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  • A
    AdrianHHH
    last edited by Jul 28, 2017, 7:49 AM

    Notepad++ is a text editor, it is not a picture editor. Simple text files do not contain “straight lines” but they can contain sequences of characters that give the appearance of a straight line. So you can type a whole lot of equals (=) or hyphens (-) or underscores (_) and get horizontal lines such as

    ===============--------------_______________
    

    You can get vertical lines by using vertical bar (|) or exclamation point (!) or even the letter I (I) or the digit one (1). By using column mode (i.e. the alt plus drag) you can select a zero-width area as high as desired. Then typing a single character will enter that character on every line that the selection spans.

    Hence it is reasonable easy to draw simple diagrams such as:

    .       +------------------+
    .       |                  |
    .       |                  |
    .       +==================+
    .       |                  |
    .       |                  V
    .       |======>
    .             Example
    .                    <=====+
    .       A                  |
    .       |                  |
    .       +------------------+
    

    (I only added the dots (.) at the left to make it format correctly in this forum.)

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
    • C
      Claudia Frank @ImNot GlennDanzig
      last edited by Jul 28, 2017, 10:01 AM

      @ImNot-GlennDanzig

      could it be that you are looking for the vertical edge line? (Settings->Preferences->Editing)

      This is a global setting which would affect all documents and only one
      vertical line at a specific column can be displayed.

      Cheers
      Claudia

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • G
        go2to
        last edited by Jul 28, 2017, 4:16 PM

        You talking about a great feature in a great text editor: QEdit.

        Qedit is, in my book, the greatest text editor of all time. It was the darling of the 1990s. It was the Memo editor of choice in dBaseIII+. Exception: Microsoft. M$ did their best (worst, actually) to kill, or at least undermine, QEdit. Alas! The command prompt QEdit is 16-bit only. I keep an old PC with 32-bit Windows just to run 16-bit legacy software apps that are still very useful.

        Qedit can draw all kinds of rectangular shapes and lines. It simply prints on screen the corresponding ASCII characters. You can do it manually in Npp, but it is extremely tedious (via Alt+numeric pad).

        It would be fairly easy to implement a line-drawing function in Notepad++ similar to that great function in the Q editor.

        Unfortunately, the author of Npp is submerged in personal “programming pleasures” that lately do nothing useful. In fact, the inclination is really bad with the introduction of Document Peeker. It is so bad that users have serious complaints about Find / Replace especially in files. The author, in his defense, strongly recommends to leave that feature disabled. Well, then, why added the function? To create headaches? Even freebies may be liable…

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote -2
        • G
          go2to
          last edited by Jul 28, 2017, 6:04 PM

          Here is a screenshot of lines and boxes drawn in QEdit. The design looks quite complex, but the process is very easy (after you learn the feature!) It represents also a great programming solution for menuing at the command prompt.

          Draw lines, boxes in text editors

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          • G
            go2to
            last edited by Jul 28, 2017, 6:25 PM

            Terrible post editor here!!! Edit allowed only within 180 seconds!!! New post allowed only after 1200 seconds!!!

            Correct image link:
            Draw lines, boxes in text editors

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • C
              cipher-1024
              last edited by Jul 28, 2017, 8:03 PM

              The answer @AdrianHHH gave is spot-on. I’m just going to add a couple of things to think about. Wherever you ‘draw’ a vertical line, everything to the left of it gets padded with spaces. That’s fine if you’re done with your text file and you don’t want to edit it again. Once you start editing, you have to delete/add spaces to get the vertical bars to line up again. At that point you’re starting to get into ASCII art . If you’re going to be editing your text file a lot, you’re in for a world of hurt. And THAT, my friend, is why people don’t draw vertical lines in their text files.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • G
                go2to
                last edited by Jul 28, 2017, 11:06 PM

                @cipher-1024 said:

                draw vertical

                Now, what you saying is playing sane to the doctors’ gathering. Draw ASCII characters — one at a time — via Alt+Numricpad-3-character-Char$ — to just draw one character of a box!

                “Once you start editing, you have to delete/add spaces to get the vertical bars to line up again. At that point you’re starting to get into ASCII art.”

                In other words, it is the art of escaping medication…

                You CANNOT “draw vertical” — It is all horizontal, as in “6 feet underground….”

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote -1
                • G
                  guy038
                  last edited by guy038 Jul 29, 2017, 8:48 PM Jul 29, 2017, 10:50 AM

                  Hello, @go2to and All,

                  • Open a new tab, in N++

                  • Choose, if necessary, the UTF-8 encoding ( Menu option Encoding > Convert to UTF-8 BOM )

                  • Choose, if necessary, the default Courier New font ( Menu Settings > Style Configurator… > Global Styles > Default Style )

                  • Choose, if necessary, the default zoom value ( Ctrl + Num. / )

                  • Paste the text, below, with box drawing elements, which is identical to go2to’s image :

