NotePad Replacement in Off Topic

ID:2592
 
Jul 28 2005, 9:45 am
If you are like me, you love notepad, but feel it is missing some minor extras like spellchecker and syntax highlighter. Well, I have two good replacements for you, both with thier ups and downs.

First off, we have notepad2. Nice and light, almost identical to notepad.
(From the site)
Features

- Customizable syntax highlighting:
- HTML, XML, CSS, JavaScript, VBScript, ASP, PHP, CSS, Perl/CGI
- C/C++, C#, Java, VB, Pascal, Assembler, SQL, Python, NSIS
- INI, REG, INF, BAT, DIFF
- Drag & drop text editing inside and outside Notepad2
- Basic regular expression search and replace
- Useful word, line and block editing shortcuts
- Rectangular selection (Alt+Mouse)
- Brace matching, auto indent, long line marker, zoom functions
- Support for Unicode, UTF-8, Unix and Mac text files
- Open shell links
- Mostly adjustable

Although a nice replacement for notepad, it does have some scrolling issues that I really distest while working with php and html where lines can get very long.

All in all, I would say it would be great to directly replace notepad.

Next on the list, we have pnotepad. Short for programers notepad. I love this one for working in programming languages, or scripting even. Works great for php and I am sure it will work for others too. It gives a DM like feeling with the project manager, but adds tabs at the top, much like FireFox. A great resource for website design, and I would guess that it would work nicely in other programming languages.
(from the site)
Features
* Bookmarks (both numbered and plain)
* Code Folding/Outlining
* Docking tool windows - much better than those in version 1
* Excellent external tool support with user-configurable output matching - click on errors and warnings to jump right to the place in the file where they were generated
* Export to HTML (using CSS) and RTF
* File association manager
* In-file method/definition navigation (using Ctags)
* No limit on file size (although large files may take a while to load)
* Non fixed-width font support
* Projects and Project Groups with multi-level folders and file system mirroring
* Quick Search toolbar with links to Google and Google Groups
* Regular expression search and replace
* Support for unicode files
* Support for windows, unix and macintosh file formats
* Syntax highlighting for many languages through "schemes".
* Tabbed MDI interface
* Text Clips
* Unlimited number of schemes supported, powerful syntax highlighting supporting both user-defined and built-in schemes
* User-defined schemes (XML)
* Word-wrapping

All in all, I would highly recommend pnotepad for website developers who do not like or need WYSIWYG editors. The word wrapping feature is really good on pages with long strings of text, and it really groups things together well when it wraps.

So there you have it, two great solutions to replace an outdated tool with a current function. I would not recommend actualy replacing notepad with pnotepad, because it is really a large TextEditor, with a lot of interface to it, way to much for the sake of notes. Notepad2 on the other hand, can quickly be configured down to notepad's size, a great direct replacement for notepad. Don't think you have to choose just one, I use both, and the best thing about them is...Free.


http://www.flos-freeware.ch/notepad2.html
http://www.pnotepad.org/
#1 Jul 28 2005, 9:54 am
Do they have a linux version?
Also, think you could write a script for DM synax?
That way I don't have to use linux's general notepad, without synax highlighting.
(It makes for a bad dream maker)
#2 Jul 28 2005, 9:57 am
Flame, KDE has some really good text editors. Including KWrite, which I believe is almost identical to pnotepad. I actualy did make a DM syntax for KWrite, but it was not that good, I am sure you could do the same with little work. KWrite is actualy better, and I have been looking for something close for a long time, and I finaly found pnotepad.
#3 Jul 28 2005, 12:33 pm
Downloaded it :)

I've already got a project entitiled 'Reverie Xml' set up for my new game engine, and I love being able to open all my files into tabs within moments of starting the program. This will definitly simplify my xml writing as I can flip between different files very quickly.

Thanks for the heads up, Scoobert.
#4 Jul 28 2005, 1:24 pm
i just use word...
#5 Jul 28 2005, 1:47 pm
You use Word? Urgh. :P

It's like, bloated.
#6 Jul 28 2005, 1:50 pm
On a side note, for my HTML I use Notepad for writing the layout and so on, and Dream Weaver for large chunks of text (I write it in the design part, then just go to the code and copy and paste it into notepad).

I do this because I cannot be arsed to format large amounts of text.
#7 Jul 28 2005, 6:17 pm
Hmm... I found an okay one a while back... I believe it was Aerosoft's Winsyntax.

It's fine, but it is only for Windows.
#8 Aug 4 2005, 6:37 pm
Give EditPad Lite a go, really good software there. I just wish an equivalent of SubEthaEdit on Mac OS X reaches XP.
#9 Aug 4 2005, 7:38 pm
You guys use Notepad *or the "replacements"* to write out your Byond game coding? And then paste the codes into DM?
#10 Aug 4 2005, 7:43 pm
You don't need to paste them into DM, you could just save it as a .dm file, but no, we're talking about using notepad replacements for programming in other languages. Personally, I use Dream Maker for programming in DM. But like I said, you could always save a .txt file to be a .dm file, and it would work. (as long as there are no errors, heh.)
#11 Aug 14 2005, 5:24 am
Aerosoft's Winsyntax is great. But, I'm liking EditPlus at the moment.

It's not free. But you can find things to make it free >:)
#12 Jan 28 2006, 7:00 pm
I just use Textpad 4 for editing anything. I use notepad when I need to jot something down. I have the habit of Start>Run>notepad...=P
#13 Jan 29 2006, 3:20 pm
People still look at this Blog? Yikes!

Anywho, ya I havent looked for much else in the notepad department, as of late. Those two work great for me. Also if you take notepad2.exe, rename it to notepad.exe, then drop it into C:\windows\system32\dllcache\ and C:\windows\system32\, in that order, you should be able to still run the notepad command to run notepad2, this should work for most notepad replacement programs.