The behaviour of the Alt key is weird and varies in different applications. I did the following experiments.

Basic setup: Have some programs open so that they are displayed in the task bar

Go to an application, i.e. have it as the “active” one Press the Alt key Point with the mouse to another application in the task bar and click. The application becomes the active one. Release the Alt key

What I see is:

If the target app is Mozilla Firefox or Thunderbird or VLC, the menu is reliably activated upon releasing Alt. If the target app is MS Excel, menu is never activated. Excel activates the menu (displays shortcuts) a second after pressing Alt, i.e. not upon releasing it. If the target app is NP++ or LibreOffice the behaviour after releasing Alt is unpredictable. Sometimes the menu is activated, sometimes it’s not.

As I wrote, I remedy the situation by changing the key to one without Alt.

This appears to be a JSON5 file. Probably it has the .json file extension, so it is highlighted with the JSON syntax highlighter, which treats unquoted keys as a syntax error. More recent versions of Notepad++ have a JSON5 syntax highlighter, available under Language->J->JSON5 from the Notepad++ main menu. If the JSON5 syntax highlighter isn’t available, you can just change the language preference to None (Normal Text).

EDIT: even in the most recent version of Notepad++, the JSON5 syntax highlighter still doesn’t properly parse unquoted keys in objects, so you should just change your Language to None (Normal Text).

You may also find the JsonTools plugin useful for working with JSON or JSON5. If you pretty-print a JSON5 file with JsonTools, it will convert it to JSON, and then the syntax highlighting will work correctly (but you won’t have unquoted keys anymore).

@guy038 said:

did you forgot of your excellent Python script

I didn’t exactly forget… :-)

But some of the earlier comments in this topic have made me decide that it might be best to just not try to remember any previous styling. I’m even doubting remembering bookmarks now too. :-)

@PeterJones Thanks much for the infos.

@pockytu

Go to Plugin Admin, type fold into the Search box and keep clicking Next until you see Folding Line Hider. Check the checkbox and click the Install button. After Notepad++ restart, it should be active at hiding the fold lines.

Description of the plugin:

This Notepad++ plugin can hide the unsightly folding lines, and for convenience, you can fold and unfold the current level using the Alt + Left/Right keys.
Author: leonardchai@gmail.com
Homepage: https://github.com/leonardchai/FoldingLineHider

@Max-Alekseyev

The captions on those buttons are controlled by Windows instelf, not Notepad++.

@peter-vasil

The install directory is handled similar with the installer whether Don't use %AppData% is checked or unchecked. The main difference is the doLocalConf.xml existence which impacts how notepad++.exe saves to the xml files. When notepad++.exe saves to the install directory, then a risk exists when using the installer to upgrade which can overwrite customized xml files.

Information from install logs:

Files Install Upgrade Minimalist doLocalConf.xml extract extract extract autoCompletion\*.xml extract skip functionList\*.xml extract extract overrideMap.xml extract skip gup.xml extract extract contextMenu.xml extract skip skip tabContextMenu_example.xml extract skip skip toolbarButtonsConf_example.xml extract skip skip toolbarIcons.xml extract skip skip langs.model.xml extract extract extract stylers.model.xml extract extract extract shortcuts.xml extract skip skip nppLogNulContentCorruptionIssue.xml extract skip skip markdown._preinstalled.udl.xml extract extract extract markdown._preinstalled_DM.udl.xml extract extract extract DarkModeDefault.xml extract extract extract themes\*.xml extract extract

Theme modifications in the install directory can be overwritten by the upgrade as that is what extract does.

If Don't use %AppData% is checked:

The default Custom type of upgrade install will extract many xml files so to keep customizations, may need to backup before install and merge after install.

The Minimalist type of upgrade install will extract the least amount of xml files so is probably the safest to keep customized xml files.

If Don't use %AppData% is unchecked:

Modified xml files are saved to %AppData% so are safe.

@PeterJones I just tried it and it works perfectly. Thanks again so much for the help.

@PeterJones thank you so much for the help!!

@josiah-cohran said in need help to download notepad++:

im on my school computer trying to do something with not pad

Even for students, clarity of communication is important. “not pad” is not the same thing as “Notepad++”

and it is bringing me the github page

Assuming you mean that it took you to https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/ , then you should see a section on the right of the main page like:
0e014db4-d27e-4c77-b724-45e5cde967f2-image.png
Click on the “Latest” to go to the most recent release (currently, https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/releases/tag/v8.7.8) , and from there, click on the npp.8.7.8.Installer.x64.exe (future readers: the number will change to match the most recent version) if you are on a normal 64-bit windows machine (most are 64-bit nowadays)
9b67dc7a-1400-4f15-9077-199a594d8512-image.png

The other way of getting Notepad++, instead of going through GitHub, is to go to the application’s official website and the “Downloads” page: https://notepad-plus-plus.org/downloads/

From there, you can either go to the top link (which is currently v8.7.8), or if you are more conservative, scroll down to the one that says “stable”):
fc1dccf7-22a4-4357-ab47-7546eaff5761-image.png
From one of those pages, click on the topmost “Installer” link to download the installer for the 64-bit Notepad++ (which again is most likely what you need).

