Hi, @coises and All,

Regarding selection, I’m thinking about these new options in the Settings dialog :

- Selections ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- □ Fill the Find box from single selection in current document when opening the search++ dialog □ Fill the Find box from single selection in current document when re-activating the search++ dialog □ Fill the Find box from single selection in current document when clicking on the search++ dialog title □ Only if the selection has no more than : 79 characters and 2 lines □ Fill with the word containing the caret if nothing is selected

And, by default, the first and two last options would be checked

Do you think that make sense ? May be, would you preder to merge the first 3 options in this single one :

□ Fill the Find box from single selection in current document each time the search++ dialog is invoked

Now, I tested the multi-lines text, below, pasted in a new tab :

Bla blah This is a test to verify if everything works correctly foo bar

Then, the search of the 5 consecutive lines, below

This is a test to verify if everything works correctly

Would select the 5 lines above, with search in Plain mode

Now, the search of the 5 consecutive lines, below

This is a test to verify if everything works correctly

OR

SEARCH This is\Ra test\Rto verify\Rif everything\Rworks correctly\R

OR

SEARCH This is\r\na test\r\nto verify\r\nif everything\r\nworks correctly\r\n

Would select the 5 lines above, with search in Regex or ICU mode

Now using this regex :

(?x) This[ ]is \R | a[ ]test \R | to[ ]verify \R | if[ ]everything \R | works[ ]correctly \R

It would match each entire line, from 2 to 6, of the new tab, with search in Regex mode

And using this regex :

(?x) This\ is \R | a\ test \R | to\ verify \R | if\ everything \R | works\ correctly \R

It would match each entire line, from 2 to 6, of the new tab, with search in Regex or in ICU mode.

Seemingly, brackets to enclose the space character [ ] do not work with the ICU regex engine, when using the Free-Spacing mode !?

So all is fine, so far !!

BR

guy038

@PeterJones

Thank you many times!

Hi, @jak and All,

Refer to this post :

https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/post/105114

BR

guy038

@Claudia-Svenson said in How to set "UTF-8 WITH BOM" as default Encoding even for old but changed textfiles?:

This would be a great convenient enhancement feature.

Natively, there is no such feature (and it’s not likely to happen, IMO).

Using a plugin, it’s doable. For now, it requires using a not-yet-released version of the EditorConfig plugin, but they are supposedly eventually going to release a new version with all the features/fixes from the last 6 years.

EditorConfig plugin should be able to handle the charset attribute. But the version available in Plugins Admin is still 6 years old, and does not include that attribute. They merged the PR that implemented charset in 2023, but have not done a release since v0.4.0.0 in 2019. (In October 2025, they put in an Issue to encourage themselves to do a release, but there’s still apparently a showstopper preventing them from moving forward.)

I just forked their repo, and did a build based on their most recent codebase; I call that “0.4.0.1”, so that there’s something to distinguish it from the official version. For a couple of months from 2026-Mar-30, GitHub should have some artifacts of my v0.4.0.1 build.

Exit Notepad++ Go to https://github.com/pryrt/npp-editorconfig-plugin/actions/runs/23767310769#artifacts and download the right artifact for your machine (most likely the one ending in --x64). Unzip, and copy the DLL to c:\Program Files\Notepad++\Plugins\NppEditorConfig\NppEditorConfig.dll create .editorconfig file at the top of your document structure (like c:\users\username\.editorconfig), populate it with:root = true [*.bat] charset = utf-8 [*.py] charset = utf-8 [*.txt] charset = utf-8-bom [*.ps1] charset = utf-8-bom The next time you save a file with one of those extensions (as long as it’s in the same folder as the .editorconfig file, or a subdirectory of that folder), it will use the charset indicated when you save the file in Notepad++

(GitHub will remove those artifacts sometime in the next few months. If EditorConfig hasn’t done an official release since then, and the files are gone, feel free to ping me here, and I can trigger a new build to GitHub)

@mapsonx said in Toolbar button names:

Settings > Preferences > Backup > ☑ Enable session snapshot and periodic backup

That setting kinda represents the journey of discovery for me, who, is certainly a novice, and has been reminded regularly of my level of ignorance when it comes to an impressive tool like Notepad++. Obviously, the way manifested itself didn’t make sense to me, never seeing that effect before elsewhere.

That setting has nothing to do with toolbar buttons. If you just brought this up as an example of things that you didn’t understand but are learning the utility of, fine.

