Notepad++ Restart Shortcut Key

David-Maisonave 0

I’ve been wanting a restart option for Notepad++ for a long time now, and I finally looked into it and found an easy great working solution.

For anyone else interested in it, here it is:

<Command name="Restart" Ctrl="yes" Alt="yes" Shift="yes" Key="82">cmd /c taskkill /im notepad++.exe &amp;&amp; TIMEOUT /T 1 &amp;&amp; start &quot;&quot; &quot;$(NPP_FULL_FILE_PATH)&quot;</Command>

Add the above line into the shortcuts.xml file immediately after line having <UserDefinedCommands>. After changing the file, close Notepad++, and restart it manually (for the last time).

That’s it!!!
You’ll now have a shortcut key ctrl-alt-shift-R to restart notepad++, and a menu option Run-> Restart.

FYI:
On most installations, the file is usually located in following path:C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Notepad++\shortcuts.xml
The file can be open with the following command:

notepad.exe %appdata%\Notepad++\shortcuts.xml

For my installation, I include 2 restart commands.

    <UserDefinedCommands>
        <Command name="Restart" Ctrl="yes" Alt="yes" Shift="yes" Key="82">cmd /c taskkill /im notepad++.exe &amp;&amp; TIMEOUT /T 1 &amp;&amp; start &quot;&quot; &quot;$(NPP_FULL_FILE_PATH)&quot;</Command>
        <Command name="Restart (Force)" Ctrl="no" Alt="no" Shift="no" Key="0">cmd /c taskkill /f /im notepad++.exe &amp;&amp; start &quot;&quot; &quot;$(NPP_FULL_FILE_PATH)&quot;</Command>
    </UserDefinedCommands>

The first command performs a graceful restart, and the second command performs a force restart, and it doesn’t have a shortcut key, but it can be accessed from the Run menu.
The forced command is similar to the one posted on question Need command to restart Notepad ++, but I added a prefix start "" to the last command, which allows the DOS console to close automatically.

Alan Kilborn

@david-maisonave-0

Using taskkill is not a great way to do something like this, IMO.

And I must ask…what is the great need for restarting Notepad++, anyway?

dinkumoil

@alan-kilborn said in Notepad++ Restart Shortcut Key:

Using taskkill is not a great way to do something like this, IMO.

As long as taskkill’s parameter /f (force termination) is not used, Notepad++ displays a confirmation box asking the user if he wants to save or not to save changed files or if he even wants to cancel termination of the software. Thus, using taskkill in this way is secure and user friendly.

what is the great need for restarting Notepad++, anyway?

I also use an entry in the Run menu for being able to restart Notepad++. The reasons are:

There are some plugins that need a restart under some circumstances after changing their configuration.
Especially in recent versions of Notepad++ some options have been added to the Preferences dialog that need a restart to take effect after changing them.

Alan Kilborn

@dinkumoil

Good info, thanks.

Perhaps I don’t see a need because of the way I work. I have a Notepad++ icon permanently in my task bar, so restarting isn’t any kind of burden (or at least I’ve never thought of it that way before now). Maybe I’ll give this new method a try!

Lycan Thrope

Thanks, that’s a nice helpful feature. I had trouble using the Notepad++ editor to do it, it didn’t seem to take, so I just did it in Notepad.exe and then it worked just fine.

Alan Kilborn

@lycan-thrope

The best way to do it is to not edit the config files directly, but to use the Run menu’s Run… box and then save off the command. Here’s what you’d put in that box:

cmd /c taskkill /im notepad++.exe && TIMEOUT /T 5 && start "" "$(NPP_FULL_FILE_PATH)"

Lycan Thrope

@alan-kilborn

Alan, thanks for the response, and I can add, I’m no where near understanding what you just typed. :) I’m just getting back into some programming after a non-computer career after 30 years, so this is very much new to me. I did read about how the config files may not take, so knew the right steps to take, other than those you just outlined, so thanks for making me have to look at more things to learn in here. :)

Lee

Alan Kilborn

@lycan-thrope

Hmm, not sure how I could have made it simpler, but I will try:

Click on the Run menu to drop it down:

Pick Run… from the menu that has dropped:

A box appears:

Paste in the text I supplied earlier:

The full text won’t show because the box on the screen is too narrow, but it is all there.

