I never really thought about just how personal Notepad is for me. Even the Notes app on my phone. I wouldn’t want anyone to look through any of it. I write some embarrassing shit. Pointless backstories for my video game protagonists when they don’t already have one. Drafts for important upcoming conversations. You name it. Get the fuck out of my space. Fortunately I’m still using Notepad++, but I’m sure Microsoft will slide its dick into that too, eventually.
That’s how it felt when Google announced Gemini into Gmail.
A lot of my friends and family didn’t understand the issue.
Google said a decade ago that gmail is like your secretary parsing through your mail to hekp out with scheduling etc., it was never to be trusted
Notepad++ is a great option if you absolutely need to be on Windows. I started using it at work because all of my colleagues were on it, now I install it on any box I have running Windows while I set them up.
The plugins are great on Notepad++ too! I use it for work, JSON Viewer makes raw jsons much easier to parse through. Compare is really nice too to compare different files and spot their differences.
Learn to use Vim. It can be anywhere and everywhere.
Vim is hell to learn (a few weeks), but the second best time investment return I’ve made of any skill, ever (1st was learning to walk).
Yeah, but if you’re forced to use Windows, then installing and running vim is a nightmare (unless you want gvim, but I don’t think anyone wants that).
Huh, I never noticed any issues when I used to use gvim (a fair few years back, mind). What’s the problem with it?
Does it run this new OS? emacs? It’s a great OS but doesn’t have a great text editor.
with emacs evil mode, you can add a pretty good text editor to the emacs ecosystem: vim
No, no, no, you’re thinking of iMacs which are Apple’s all in one desktop offering. But thy can definitely run MacVim.
Feeling the same, and currently in process of dumbing down my tech and decoupling from major tech platforms. They really got us by the balls.
Long live open source!
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Notepad++ is what real humans use
Kate exists on windows and linux
Notepad++ does way more out of the box. I’m saying this as someone who has used npp for over a decade and been using Kate since last September since indefinitely switching to Linux.
It doesn’t have AI tho.
(Joking)
I used notepad precisely because it lacks features beyond writing text, this is such an anti feature
I think in general you can also just expect that any OS, techy or not, ships with a basic, lightweight text editor. The fact that Windows seems to want to change that is an anti-feature for the entire OS.
SublimeText might be a good next option. :)
Isn’t notepad++ better?
Not if you don’t use windows, or if you want a more modern looking and less busy interface, or integration with what I consider the best git GUI. I used to use N++ long ago, but after trying ST I realized it just feels clunky.
My entire work brain is in there. Hundreds of tabs none of them were ever saved. I was recently looking for something and found notes I took 2 years ago. I love it but I also get why a lot of people don’t.
Personal preference. :) I use it bare bones but like having the option to extend when needed.
Not if you want less features. 🤷🏻♂️
Yeah I have that as well, and I’m surprised how fast and light weight it feels compared to something like VS code
This is a pretty random Notepad story, but: in 1999 I was doing web development for Internet Explorer 6 (yes, I know) using Classic ASP and Visual Basic (5 or 6? I can’t be bothered to look shit like that up). Probably my most important debugging tool was the “View Source” menu option in IE6, which would bring up the raw HTML of whatever page I was working on in Notepad. One day the “View Source” option just stopped working, completely. Clicking that menu wouldn’t do anything at all; I tried everything I could think of but just couldn’t fix the problem. For six months I was basically coding blind - I had no way of directly seeing the HTML my code was producing.
Somehow I managed to still get my work done. Then one day I stumbled across an obscure forum post that said “View Source” in IE6 would not work if you had a shortcut to Notepad on your Desktop. I of course had a shortcut to Notepad on my Desktop since I kept everything on my desktop (yes, I know). I renamed my shortcut to “NotepadX” and suddenly “View Source” in IE6 started working again. Possibly the happiest day of my programming life. I played around with it and found that it didn’t have to actually be a shortcut to Notepad - it could be a shortcut to any program or file, but if it happened to be named “Notepad” it would block View Source from working.
I would give anything to find out where this particular bug came from. It’s really bothered the shit out of me for the past 26 years. I don’t see how it could ever happen accidentally, so I have to assume that some MS programmer somewhere really hated people with shortcuts to commonly-used programs on their Desktop and decided to punish them.
