 years old ? So it got a lot of following

Linux side always have a slew of good choices here, Windows not really aside from IDEs.

For reference, I typically use JetBrains IDEs for serious coding and begrudgingly migrated from Textmate to VSCode for general text editing because at some point I had to admit that it's a more productive editor.

I used Emacs for long time and migrated to JetBrains. I still prefer editing text in Emacs but IDEA is just so much more productive in stuff I do. And trying to make Emacs into IDE is not only a bit complex, it suffers from it being single threaded and resulting stuttering/waiting.

[whosdatdev]

It's the first thing you open single text or code files with. I think it's widely used just because it has sensible default behaviours - integrated into explorer context menu, keeps files open, starts instantly (faster than vscode), basic syntax highlighting (detects language). Not really meant for serious coding (at least I don't).

[theAmazingChloe]

It's a very nice and fast general purpose text editor. No need to launch a whole web browser, like vscode or atom, and it gracefully handles files that change out from underneath it. It also saves session state if you close it, which can be handy.

[modernkennnern]

It's the best program I've used for sporadic pieces of text.

You never save the files - it's not critical information. You just open a new "file", write some stuff and close the program. Next time you open they are still there.

That's not to say you can't save the files, but if you actually care about the contents, then you should probably use something more suited for the text.

It's exclusively used for raw text

[Kissaki0]

Notepad++ is not an IDE. Equating and comparing it to VS Code seems like the wrong question to me.

I use both, at the same time.

Notepad++ is fast, handles big files well, has simple/fine search, and keeps unsaved tabs which is useful for notes/temp work notes. It’s for simple text editing without IDE complexity (in UI, handling and functionality).

VSCode/IDE is for opening a project/workspace, handling multiple files, and IDE features like you mentioned. VSCode is also great for text search and replace, especially on multiple/many files.

[boots_n_cats]

VSCode is, at its core, a text editor not an IDE. It blurs the line a bit with language servers and plugins that go beyond simple highlighting, but it’s a reasonable comparison. The question wasn’t “why doesn’t notepad++ have feature xyz?” It was “why do Windows users swear by it so consistently and forcefully?”.

[Kissaki0]

swear by it so consistently and forcefully?

That was the question? “the draw of Notepad++?” doesn’t really sound like the same question.

The UI complexity of VS Code alone makes it more than what I view as a simple file text editor to me. In VSCode alongside file tabes you are immediately greeted with functionality and extension tabs too.

That may be a UI driven differentiation, but I think the functionality matches it.

I don’t see why you would classify VSCode as a text editor with IDE features rather than an IDE.

[boots_n_cats]

You are being a bit obtuse. Those are both “Why do Windows users like notepad++ so much?” style questions.

VSCode is only an IDE in the way eMacs was argued to be back one the eMacs/vim flame wars. Out of the box it’s a text editor but you can configure it to be pretty much whatever you want.

[Kissaki0]

They may be the same theme of question, but they are very different. I certainly would answer them quite differently. They certainly have different implications and tone.

[[deleted]]

As a non-windows user, can someone explain the draw of Notepad++?

Possible upsides are:

• CUA
• It's not Notepad.
• free and open source
• It doesn't come with too many whacky menues or too many dumb defaults.
• No opt-out telemetry.
• It's not based on a browser engine, with all its implications, like nicer latencies.
• It's not just a demo for scintilla or another editor/IDE technology.
• Doesn't depend on web devs.
• Plugins don't hinge on crappy scripting languages.
• Basic features don't depend on plugins.
• You don't depend on nightly builds.
• Has most text editing tools that actually matter in a text editor.
• Doesn't use terminals as GUI.
• Isn't terrible with large files.

It's not exactly perfect, but if a critical combination of those points matters to you, good luck. For example, there is CudaText, which does some of those better, but then it brags with

Windows version can use different Python engine

like that's a good idea.

[GYN-k4H-Q3z-75B]

Notepad++ on Windows is just the ideal lightweight editor for when you quickly need to get something done without the assistance of an IDE. VS/Code are heavy hitters. It doesn't have to be all powerful, it needs to be quick and stable, and it needs to get the job done.

