Notepad++ opening outside of screen

Andrej Uduč

I’m using notepad++ on a laptop with a 4k screen to which I sometimes (but not always) attach eGPU and via it a 2K external monitor.
Anyway, it seems notepad++ remembered some weird off-screen window position. When I open it (windows 10 search bar), it appears in the task bar and if I’m clicking the icon there, a partial animation of the window passes my 4k screen (which is at the moment secondary screen).
Right clicking on the taskbar icon doesn’t really help as I don’t have an option to maximize or do something with the program.

I’ll try reinstalling it to get back some defaults, but it seems a screen resolution check in the code is needed so the program always opens inside the visible area.

dinkumoil

@Andrej-Uduč

To improve your chances to get a solution for this issue you should file an issue in the Notepad++ issue tracker. Read this to learn how to do that. Since it is unlikely that you will get a solution in the near future I’ll give you a workaround.

In Windows all windows usually have a so called system menu. You can open it by

a) clicking on the icon at the left side of the window title bar
b) activating the window by clicking on it or its taskbar icon and pressing ALT+Space.
c) Move the mouse cursor over the window’s taskbar icon and wait until the small preview of the window is shown, then right-click on it. The system menu pops up at your mouse cursor position.

After the system menu has been shown you can operate it with your mouse (in case you used method c) to open it) or use keyboard shortcuts to select its menu items. But these shortcuts are language dependent. The image below shows the system menu of an Explorer window on Windows with english locale.

Please note the underlined characters of every menu item, these are the keyboard shortcuts. You have to figure out the keyboard shortcuts for Restore and Move in your language.

To move the Notepad++ window back into sight proceed the following steps (of course you can not see the window, thus you have to act blindly):

Activate the Notepad++ window by clicking on its taskbar icon. If you see the animation you already mentioned you minimized the window. In this case click the icon once more to open the window again.
Press ALT+Space to open the system menu.
Press the keyboard shortcut for Restore. This is necessary to exit fullscreen mode the window maybe is in.
Press ALT+Space to open the system menu again.
Press the keyboard shortcut for Move. Now you can use the arrow keys to move the window into sight or you can left-click with your mouse, hold the mouse button pressed and move the mouse into the appropriate direction.
If the Notepad++ window is visible again press ESC to exit moving mode.

Alan Kilborn

@dinkumoil

Nice explanation. I’ve been using that method for years (not necessarily with Notepad++) and haven’t thought about how many possibilities there are. Or how much it might take to describe it all.

Maybe I would adjust your steps 3 and 4 a little, like this:

If the Restore operation is enabled on the system menu now showing, press the keyboard shortcut for Restore. This is necessary to exit fullscreen mode the window is in.
If you had to execute the Restore in step 3, that action closed the system menu, so press ALT+Space to open the system menu again.

dinkumoil

@Alan-Kilborn

The problem is that the window is invisible, thus if one chooses method b) to open the system menu he will not see it. So he can not see whether the window is in fullscreen mode respectively whether the Restore operation is enabled. But it is totally valid to press its keyboard shortcut though.

If one chooses method c) to open the system menu he can see it and he obviously can use his mouse, I don’t think that it has to be mentioned explicitly, this is a question of basic intelligence.

Alan Kilborn

@dinkumoil

Ah, I was working from the assumption that no sane person would actually choose option ( a ) or ( b ) to solve the off-screen problem, because ( a ) is impossible if it isn’t on-screen and ( b ) has the problem of working-without-seeing that you mentioned. That leaves ( c ) as the only reasonable choice, and via ( c ) one will be able to see if Restore is enabled or not. Of course with ( c ) as you point out you have mouse options as well as keyboard, so maybe my suggested mods suck because they aren’t complete. :)

Jim Langerhuizen

@dinkumoil Thank you very much!
It was so enoying.
Very simple solution, but I could never have figured it out myself.

Jared Schmidt

just wanna say thanks; this fixed the issue for me and I was searching for a solution for a long time, thank you so much!