Notepad (software)

The Notepad (short editor or distinguishing and MS editor named in the command prompt under the English original names Notepad bootable ) is a simple text editor by Microsoft for the Windows operating system to create unformatted text in ANSI or Unicode format.

History and functions

After the line-oriented editor EDLIN that was included still under MS -DOS and older NT versions of Windows, as part of the operating system, and the subsequent semi-graphic MS- DOS editor, the editor has been since the first version of Windows with a graphical user interface and as the default text editor for plain text files in the operating system by default.

Since version 4.0 ( Windows NT) supports the program - in addition to the ANSI text format previously used ( see also Windows 1252) - Unicode to the character encodings UTF -16 ( " Unicode" ), UTF-16 big endian ( " Unicode Big endian " ) and UTF -8 ( " UTF -8 "). ASCII (MS -DOS) is not supported on NT. From the programs as standard but this can WordPad and on 32- bit versions of the old MS -DOS Editor.

Due to its restriction to basic functions, the application is no longer to edit source code or to create ASCII art. Only small edits to configuration files, such as in INI format, for Windows provides no graphical interface, the program is suitable. Similarly, batch files can thus be created and changed by asking the appropriate file with the extension., Or. Cmd stores. In contrast to so-called word-processing programs under Microsoft Windows, there are in the editor as well as in all other text editors only the characters actually entered and no other information, such as formatting. When viewing a file using the editor contents are not interpreted, but displayed character by character, so also data that would otherwise remain hidden from the user, can be made visible. A hex viewer or hex editor, this may, however, not replace, especially as the editor for large files much time to load required, as this is the file first fully invites before it is displayed. Also the program can only deal with specific windows line endings (CRLF ), which makes it useless in a heterogeneous environment.

Unicode recognition

Notepad (NT -based versions of Windows) stores all Unicode texts always prefixed with a byte order mark ( BOM) and recognizes it when loading the appropriate format.

The editor can ( for example, in contrast to WordPad ) also load Unicode files, where the byte order mark is missing, and it uses the WinAPI function IsTextUnicode (). This includes in Windows NT to Windows XP a bug that as a supposed Easter Egg of the editor called "Bush hid the facts" ( " Bush has concealed the facts " ) has been designed. If you save this set with the coding ANSI, it will not be displayed correctly when you next open because the editor misinterpreted the text as Unicode.

However, the error occurs not only during this block, but in some records whose first word consist of an even number of letters and any other words of an odd number of letters.

Timestamp

If the first line of a file. " LOG" is, the MS editor automatically appends after every time you open the file date and time of the last line.

Alternatives

In contrast to various visual programming environments, the user has full control over what happens, which is particularly used by purist website developers and programmers who refuse to use a WYSIWYG editor or an overloaded integrated development environment, work and in an ASCII text editor on Windows platforms want to write code without help. However, preferably just this type of user text editors with color highlighting of syntax elements and other extensions, as the editor has a limited number of undo steps is not universally extensible and can in no way provide the configurability of a larger editor such as Vim.

Free members of this genus are JEdit next Vim, among other things, Notepad , Notepad2. Proprietary alternatives include TextPad, PSPad and TED Notepad.