Introduction

This page describes some experiences with the editor Notepadqq, which is an alternative editor for Notepad++ on Linux.

In this topic of the Notepad++ forum I found the hint to the editor Notepadqq. On this page there was critizism that not all features of Notepad++ have been realized already in Notepadqq. This is definately true, but in the next section you find a list of features that I already successfully use.

List of features

The following features were tested successfully with Notepadqq 1.2.0 on Ubuntu 16.04 and also with version 1.4.8 on Ubuntu 18.04:

• The tab length can be set to 2 spaces length and tabs can be replaced by spaces.
• Ctrl+d doubles the line where the cursor is located.
• Source code indent of code blocks is working very well.
• Code folding is working very well.
• Row numbers can be shown.
• Files that have been opened in a session are reloaded again, when the editor is started again. (Since version 1.0.0)

Advantages of Notepadqq on Linux

This list shows some advantages of Notepadqq on Linux compared to Notepad++ installed with Wine on Linux:

• Updates of Notepadqq are shown with system updates on Ubuntu and can be automatically installed. For Notepad++ a new version must be manually installed.
• File and directory name completion is working in the open file dialog.
• Files do not get closed by mistake, when the file is clicked on the tab header.
• The editor is still useble, when a file gets modified by another program or when the file is deleted. In that case in Notepad++ an error message is shown that cannot be clicked away. So the editor needs to be restarted completely.
• In Nautilus files can be opened directly with Notepadqq via right click.

Possible improvements

For me the following improvements would be very helpful (tested with Notepadqq 1.2.0 on Ubuntu 16.04.):

• A click on a rownumber on the left side should select the whole row.
• Ctrl+d should double the selection: If only one word is selected, it should double just this word. If several lines are selected all those lines should be doubled. (At the moment only the line where the cursor is set, gets doubled.)
• I have not found a word completion yet. (But I have not investigated enough on this.)
• Search settings get lost after a restart of the editor: For example when I want to search in files, I have to enter the file types filter and the checkbox "consider subdirectories" has to be checked again.
• The right click menu on a selection should include "Convert to UPPERCASE" and "Convert to lowercase". (In 1.4.8 this can be handled in the main menu.)

I posted this list once as a feedback to the release anouncement of version 1.2.0. Regrettably these topics are still not working in version 1.4.8.

Creation of an extension

There is a good instruction how to write plugins for Notepadqq with NodeJs. Also this API documentation is helpful for such a development. So I gave it a shot to be able to add a little improvement to the editor.

The instruction was working very well. Regrettably when adding the created dummy plugin to Notepadqq I received the message that the given NodeJs environment is not supported. The GUI says that only the versions 0.10, 0.11 and 0.12 are supported. But I had Node v8.4.0 and NPM 5.3.0. As I do not want to install specific outdated Node versions I stopped at this point.

Future development

Regrettably version 1.4.8 of the year 2018 is still the current version as I write this update in 2022. This question in the Notepadqq forum from August 2021 leaves some doubt that there will be a new version of the editor soon.