I love that story. Thanks for sharing. What a crazy bug. Maybe IE6 was integrating with windows in some weird way? I almost want to fire up a VM and see if I can replicate it. Think you can remember which version of windows it was?
IE was literally embedded into the OS. There’s no surprise there were bugs like that.
Wow! Thank you for sharing; what an weird bug! Perhaps some ancient code to make use of notepad for view source if available, then the available function got changed, for other reasons, to if on desktop, then a different version of notepad broke the chain of borked code?
Well, IE6 did open Notepad to show source by default, but it makes no sense why a shortcut to Notepad just existing on the Desktop would prevent that. Especially when it didn’t even have to be a real shortcut to Notepad.
Probably tried to execute Notepad.lnk, because Desktop came before /system in the path, and however they were calling it did not resolve the link before executing - and that meant a hang, silent error, or no op
I mourn Notepad as well, but Notepad++ is great and it hasn’t smeared shit on itself yet.
Notepad++ really earning the ++ once again.
Good luck. As of this writing, I have UNINSTALLED copilot from Windows 11 Pro FOURTEEN TIMES in the past 3 weeks. I continually turn off its access to running in the background and terminate and its services in task manager multiple times a day. I’ve blocked the app in my non-MS antimalware suite. I have uac enabled to block unauthorized apps. I have disabled it in my startup apps repeatedly, to no avail .
I have disabled Edge browser everywhere possible, but Edge still manages to open itself up and REOPEN COPILOT even though I’ve disabled Edge multiple times and it is literally not the default app for even a single file type.
It’s no longer POSSIBLE to install a single Office app, or uninstall single office apps. I do not need and do not want to bloat a ton of my SSD boot drive with Access and Designer and Publisher. The windows store standalone version of Outlook cannot load or save .pst backups.
MS has returned to even worse than its evil Borg ways. But now it’s one of several threats to the continued existence of privacy anywhere for anyone.
Down with #enshittification #deshittify the #internet. Up with #CryptPad #Nextcloud #OnlyOffice (and to a lesser extent the commercial version #CollaberaOffice). Up with #StandardNotes and #ProtonMail, #ProtonCalendar, #ProtonDrive, #ProtonVPN, and #ProtonPass. Sad RIP to any and all security patches for #RIPLibreOffice (libre users - switch to security-patch-maintained software asap!)
Up with companies based in countries with strong privacy protections, that provide zero-knowledge services, and that do zero or minimal logging and discard logs swiftly (yay for thegood.cloud)!
Might as well install linux at this point if you hate windows this much. Or just install LTSC where none of this bullshit happens
Men will literally uninstall Copilot fourteen times instead of using Linux.
Sir this is a wendy’s
LibreOffice is dead? When did that happen? I just installed it on my new system a few months ago.
libreoffice’s most recent release is from a month ago and the most recent commit was 41 minutes ago. i wonder if the thread starter is confusing libreoffice and openoffice
Hey I want to know too what happened to libreoffice?
Notepad had one job. Operate on a damn text file. Operate on the damn text files I choose.
I knew it was going down the drain when I reopened Notepad and it opened the files that were previously open. No. Don’t do that. That’s overly helpful. You were only supposed to operate on the damn files I chose. These files I’m about to work with aren’t necessarily the files I previously worked on. If I want this functionality I might as well open it in vscode.
I’m, like, screw it, might as well keep Emacs running if I need random temporary text editing.
VSCode: We already have an IDE.
Windows: But what about second IDE?
I hate it when my technology tries to be smart. Be predictable, you piece of junk. I dont need my laptop to sleep when I shut the lid because all that foes is stop it from shutting down. And opening it doesnt need to turn it on ffs. I blame company policy.
I miss when things were simple, predictable, and you could simply work around them.
Personally I find that feature (including tabs in general) very helpful and is something i’d expect from a text editor in the 20th century.
Just my opinion. To each their own, but just wanted to share that it might also be many others’ opinion too.
I think I’d be able to agree with you if new notepad didn’t take a noticeable time to load. It used to be the 2nd fastest thing I could launch, after the Run dialog itself.
