Linked text to open other files into Notepad++

Alan Kilborn

Let’s pick up where THIS POSTING left off. While that posting showed how to obtain clickable text, it didn’t really show a complete example of a good usage for it. Hopefully this current posting will. So let’s get going…

Notepad++ by default makes it possible to embed links to other text files in your text by using a special syntax, e.g.:

file://w:\junk\test.txt

which will appear like this in a Notepad++ tab:

Imgur

(double-click that text, and–maybe–the file specified after file:// will open)

This might be useful if I want to embed links to other files in a Notepad++ tab file, for easy opening of those files into Notepad++.

However, there are some limitations to the file:// technique:

I don’t “associate” .txt files with Notepad++ at the OS level (and I don’t want to), so double-clicking the file: link I show above opens the test.txt file in Notepad.exe
If an extension on a file: linked file is “unknown” to Windows, it won’t know how to open it when the link is double-clicked
File paths with spaces in them are problematic, e.g. file://w:\junk\test but I have spaces.txt would look for this file: w:\junk\test instead of the desired file…and the link text just doesn’t give one any confidence:

Imgur

Even if the file is opened into Notepad++, there isn’t a way to move the caret to a specific line automatically

I’ll present a technique that addresses all of the identified issues.

Imagine writing such file links in any of the following ways (note that the “lead-in” is edit:, not file:):

edit:w:\junk\test.txt
edit:test.txt
edit:…\junk\test.txt
edit:w:\junk\test.txt(L3,C2)
edit:w:\junk\test.txt(L-1)
edit:w:\junk\test%20but%20I%20have%20spaces.txt
edit:w:/junk/test.txt

After implementing the total solution, the links appear like this in your Notepad++ tab and are “followed” (meaning that the specified file will be opened by Notepad++) by pressing Alt+LeftClick with the mouse (NOT double-clicking):

Imgur

Here are some corresponding notes, point by point:

typical, general use case
test.txt to be located in the same folder as the currently active Notepad++ tab file
test.txt to be located using a relative path from the currently active Notepad++ tab file
after loading test.txt into Notepad++, move the caret to line 3 column 2
after loading test.txt into Notepad++, move the caret to the last line of the file
load a file with spaces in its path/name (note that spaces are replaced by %20 in the link text)
same as point 1 but using forward slashes rather than backslashes as pathname component separators

To achieve the goal, we need a PythonScript, shown below, and a configuration change.

The configuration change is:

add edit to the URI customized schemes: box on the Cloud & Link tab in the Preferences:

Imgur

Somewhat obviously, you’ll also need Clickable Link Settings’s Enable box ticked, as is also shown above.

Some limitations of the approach:

custom syntax, i.e., edit:
Alt+Lclick link text instead of double-Lclick
(obviously) requires some effort in the setup

Anyway, enough is enough, let’s present the code, I call the script UriIndicatorAltClick.py:

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

from Npp import *
import os
import re

class UIAC(object):

    def __init__(self):
        self.URL_INDIC = 8  # URL_INDIC is used in N++ source code
        self.ALT_MODIFIER = 4
        self.backslash = '\\' ; self.two_backslashes = self.backslash * 2
        self.alt_held_at_click = False
        self.installed = False
        self.install()

    def install(self):
        if not self.installed:
            # https://www.scintilla.org/ScintillaDoc.html#SCN_INDICATORCLICK
            editor.callback(self.indicator_click_callback, [SCINTILLANOTIFICATION.INDICATORCLICK])
            # https://www.scintilla.org/ScintillaDoc.html#SCN_INDICATORRELEASE
            editor.callback(self.indicator_release_callback, [SCINTILLANOTIFICATION.INDICATORRELEASE])
            self.installed = True

    def uninstall(self):
        if self.installed:
            editor.clearCallbacks(self.indicator_click_callback)
            editor.clearCallbacks(self.indicator_release_callback)
            self.installed = False

    def is_installed(self):
        return self.installed

    def mb(self, msg, flags=0, title=''):
        return notepad.messageBox(msg, title, flags)

    def get_indicator_range(self, indic_number):
        # similar to ScintillaEditView::getIndicatorRange() in N++ source
        # https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/blob/8f38707d33d869a5b8f5014dbb18619b166486a0/PowerEditor/src/ScitillaComponent/ScintillaEditView.h#L562
        curr_pos = editor.getCurrentPos()
        indic_mask = editor.indicatorAllOnFor(curr_pos)
        if (indic_mask & (1 << indic_number)) != 0:
            start_pos = editor.indicatorStart(indic_number, curr_pos)
            end_pos = editor.indicatorEnd(indic_number, curr_pos)
            if curr_pos >= start_pos and curr_pos <= end_pos:
                return (start_pos, end_pos)
        return (0, 0)

    def indicator_click_callback(self, args):
        # example: INDICATORCLICK: {'position': 12294, 'idFrom': 0, 'modifiers': 4, 'code': 2023, 'hwndFrom': 1577146}
        #print('UriIndicatorAltClick indicator click callback')
        self.alt_held_at_click = (args['modifiers'] & self.ALT_MODIFIER) != 0

    def indicator_release_callback(self, args):

