Notepad++ Hate Thread

Pages: 12
Notepad++ is a wildly overrated editor. In fact, I think it's one of the worst I've ever used. Even plain old Notepad is better, because it doesn't have the arrogance to pretend to be useful for anything but quick note-taking (hence, I assume, the name "Notepad"), while Notepad++ (more like Notepad--) likes to advertise itself as being a programmer's editor.

1. Confusing and poorly-organised options menu. I can't blame the Notepad++ developer(s) for coming up with that weird menu which has the rows of tabs that like to shuffle around when you click on one on a different row, but I would if I could, and I can blame them for using it. I can also blame them for not being able to categorise things properly, and for hiding options in illogical places.
2. Stupid default options. Four space tabs (instead of 8), 100-character vertical column (instead of 80), no "close" button on files, among a lot of other things.
3. Seems to forget my settings every week, with a "Unable to load config.xml" (or similar) message, with the option to recover it (which does nothing and apparently is just for show).
4. No tooltips (in the preferences menu especially), so if you want to know what the acronyms it uses for no reason mean, you have to Google it (and even then, you might not find out (for example, wtf is "MRU Behaviour"?).
5. It's not gedit.

So, who else hates Notepad++ and why? Who thinks it's good and why? (Also, you're wrong).

Also, please recommend me a replacement. gedit would be ideal but it doesn't work very well on Windows.
Last edited on
First of all, I love the fact that you call any Notepad++ proponent flat out wrong. :-P Good touch. This way you don't have to repeat yourself and people defending it come to the thread already-offended so they can't really complain. They should have stayed out in the first place!

Second, I have Notepad++ because it helps me a bit finding info on logs and maybe I kind of like it as XML/HTML editor when I don't have Visual Studio open.

I don't use it for coding, at all. I have Visual Studio, the best IDE for programming in Windows. I know you are a *nix fellow, so I can see why you would pursue an IDE that is available in both OS's, but I am sorry to say I cannot propose one. But I'm more than happy to vouch for Visual Studio in Windows. :-D
It was only a joke, no need to be sarcastic (I'm assuming you were, but it's sometimes hard to tell on the Internet). [edit] Also, if you're coming into a thread called "Notepad++ Hate Thread", you should probably know what to expect.

I don't really use IDEs, except for MonoDevelop with C# (I don't know why, but it's the only IDE I've ever really liked (but even it irritates me often with its bugs)). For everything else, I pretty much just use gedit and the command-line (I finally found a good one for Windows)) with hand-written Makefiles (I have a template memorised). I still haven't gotten used to GNU autotools or CMake or QMake or any of the other Makefile generation tools.
Last edited on
Ever tried PowerShell for Windows? I learned it 6 weeks ago and I like it very much. This coming from a person that doesn't really like consoles very much.

Microsoft brags about how good it is and how comparable it is to the Linux console. I know nothing about Linux so pardon me if I deviate from the subject here: If you have tested PowerShell, would you say Microsoft stepped up the game and now is in par with the *nix console?
I've hardly used PowerShell, so I couldn't pass judgement on it. It does appear to be a lot better than BATCH, not that that's much of a bragging point.

Stupid default options. Four space tabs (instead of 8), 100-character vertical column (instead of 80), no "close" button on files, among a lot of other things.


Stupid default options. Four space tabs (instead of 2; wider tabs are for visually impaired), 100-character vertical column (instead of 128), no "close" button on files, among a lot of other things.


Microsoft brags about how good it is and how comparable it is to the Linux console


Comparing to Linux console it is near to useless - it is a huge overkill. Microsoft got it wrong: console scripting is *not an OO language*. If I needed a full fledged OO language, I'd use Python or Scala. For a fast and simple connecting 3 programs to do some administrative task, *sh is exactly what I need, and need not to learn complex syntax nor lookup documentation on some builtin object structures.
Last edited on
Have you tried NEdit?
http://nedit.gmxhome.de/winport.html

You'll also need an X server.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/xming/
or if you already have Cygwin installed, http://x.cygwin.com/

Another very nice multi-platform editor is AlphaTk.
http://tuvalu.santafe.edu/~vince/Alphatk.html
IIRC, it costs about US$40, which is a pretty good price for it.

Personally, I use my old Delphi 5 IDE for everything. Embarcadero no longer supports it; the oldest version you can legally purchase is Delphi 7; you'll have to download from someone else for D5. That said, I only hang on to it because I like the WordStar command set.

Maybe I'll start playing with my own editor again sometime soon...
rapidcoder wrote:
Four space tabs (instead of 2; wider tabs are for visually impaired), 100-character vertical column (instead of 128)

8-space tabs and a vertical column at 80 characters are de facto standards, they should be the defaults. They're also what I use, so they should definitely be defaults :)

Seriously, though, I'll admit those are very minor points (particularly the 80 character vertical column thing, since that's only a standard due to the limitations of virtual terminals). When everything else is irritating you, though, small things like that just add to it.

@Duoas,
Thanks for the suggestions, I'll check those out.
Last edited on
I often use notpad++ when for example correcting peoples code on the forum, it is a good syntax highlighter and good for formatting basic code. However, it is utterly useless at making anything larger than a basic calculator.
How about gvim?
@Script Coder,
I exaggerated a lot in my original post, but I do find it extremely irritating to use sometimes (most of the time).

@strongdrink,
I don't really like Vim - I can use it basically when I need to, but I don't know it well enough or like its interface enough to use it a lot - and I've not used gVim much but if it uses Vim commands I'd rather not use it.
I actually like it a lot and have yet to find an editor for windows that will replace it for me.
I too dislike Notepad++, but I can't explain why. It just feels... foreign to me.
Which is why I use Programmer's Notepad.
I still have Notepad++ installed so I can say that in comparison, PN is simpler, and straight-to-the-point.
Hi guys, I can honestly recommend code::blocks. For a C++ dev this is (as an editor) much better than Very Slow (Visual Studio)
@smallB I think they are talking about strict editors, not IDEs.

8-space tabs and a vertical column at 80 characters are de facto standards, they should be the defaults. They're also what I use, so they should definitely be defaults :)


Standard? Man, there are many such standards. Notepad++ is not only used in C++ coding.
Other languages have chosen different recommended tab sizes: most of the world outside C++ uses 4 space tabs, some languages use 2 space tabs (Scala default, but I've seen some Java ones). 80 columns is too narrow, especially for 8 space tabs, times of 80 column terminals are long over - 128 characters takes less than half of my screen.
Last edited on
I like Notepad++. I rarely use it for actual coding (at work, that's all terminal based vi) but I like it for quick syntax highlight if I'm messing about, particular with a language I'm not too familiar with.

As for IDEs, Xcode is by far my personal favourite.
@chrisname

It's funny that, while I have none of the problems you listed in Notepad++, I do hate it's lack of support for autoindentat! Besides from that, it's good for me!

closed account (1yR4jE8b)
but it does support autoindent, under Settings->Preferences->Misc.->Auto Indent
closed account (3hM2Nwbp)
I like notepad++ because I found it to be intuitive enough to use it without reading a book of documentation. So far I've used it to view and modify source files from C, C++, Java, PHP, batch, VB, VBS, Delphi, and a few others without once having to look up how to access a feature. So my question is: What in the world are you trying to do with your source code that you need to use any of the "hidden features"?


P.S.

I still refuse to read the documentation for vim - once I found that Ctrl+S doesn't save your file by default, I gave up any hope that other parts of the editor would be intuitive either.

P.P.S.

But I'm more than happy to vouch for Visual Studio in Windows. :-D


I second this. :D
Last edited on
Pages: 12