Gotta agree here with you. Yeah theoretically maybe someone really just needs a text editor with absolutely no additional convenient features (maybe the older versions of Notepad allowing different fonts and word wrap was too much for someone as well?). But this is such an objective improvement in 95% of usecases it’s kind of ridiculous to complain about it.
Meh, sounds like a worse version of notepad++, which has been very popular and reliable since the early 21st century.
If they make notepad more bloated than notepad++ then I’d use it even less.
But each to their own.
See I’d use Notepad++ if I was coding or doing any kind of actual file editing.
However, when I’m at work and need to take a phone call, the tabs in Notepad and the auto saving are literally game changing for me.
That being said I haven’t bothered with the AI stuff in it at all, and it feels as usual, Microsoft doesn’t stop when they have a Good Thing already, they keep pushing it beyond that point for their interests. And now we’re left with not a basic editor but a personal assistant.
Long live Linux and freedom of choice.
But that is literally what I use notepad++ for: tabs, keeping unsaved files (good for temporary things like reminders) and also because I swear it opens faster than notepad.
In the 20th century I’d expect something that can open, edit and save plaintext files. But we’re 1/4th of the way into the 21st century.
I find I have two uses for a plaintext editor: plaintext, and computer script. I don’t like using rich text editors like Word for writing notes and such because the formatting options just get in the way; plaintext lets me “just write.” And for this, there’s very little automation that will be helpful.
In the Linux ecosystem, plaintext editors are all trying so hard to be IDEs. They’ll close parentheses or quotes or whatever for you, and if you’re doing something like 15" to mean fifteen inches you’ll get two, you’ll hit backspace and it’ll take both away…it doesn’t help.
If I’m programming anything of any size I’m going to open an IDE, probably because I’m working within some ecosystem. If I’m writing a couple lines of Bash I’ll probably use Vim. So I’d rather tune my plaintext editor to write actual .txt files, as prose.
3rd use perhaps being syntax recognition?
That would fall under “computer script.”
I am either:
- Writing in plain human English, in which case I need a PLAIN TEXT editor. Maybe I want spell check and stuff like that in it.
- Writing computer code, for which I’ll use a code editor or IDE. Maybe I want syntax highlighting and bracket closing and auto indent here.
I like how the tabs save when I close notepad. Its super helpful when I just need to jot down some quick notes or a serial number or something.
And I’m really dumb so I often close my notepad window before I’m done and this feature has saved me numerous times.
I don’t have copilot in my notepad tho. Which is good.
The best part is that it even retains unsaved documents (and unsaved changes in existing ones), which makes it very feasible to use Notepad as sort of an extended clipboard. Surprisingly good thinking for Microsoft.
FYI, you can turn this feature off. Click on the gear icon, scroll all the way down, there’s a new section called “AI features”, which has a toggle switch to disable Copilot. Once you flip it to off, Notepad looks and behaves precisely as it did in the past.
EDIT: also, you need to be logged into a Microsoft account and have an active Copilot Plus subscription for any of the AI features to even work. If you try to use them without a subscription, you just get prompted to sign up for one.
Its not really AI its just a string manipulation program, that, rather pointlessly, summarises paragraphs. The sort of thing you see done in BASIC in old program listing books.
I’m glad I left Windows again when I did (about 2 years ago). There’s no AI bullshit in vim or mousepad. That said, vim is available on windows, so a full switch isn’t necessary if you’re not all about that Linux life.
AI sure killed the motto KISS. Copilot for notepad is literally using a nuclear reactor to light a single bulb.
Gotta scoop all the data from everywhere on your machine, even the temporary notes you don’t save.
They’re not temporary any more, they keep coming back, I keep forgetting and then my PC reboots and I need to make a quick note and have to wait for 50 zombie text files to rise from the dead.
Figuratively
That too.
- Literally has meant figuratively since it first appeared as a word in the 1700s and this usage is listed in every major dictionary
- https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/20/energy/three-mile-island-microsoft-ai/index.html
Literal is the exact opposite of figurative…
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/figurative
Literally literally means figuratively.
I wonder, why is ‘literally’ so special?
Someone steps out into unexpectedly cold weather and says, “It’s freezing out here.” But it’s not below freezing.
Someone that hasn’t eaten all day takes a bite and says, “I was starving, this is the best burger I’ve ever tasted!” They weren’t really starving, and they probably didn’t just rank every burger they’ve eaten.
We exaggerate and/or use words incorrectly for the effect so often, people are constantly using words “incorrectly” but then they say, “I’m literally dead right now.” and dictionaries change their definitions and people point out semantics. It’s like literally is figuratively magic.
It’s almost like language is radically democratic and words only mean what we largely agree they mean, with fluctuating cases based on particular contexts.
Yeah, somehow “literally” is the only word in a figure of speech that cannot be part of the figure at all! They are so smart for pointing that out
“Freezing” is an exaggeration of “cold”, just like “starving” is an exaggeration of “hungry”. It’s “a lot of X”.
“Literally” is not an exaggeration, it’s the opposite of “figuratively”. It’s “-X”.
Those are two entirely different things. But of course inflammable means flammable.
“Literally” is not an exaggeration
Correct, it’s an “intensifier”
And “terrific” and “awesome” are exaggerations of “scary”.
Yes. Am I meant to add anything here?
Incorrect.
Freezing
“Freezing is a phase transition in which a liquid turns into a solid when its temperature is lowered below its freezing point.”Starvation
“Starvation is a severe deficiency in caloric energy intake, below the level needed to maintain an organism’s life.”You are literally wrong, and I will accept a 1-page apology written in MLA format before the end of this week.
I honestly do not see the contradiction. “Very cold” -> liquid turns to solid. “Very hungry” -> severe deficiency.
Sanction is the exact opposite of sanction, but you never see people moan about that for some reason
Table can mean “to discuss a topic at a meeting” (British English) or “to postpone discussion of a topic” (American English). Canadian English uses both meanings of the word
Canada . . . seriously? I can’t sanction that type of behaviour.
That’s the problem with being influenced by both British and American English. We have both senses in New Zealand English too, although I think the US one is slowly winning out and the British one might one day fall out of use.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/literally
That’s one of it’s senses, yes, but how many of those definitions are the opposite of figurative?
The correct definition is the opposite of figuratively. This has been an ongoing linguistic war for nearly a century, and your WRONG thoughts on how it should be used only serve to further the enemies cause.
Napoleon! Enemy anti-literalists have infiltrated another thread—we need reinforcements now!
This has been an ongoing linguistic war for nearly a century
So after over a century of people using it that way some other people got a stick up their butt about it, cool. Doesn’t make it wrong.
People who get het up about “literally” are fabulous.
If Dickens, Twain and Joyce can use it as an intensifier, then that’s awesome enough for me.
Of course literally is often overused figuratively, flogged like a dead metaphorse; but used literally, literally is often literally redundant anyway.
I think it’s got a third use now though, which is even more fun, using it to troll languague purists who think language drives communication rather than the other way round. That might well have motivated Mark Twain too.
I do apologize for using exaggerated words to beautify my sentences, tostiman, sir.
The use of “literally” is part of the figure of speech you’re pedantically referring to. Saying “figuratively” would be redundant, as everyone knows Copilot is not a nuclear reactor, and also declaring that you are using a figure of speech “weakens” it (like /s for sarcasm). By saying “literally” they are saying “wow, this fits so well that this isn’t even a metaphor anymore”.
If you want to correct everyone for saying literally instead of figuratively, correct every teenager saying “I’m actually dying rn 😂” with “ackshually you’re not ACTUALLY dying, as I can see you are still alive typing tips fedora”Oh. I thought “literally” was just referring to the fact that many of those data centers pull from nuclear grids.
The new moto is “keep giving me money stupid”
How wasting billions on AI accomplishes that goal, I don’t know but I’m sticking with FOSS apps and platforms just to be safe
The first nuclear reactor was used to light a single bulb. Presumably it was either an incredibly inefficient bulb or an incredibly inefficient reactor.
Anyway this is all just an extension of everything having an app.
Using an actual nuclear reactor to light a single bulb is literally using a- I’m kidding. I leave lemmy for a couple hours, come back and see a total armageddon, all because there are picky people about the use of words.
And WIRED writes that bsky can’t take a joke. Geez loueez.