If you think that this affected your toolbar buttons in any way, shape, or form, you will need to explain what you think changed, and prove to yourself that it does change it by doing screenshots before and after toggling that option (and paste them here if you think it does prove your point).

since some other text editors do have such a feature.

What text editors do you think have this feature that you want? What setting in that other text editor do you change to get things to go from “normal” to “what you want”? If you give us that, (including “before” and “after” screenshots) we might be able to figure out what feature it is you really want, and be able to better answer you as to whether or not it can be done in Notepad++.

(I mentioned screenshots a couple of times. If you use Alt+PrintScreen or the modern Win11 Snipping Tool equivalent, you can just paste the image directly into your reply here, making it simply a matter of Ctrl+V to embed the image. But screenshots showing what it is you want would be really helpful for us to understand you.)

@W-Pong said in Columns++, I'd like to *retain* commas when converting to elastic tabs/spaces:

Is there a way to retain the commas?

I made a new release of Columns++ with an option to do that — an additional checkbox in the Conversion settings dialog: Keep separator character when converting to tabbed.

The new release is Columns++ version 1.3.2.

I have not marked the release stable, but I believe that there is very little chance this change will have any unanticipated negative effects. It should be safe to install.

@PeterJones said in Make notrepad++ default:

It seems a mixed bag: wanting it as system default, associated with lots of file types, and using the Shell Extension, but not wanting to “install” it. It might help us give you better advice if you explain what parts of the “install” that you are opposed to. Is it just storing the settings in %AppData% that you don’t like? Or is there something else? The installer can install into any directory, not just Program Files; the installer can choose to not use %AppData% (as long as it’s not installed in Program Files); the installer automatically registers the Shell Extension for you.

Thanks for all the patience and instruction. I studied those data transfer tutorials, and I “think” I got it right. A little complicated because in Portableapps, in some cases there are up to three iterations of the same file in separate locations. So far, it looks and behaves like the Portableapps.

Is it just storing the settings in %AppData% that you don’t like?

I know the best way to do things is the install. I like to keep things simple. I have very limited space on my OS partition, so I like to keep things as simple as I can by going portable whenever possible, and locating elsewhere. It also makes things easier if you must do an image restore.

That said, considering what you have advised, I think I will do the install. and avoid storing the settings in %AppData%.

After the installation now that I have the working portable version. can I move it to the install directory, mindful of the fact that there will be files in that directory that must retained? Or is it not that simple?

Joe 0:
check these links:
https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/old-releases

@Yan-Serenade

https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/issues/16719#issuecomment-4132203721

Update: @Ertan-Küçükoglu didn’t post the link here, but had made https://github.com/ScintillaOrg/lexilla/issues/321 to request this feature from Lexilla. Lexilla just merged a PR to add SCE_PAS_MULTILINESTRING styleID=15. Since Lexilla v5.4.8 was just released last week, it’s likely going to be a few weeks to a couple months before v5.4.9 is released to include that feature. But once it is, and once Notepad++ imports the updated Lexilla, then that new style can be added to the Pascal/Delphi definitions in stylers/themes. So hopefully, this will be added to Notepad++ within the next few months.

(Keep an eye on Notepad++'s Issue #16807 to see when it gets added to the codebase; whatever release happens after that Issue is closed will be the first Notepad++ release to incude the multi-line string highlighting.)

@PeterJones

Thanks for your reply. I will give your solution a try as a Macro learning experience. Maybe I’ll find other uses for it.

But, I just came up with a different solution:

I like Notepad++ so far, so I used the preferences to set Notepad++ as the default for a small number of file types I use occasionally. I renamed the extension of the file I use as my daily journal/log from .txt to my initials .th. I used the file properties to open that file with Windows Notepad.

It’s working well for me. I can use my journal/log with Windows Notepad, and everything else uses Notepad++.

@dfs ,
We could go a step further and lament that it would be nice if the entire graphical environment of NP++ could be contained in one dialog setting, and then when we switched between Light or Dark, the environment would change all the UI references:

Settings->Preferences...->Dark Mode,
Settings->Style Configurator...->Style:, and the
Settings->Style Configurator...->Select theme:

…could be coordinated to make just switching between Dark Mode and Light Mode change them all, accordingly. As it is, I’m glad to have just found out that the Dark and Light language files can automatically change by setting that one switch in the dark mode file @PeterJones mentioned, and that automatically chooses the correct code coloring file for the environment (Dark/Light) chosen.