More news. After getting 24 32-bit Plug-ins working on Windows 7, I renamed the Program Files>Notepad++ folder on XP to “Notepad++ Org”, copied the whole Program Files>Notepad++ folder tree structure to XP from my Windows 7 box, and got 21 of the 24 Plug-ins to work on XP. The only problem is now, that I do not have a “Plug-in Manager” or “Plug-in Admin” that works on XP with Notepad++ V7.6.4. I can technically only install “Plug-in Manager” on XP, whereas I cannot even install “Plug-in Admin” on XP. However even if I install “Plug-in Manager”, “Plug-in Manager” cannot manager the Plug-ins running under Notepad++ V7.6.4, since V7.6.4 uses a different installation configuration. So my option now is to install the 32-bit Plug-ins on the Windows 7 box and then copy same to the XP box, and if they work then great, if not then bad luck hey? All you have to do, if the 32-bit Plug-ins do not work on XP, is to answer yes when asked if you wish to remove for compatibility reasons, or delete the incompatible Plug-in name folder under the Program Files/notepad++\plugins folder, e.g. C:\Program Files\Notepad++\plugins\csvquery to remove the 32-bit “csvquery” Plug-in. I hope that what I have learned is of some help to someone. Cheers from Aussie mate and happy Notepad++ing hey? :-)

@Alexander-Vorobyov

It will be easier for others on the forum to help you if you share debug info (?->Debug Info from the Notepad++ main menu).

I seem to recall that the specific problem of Notepad++ overwriting files with a lot of NUL characters was fixed a long time ago, but I’m not super familiar with this topic.

For those being directed here by other links from the forum, @Ekopalypse has a newer version available at his github, here.

Hi, @coises,

I re-tested the supposed bug and I simplified the procedure which is necessary to trigger that bug !

If opened, close the Search++ plugin by clicking on the cross, at the far right

A Re-open Search++ with the Plugins > Search++ > Search... option

B Try to close the Search++ panel by clicking on the cross, at the far right => Nothing happens !?

C After some trys, if you move slightly the mouse, you should be able to close the Search++ panel

Sometimes, you’ll need to repeat the actions A ato C, up to 5 times consecutively, to trigger that bug. but this event may also occur at the first try !

I also noted that, when the bug occurs, any subsequent left click on the cross does nothing until I move very slightly the mouse, without any clicking, that is enough, then, to close the search++ panel by clicking againg onto the cross icon. Very strange, indeed !?

As I suspected that the problem could be an hardware issue with my bluethooth mouse, I disabled it and installed a classical USB mouse, instead. But, unfortunately, results were identical as well as the uncertainty regarding the manifestation of the bug !

I have different portable versions of Notepad++, but the one which is concerned is the v8.9 release where I installed, both, your Columns++ and Search++ plugins

Here is my Debug info :

Notepad++ v8.9 (64-bit) Build time: Jan 10 2026 - 02:25:19 Scintilla/Lexilla included: 5.5.8/5.4.6 Boost Regex included: 1_90 pugixml included: 1.15 nlohmann JSON included: 3.12.0 Path: D:\890_x64\Notepad++.exe Command Line: Admin mode: OFF Local Conf mode: ON Cloud Config: OFF Periodic Backup: OFF Placeholders: OFF Scintilla Rendering Mode: SC_TECHNOLOGY_DIRECTWRITE (1) Multi-instance Mode: monoInst asNotepad: OFF File Status Auto-Detection: cdEnabledNew (for current file/tab only) Dark Mode: OFF Display Info: primary monitor: 1920x1080, scaling 125% visible monitors count: 1 installed Display Class adapters: 0001: Description - Intel(R) Iris(R) Xe Graphics 0001: DriverVersion - 32.0.101.7084 OS Name: Windows 11 Pro (64-bit) OS Version: 25H2 OS Build: 26200.7462 Current ANSI codepage: 1252 Plugins: mimeTools (3.1) NppConverter (4.7) NppExport (0.4) ComparePlus (2.2) ColumnsPlusPlus (1.3.1) NppUISpy (1.2) MultiReplace (4.6.0.33) Marginalize (1) Search++ (0.5.5)

Finally, note that this portable version of N++ is installed on an USB drive

Best Regards,

guy038

I had sent a comment before this one which is not yet visible to me.

Just wanted to let you know it seems solved. Other plugins struggled as well so I completely uninstalled npp and started from scratch. Now it works for me as a normal user.

@PeterJones sure.

@guy038 ,

Thank you. Now, I will have to look at your code, but while I was signed out, I had another one of those epiphany things. :-)

Figured it out with the reduced complexity by allowing everything after the this and stopping before the \) with the lookahead, by using this regex:
\Kthis\.\K(.+)(?=\)) By doing this I was able to remove the longer more complex one that only went 3 levels deep, and reducing my or construct by one or level. This is what I can get now:
FLObjectListSuccess2.PNG

I think I have a problem with overthinking things. :-) I was looking for the one you showed up there, and I might still be able to use it, somewhere else, so thanks.

Lee

A new version of MultiReplace (v5.0.0.35) is ready and will be available with the next Notepad++ release. For early testing, it can already be downloaded here.