Press Save… to see:

Give it a name, example:

Press OK, box closes.

Click Run menu again (reference first screenshot) to get dropdown with some new content:

So you’d select this when you want to restart Notepad++.

Hopefully that clarifies.

artie-finkelstein

@david-maisonave-0 said in Notepad++ Restart Shortcut Key:

I thought this trick would make a nice addition to my “npp_config.bat” file for editing editor and plugin configuration files, however there appear to be ‘caveats’ related to it’s use. All testing so far has been performed by manually using the Run menu selection. My usage environment (with the plugins data removed):

Notepad++ v8.1.9   (32-bit)
Build time : Oct 21 2021 - 23:32:04
Path : C:\Programs\Notepad++\notepad++.exe
Command Line : 
Admin mode : ON
Local Conf mode : ON
Cloud Config : OFF
OS Name : Windows 7 Professional (64-bit) 
OS Build : 7601.0
Current ANSI codepage : 1252

&& TIMEOUT /T 1 &&

It appears the timeout command is required to get the Npp restart to trigger properly, i.e., no timeout, no relaunch (even after the obligatory manual restart of Notepad++ to (re-)read the ‘shortcuts.xml’ file).

As expected, Notepad does not object to being ‘non-forcefully’ shutdown with open files if Settings > Preferences > Backup > Enable session snapshot and periodic backup is checked. If the option is not checked, Notepad++ raises it’s ‘Save file…’ dialog to allow saving, but then the restart does not happen, regardless of saving or not saving any modified files, however, ‘cancel’ does cancel the inherent close command from “taskkill” and the following restart from the ‘user defined command’. I have not tried delay times other than 1 second.

As @alan-kilborn, I also use a pinned tab on the task bar for fast getaways and restarts. I’m of very mixed feelings about fully automating the restart. I’d rather blame my fingers instead of my code when I screw up an important file save, but that won’t stop a few test runs tomorrow.

dinkumoil

@artie-finkelstein said in Notepad++ Restart Shortcut Key:

It appears the timeout command is required to get the Npp restart to trigger properly, i.e., no timeout, no relaunch

As expected, Notepad does not object to being ‘non-forcefully’ shutdown with open files if Settings > Preferences > Backup > Enable session snapshot and periodic backup is checked. If the option is not checked, Notepad++ raises it’s ‘Save file…’ dialog to allow saving, but then the restart does not happen, regardless of saving or not saving any modified files

The reason for both of these observations is that you are likely running Notepad++ in “Single Instance” mode and the timeout period of 1 second is too short to completely shut down the process of the already running Notepad++ instance. Thus, the new Notepad++ instance (started by the start command) notices that there is already another Notepad++ process running in the system and terminates itself. If you increase the timeout period to, for example, 5 seconds or even more, the restart should work.

The above is the reason why I use a more sophisticated solution to automatically restart Notepad++ - a VBScript using WMI classes and events, see the code below. This solution also only works if Notepad++ is set up to work in “Single Instance” mode, but it works nearly reliable (see below) and only restarts that instance of Notepad++ from which the script has been launched. Thus, it is possible to run at the same time another (maybe portable) version of Notepad++ from another directory set up to “Multiple Instances” mode - these instances will not be terminated by the script.

Why did I say “nearly reliable”? If Notepad++ is set up to not using sessions+backups and you click your menu entry to restart Notepad++, the confirmation dialog appears. If you click “Cancel”, Notepad++ keeps running. But in the background my script keeps running as well because it waits for the Notepad++ process to terminate. If you later on terminate Notepad++ manually (because you’ve finished your work), unexpectedly a new instance of Notepad++ starts up - the script running in background has satisfied its wait condition (a Notepad++ process has been terminated) and launches a new Notepad++ instance. To overcome this problem maybe a timeout could be introduced to break the waiting loop after a certain amount of time, but then the snake bites in its tail - this timeout would be sometimes too short and sometimes too long, the same situation like where you are now.