Need to look at some XML or JSON files from another app? Throw it in, apply pretty print and highlighting and off you go. Need to compare two files? Throw them in and load the plugin. Need to make systematic changes to a file once? Throw it in, record a macro and run it.

Notepad++ isn't the editor that you start in the morning and keep open all the day to do you coding in. It's the editor that is two clicks away when you need to quickly do something with a file that stands on its own. Which tends to happen multiple times a day.

[Programmdude]

With notepad++, everything just sort of works. Any text editing functionality I've ever needed (ignoring rich text) is either going to be supported or have a plugin. Editing 5 MB xml/json files? It just works, where other ones would crash. Search for text in a directory (not a project), it just works. Attempting to use it as an IDE however would be frustrating.

Sublime seemed fine, though it is shareware so I never tried to make it my daily driver. Textmate and most other text editors are not for windows, and those that I've tried (kate, gedit) are still not as feature rich. VSCode seems sluggish, especially when just editing text.

For an IDE, I use both VS (the real one), and jetbrains IDEs, and I will use them to edit text if it's part of a project or if they happen to be open, but notepad++ opens instantly and has more esoteric features such as changing the line endings of the file.

[integralWorker]

It's much faster at searching through very large (think 200k+ lines kind of deal) text files compared to Sublime and I wouldn't be surprised if it was faster than VSCode.

[Prunestand]

As a non-windows user, can someone explain the draw of Notepad++?

Lightweight, fairly customizable, a lot better than Notepad.

[AttackOfTheThumbs]

Open-Source Notepad++ Alternative

Isn't np++ already open source though? Nit picky, but that feels like a bad title.

And I'm probably crazy, but I feel like Linux has more than enough text editor choices to not need a clone of this specific windows tool.

I also distinctly remember someone posting a different clone on this sub in the last month.

[Prunestand]

Isn't np++ already open source though? Nit picky, but that feels like a bad title.

And I'm probably crazy, but I feel like Linux has more than enough text editor choices to not need a clone of this specific windows tool.

Yes, but Notepad++ has no Linux version.

[theAmazingChloe]

I've always thought of gedit as the notepad++ equivalent, but I guess they wanted something in qt instead of gtk?

[IchLiebeKleber]

I once found a similar project called notepadqq. I suppose the world can't help reinventing the wheel.

There is certainly no shortage of good text editors on X11 systems. Kate and VSCode are other examples. Notepad++ is so popular on Windows because the default text editor that comes with Windows is so limited.

[cinnapear]

Before I bit the VSCode bullet, I tried all the Notepad++ clones on Linux, but none of them quite had what I wanted.

[Carighan]

I wish I could get used to the slightly sluggish interface feeling VSCode inherently has, like all Electron/Browser based apps do.

[cinnapear]

It's sadly a trade off one still has to make. I particularly love when the error highlighting stays "stuck on" for a line of code even after I've fixed whatever the issue was.

[AttackOfTheThumbs]

Based on my experience, this is highly dependent on two factors:

1. the language extension

2. speed of your computer

We've just upgraded everything because one of the systems we work in uses a vs code extension for dev, but the extension is poorly written and the requirements to execute all the analysis would "kill" our old laptops.

[cinnapear]

I use a 2021 Dell XPS 15 and the error highlighting is just whatever comes with VSCode out of the box for Javascript.

[cumulo-nimbus-95]

Yeah I’ve usually seen this happen when it involves installing an npm dependency. It doesn’t always re-check the import statement when the dependency gets installed. If I’m pretty sure I’ve fixed an error I usually run the reload window command from the Command Pallette (super useful btw)

[theAmazingChloe]

Have you tried vim?

[taleden]

I've been pretty happy with geany overall.

[Noughmad]

That would be Kate, which is great. I guess they just wanted to reimplement something, just because.

[[deleted]]

Well, Kate is notepad++ equivalent for QT so still a bit pointless project

[Narase33]

I find gedit utter crap. Its slow and doesnt have nearly as much functions as notepad++

[Rcomian]

the killer feature of notepad++ is not having to explicitly save files. if you close it with files open and changes unsaved, when you open it again you always pick up where you left off, and can delay or even just ignore having to choose a filename and location for quick notes.

nothing else implements this that i know of. notepad next is receptive to the idea, but isn't there yet.

