http://localhost:1313/docs/ Recent content in Docs on Notepad++ User Manual Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us http://localhost:1313/docs/getting-started/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://localhost:1313/docs/getting-started/ What is Notepad++ Notepad++ is a text editor and source code editor for use under Microsoft Windows. It supports around 80 programming languages with syntax highlighting and code folding. It allows working with multiple open files in a single window, thanks to its tabbed editing interface. Notepad++ is available under GPL and distributed as free software. You may visit the Notepad++ website at https://notepad-plus-plus.org/ Download Notepad++ Download the latest version of Notepad++ from https://notepad-plus-plus. http://localhost:1313/docs/files/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://localhost:1313/docs/files/ Working with Files A “file” is the basic unit of what is edited in Notepad++, but that term actually covers multiple related concepts. Primarily, the “file” is the series of bytes stored on a disk or other storage medium and accessed through your computer’s filesystem; and pedantically, if the document you are editing has never been saved to the filesystem, it’s not technically a file, though common usage applies that term to unsaved documents as well. http://localhost:1313/docs/editing/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://localhost:1313/docs/editing/ Selection modes & Column Editor Notepad++ has two modes for selecting text: stream selection and column-mode selection. Normally when you select text by LeftClick+Drag with the mouse, or Shift+Arrow key commands, you make what is called a stream selection. In this mode, the text that is selected is contiguous, left-to-right, top-to-bottom. There is another mode of selection called column mode that you can enter in order to select text that isn’t contiguous horizontally, but rather vertically. http://localhost:1313/docs/searching/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://localhost:1313/docs/searching/ There are multiple methods to search (and replace) text in files. You can also mark search results with a bookmark on their lines, or highlight the textual results themselves. Generating a count of matches is also possible. There are three main built-in search mechanisms: the standard (dialog-based) Find / Replace / Find In Files / Mark, the dialog-free Next / Previous search-navigation, and the Incremental Search. All keyboard shortcuts mentioned below are the default values, but are configurable in the Shortcut Mapper. http://localhost:1313/docs/views/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://localhost:1313/docs/views/ The View menu controls the look of Notepad++, including how Notepad++ and the Windows operating system interact, what features and panels are active inside Notepad++, and whether there are one or two Views (visible files) active at the same time. Many of the entries in the View menu act as settings or toggles, to show or hide some feature: the feature will be visible when there is a checkmark ✔ next to the menu entry, and it will not be visible if there is no checkmark shown. http://localhost:1313/docs/session/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://localhost:1313/docs/session/ Sessions, Workspaces, and Projects There are three built-in “multiple file management” systems available natively in Notepad++. Sessions = a set of files that can be opened with one action. Folder as Workspace = a tree-based interface to easily access the files in a given Windows directory. Project Panels = a tree-based interface to access related files that aren’t necessarily grouped in the same Windows directory structure. There are also various plugins available that might help manage sessions or workspaces, or serve similar purposes but with a different feature set compared to these built-in features. http://localhost:1313/docs/function-list/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://localhost:1313/docs/function-list/ What is Function List The Function List Panel is a zone to display all the functions (or methods) found in the current file. The user can double-click the function name in the Function List Panel to move to that function in the editor. You can customize the Function List to enhance an existing language or to add a currently-unsupported language by following the instructions found below. Function List uses a regular-expression (regex) search engine to parse the active file and look for functions (or methods); it displays the results from the regular-expression search in the Function List panel. http://localhost:1313/docs/auto-completion/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://localhost:1313/docs/auto-completion/ What is Auto-completion Notepad++ offers automatic completion of various sorts of text after you have entered an initial substring (or prefix), which can save you having to type all of a long word (and potentially save you mistyping it). For instance, if you’re coding in JavaScript and type syn, Notepad++ can present synchronized (a JavaScript keyword) as a suggestion. You accept the suggestion by typing the completion key (see “Automatic completion", below), and the word is completed within your buffer as if you’d typed it all out. http://localhost:1313/docs/programing-languages/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://localhost:1313/docs/programing-languages/ Supported Programming Languages Around 90 Programming Languages are supported by Notepad++: ActionScript Ada ASN.1 ASP Assembly AutoIt AviSynth BaanC Batch BlitzBasic C C# C++ CAML CMake COBOL CoffeeScript Csound CSS D Diff Erlang ESCRIPT Forth Fortran fixed form Fortran free form FreeBasic GDScript Gui4Cli Haskell Hollywood HTML ini Inno Setup Intel HEX Internal Search Java JavaScript JavaScript json json5 JSP KiXtart LaTeX Lisp Lua Makefile MATLAB MMIXAL mssql NFO Nim Nncrontab NSIS Objective-C OScript Pascal Perl PHP PostScript PowerShell Properties file PureBasic Python R RC REBOL registry Ruby Rust S-Record Scheme Shell Smalltalk Spice SQL Swift TCL Tektronix extended HEX TeX txt2tags TypeScript Verilog VHDL Visual Basic Visual Prolog XML YAML For these languages, Notepad++ supports syntax highlighting (customizable), syntax folding, auto-completion (customizable), function list (customizable via PCRE in xml file). http://localhost:1313/docs/user-defined-language-system/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://localhost:1313/docs/user-defined-language-system/ What are User Defined Languages Notepad++ comes prepackaged with many Language lexers, which apply syntax highlighting to source code or textual data. However, not every possible language or formatting style is available. Enter the User Defined Languages (or “UDL” for short): the UDL interface allows the user to define rules for formatting normal text, keywords, comments, numbers; to define delimiters (like quotes around strings or parentheses around lists) which will cause text between those delimiters to be formatted; and to define symbols or keywords that can be used to allow folding (on-demand hiding and unhiding of blocks of code or text). http://localhost:1313/docs/udl/introduction/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://localhost:1313/docs/udl/introduction/ Introduction to UDL 2 code parser This section explains what “backward” and “forward” search is. Users should understand this part before proceeding to read about other UDL 2.1 features. Introduction to UDL 1.0 internal logic To understand the UDL 2.1 logic, you will first need to understand the UDL 1.0 logic, even though Notepad++ hasn’t used UDL 1.0 in years, because it teaches the basic concepts involved. In this picture you can see a set of three keywords. http://localhost:1313/docs/udl/default/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://localhost:1313/docs/udl/default/ UDL > Default Style This is the simplest option. You can only change styler of default text. After you click “Styler” button, you will see “Styler Dialog” window. Font options did not change from UDL 1.0, you can select fonts used, their size or color, background color, as well as bold, italic and underline options. Nesting options are disabled as default text cannot have nested sub-strings. Generally, if some keyword type does not support nesting, than nesting option in Styler dialog will be grayed out (disabled). http://localhost:1313/docs/udl/folding-in-code/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://localhost:1313/docs/udl/folding-in-code/ UDL > Folding in code Folding in code is quite different in UDL 2.1. Instead of two keyword sets (open and close), now we have three keyword sets (open, middle and close). Also, there are two Folding in code groups: one for forward (style1) and one for backward (style2) search. Example 1 This is a typical C++ folding definition. Curly braces represent folding points in the code and preprocessor is also supported (for this demo not all statements were defined) http://localhost:1313/docs/udl/folding-in-comment/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://localhost:1313/docs/udl/folding-in-comment/ UDL > Folding in comment This keyword set is new in UDL 2.1. It allows you to fold anything as long as your language supports comments. Let’s demonstrate it by using C++ comments. Example 1 Note: When selecting keywords that turn comments into folding points, it is important to select unique keywords. Don’t use stuff that is part of your source code, that will create unexpected folding points when you comment out parts of your source code. http://localhost:1313/docs/udl/keywords/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://localhost:1313/docs/udl/keywords/ UDL > Keywords This section describes new options user have when defining keyword lists. Number of keyword lists has been expanded to eight (as suggested by Don, if more is needed, please state so in discussion on Notepad++ forum). Functionality is the same as in UDL 1.0. You can set “font options” (font type, color, size and so on), and you can turn on “prefix mode”. Prefix mode simply means that anything that starts with your string will be identified as keyword. http://localhost:1313/docs/udl/comments/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://localhost:1313/docs/udl/comments/ UDL > Comments This section describes new options user have when defining comments. Comments handling in UDL 2.1 changed significantly. Let’s start with the most obvious part, the GUI. Line comments Line comments now support three set of keywords: open, continue and close. UDL2.1 has an option to force line comments to start at the beginning of line. When this option is switched on, line comments will be recognized only if they are located at the beginning of line. http://localhost:1313/docs/udl/numbers/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://localhost:1313/docs/udl/numbers/ UDL > Numbers This section describes new options user have when defining numbers. UDL number panel received major update in Notepad++ version 6.3. If you are using version 6.2, please scroll below. Number handling is quite different in UDL 2.1 than it was in UDL 1.0 (or UDL 2.0). New interface and logical organization of code designed by CChris was used in version 2.0, and user suggestions lead to improvements and extensions in version 2. http://localhost:1313/docs/udl/operators/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://localhost:1313/docs/udl/operators/ UDL > Operators This section gives short explanation of operator options. For detailed discussion about “forward” and “backward” search, please read section on the UDL Parser. Operators are split into two groups: Operators1 and Operators2. Operators1 This is a “forward” search group. These operators can be “glued” to other keywords. You can use it to define operators like: ! && << >> + - _ % In short: these should be special non-alphanumeric characters http://localhost:1313/docs/udl/delimiters/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://localhost:1313/docs/udl/delimiters/ UDL > Delimiters This section describes new options users have when defining delimiters. Delimiters changed a lot in UDL 2.1. The most obvious difference is the GUI, so we’ll start with that. Just like in case of keywords, number of delimiter lists has been expanded to eight (as suggested by Don), if more is needed, please state so in discussion on Notepad++ forum. And each Delimiter now accepts its own Escape char. http://localhost:1313/docs/macros/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://localhost:1313/docs/macros/ Notepad++ is capable of recording some of your actions you perform while editing a document, and replaying those later on to avoid having to repeat that sequence of actions. This is called a macro and can save a great deal of time. Macros can be played once, or multiple times, even as long as is required to run through an entire document. You can save them for later use and assign keystrokes to them for fast access (See Shortcut Mapper). http://localhost:1313/docs/run-menu/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://localhost:1313/docs/run-menu/ The Run menu allows you to run arbitrary external commands from inside Notepad++, and to save the commands into new entries in the Run menu and even to assign keyboard shortcuts to those saved commands. Because of the variable syntax (defined in the Configuration Files Details > User Defined Commands section of this manual), you can even use the filename or the current selected text or similar as arguments to the programs. http://localhost:1313/docs/plugins/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://localhost:1313/docs/plugins/ Notepad++ is very extensible using so called plugins. Plugins are small or big additions to Notepad++ to enhance its functionality. Notepad++ comes bundled with a few plugins (when using the installer, you can choose which ones to add), but you can always add your own or remove some. The plugins are located in the Plugins directory in the main Notepad++ installation directory. They are DLL files and simply removing or adding them is enough. http://localhost:1313/docs/plugin-communication/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://localhost:1313/docs/plugin-communication/ Plugin Communication: Messages and Notifications Plugins need to communicate with Notepad++ to get information from it or to instruct it to do some task. This is done by using messages and notifications. Message and notifications share a similar interface. Where messages are sent by using Windows SendMessage api, notifications are sent by Notepad++ using WM_NOTIFY messages. These same techniques can also be used for editing macros (some of which use messages to control Notepad++), or when using one of the scripting plugins (which effectively make your script a mini-plugin). http://localhost:1313/docs/command-prompt/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://localhost:1313/docs/command-prompt/ Notepad++ supports various case-sensitive command line arguments to control its startup and affect its behavior. Help usage notepad++ [--help] [-multiInst] [-noPlugin] [-l<Language>] [-udl="My UDL Name"] [-L<langCode>] [-n<line>] [-c<column>] [-p<pos>] [-x<left-pos>] [-y<TopPos>] [-monitor] [-nosession] [-notabbar] [-ro] [-systemtray] [-loadingTime] [-alwaysOnTop] [-openSession] [-r] [-qn="Easter Egg Name" | -qt="Text to Type" | -qf="D:\path to\file"] [-qSpeed(1|2|3)] [-quickPrint] [-settingsDir="d:\your settings dir\"] [-openFoldersAsWorkspace] [-titleAdd="additional title bar text"] [-pluginMessage="text for plugin(s)"] [filepath] --help: The help message for command line arguments. http://localhost:1313/docs/preferences/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://localhost:1313/docs/preferences/ There are three main dialogs for editing preferences and other user-defined settings: Preferences, Style Configurator and Shortcut Mapper. The Shortcut Mapper is a list of keyboard shortcuts to everything that can have one in Notepad++. Style Configurator allows changing the visual appearance of anything that has a color or a font. The Preferences dialog manages most other user-settings. While there are various aspects in Notepad++ that are not configurable, you may not even notice them. http://localhost:1313/docs/config-files/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://localhost:1313/docs/config-files/ Configuration Files Notepad++ offers a comprehensive user interface to review or change most of its settings. However, there are some special cases where it is worthwhile to edit the configuration files directly, including: Customizing the Context Menu Editing previously-recorded macros, or crafting new macros manually Adding keywords to a language, because the new language version isn’t matched yet Please note that Notepad++ writes the configuration files when it exits, which is why the Editing Configuration Files section below says that Notepad++ may overwrite your changes. http://localhost:1313/docs/themes/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://localhost:1313/docs/themes/ Themes are pre-defined sets of formatting rules, which often try to use a consistent color scheme between languages. You may choose your theme using the Preferences > Style Configurator dialog. Notepad++ comes packaged with a default theme and a number of other themes to start with. You may customize any of those themes using the Style Configurator dialog, or by editing the underlying XML files. Theme XML files are stored in %AppData%\Notepad++\Themes for a normal installation, or in the Themes\ subdirectory of your Notepad++ installation directory if you chose local configuration during installation or if you are using a portable version of Notepad++. http://localhost:1313/docs/binary-translation/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://localhost:1313/docs/binary-translation/ Notepad++ can be “localized” to your chosen written language, so that it translates the user interface (including menu and command names, and the text in dialogs and buttons). It supports this multi-language functionality by using a localization xml file (based on the official english.xml translation) which maps the various user-interface pieces to the appropriate translation. The Notepad++ localization is chosen through the Settings > Preferences > General > Localization interface. http://localhost:1313/docs/user-interface/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://localhost:1313/docs/user-interface/ Tabs The tab bar settings can be found at Settings > Preferences > General > Tab Bar, including the option to Hide the tab bar. To switch between first and last tab, use Ctrl + Shift + MOUSEWHEEL on tabs. MOUSEWHEEL up will take to first tab while down will take to last tab. To switch and activate next/previous tab, there are multiple options: http://localhost:1313/docs/upgrading/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://localhost:1313/docs/upgrading/ Notepad++ is an actively maintained piece of software, and new versions come fast. There are basically four ways to keep abreast of changes: Auto-Trigger If you used installation package when you originally installed, the Auto Update feature is active by default. Every 15 days auto-updater (WinGUp) will be launched for checking, and you will be notified if a new version is available. You are presented with the option of installing that newer version. http://localhost:1313/docs/shell-extension/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://localhost:1313/docs/shell-extension/ Shell Extension Notepad++ installs with a Shell Extension – a DLL which adds menu commands to the Windows Explorer right-click context menu. If you choose to install it (and the Notepad++ installer does install it), then any file you right-click on will show an entry named “Edit with Notepad++” with the Notepad++ icon. Installation Under normal circumstances, the Shell Extension was installed when you installed Notepad++. Please note that to install or remove the extension, you most likely need to use Administrator privileges. http://localhost:1313/docs/ghost-typing/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://localhost:1313/docs/ghost-typing/ Ghost typing can be used to launch Notepad++ with an auto-typing text. Use command line arguments -qn, -qt or -qf to trigger it. Syntax Main Ghost Typing Modes Use one of these three command-line options to enable the various modes of ghost typing. notepad++.exe -qn="EasterEggName" -qn: ghost typing text is derived from a builtin easter egg text. EasterEggName: the name of easter egg. Quotes are required if the name contains a space. http://localhost:1313/docs/other-resources/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://localhost:1313/docs/other-resources/ Notepad Replacement Notepad is a default text editor shipped with Windows. You may want to use Notepad++ instead of Notepad. However, there’s no obvious way to do it: You can run commands to edit the registry following command to make Notepad++ replace Notepad (run in cmd.exe with Administrator privileges)†. For Windows 7 - Windows 10, use the following command: reg add "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\notepad.exe" /v "Debugger" /t REG_SZ /d "\"%ProgramFiles%\Notepad++\notepad++. http://localhost:1313/docs/history/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://localhost:1313/docs/history/ User Manual History Prior to 2019, the Notepad++ “manual” was a wiki that had been locked to user input since 2015, so it was years out-of-date. In the Summer of 2019, Peter Jones spearheaded a team effort to create a new User Manual website tracked in GitHub, allowing collaborative contributions without the vandalism risk posed by a wiki. The first version of https://npp-user-manual.org was released on September 8, 2019, with a description of Notepad++ as of v7. http://localhost:1313/docs/license/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://localhost:1313/docs/license/ Copyright Copyright (C) 2020 Don HO <don.h@free.fr>. Additional authors include any contributors to the npp-usermanual repository at https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/npp-usermanual Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled “GNU Free Documentation License”.