@Terry-R I know this kindness is above and beyond.
I have been looking, trying to help myself.

This will save much time and effort.

Thanx for your patience.

@Andrej730 said in Notepad++ font with emoji support / Segoe UI Emoji slows down notepad++:

Hi! I was looking for a way to show emojis in notepad (similarly to https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/topic/20642/) and I’ve found it, it requires enabling DirectWrite in preferences (it seems nay DirectWrite option works for it) but it also requires a special font that supports emojis.

There are lots of fonts that support emojis

The font I’ve found for it Segoe UI Emoji - which works but the problem is that using this font slows down notepad++.

The font itself, combined with the DirectWrite settings, might be the culprit. When I tried the experiment with DirectWrite (default) and Segoe UI Emoji, I also saw a slowdown… But if I switch to GDI (most compatible) (and restart), then I don’t think I see the slowdown… not 100% sure. But I don’t know if that mode will show all the emojis you want, even with that font.

However, Segoe UI Emoji doesn’t appear to be a monospaced font, and Notepad++ works best with monospace.

Any suggestions for getting emojis in notepad++ by some other way or solving this problem with Segoe UI Emoji font?

Try without directwrite. Try a different font.

When I do DirectWrite (default) and my old normal DejaVu Sans Mono or my new normal FiraCode, I am able to see many emoji (even ones that those specific fonts don’t support, because of the “composite font” capability of Windows that DirectWrite enables). It’s possible that combination isn’t sufficient for you, but it’s something worth trying. I have never noticed a font-related slowdown when using those settings and fonts.

@Mark-Olson Thank you for the warning

@TG-King said in Blue icons:

but the icons were blue, and I think they were round.

Sounds like you used a set of custom icons, as per the User Manual > Config Files > Toolbar Icon Customization

That section has a link to a zip file with various icon sets, so maybe you used one of those; or maybe you found icons elsewhere, but we cannot tell you where you found them.

@Mark-Olson said in Markdown & Lint:

VSCode has a Markdown language server that I quite like; maybe you could use that.

I am afraid this is not possible because this extension uses node-ipc as a communication channel.

node-ipc: use node IPC communication between the client and the server. This is only supported if both client and server run under node.

If other LSP servers that use stdio or socket, i.e. tcp, are available, this would of course be an alternative.

@guy038 I think the OP has left. He had written “I used Blank operations-> trim trailing space and then “\d+(?=” “\d+” “\d+”$) and its fine now. Ty both for your help!”

We won’t know exactly what character(s) the trailing spaces were but now know the original issue was space characters of some sort.

In hindsight, I should have used \h* instead of * in my original proposed fix as \h matches the various horizontal space characters plus is less likely to introduce errors as people manually copy from what they read in a forum post on a screen into a regular expression.

@Samuel-Connault

One possible way to solve this is using the sort features in the Columns++ plugin.

If you want to try it, you can install that plugin from Plugins Admin. Then, select nothing if you want to sort the whole document; otherwise, select the lines you want to sort. When you select a Sort command in the next step, you’ll be prompted to allow the selection to be converted to a rectangular selection; allow it.

There are two sort options that might help. First, try the easy one: select Sort ascending (locale) from the the Columns++ menu. That might give you what you want.

If it doesn’t, a more controllable option is to select Sort… from the menu. The dialog that follows allows you to specify a regular expression that selects the sort key in each line.

Depending on how well you know regular expressions, the help link above and your knowledge might be enough, or you might need more guidance. Try first, and ask if you need more help.

Alternatively, that same dialog allows you to specify more details about the Locale sort, which might solve your problem without regular expressions even if the default locale sort does not.

@Ussene-Nicururo ,

We’re you trying to answer the original question? Or ask a new, related question? Because that’s just a bunch of example text, and does not accomplish either.

@Jim-Julian said in block comment color:

I opened the style configurator but could find reference to only single line comment text color (green).

Is there a way to change the color of python block comment text?

Thanks.

@PeterJones mentioned the (orange) triple strings. I’ll mention the (green) block comments.

The lexer does style block comment text.

https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/blob/a679e8ebfb425ae4c71a34a2080dd1a9a376acd6/lexilla/lexers/LexPython.cxx#L908-L909

Python has no multiline comment like C like languages unfortunely.

/* comment can span multiple lines */

The Python lexer does have block comments if that can be defined as such.

# comment line ## old code ## old code

The ## is SCE_P_COMMENTBLOCK style which in Style Configurator described as COMMENT BLOCK. It may not be noticeable as both SCE_P_COMMENTLINE and SCE_P_COMMENTBLOCK default to same style settings.

Changed COMMENT BLOCK in Style Configurator to grey shows

pyBlockComment.png

So now more customization can be done to improve the view.