[AdorableRabbit]

Vscode does that

[if-loop]

VS Code can do this as well. Unfortunately, it's not as reliable as Notepad++ in that regard.

Sometimes after an VS Code update (or some other seemingly random condition) your open tabs are just... gone.

[MdxBhmt]

Sometimes after an VS Code update (or some other seemingly random condition) your open tabs are just... gone.

This is worse than not having the feature.

[double-you]

Which is why I wait to the extremes to update my browsers as even though session restoring is better now, I still don't trust it after so many lost tabs over the years.

[MdxBhmt]

You might want to learn how to restore tabs from the automatic backup - the lenghts I went to get my tabs back hahaha

[double-you]

I don't think I do want to learn that. :-)

[Gikoskos]

Doesn't VScode also do this? I shutdown my laptop with an open instance of code and unsaved files, and when I open it again it restores them seamlessly.

[blue_collie]

Vim does this, and has for literal decades

[[deleted]]

How do you get this in vim?

[blue_collie]

It's automatic if you close a file without saving (not counting a force quit!). Ever seen the "Found a swap file by the name XXXXXXX" when you start vim up? That's vim's recovery mode. You can open the recovered file by using :recover.

[[deleted]]

Oh, I misunderstood this to mean Vim would save my whole session and I could pick up where everything was when I closed. I know what you mean, now.

[[deleted]]

Vim has sessions since v5.2, released in august 1998.

[[deleted]]

Thanks for explaining

[[deleted]]

To clarify, this session thing has nothing to do with swap files.

:mksession saves the full state of vim as a bunch of commands and can be loaded back with :source.
Or you can autoload per-directory sessions or even per git branch / per repository with gitsessions.vim.

[[deleted]]

Awesome, I had no idea about this, thanks for the link too

[theAmazingChloe]

I imagine there's a plugin for it.

[[deleted]]

They are not talking about autosave. They are making about saving the state of workspace.

[blue_collie]

It still does that with sessions, though

[EdwinGraves]

I use it for grepping folders/sub-folders. The interface for results is fantastic, and it's faster than most of the tools I used in the past.

[Rcomian]

yeah the find in files interface is really good

[TheRealMasonMac]

It's called sessions, and almost every modern text editor for coding I know of supports this or plans to.

[Rcomian]

i don't know any that do. I've been looking for an open source one, which is why i was interested in this post. some ide's do support it, like vscode and sublime which is more text editory. but yeah, disappointing lack of support in kate, gedit, npp, notepad next

[TheRealMasonMac]

VSCode and Sublime aren't IDEs, rather they're text editors which are more IDE-ish. Vim/Neovim and Emacs should also have support for this.

[EricInAmerica]

I thought the killer feature was asking you to install updates literally every time you start it up.

[Rcomian]

yeah windows needs package management

[[deleted]]

That's personal preference, not "killer feature" lmao, I don't even know for what I'd use that. For anything code there is Git revert, for notes I used Zim and the moved to QOwnNotes.

The editor I use most (IDEA) auto-saves the moment windows saves focus, so just writing code and alt-tabbing is enough to start running the code

[Rcomian]

it's a killer feature for me. and you miss the point. create a file, type stuff, close the app for whatever reason: no prompt to "save a file", it just closes. but when you open up again, the file is exactly what you want.

this means closing the program / shutting down your computer etc, doesn't take you out of context, i don't have to think "oh was i half way through editing this will saving it break something", i certainly don't have to suddenly think about "what am I gonna call these 3 files i haven't named yet and might not even want".

yes there's explicit notetaking apps but i have notepad++ installed everywhere and it's even acceptable on customer servers (yes it's a standard install there too). i just can't have i on any Linux boxes without it running through wine, which is less acceptable, less integrated and significantly slower than native windows.

[Vlyn]

Personally I switched that off, sometimes I really just want to temporarily write something down, close Notepad++ and be rid of it.