Here is the code of my script (I stored it as RestartNpp.vbs in a subdirectory of the Notepad++ installation directory called exttools):

Option Explicit


'-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Variables declaration
'-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dim objFSO, objWshShell, objWMIService
Dim colProcesses, objProcess, strInstanceQuery
Dim colEvents, objEvent, strEventQuery, intInterval
Dim strNppDirPath, strNppExeName, strNppExePath


'-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Variables initialization
'-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Set objFSO        = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set objWshShell   = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\.\root\cimv2" )

strNppExeName     = "notepad++.exe"
intInterval       = 1


'-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
' Request termination of running Npp, wait for its termination and restart it
'-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If WScript.Arguments.Count > 0 Then
  strNppDirPath   = WScript.Arguments(0)
  strNppExePath   = objFSO.BuildPath(strNppDirPath, strNppExeName)

  If objFSO.FileExists(strNppExePath) Then
    strInstanceQuery = "SELECT * FROM Win32_Process" & _
                       " WHERE ExecutablePath = '" & EscapeForWMI(strNppExePath) & "'"

    strEventQuery    = "SELECT * FROM __InstanceOperationEvent" & _
                       " WITHIN " & intInterval & _
                       " WHERE TargetInstance ISA 'Win32_Process'" & _
                       " AND TargetInstance.ExecutablePath = '" & EscapeForWMI(strNppExePath) & "'"

    Set colProcesses = objWMIService.ExecQuery(strInstanceQuery)

    For Each objProcess In colProcesses
      objWshShell.Run "taskkill /im " & Quote(strNppExeName), 0, False

      Set colEvents = objWMIService.ExecNotificationQuery(strEventQuery)

      Do
        Set objEvent = colEvents.NextEvent()

        Select Case objEvent.Path_.Class
          Case "__InstanceDeletionEvent" Exit Do
        End Select
      Loop

      objWshShell.CurrentDirectory = objFSO.GetParentFolderName(strNppExePath)
      objWshShell.Run Quote(strNppExePath), 1, False

      Exit For
    Next
  End If
End If



'===============================================================================
' Surround a string with double quotes
'===============================================================================

Function Quote(ByRef strString)
  Quote = """" & strString & """"
End Function


'===============================================================================
' Escape special chars of string for use with WMI
'===============================================================================

Function EscapeForWMI(ByRef strAString)
  EscapeForWMI = Replace(strAString, "\", "\\")
End Function

This is the required entry in shortcuts.xml(if you chose another name for the script or another storage location, you have to adapt the path of the script to your needs):

<Command name="Restart Notepad++" Ctrl="no" Alt="no" Shift="no" Key="0">wscript /nologo &quot;$(NPP_DIRECTORY)\exttools\RestartNpp.vbs&quot; &quot;$(NPP_DIRECTORY)&quot;</Command>

andrecool-68

My example of restarting Notepad++ and resetting to defaults

In the catalog with NOTEPAD ++. EXE Create a VBS directory with all the necessary files.

  Restart.vbs
  Reset_Restart.vbs
  config.xml
  contextMenu.xml
  session.xml
  shortcuts.xml
  stylers.model.xml

file shortcuts.xml

    <UserDefinedCommands>
        <Command name="Restart Notepad++" Ctrl="yes" Alt="no" Shift="no" Key="116">&quot;$(NPP_DIRECTORY)\VBS\Restart.vbs&quot;</Command>
        <Command name="Reset default settings Restart Notepad++" Ctrl="yes" Alt="no" Shift="yes" Key="116">&quot;$(NPP_DIRECTORY)\VBS\Reset_Restart.vbs&quot;</Command>

Restart Notepad++

file Restart.vbs

Q = "winmgmts:\\.\root\cimv2:win32_process.Handle="
With CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
  .CurrentDirectory = Left(WSH.ScriptFullName, InStrRev(WSH.ScriptFullName, "\"))
  With GetObject(Q & .Exec("rundll32 kernel32,Sleep").ProcessId)
    PID = GetObject(Q & .ParentProcessId).ParentProcessId: .Terminate
  End With
    .Run "taskkill /PID " & PID, 0, 1: WSH.Sleep 200: .Run "..\notepad++.exe"
End With