The focus of this release is on a new Settings Panel, improved Search Results visualization, and overall usability enhancements.

Key Features & Improvements Settings Panel: A comprehensive configuration dialog replaces manual INI file editing. All options are now organized into clear categories: Search & Replace, List View, CSV Options, Export, and Appearance. Refined Toolbar Icon: The icon has been updated to improve clarity. List Search Bar: Press Ctrl+F while focused on the replacement list to open a search bar. Quickly find entries in large lists by searching through the ‘Find’ and ‘Replace’ columns. Search Results Window Enhancements: Color-coded matches (up to 28 colors) for easy visual distinction per list entry. Double-click the Matches count to jump directly to the results. Duplicate Line Detection: Identify and mark duplicate CSV rows. Delete or inspect duplicates with optional bookmark navigation. Binary Escape Sequence: Extended mode now supports \bNNNNNNNN for binary values. tonum() Function: New helper to convert strings to numbers, supporting both dot and comma as decimal separators. MATCH and CAP Variables: Now always return strings. Use tonum(CAP1) for calculations. Selection Mode: The ‘In Selection’ radio button no longer disables itself, enabling smoother repeated searches. Document Filtering for Open Docs: Find and Replace in Open Documents now supports wildcard-based filename filtering. Unified Filter Syntax: Filters now use semicolons (;) as separators in both ‘Open Documents’ and ‘Find in Files’ modes. This enables filtering for filenames containing spaces. Performance: Various optimizations for Replace All, Find All, and FlowTabs alignment on large files.

New Settings Panel with organized categories
17ec400c-8dde-4b03-94ec-c2f2a25bc600-image.png
 
Double-click the Matches count to quickly navigate through results
ba478eec-321e-42f3-ad63-d2c9239eca42-image.png

Enjoy!

I’ve been footling around with my plugin a bit to try and generate a PR automatically when a new version is released. So - is the layout of the json files significant.

Most of the entries look like

\t\t\t{ \t\t\t"folder-name": "Linter++", \t\t\t"display-name": "Linter++", \t\t\t"version": "1.0.3.0", \t\t\t"npp-compatible-versions": "[8.7.5,]", \t\t\t"id": "F56573351010B62BFC75039725496C8687D53E82A3F47074F1F1B629A37A92C1", \t\t\t"repository": "https://github.com/ThosRTanner/notepad-pp-linter/releases/download/1.0.3/plugin_dll_ARM64.zip", \t\t\t"description": "Allows realtime code check against any checkstyle-compatible linter: jshint, eslint, jscs, phpcs, csslint, and many others.", \t\t\t"author": "Tom Tanner", \t\t\t"homepage": "https://github.com/thosrtanner/notepad-pp-linter" \t\t\t},

So I thought i could do my updater in python, just load up the json file, modify my entry, and dump it back, then commit

One entry (just one) uses spaces instead of tabs.

So my question is is there an official layout for these files? Is any valid json permissible (all on one line for instance), or is it expected to be formatted as 1 line per key and indented with tabs?

Would converting those spaces to tabs as part of my PR be frowned upon, or should I just read the file and modify the lines appropriately?

^([A-Z])([a-z]+)\R(?i:\1)\2$

@Bruno-Bonaspetti ,

Have a little patience. You already asked that question yesterday here. This is not paid support that is guaranteed to get a reply in 5 minutes or your money back; this is a Community of fellow users of Notepad++, and as such, any who read here regularly and answer questions do so solely on their free time, and they might not always have time to answer a specific question – especially one that might take more knowledge of a specific sub-tool of Notepad++.

Furthermore, this topic, “Little Dialog-wrapper for PythonScript” is focused on the Dialog Wrapper library for the PythonScript plugin; it briefly mentioned a script that was using that wrapper to help with the user interface, but the translation is not the focus of this discussion.

Your original question was in the right place. This question was not. I will try to give a brief answer in the other topic.

@Ekopalypse thanks for the answer. 🤔 Adding listeners for the BufferActivated event and manually setting the style each time the user switches to a different tab adds a lot of code and possibilities for bugs, for something that the user typically only does once…

Honestly I think I’ll undo the new code and go back to just asking the user to restart Notepad++ after they change the default color set.

@Coises said in [New plugin] Columns++:

@Pete-Run said in [New plugin] Columns++:

So my request would be an option to “Elastically Ignore” lines with no tabs.

Columns++ | Profile… | Do not allow text following the last tab on a line to span columns. should not be checked for the example given.

AhHa, I am not sure that I understand “Do not allow text following the last tab on a line to span columns” but that works niceley, thanks.

I still don’t quite understand your use case. What is it you are trying to do that would be easier if elastic tabstop positions were shown only for selected lines?

I only occasionally use NPP for NPP shortcuts.xml, some Lua, AHK etc. I was brought up on IBM mainframe early Text editors and JCL etc, so I am at home with text editors so am happy to use it for text manipulation, especially when Ms Word macros are lacking.

My main gripe with tabs in textual situations is that they can “mess up/misalign” when copied between applications, hence my desire to sometimes use monospace fonts with spaces rather than tabs and of course in tables a word processor, but many situations do not afford tables.

So, thanks again for your Columns++ and Elastic Tabs which helps keep my text aligned in different scenarios.