Why my notepad++ become like this?

Lycan Thrope

@hoi ,
Most likely because you’ve changed some color settings somewhere in the Preferences DarkMode settings or more likely you’ve changed settings in the Style Configurator settings, I’d guess the selected text color is set to red and you’ve got a dark background. We don’t know what you did, but that isn’t among any of the standard Style Configurator Theme selections, so either you downloaded one, or made changes you didn’t know you were making.

Mark Olson

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).

Dave Evans

In this forum and on Reddit (and maybe other platforms) I’ve seen many posts saying that the rendering of their files changed. And the color red is mentioned often.

Well, Notepad++ just automatically updated itself (maybe I should turn that feature off, I didn’t realize that a new version could be so dramatic).

And now my file (a .py file, for what it’s worth) is mostly in read. And I’m an old guy and have weak eyes - coincidentally I just had first of 2 cataract surgeries so my eyes even weaker than usual).

I think it’d be nice if there were a layering of options, and I’d like a layer that is very stable and that allows me to say that I liked very much TECO on a VT100.

The more time I spend with Notepad++ the more I like it … but this just isn’t a good time in my life to go running down rabbit holes. Let’s face it, you can’t fight the Microsoft Visual blah blah lovers, they want real IDEs. Notepad++ is first and foremost an editor and it can easily be world-class in that space.

My 2 p. Dave Evans

PeterJones

@Dave-Evans said in Why my notepad++ become like this?:

In this forum and on Reddit (and maybe other platforms) I’ve seen many posts saying that the rendering of their files changed. And the color red is mentioned often.

Not sure what posts you are talking about. Trying to interpret JSON5 is the only situation I can think of that consistently gives red for users, except when they’ve done something wrong.

Well, Notepad++ just automatically updated itself (maybe I should turn that feature off, I didn’t realize that a new version could be so dramatic).

Quite honestly, more people complain that the new highlighting (like when N++ enables new languages) doesn’t show up, because Notepad++ does not overwrite old stylers/themes/langs config files. So unless you deleted your old config before updating, it’s much more likely that nothing in the Style Configurator changed on you.

And now my file (a .py file, for what it’s worth) is mostly in read.

What theme are you using (Settings > Style Configurator > Select Theme: <theme name here>)? And what’s in your ?-menu’s Debug Info.

Please click the </> button and paste in the python code that doesn’t highlight right for you, because I’ve never seen python “in mostly red” or anything close. And also provide a screenshot in your most recent version showing it being “in mostly red”, so that we can try to replicate your exact circumstances.

And really nice would be if you could download a portable Notepad++ for the old version you had before the update, and then show a screenshot of the exact same code looking right under the old version, so we can compare that to the new version (and try to replicate the difference ourselves); if you cannot do this part, I understand (especially if you’ve forgotten what version number your old version was before you upgraded), but it would go a long way to help us replicate your problem if you were able to do this.

For example, here’s a screenshot showing in v8.8.1 (the most recent), that it’s highlighting python reasonably, not “in mostly red”, which is why I am doubtful that it’s solely the fault of the Notepad++ update:

I think it’d be nice if there were a layering of options, and I’d like a layer that is very stable and that allows me to say that I liked very much TECO on a VT100.

Notepad++ installer/updater refuses to overwrite your themes/stylers/langs under normal circumstances, to avoid accidentally overwriting your cutomized colors, so it’s highly stable for the vast majority of users.

None of the <1% of users who has ever complained about Notepad++ overwriting their themes/stylers/langs has ever given enough information for anyone to be able to repeat the circumstance in which it was overwritten (and I would love for you to be the first to break that streak). (Some of the regulars have speculated it has to do with running Notepad++ As Admin when you run ? > Update Notpead++, which somehow corrupts the user’s AppData settings or something, but there has never been a repeatable procedure which can replicate the complaint.)