How to set Notepad++ to display all opened files as NORMAL TEXT without coloring?

PiotrMP006

Hi

Alan Kilborn

Well, what I’m about to present doesn’t open non-“normal text” files as “normal text”, but it will show a technique for removing “coloring” (aka lexing) from all file/language types. Also, it assumes you are using non-Dark mode and want black lettering on a white background (i.e., fully assumes you are using the default theme).

Make a copy of your stylers.xml, perhaps call it stylers-01.xml
Open stylers-01.xml in Notepad++
Do a Replace All operation with this setup: Find what: (?-si:<LexerStyles>|(?!\A)\G)(?s-i:(?!</LexerStyles>).)*?\K(?-si:fgColor=".{6}" bgColor=".{6}") / Replace with: fgColor="000000" bgColor="FFFFFF" / checkmark only: Match case, Wrap around, Regular expression
Save
Exit Notepad++
Rename your stylers.xml, perhaps call it stylers-02.xml
Rename stylers-01.xml to stylers.xml
Start Notepad++

Note: if something gets screwed up, you still have your original file in stylers-02.xml.

Probably there are easier ways to achieve the goal, but I thought this way was kind of a “fun” way. :-)

guy038

Hello, @piotrMP006, @alan_kilborn and All,

Alan, your regex does change some colors in the Search Result language. I suppose that this fact is not desired by the OP ! So, this modified regex S/R should work :

SEARCH (?-si:<LexerStyles>|(?!\A)\G)(?s-i:(?!<LexerType name="searchResult").)*?\K(?-si:fgColor=".{6}" bgColor=".{6}")
REPLACE fgColor="000000" bgColor="FFFFFF"

This version does not take in account any line of the Search result language

However note that, whatever the language, it takes lines in comments in account, as well as your version !

With the Stylers.model, of the pre-release v8.6.5 - 64 bits, I got 1,297 replacements

After enumeration, we may notice that the lines, that need to be changed, have all a name attribut with :

An uppercase letter or a # symbol, as first character
An uppercase letter, a digit, a space or a dash char, as second character

Thus, an other solution is, simply, the following S/R :

SEARCH (?-is)^\h+<WordsStyle name="[\u#][\u\d -].+?".+\KfgColor=".{6}" bgColor=".{6}"
REPLACE fgColor="000000" bgColor="FFFFFF"

This solution :

Does not consider the lines in comments
But it misses the line below, in the Postscript language :

            <WordsStyle name="Name" styleID="5" fgColor="000000" bgColor="FFFFFF" fontName="" fontStyle="0" fontSize="" />

Just because the attribut Name has a value where the second character is the lowercase letter a ! Luckily, the values of its fg and bg attributes are, already, the default ones desired

With the Stylers.model, of the pre-release v8.6.5 - 64 bits, I got 1,292 replacements

Best Regards,

guy038

Coises

I’m not very familiar with the scripting plugins, but I think this would be easily done using PythonScript with something like:

def setLanguage(args):
    notepad.setLangType(LANGTYPE.TXT, args["bufferID"])

notepad.callback(setLanguage, [NOTIFICATION.FILEOPENED])

That way you could still set the language manually, but all newly opened files would default to plain text.

Hopefully someone more familiar than I with Python and the scripting plugin will say whether this is the right way to do it and can guide you to the least painful way to get it set up. I believe there is a simple way to put it where it will take effect every time you start Notepad++.

Ekopalypse

@Coises said in How to set Notepad++ to display all opened files as NORMAL TEXT without coloring?:

I believe there is a simple way to put it where it will take effect every time you start Notepad++

@PiotrMP006

That would mean creating a file called startup.py and
do NOT use the file that comes with the plugin itself. Create your own file. It will be created in a different path and, unlike the supplied file, will survive a possible plugin update.

Alan Kilborn

To put together @Coises and @Ekopalypse replies…

Select New script from the Plugins > Python Script menu
When prompted, type startup.py for the name of the script
Copy and Paste @Coises 's script into the editor, and Save
Select Configuration from the Plugins > Python Script menu, and change the box with LAZY in it to ATSTARTUP
Restart Notepad++

The new user-startup file will be visible in the menu system here (but NEVER needs to be executed via the menus, it will run automatically when N++ starts up the PS plugin):

The screenshot is meant to hammer home the point @Ekopalypse was making about there potentially being some confusion about 2 startup files (with identical names in the file system – in the PS menus they are different though).

Alan Kilborn

@Coises said :

I’m not very familiar with the scripting plugins, but I think this would be easily done using PythonScript with something like… all newly opened files would default to plain text.

It’s a reasonable solution, although OP talked only about neutering “colors”. Setting a file to normal-text will also eliminate stuff like “folding” (for languages/extensions that have that) which the OP did not mention wanting to exclude – but it is probably reasonable to conclude that they don’t care about such things.

Coises

@Alan-Kilborn said in How to set Notepad++ to display all opened files as NORMAL TEXT without coloring?:

It’s a reasonable solution, although OP talked only about neutering “colors”.

@PiotrMP006:

If that’s all that’s wanted, won’t making the desired settings at:

Settings | Style Configurator | Global Styles | Global override

do it? Just check the Enable global … boxes for everything you want to keep constant, and then set the Colour Style and Font Style as desired.

Alan Kilborn

@Coises said in How to set Notepad++ to display all opened files as NORMAL TEXT without coloring?:

Just check the Enable global

It may be the best suggestion yet, owing to its simplicity.
Only the OP knows for sure what they want; if they don’t return to comment, we won’t know.