Save as type "All types" as default?

Kjell Rilbe

Since a few months it seems like Notepad++ tends to revert to “Normal text file” as default/preselected file type for a new file. I have always had it set to “All types”.

Has this been changed recently?

Is there a setting to control this? I would like either of:

Preferred: A setting that lets me specify “All types” as the preselected file type for new files, always.
As an acceptable alternative: My last choice for a new file is remembered and preselected for every new file until I choose something else.

If it has changes recently I would like that change to be reverted, because I have never had this problem before during the 10+ years I’ve been using Notepad++ on a daily basis.

PeterJones

@Kjell-Rilbe ,

My experience seems different than yours, because as long as I can remember in my 16 years of Notepad++ use, the default setting for Settings > Preferences > New Document > Default Language has been “None (Normal Text)”, and the default in SaveAs dialog has been “Normal text file (*.txt)”

preferences
save as

It has not been changed recently.

To be more accurate on the Save As dialog: the default follows the Language selection for the current file. So if you’ve changed the current file’s Language to something other than None (Normal Text), then it will present that file’s type in the Save As dialog.

So if you happened to have a default Language that didn’t have an entry in your copy of langs.xml (ie, your langs.xml was out-of-date), and you had that Language set in your preferences as the Default Language, then it wouldn’t have had an entry in the Save As dialog to show and would have defaulted to “All Types”. But that seems unlikely for 10+ years of use.

However, I did just run the experiment: if I edit langs.xml and change <Language name="normal" ext="txt" /> to <Language name="normal" ext="" /> then restart Notepad++, if I create a new file then Save As, it will default to “All Types” in the Save As dialog. So my best bet is that a decade ago, you ran across that (intentionally or accidentally), and got used to that behavior, and then at some point recently, your langs.xml got recreated from scratch, so it went back to the normal Notepad++ behavior. This has the drawback that it makes “Normal text file (*.txt)” not show up in the Save As filetype list… That’s not horrible, because if you want a file named something.txt, all you have to do is type something.txt while “All Types” (or any other filetype) is showing, and it will save it as something.txt and when Notepad++ opens a .txt, it will still open as normal text.

Alan Kilborn

@Kjell-Rilbe

What version of N++ are you currently using?

mpheath

@Kjell-Rilbe From a casual observation.

Important to note: The Save As dialog has a checkbox named Append extension.

If Append extension checkbox is checked, then the filter combobox named Save as type will auto-select the filetype to match the existing file type or language. So if Save as type is Normal text file (*.txt), then it is known for Notepad++ to append .txt to the File name in edit control on save.

If Append extension checkbox is unchecked, then the filter combobox named Save as type will auto-select All types (*.*) as the state of appending a file extension is undetermined so that the user needs to type into the whole file name including file extension to save as a file type.

Perhaps for the 10+ years mentioned the checkbox Append extension has been unchecked for your Notepad++ configuration. One day it changed and the usual routine afterwards was disrupted.

Just viewed config.xml with changing the checkbox state and closing Notepad++. The state is remembered for the next Notepad++ instance:

<GUIConfig name="MISC" ... saveDlgExtFilterToAllTypes="yes" ... />

The value can toggle with value yes and no. There should be no need to change this value manually if a Gui method is available … ( Append extension ).

The Preferences dialog shows no mention that I could see to influence the state of the Save as type combobox and so I consider the Append extension is the main point of change.

The suggested fix for you is to uncheck Append extension on the next Save As event.