Notepad++ 8.8.1

★ Winner of Best Text/Code Editor in 2017 and 2014.

Overview

Notepad++ is a text editor that goes far ahead of the default Windows Notepad in terms of features and usability, and has in fact become the source code editor of choice for several programmers. It’s light on resources, and is freeware. Let’s take a look at its numerous features in this review.

Installation

Installation is quick, but requires you to choose the components to be installed apart from the Core program, which can be a little confusing for beginners. However, the default plugins chosen should be fine for most users, including those looking to use it as a source code editor. It supports all Windows operating systems, Windows XP onwards. No additional software was required to run it, and no ad-ware or toolbars are bundled.

Interface

The interface is quite simplistic considering the number of features that are tucked away in this free application. The text editing area dominates the interface, with the menu bar, a toolbar populated with commonly used options and a tab browser toolbar also present. Apart from these toolbars, the line numbers are also displayed. These can of course be turned off by changing a simple setting in the preferences window. Everything else is pushed away into the menus; however, this means that the menus are long and many in number. There are in fact thirteen different menus with several options in each. Finding settings and features can become really cumbersome, and the required setting isn’t always where you’d expect it to be. However, it’s certainly by no means a bad interface, as it gets the job done. It will just take a while to figure out where the features you frequently use are hiding.

Pros

Notepad++ comes with a huge variety of features that make it a very powerful text editor. Notepad++ is often used by developers as a source code editor, because it comes with two features pivotal to programming: syntax highlighting and code completion. The ability to open multiple text files in different tabs is a really useful feature too. It supports a whole list of languages, including C, C++, CSS, C# Java, HTML, Python, Ruby, PHP, Lisp, Javascript and many more. It even has a WYSIWYG editor. Even the search feature has features you won’t find in most text editors, allowing incremental and volatile search apart from the standard search and replace options. There are numerous options to alter how you view text, allowing you to zoom in and out, collapse sections of text, highlight all occurrences of different words, and even alter the text direction! You can of course go to a full screen view, and there’s also a post it view that strips away everything except the text editing area and puts Notepad++ on top of all other windows. There’s even support for macros with an option that allows macros to be executed multiple times in one click. The TextFX category of features is very, very useful, and allows you to manipulate texts in several different ways such as swapping single quotes with double quotes, indenting and unindenting code, converting numbers in one base to another, auto-closing braces and much more. TextFX takes Notepad++’s functionality past even text editors found in fully featured IDEs, and is truly an incredible addition. There are virtually hundreds of features that have not even been mentioned here, because it would be impossible to list them all. Notepad++ is even extendable by using plugins. These add a whole new world of features, with an active community developing and testing plugins. There’s also an active Notepad++ forum that serves as an excellent support base in case you need help using Notepad++. Further, there are several translations also available. Overall, an amazing feature set for freeware including some features you won’t even find in software costing hundreds of dollars.

Cons

There’s really very little to complain about in Notepad++. The interface is easily excused considering the number of features offered. The only caveat is that it is certainly overkill if all you need is a simple note-taking utility, but that's not its main purpose to begin with.

Alternatives

Almost no Windows based text editor can compare to Notepad++ in terms of features.  However, Boxer Text Editor and EditPlus are popular alternatives that some people prefer, both Shareware though.

Conclusion

Notepad++ is a text editor that is both extremely powerful and versatile. Overall, a must have application whose features surpass almost any other Windows editor.