They’re turning Notepad into what Wordpad was (or was supposed to be). Now everyone looking for the light weightiest *.txt editor must find a new tool...
The problem is usually when you're using notepad, it's in some situation where you don't want to install another exe. Like you're using someone else's PC or a random one in a library or something. This needs to be built in.
Can Microsoft please stop? If I need Copilot and Markdown Support I use VS Code or any other software that supports it.
I recently used Windows Sandbox and was surprised that it does not have notepad. And why? Because it's a Store App now and that's unsupported inside the Windows Sandbox.
> We’re also adding a fill tolerance slider, giving you control over how precisely the Fill tool applies color. To get started, select the Fill tool and use the slider on the left side of the canvas to adjust the tolerance to your desired level. Experiment with different tolerance settings to achieve clean fills or creative effects.
This tool would have been so useful 25 years ago when I had to manually recolour every pixel in the contour of the cool photo I was editing for my new desktop background because the fill tool didn't recognise the background properly.
Markdown support isn't a bad idea, actually, as long as they don't break the most important (IMO) property of Notepad: binary WYSIWYG. I.e. if I type in some plain text and then open the file with anything else (including after moving to another machine/platform, or even viewing raw data stream in transit or on drive), I can trust to see that text, as is, and nothing else. In particular, if I restrict myself to lower 127 bytes, I expect byte-to-byte correspondence.
So the markup dialect that's widely used but suffers from a near-total lack of viewers will now finally be rendered as intended, at least on Windows?
Markdown presents a chicken-&-egg scenario that has dragged on for decades: tons of Markdown documents, but almost nothing with which to simply view (not edit) them as intended. Mystifying.
I still say this is stupid AF, and that notepad should stay as simple as reasonable as a plain text editor and they should have resurrected "WordPad" for this purpose if they wanted it in Windows. I'm mixed on the enhancements to Paint... but this just feels a bit off.
Maybe I'd mind it less if they put the new MS Edit in Windows by default, so again, there's a minimal plain text editor in the box.
I recently thought my keyboard was faulty. I take my notes on notepad, and after a recent update, sensed that keystrokes occasionally get missed or delayed. After a few days, I noticed it was not happening on Google Docs. On a whim I checked Notepad settings and found a new setting, enabled by default: "AI features > Copilot". I disabled it, along with "Autocorrect", and haven't had the problem since.
Notepad is supposed to be a bare bones editor -- where you go when everything else fails. The VI of Windows. If they want a rich editor, they should bring back WordPad.
If you want to make a joke, you can suggest it as a new feature from the parameters of Microsoft To Do. Seems like the only Microsoft app that doesn't yet have it... BTW it can be disabled in Notepad settings.
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[ 5.5 ms ] story [ 83.9 ms ] threadMicrosoft has already positioned VS Code as its code editor and OneNote as its notetaking app. Why should Notepad compete with these offerings?
I recently used Windows Sandbox and was surprised that it does not have notepad. And why? Because it's a Store App now and that's unsupported inside the Windows Sandbox.
Notepad is supposed to be dumb, not Microsoft!
recent vuln asside (big caveat ill admit) idk why you would use notepad at all when N++ exists
Somebody should probably tell Microsoft we’ve all moved on to better things like Notepad++ (even when their update supply chain gets compromised).
This tool would have been so useful 25 years ago when I had to manually recolour every pixel in the contour of the cool photo I was editing for my new desktop background because the fill tool didn't recognise the background properly.
(Modulo CR/LF, of course.)
Meanwhile, 2 weeks ago:
Windows Notepad App Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46971516
I tried to take advantage of it, but the implementation felt really clunky (formatting seemed to be via menus only), so I’ve stuck with .txt files.
Markdown presents a chicken-&-egg scenario that has dragged on for decades: tons of Markdown documents, but almost nothing with which to simply view (not edit) them as intended. Mystifying.
Maybe I'd mind it less if they put the new MS Edit in Windows by default, so again, there's a minimal plain text editor in the box.
Oh boy.
Notepad is supposed to be a bare bones editor -- where you go when everything else fails. The VI of Windows. If they want a rich editor, they should bring back WordPad.