PythonScript to process -pluginMessage="..." command-line option

[PeterJones]

Inspired by the request for running a S&R or Macro from the command line in “Running Notepad++ from a bat file”, I started working on a proof-of-concept script to at least find the bare minimum Script to extract the string from the message or initial command line

The following is a script for PythonScript 3 (uses Python 3 syntax), though I am sure it could be translated to PythonScript2 if needed.

pluginNotification26689.py:

# encoding=utf-8
"""in response to https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/topic/26689/

Example processing of NPPN_CMDLINEPLUGINMSG notification
"""
from Npp import notepad, console, NOTIFICATION
import ctypes
import sys

def usePluginMessageString(s):
    console.write(f"TODO: do something more interesting with -pluginMessage=\"{s}\"\n")

def getStringFromNotification(args):
    code = args['code'] if 'code' in args else None
    idFrom = args['idFrom'] if 'idFrom' in args else None
    hwndFrom = args['hwndFrom'] if 'hwndFrom' in args else None
    #console.write(f"notification(code:{code}, idFrom:{idFrom}, hwndFrom:{hwndFrom}) received\n")
    if idFrom is None: return
    s = ctypes.wstring_at(idFrom)
    #console.write(f"\tAdditional Info: str=\"{s}\"\n")
    usePluginMessageString(s)

def getStringFromCommandLine():
    for token in sys.argv:
        if len(token)>15 and token[0:15]=="-pluginMessage=":
            s = token[15:]
            #console.write(f"TODO: process {token} => \"{s}\"\n")
            usePluginMessageString(s)

notepad.callback(getStringFromNotification, [NOTIFICATION.CMDLINEPLUGINMSG])
console.write("Registered getStringFromNotification callback for CMDLINEPLUGINMSG\n")
getStringFromCommandLine()

This can be run ATSTARTUP in user startup.py using

######################
# process -pluginMessage="" from the command-line
import pluginNotification26689
######################

when it’s first run, it checks the existing command-line (because Notepad++ does not forward the NPPN_CMDLINEPLUGINMSG to plugins if the initial run has the command-line argument, but only if the command-line is run while N++ is already open)

The one shortcoming I’ve seen is that N++ apparently only forwards the message if there’s a filename specified on the command line… if it’s just notepad++ -pluginMessage="message string", the notification never gets sent. If someone else can confirm that, I might put in a feature request to have that message be sent even if there isn’t a filename specified. If the behavior is different for you, or you know another way to trigger that message notification if no filename is sent, let me know.