Reset default settings Restart Notepad++

file Reset_Restart.vbs

Set oWSH = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
oWSH.CurrentDirectory = Left(WSH.ScriptFullName, InStrRev(WSH.ScriptFullName, "\"))
Q = "winmgmts:\\.\root\cimv2:win32_process.Handle="
With GetObject(Q & oWSH.Exec("rundll32 kernel32,Sleep").ProcessId)
   GetObject(Q & GetObject(Q & .ParentProcessId).ParentProcessId).Terminate: .Terminate
End With
CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject").CopyFile "*.xml", "..", 1
oWSH.Run "..\notepad++.exe": Set oWSH = Nothing

dinkumoil

@andrecool-68

Nice way to get Npp’s PID, though it is very cryptic code. I prefer readable and understandable code over short code.

andrecool-68

@dinkumoil The author of the code is here https://www.cyberforum.ru/vbscript-wsh/thread2616849.html

Lycan Thrope

@alan-kilborn apologies, this forum takes a little getting used to. :(

Pasted here to keep on topic.
Wow, thanks for those picture explanations, Alan, and clueing me into some of Notepa++ functionality I haven’t known about. To be honest, I’m just going beyond using it as a sytax-highlighting general purpose file editor and trying to use it to add a UDL/FunctionList for an old language that hasn’t been done before. That’s why it took so long to respond…I’ve been beating my head trying to learn regex, use the tools this forum recommended, and try and make heads or tails out of the FunctionList structure by looking over the C++ FunctionList…and not getting very far yet. :(

However it was a pleasure to see it laid out simply with pics. I do that a lot myself when trying to explain things to folks so it’s “a thousand words clear” what you are saying. I have never touched the “Run” menu option, so that should give you a hint about how new I am to NPP’s large functional footprint. Thanks again…and if anyone can do the same for the FunctionList explanation of a mixed parser and what needs to go where, it would be greatly appreciated. :)

Lee

Alan Kilborn

I often use a second Notepad++ instance for testing out scripts that I’m considering sharing/posting. Many times these scripts have bugs while developing (of course!) and I need to restart my testbed instance of N++ to clear things out for a fresh test run.

Well, the base technique above doesn’t work if I’m running my main N++ instance as well, because it just looks for a task named “notepad++” and kills what it finds – this can be my main instance and not my death-intended testbed instance.

What really should be done, to stop the current instance of N++, is to look for it’s process-id or “pid” when doing a taskkill.

I wrote a script to exit and restart the testbed N++ instance, by using the pid, and thought I’d share it here. I call it ExitAndRestartNpp.py:

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
from __future__ import print_function

from Npp import *
import os
import subprocess
from ctypes import (WinDLL)

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

class EARN(object):

    def __init__(self):
        self.debug = True if 0 else False
        kernel32 = WinDLL('kernel32')
        our_pid = kernel32.GetCurrentProcessId()
        npp_exe_path = notepad.getNppDir() + os.sep + 'notepad++.exe'
        si = subprocess.STARTUPINFO()
        si.dwFlags |= subprocess.STARTF_USESHOWWINDOW
        #si.wShowWindow = subprocess.SW_HIDE  # default, don't really need to set it
        timeout_in_secs = 3
        command = 'cmd /c taskkill /PID {pid} && TIMEOUT /T {to} && start "" "{exe}" -multiInst'.format(
            pid=our_pid, exe=npp_exe_path, to=timeout_in_secs)
        if self.debug:
            print(command)
        else:
            notepad.saveAllFiles()
            subprocess.call(command, startupinfo=si)

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

if __name__ == '__main__': EARN()

Alan Kilborn

Of course, for my use case just described, this .bat file also works, and is less complicated than the script:

@echo off
:loop
C:\npp.misc\Releases\npp.8.3.2\npp.8.3.2.portable.x64\notepad++.exe -multiInst
choice /m "Run Notepad++ again? "
if %ERRORLEVEL% equ 2 goto :end
if %ERRORLEVEL% equ 1 goto :loop
:end

:-)

PeterJones

For anyone who has a taskkill-based solution – either the Run command or a fancier PythonScript – you might want to add /F to make it a “stronger” kill. I have run across some circumstances (for example, for here where a normal kill wasn’t sufficient).

Edit: one downfall of the /F is that it will cause an “emergency exit”, so Notepad++ is not given a chance to save any settings (including recently-closed files). So only use the /F if you really need the extra power