        # example: INDICATORRELEASE: {'position': 12294, 'idFrom': 0, 'modifiers': 0, 'code': 2024, 'hwndFrom': 1577146}

        #print('UriIndicatorAltClick indicator release callback')

        if not self.alt_held_at_click: return
        self.alt_held_at_click = False

        (start_pos, end_pos) = self.get_indicator_range(self.URL_INDIC)
        if start_pos == end_pos:  return  # if click on indicator that is not URL_INDIC

        uri_text = editor.getTextRange(start_pos, end_pos)

        (uri_scheme, _, uri_path) = uri_text.partition(':')

        uri_path = uri_path.replace('%20', ' ').replace('%24', '$').replace('/', self.backslash)

        # check for optional syntax at end:   edit:....txt(L127,C12)
        goto_line = goto_col = 0
        m = re.search(r'\(L(-?\d+)(?:,C(\d+))?\)$', uri_path)
        if m:
            uri_path = uri_path[:-len(m.group())]
            goto_line = int(m.group(1))
            if m.group(2): goto_col = int(m.group(2))

        if not os.path.isfile(uri_path):
            # look for a relative path, relative to currently active document
            try:
                (valid_dir_of_active_doc, _) = notepad.getCurrentFilename().rsplit(os.sep, 1)
            except ValueError:
                # we started out in a "new 1" file, no path on that whatsoever
                self.mb('Cannot find file:\r\n\r\n{}'.format(uri_path))
                return
            test_path_in_active_doc_dir = valid_dir_of_active_doc + os.sep + uri_path
            if os.path.isfile(test_path_in_active_doc_dir):
                uri_path = test_path_in_active_doc_dir
            else:
                (test_dir, test_filename) = test_path_in_active_doc_dir.rsplit(os.sep, 1)
                if os.path.isdir(test_dir):
                    expanded_test_dir = os.path.abspath(test_dir)
                    if expanded_test_dir != test_dir:
                        self.mb('Cannot find file:\r\n\r\n{}\r\n\r\nLooked in this dir:\r\n\r\n{}'.format(test_filename, expanded_test_dir))
                        return
                self.mb('Cannot find file:\r\n\r\n{}'.format(uri_path))
                return

        notepad.open(uri_path)

        if goto_line != 0:
            if goto_line == -1: goto_line = editor.getLineCount()
            goto_line -= 1
            if goto_col != 0:
                goto_col_pos = editor.findColumn(goto_line, goto_col)
                editor.gotoPos(goto_col_pos)
            else:
                editor.gotoLine(goto_line)

if __name__ == '__main__':

    if 'uiac' not in globals():
        uiac = UIAC()  # will automatically "install" it
    else:
        # each running the script toggles install/uninstall:
        uiac.uninstall() if uiac.is_installed() else uiac.install()
        print('uiac installed?:', uiac.is_installed())

It can be set up to run automatically from user startup.py by adding the following two lines there:

import UriIndicatorAltClick
uiac = UriIndicatorAltClick.UIAC()

PeterJones

@alan-kilborn ,

Your screenshot shows edit in the config box, instead of the edit: I expected. It works whether I do either, but if I have edit, then text like editing:code will show up as underlined,

whereas if I have edit: in the box, editing:code won’t think it’s a link

But other than that, pretty cool implementation. I’ve added it, and I’ll see if it helps my workflow…

Alan Kilborn

@peterjones said in Linked text to open other files into Notepad++:

edit in the config box, instead of the edit:

That’s a good point, not sure why I used the colonless version when I composed the post. My real implemenation uses the colon. :-P

Alan Kilborn

As a side note, if you work a lot with pathnames that contain spaces and you want to use the above technique, it could be helpful to record a macro for the following Replace All operation:

The little blue rectangle in the Find what: box is a single space.

After recording and saving the macro, when you are dealing with a pathname with a space and it is problematic as a link because of the spaces, e.g.:

Just select it:

And run the macro, to obtain:

Kinda basic stuff, but maybe worth explicitly pointing out…

Alan Kilborn

I should also mention that I didn’t show an example of network paths, but they work fine with this technique as well.

For example, the text for this cheesy network path:

edit:\\127.0.0.1\w$\junk\test.txt

becomes a nice alt+clickable link that works and appears as you’d expect in a N++ tab: