After 40 years of being free Microsoft has added a paywall to Notepad
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So notepad isn't behind a paywall, AI features nobody was asking for is behind a paywall, and this headline is bullshit.
That's my takeaway.
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Fuck Ai. I just want Notepad to edit the most basic text. Why the fuck would I need fucking Ai bullshit in it? To rewrite what? INI game files? Hosts file?
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It’s for the “AI” no one was asking for in the first place
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Notepad is not free! Bah ha ha ha. Anyway, tons of options out there for those not to lazy to look.
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Is it though? I still always open notepad for random text stuff. What is better in ++?
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That's my understanding, yes
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I agree, but the idea of adding AI to notepad is quite insane in its own right
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[obligatory linux boast]
I really prefer Kate to Notepad because KDE makes superior, non AI encrusted software that actually works for it's users. And it's FREE! -
Notepad++ isn't trying to shoehorn in AI for starters. It's clear Microsoft is praying the current gimmicky narrative of AI will let the masses not realize this is a privacy nightmare.
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Yes, it objectively is. And so are various other text editor options that are out there.
But just speaking about Notepad++, you can scale it down to a very simple text editor (like Notepad), it you can easily ramp it up to a much more feature rich one. And for me, the ability to have a vertical list of files is a big plus. As is its ability to optionally show line numbers.
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Notepad does that neither for me and has not for >20 years. So is there something that is actually better or not?
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- Keeps your progress if you exit without saving
- Supports tabs so you don't have 5 separate notepad windows open
- syntax highlighting for programming languages and markdown format
- plugin support
- can handle extremely large text files (I've opened 50gb text files and used ctrl+f to find terms and it worked fine)
- superb tools for manipulating text (e.g., use reg expressions). Super easy to make mass edits.
- dark mode support. That alone makes it superior lol
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So it is better because it can do more, but I assume not too too much? Because then we can also use word?
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A lot of those are features of notepad.
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It's a lot more feature filled and frankly not very nice looking if all you want is a simple replacement for Notepad. Notepads (with an s) is much better imo.
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Ah thanks for the first proper answer. Sounds good, I will give it a try.
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I think the idea is that you can use it for reformatting small sets of data I guess.
"make all the dates in this CSV iso-8601"
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I love Kate.
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I use Vim, actually