                  
                  ╒════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╕
                  │                             Select the function:                               │
                  ├─────┬────────────────────────────────╥─────┬────────────--─────────────────────┤
                  │  F  │ FFG: N trials from p & DC      ║  E  │ 'Exactly' M successes in N trials │
                  ├─────┼────────────────────────────────╫─────┼───────────────────────────────────┤
                  │  C  │ Degree of Certainty (DC)       ║  L  │ 'At Least' M successes in N trials│
                  ├─────┼────────────────────────────────╫─────┼───────────────────────────────────┤
                  │  P  │ Probability for Median & N     ║  M  │ 'At Most' M successes in N trials │
                  ├─────┼────────────────────────────────╫─────┼───────────────────────────────────┤
                  │  D  │ Standard deviation             ║  N  │ Normal Probability rule           │
                  ├─────┼────────────────────────────────╫─────┼───────────────────────────────────┤
                  │  H  │ Hypergeometric Distribution    ║  W  │ 'Win At Least' Lotto & PowerBall  │
                  ├─────┼────────────────────────────────╫─────┼───────────────────────────────────┤
                  │  H  │ Hypergeometric Distribution    ║  W  │ 'Win At Least' Lotto & PowerBall  │
                  ├─────┼────────────────────────────────╫─────┼───────────────────────────────────┤
                  │  O  │ Calculate Lotto Odds           ║  S  │ Miscellanea (Sums, Shuffle, N!)   │
                  ╘═════╧═══════════════╤═════╤══════════╩═════╧═════════════════╤═════════════════╛
                                        │  X  │ Exit This Fantastic Application! │
                  				      ╘═════╧══════════════════════════════════╛
                  
                  

                  Et voilà !

                  Refer to the complete Unicode Box drawing block ( between \x{2500} and \x{257F} ), at the address, below :

                  http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2500.pdf

                  Here is, below, four tables, containing all the Box drawing characters of the Courier New font. It may help you, with some copy-paste operations, to create text, as above ! ( The hexadecimal code-point of each box-drawing character is added ! )

                  
                     2554                    2566                     2557          250C                    252C                     2510
                         ╔═══════ 2550 ═══════╦═════════ 2550 ══════╗                   ┌─────── 2500 ───────┬───────── 2500 ──────┐
                         ║                    ║                     ║                   │                    │                     │
                         ║                    ║                     ║                   │                    │                     │  
                        2551                 2551                  2551                2502                 2502                  2502
                         ║                    ║                     ║                   │                    │                     │
                         ║                    ║                     ║                   │                    │                     │
                    2560 ╠═══════ 2550 ═══════╬═════════ 2550 ══════╣ 2563         251C ├─────── 2500 ───────┼───────── 2500 ──────┤ 2524
                         ║                    ║ 256C                ║                   │                    │ 253C                │
                         ║                    ║                     ║                   │                    │                     │
                         ║                    ║                     ║                   │                    │                     │
                        2551                 2551                  2551                2502                 2502                  2502
                         ║                    ║                     ║                   │                    │                     │
                         ╚═══════ 2550 ═══════╩═════════ 2550 ══════╝                   └─────── 2500 ───────┴───────── 2500 ──────┘
                     255A                    2569                     255D          2514                    2534                     2518
                  
                  
                  
                  
                     2553                    2565                     2556          2552                    2564                     2555
                         ╓─────── 2500 ───────╥───────── 2500 ──────╖                   ╒═══════ 2550 ═══════╤═════════ 2550 ══════╕
                         ║                    ║                     ║                   │                    │                     │
                         ║                    ║                     ║                   │                    │                     │  
                        2551                 2551                  2551                2502                 2502                  2502
                         ║                    ║                     ║                   │                    │                     │
                         ║                    ║                     ║                   │                    │                     │
                    255F ╟─────── 2500 ───────╫───────── 2500 ──────╢ 2562         255E ╞═══════ 2550 ═══════╪═════════ 2550 ══════╡ 2561
                         ║                    ║ 256B                ║                   │                    │ 256A                │
                         ║                    ║                     ║                   │                    │                     │
                         ║                    ║                     ║                   │                    │                     │
                        2551                 2551                  2551                2502                 2502                  2502
                         ║                    ║                     ║                   │                    │                     │
                         ╙─────── 2500 ───────╨───────── 2500 ──────╜                   ╘═══════ 2550 ═══════╧═════════ 2550 ══════╛
                     2559                    2568                     255C          2558                    2567                     255B
                   
                  

                  IMPORTANT : Although text, in reverse video, does not seem correctly aligned, once you paste the text in N++, it should be OK !!

                  Best Regards,

                  guy038

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • G
                    go2to
                    last edited by Jul 29, 2017, 4:52 PM

                    Guy,

                    The vertical lines in your box are not continuous as in the original created in QEdit. It’s like a translation of Guy de Maupassant compared to the original. Ça va?

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • G
                      guy038
                      last edited by guy038 Jul 29, 2017, 8:44 PM Jul 29, 2017, 8:43 PM

                      Hi, @go2to and All,

                      Of course, I agree that, with some zoom values, lines are discontinuous :-((

                      On my Windows XP screen, the “good” values of N++ zoom seem to be :

                      -3 , -2 , 0 (Ctrl + Num. /), +3 , +6 , +8 , +11

                      Cheers,

                      guy038

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                      • I
                        ImNot GlennDanzig
                        last edited by Aug 2, 2017, 7:37 AM

                        Wow…you guys are awesome!! Sorry for the late reply. Been trying to find a host for my sites. The world is literally insane btw. Lol. Anyway thanks everyone for the help. I knew there had to be away. You guys are all amazing. I was a little hesitant to ask this question knowing what a wanted to do wasn’t a normal Notepad task. You all were very kind and kept on point and i appreciate that as well. I know I’ll be back if even if it’s just to drop by and roam (lurk) around. Lol. Take care everyone and until next time ^^GoDsPeEd^^

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