"New UI" for NPP here

golemusu

I made a “new UI” for NPP.

Essentially it is english localization file but I renamed a lot of features so that they are easier to understand and correspond more to commonly used namings in other programs. Most changes are in menu item names and under Preferences… menu.

Of course just by changing localization file cannot make miracles and in some places redesigning UI would be better way to increase usability.

Instructions:

rename english_customizable.xml to english_customizable.xml.bak (or anything else that you prefer) which is here: C:\Program Files\Notepad++\localization
download the new english_customizable.xml from link below and put it in that folder.
go to Preferences… localization and choose english_customizable as localization language

Doing this translation file took me 8-16 hours or so. If you like it you are free to donate to

golem@iki.fi

at Paypal.

Author of NPP is also free to use this file (or part of it) in future versions of NPP.

If any questions, my email is same as above, golem@iki.fi

Ps. keep in mind that if you have done any mappings to official names in contextMenu.xml or tabContextMenu.xml they will not work when using this file, unless you modify those mappings.

Link here:
https://nx76363.your-storageshare.de/s/pZnTT458BnrD4eB

PeterJones

@golemusu ,

First off, calling it a “new UI” is a bit of a stretch. Why not call it what it is “alternate English localization”?

So I took a look at some of the renamings you did. IMO, it’s not a help to usability.

As you noted at the end, it messes up the various context menus – which I use frequently.
You tended to remove clarifications in the command names that were necessary to understand what’s actually happening
In some places, like changing Select and Find Next to Find Next (from selection) completely changes the meaning to be incorrect. Your phrasing there implies that you have to have a selection already, whereas the Notepad++ official phrasing actually describes that it selects something (it selects the current word if you don’t have a selection already) and then does the Find Next.
And a lot of the others just seemed like pointless renamings to me
About the only one that I thought was a meaningful improvement was calling the Tools menu Hash …

Of course, that’s my opinion. If you like your rephrasings, that’s great. But don’t be surprised if others disagree.

Finally, just so you know: most people aren’t likely to follow a random link to a random file-sharing site, so you’re not likely to get a lot of people to actually see it. (To others: I followed it in a secure environment, so I wasn’t worried, and it just gave a wrapper around the XML file it claims to be. But it’s, of course, up to you whether to trust me more than the original poster. And best security practice is to not follow such links.)

golemusu

Because non-tech enthusiasts don’t necessarily even understand what localization means but new UI is more understandable. And I clarified in beginning of post that it is localization file.

All new terms here are not necessarily best but for my taste they are better than the original. I find it very important that first word in UI item describes the main operation (Finding).

You seem like somebody who has already used NPP a lot and are used to how things are named now. Best person to give feedback is someone who has never (or barely never) used NPP before. Just compare namings of things in NPP to any other editor, they are much more confusing. And Preferences menu was even more confusing than the menu item names. I really had to think quite a while what the options really mean and how to describe them in best way.

If you know more trustable place where to share it you are free to put it there.

The file is currently in my Nextcloud server from reputable German operator… I have used in only for couple of months but I have the impression that Nextcloud should be even more trustable than Onedrive or Dropbox.

PeterJones

@golemusu said in "New UI" for NPP here:

You seem like somebody who has already used NPP a lot and are used to how things are named now.

Yes. But when I first started using it, the names weren’t confusing to me, either.

Just compare namings of things in NPP to any other editor, they are much more confusing

I don’t notice a substantive difference between the naming in, for instance, Notepad++ vs Visual Studio. Yes, some things have different names. But every application I use has a slightly different set of names, so I’m used to that. If I wanted everything to be identical, I would just use the one app for everything I could.

I find it very important that first word in UI item describes the main operation (Finding).

That might be the “main” concept in the “Select and Find Next”. But your naming gives the wrong impression of what the command does, because the order of events is “select the current word, or use the current selection if there’s already a selection” and then “find”, whereas yours, as I said, would indicate to your new user that you were supposed to make a selection before using that command.

But that said, my description is all my personal preference; I don’t expect that everyone will agree with me; I was just pointing out some places where I disagree with you. If you like your localization, great; if others want to use yours, great.

If you know more trustable place where to share it you are free to put it there.

I’m not going to put it there, or anywhere. But in general, making a single file a gist on GitHub or similarly universal location, where people know that it just shows you things and doesn’t auto-download, is a much better idea than some random file server (where who knows what kind of file might be downloaded just by clicking that gobbledygook name) or even a onedrive or dropbox (where who knows what kind of file will be downloaded from the gobbledygook name).

I have the impression that Nextcloud should be even more trustable than Onedrive or Dropbox

Maybe it should, maybe it shouldn’t. But my advice to people is to not trust any such link unless you already have working experience with a site. For example, knowing how GitHub works, I would trust a link to github.com or gist.github.com (unless the link has the /download/ in it), because I know that will only show a safe wrapper page for an open-source file… whereas something with the /download/ in the URL, or from githubusercontent.com, I would be wary of following the link, because that gives you direct access to the raw file, without the GitHub wrapper.

golemusu

@PeterJones

If you have compare plugin installed you can use it, compare english.xml with english_customizable.xml I provided and you’ll see all differences. Anyway below is explanation of couple of them (ones that you didn’t mention).

Ps. you probably know this but you can make context menu and tab context menu work in both localizations by referring to items by their IDs instead of their names. IDs can be found with NPPUISpy plugin or by reading english.xml localization file.

renamed “Window” menu as Tabs as to my observations items inside are tabs, not windows.
“containing folder”. I have not heard this term used anywhere else than NPP. Most common name for showing file folder in explorer is “Show In Explorer”, sometimes also “Open in Explorer”. IMO in this context “current folder” is more intuitive.
“close multiple documents” --> “close multiple tabs”. How often people use NPP to edit “documents” ? For me I edit mainly script or programming source code, txt, ini, xml files, etc… Document gives completely wrong impression (in my opinion) so tab is a better term.
“edit - insert”–>“edit - insert date, time”. If you use the program seldom you will not remember what sort of insert options there are inside so better to have more descriptive menu item name.
“Convert case to”–>“Case”, “Line Operations”–>“Line”, “EOL Conversion”–>“EOL”, unneeded words cluttering UI
“Auto-Completion”–>“Auto-Complete”, latter is de-facto term used for this feature
“View - View current file in”–>“View - Open with”, Open with is more common way to describe this feature
“Encoding - Character Set”–>“Encoding - Non-English Encoding”. Character set is pretty ambigous name but this submenu contains only encoding related to non-english languages so I thought this name would be more descriptive.
“Language - User Defined Language”–>“Language - UDL Settings”. IMO things related to UDL were maybe most confusing and illogical part of NPP UI. So I did a lot of changes there.
“Reload from Disk”–>“Reload”. Usually it is called just Reload or Refresh
“Open in default viewer”–>“Open in default program”
“Folder as Workspace”–>“Workspace - Panel”
“Synchronize Horizontal Scrolling”–>“Sync Horizontal”
“Focus on Another View”–>“Focus on Other View”
“Open User Defined Language folder…”–>“Open userDefineLangs Folder…”
“Notepad++ Online User Manual”–>“USER MANUAL”
“Run…”–>“Open External Program…”
“Close - Close All BUT This”–>“Close - Other Tabs”
Close - Close All to the Left"–>“Close - Left”
“Find in Files”–>“Search in Multiple Files”. This was especially confusing. I had no idea what Find in Files would mean but Search in Multiple Files is pretty self explanatory.