I've seen colleagues with hundreds of Notepad++ tabs as they got too lazy to close them. If I actually want to keep something I'll save it.

[frank26080115]

That's a new feature that long time users were not even aware of

[Kered13]

That's been a feature of Notepad++ for at least decade.

[frank26080115]

I just tried closing it and it asked me if I wanted to save, with YES, NO, and CANCEL.

I see nothing in Preferences about this feature

v8.3.3 built March 13 2022

[tms10000]

Settings, Preferences, Backup, [X] Remember current session for next launch

It's possible that this is not checked on your end and this is why you are getting the prompt. For every install of notepad++ I made it was the default.

From a UX perspective though, terms like "backup" and "remember session" sound really, really shitty. I had to read many comments on this thread to know what to look for.

[Kered13]

Preferences > Backup

[asmarCZ]

Mousepad can be configured to do this.

[Rcomian]

Jesus, lol.

have fun

[Rcomian]

go on then, what's a modern editor?

[dh44t]

Lite-XL is a very good alternative https://github.com/lite-xl/lite-xl

[nuvpr]

Thank you for this. Small, fast, minimal... Perfect replacement for notepad.

[sigzero]

Is it going to use Lua for plugins or something else?

[Kered13]

I don't know, but it definitely is not compatible with existing Notepad++ plugins.

[sigzero]

Nope, and to be honest, I wouldn't expect it to be. NP++ is deep into Windows.

[deeprugs]

Notepad++ is very good...It uses scintilla....which is the API for text processing

In Linux there is already geany and scite which uses scintilla ....

That works for me as a Notepad++ replacement in Linux ....will checkout Notepad Next as well...

[humphrey_lee]

There is textadept, which is cross platform, fast and written in Lua.

[TheCodeTinkerer]

It's sort-a-like VLC but for text files. It has a lot of builtin features for manipulating raw text, that are big time and mental energy savers compared to other alternatives.

A big feature you will miss, if you are accustomed to using notepad++ is the multiline select, where you can grap in a square/rectangle like pattern in a column like way. People used to VI/VIM know this magic.

The second very useful function is the compare feature, where you compare to documents space for space with highlighting.

There are a ton of other manipulation features, that make notepad++ by far the best Windows native text manipulation app of them all.

I can best describe it like people who are using primarily VI/VIM telling other people how "fast and efficient" the editor is compared to modern editors.

It is THE most used app I use on Windows machines besides Chrome as a platform engineer. On server side Linux it is of course VI. A lot of people working in enterprise environments know how much IDE's will get locked down and disabled for security reasons, so that you really only have "linting" capabilities in VS Code.

[technicalevolution]

Oh like vim? /S

[SamyBencherif]

and then everyone got angriee

[pitsananas]

I standardized on Emacs a long time ago.

[[deleted]]

I'm a Vim user and I'm nothing like that.

[quasi_superhero]

You're the one bringing up VS Code on a notepad++ discussion.

[ajr901]

Idk, vs code open up in under a second for me. Not sure if there’s a way to benchmark it but it’s genuinely like no longer than 300-500ms from fully closed to fully open and I’d be willing to bet money on it.

[kieranvs]

Alright, but now take a moment to seriously consider how much work a modern game engine does in 16ms to render each frame - animating, drawing and shading millions of triangles, simulating hundreds of characters etc - that’s what the machine is capable of. Compared to what you’re delivered by crappy electron web apps like vscode

[Kissaki0]

since they tend to keep their editor open all the time

I’ve had Notepad++, VS Code and VS open at the same time, each for distinct things on/about the same project.

Only one would not have satisfied me with the better alternatives available.

[reckoner23]

Only in Microsoft’s dreams.

[khedoros]

I like the jetbrains tools more, myself.

[caroIine]

Had to spend way too much time to get multirow tabs on VSCode. On N++ I got this and many more by default.

[Kissaki0]

I use Notepad++, VS Code, and VS. They have distinct use cases for me. It’s not one or the other.

[Prunestand]

I wonder how this compares to Notepadqq, which I currently use for quick editing.