Opened files VS Open files

PeterJones

From a native US English speaker, both are natural to me. And using the more-obviously adjective form “opened” helps distinguish it from the verb form “open”, so “open file” means “perform the action of opening the file”, whereas “opened file” is “a file that has already been opened”.

And “Files” vs “Documents” doesn’t bother me either way.

Terry R

@conky77
As you say, english is not your mother tongue, it is mine. I have no issue with the current format of the examples, although using “open” does not seem less “natural” either. English is apparently one of the hardest languages to learn, probably because of situations like you show. A quick check of these messages at Grammarly does not show any errors either.

“Opened” is a past form of the word “open”. But in saying “past”, how far “past”, current session, last day, or for the life of the current installation of Notepad++? “Open” is “present” tense, meaning right now, as we click on a button to do something. So in respect of the messages which contains the word “open”, I think it could be considered more accurate. However as most english speakers would tell you having used Notepad++, they understand the meaning of the message and know it refers to tabs currently open. Be aware that I said tabs here, not open(ed) files. As some of the tabs may not have been saved as named files, they ONLY exist in the context of Notepad++ and it’s backup settings.

What is more interesting is that although you refer to english not being your natural language you refer to the messages in Notepad++ in english. Do you actually run Notepad++ in english or your own language? If you use Notepad++ in your own language is it that the translation isn’t quite right for you?

When it comes to the choice between “file” and “document” I’m definitely on the “file” side. File is a more generic term and I think is more suited to the tasks that Notepad++ does. I believe a document refers more to files that contain sentences. They previously referred to “legal” content, although not necessarily so these days. Notepad++ can deal with lots of styles of source code, I would never call these types of files “documents”.

I see @PeterJones has also given his interpretation, and that is what the English language affords users, and probably what gives rise to so many slightly different meanings imparted. Even on this forum we get asked questions which can be interpreted more than one way. Sometimes I’ve had to go back to the original post to re-read as what I thought it meant can be interpreted differently.

Terry

Alan Kilborn

@terry-r said in Opened files VS Open files:

When it comes to the choice between “file” and “document”

I tend to prefer “document” when talking about the part that Notepad++ and the user work with. Also this is common to discuss as a “tab”. “File” to me has more of a storage/disk connotation.

As to open/opened, that has been covered, and I agree with Peter & Terry about it.

Lycan Thrope

@terry-r
You’re correct about English being the hardest language to learn. Although we have, in written form, strict rules about how to write in our language, though few of us actually do like in the old days, the spoken word is even harder because no other language allows the ambiguity that ours does. We have words, historically that can have several meanings and usage, not to mention the current lingua franca of words that change meaning socially. That’s why it’s so hard for non-English speakers to relay to us in a way we can understand, or have the ability to look at it a different way to explain it. In other languages, the there is specific rules of tense and gender and construction that drives us crazy trying to learn because it constricts out way of thinking and speaking.

I used to pride myself on the ability to pronounce most language words as though I spoke it, until I ran into Polish. Mother in law used to cuss me out in it, until I took a course in it. That’s when I found that the pronunciations of the letters weren’t what we would have pronounced them as, the biggest one being L being prounounced like a W. After that, I was able to even pronounce Polish words too. :-). My mother in law stopped cussing me out in Polish after that, so I’ve lost most interest in understanding it since then. :-)

Lee

Lycan Thrope

@lycan-thrope
Forgot for minute, but yeah, L is W and W is V, which was why it always was wrong when I did it. :-)

Robert Carnegie

I don’t know definitely if the choice of “opened” represents an thedifference in how Notepad++ software works. So my answer will not be very useful.

Technically, any “file” is a sequence of data bytes stored in one of the “filesystems” with a “file name”. Just one byte after another, filling a given length. Even more technically, you can have a file with no bytes.

A “document” is data intended to be read by a human being. This may involve one or more data files. For instance, a web page can easily include words in a text file, and pictures which are separate image files.

Now, software written to edit data, which Notepad++ is, can use a file by “opening” the file through a “file handle” and reading, copying, some or all of the data bytes in the file. Then the program can “close” the file and keep the data, or it can continue to hold the “file handle” while you are using the data. This means that the program “owns” the file until you decide to close it.

In this case, a file which is open is an “open file”, and a file which was opened, then closed as a file, but its data is still present in Notepad++, may be called an “opened file”.

There is not much difference practically, because you can save the file data anyway, but if the actual file is not “open”, then the software must open the file again to save data into it from the copy on the screen.

I haven’t looked for controls on this, but it is an actual difference between Notepad++ and the standard Microsoft Windows Notepad program. Specifically, I just created a folder “npp1” containing “Hello.txt”, then opened “Hello.txt” in Notepad, Then I changed the folder’s name to “npp2” - but Windows told me I cannot do that, because the file “Hello.txt” is open.

Performing this with Notepad++ instead, I am allowed to change the name of “npp1” to “npp2” while Notepad++ is displaying “Hello.txt”. But Notepad++ then asks me why I did that. :-)

Still, it appears that Notepad++ reads the data from a file, then Notepad++ releases the file to be used in other ways.

Alan Kilborn

@robert-carnegie said in Opened files VS Open files:

Still, it appears that Notepad++ reads the data from a file, then Notepad++ releases the file to be used in other ways.

Yes, this is a long-known “convenience” feature of Notepad++.
Sometimes the other behavior (holding the lock) is desired, but I don’t believe Notepad++ supports it.

Derek Brown

They mean the same thing in this context and they are both grammatically correct. “Opened files” uses the verb form of “open” in the past participle, “open files” uses the adjective form of “open”.

Carol Lawrence

If the “opened” option is chosen, Notepad++ may or may not behave in a different way. So, your answer will be of little use.

There are two types of files: ones that are “files,” which are a group of data bytes that are stored in a “filesystem,” and ones that are “file names.” Fill the length you want with one byte after another. Technically, a file could have no bytes at all.

There are different types of documents, and each one is meant to be read by a person. People who work with data files may be a part of this. For example, there are a lot of ways to add text and images to a web page, for example.

If you want to edit data, you can now open a file with a “file handle,” read or copy some or all of its data bytes, and then close the file. This is an option for applications like Notepad++, which uses a “file handle.” This means the application can either “close” the file and delete its contents, or it can keep the “file handle” open so that you can work with what’s inside the file. You can’t close the file until you do.

When you open a file in Notepad++, it’s called a “open file.” When you close a file, it’s called a “opened file.”

Because both ways allow you to save the file data, there isn’t really much of a difference in terms of how you can do this. The real file must be “open” in order for you to save data from your screen copy into it.

If you compare Notepad++ to the default Windows Notepad, you’ll see a big difference in how it works. When I tried to change the folder’s name to “npp2,” Windows told me that “Hello.txt” was still open in Notepad, so I couldn’t do that.

However, I can change the name of npp1 to “npp2.” Even though “Hello,” a text file, is now in Notepad++, I can do this. Notepad++ asks why I do this, though.

However, it seems that after reading data from a file, Notepad++ frees the file for other people to use. This is not true.

Catrin Brooks

Because they both indicate the same thing and are grammatically correct in this context, they are interchangeable. The phrase “opened files” has the past participle form of the verb “opened,” but the phrase “opened files” contains the adjective “opened.”