Orange line next to anything I type now, cant seem to figure out how to turn it off.
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@Alan-Kilborn said in Orange line next to anything I type now, cant seem to figure out how to turn it off.:
Then nobody would ever even know that new features had been added.
Firstly, I think those wanting a new feature will already know it’s coming because they are interested and will be reading the forum posts, announcements etc.
The majority of NPP users however don’t tend to push many of the boundaries and when confronted with something new as happened here, have a negative response and no matter how much others may wish to influence them, the initial reaction speaks loudly.
We only have to look at NPP history of user feedback from new features, the most controversial of all is the backup system. I had spoken of this before but think it does need airing again. Having the backup system turned on was I think a bad move. Users sort of knew about it, but many didn’t follow through with reading up on it, and also didn’t set the preferences to their own needs. Later they would suffer some calamity and complain that their “not named” tabs in NPP were missing. As much as the seasoned forum members tried to help, inevitably most lost at least some, if not all of their “ïnvaluable data”. Now as far as issues go, nothing is worse than that.
I would go as far as to suggest a lot of NPP users only join the forum to post their bad experience with some (new) feature of NPP. In spite of help from forum members a lot disappear again with a bad taste in their mouth. That isn’t a great marketing idea.
How many times do we need to remind new members to read the “READ ME FIRST” posts or the “FAQ” posts as we (mostly @PeterJones) try to provide that info if ONLY they would search for it. But no it’s far easier to post on the forum. Mostly people are just lazy, and I’m not trying to be derogatory, just facing facts.
Personally, I’m not concerned when a new feature (such as change history) suddenly appears as if by magic. But then I spend a fair amount of time reading most of the posts and can understand most of what is about to occur. When it does, it only helps to solidify that association, such as happened here.
Now stepping down from soap box
Terry -
You definitely have some good points in there, I certainly won’t take the time or space to comment on each one.
I don’t think Notepad++ has suffered a black eye from enabling new features by default or has left users with a “bad taste”. I doubt anybody, even the OP of this thread, is going to get super upset with his favorite editor over something like this. He got what he wanted (even if what he wanted was dumb – to each their own), disabled the feature and moved on with his (now
less-productive) life.Speaking specifically about change-history, it is something that today’s premier editors offer, out of the box, enabled. It makes sense to offer it in Notepad++ that way also.
As I said, I think most other new features should be offered that way as well, for the stated reason. The author of Notepad++ typically leans the other way, and that’s fine, it is his product.
Perhaps in the future if a new feature is to be defaulted on, the quick instructions for turning it off could be offered in the release-notes, and complainers only need to be linked there (if they can’t bear making the effort to read the notes beforehand).
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I have a slightly different question. I see where you turned off the “new feature” but I would like to know how I can just get Notepad++ to “not print” the orange background even if there is a change. I just don’t want to waste ink. Is this possible? I keep files open and just add things as they show up before I print it and to take the printout with me. Like just a daily list. Nothing I want/need to keep but just print out to have maybe for errands or todo list.
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@Clint-Ringgold said in Orange line next to anything I type now, cant seem to figure out how to turn it off.:
@Terry-R
I have a slightly different question. I see where you turned off the “new feature” but I would like to know how I can just get Notepad++ to “not print” the orange background even if there is a change.I don’t know, frankly. And as it’s a new feature I doubt many others have had a chance to delve into it much. But I do hear what you are saying and I for one would suggest this is (maybe) an oversight by the developer.
There is a way to submit a bug on this, but it’s not here. Read the FAQ posts (Feature Request or Bug Report) and follow the instructions there. Or since it’s new feature, post under the announcements section, right under the new feature posts.
In the meantime maybe just turn off the new feature prior to printing, then turn it back on again afterwards.
Terry
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Sounds a lot like THIS.
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Alternately to toggling the setting (which requires restarting Notepad++ to turn it back on), you could instead save the file, close it (File > Close or equivalent, defaults to
Ctrl+W), and use File > Restore Recent Closed File (defaults toCtrl+Shift+T) – when it comes back, since it’s fresh, it won’t have any changed or saved-since-changed lines, so there won’t be a margin color; when a freshly-loaded file is printed, there aren’t any background-color issues (for me). And sinceCtrl+S,Ctrl+W,Ctrl+Shift+Tis a pretty simple sequence, you could either use that directly, or record it as a macro.Ahh, I tried recording the macro: unfortunately, Restore Recent Closed File appears to not be macro-recordable. Fortunately, it is macro-usable, so
<Macro name="ResetHistory" Ctrl="yes" Alt="no" Shift="yes" Key="72"> <Action type="2" message="0" wParam="41006" lParam="0" sParam="" /> <Action type="2" message="0" wParam="41003" lParam="0" sParam="" /> <Action type="2" message="0" wParam="41021" lParam="0" sParam="" /> </Macro>is the correct macro. Edit
%AppData%\shortcuts.xml, add that macro to the list of macros, save, and restart Notepad++. After you do that,Ctrl+Shift+Hwill reset the history for the active file -
@PeterJones
LOL - no easy button…Aw man. Ok. Well, I did see that if I just close the app and open it again the files are there with no marks as well. Just kind of a pain. By all means, thank you for the response(s). -
@Clint-Ringgold said in Orange line next to anything I type now, cant seem to figure out how to turn it off.:
no easy button
But it only takes editing
shortcuts.xmlonce to give you the Easy Button™. I already described how, so I recommend you try it. -
@Clint-Ringgold said in Orange line next to anything I type now, cant seem to figure out how to turn it off.:
Just kind of a pain
Change History is a big new feature. With all such things, there will be some “growing pains” and unanticipated consequences. This is one. It will be corrected, but in the meantime, follow the advice of Peter and lessen your pain, but if your Notepad++ restarts quickly (mine doesn’t) then that is certainly workable as well.
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@PeterJones
I think I found it. I had to edit it just a little for me:%AppData%\Roaming\Notepad++\shortcuts.xmlbut it works like a champ! Thank you! -
@Clint-Ringgold said in Orange line next to anything I type now, cant seem to figure out how to turn it off.:
%AppData%\Roaming\Notepad++\shortcuts.xmlNo, I am quite certain that
%AppData%\Notepad++\shortcuts.xmlis the correct Windows variable substitution. If you ignore the percent signs, then yes, the path you went to was...<something>...\AppData\Roaming\notepad++, but if you actually used the percent signs, you did not have to manually enter the Roaming. -
Understood. Thank you again. It works great.
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@Terry-R you’re a gem! Thank you so much for this! <3
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@Alan-Kilborn I wanted to switch this off because it’s a broken feature! (When I print, then lines with a green bar next to their line number the whole line’s background is printed green)
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Read the FAQ.
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@Jeremy-Thornton Preferences / Margins/Border/Edge uncheck “Display Change History” and it’s back to printing properly.
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@Alan-Kilborn said in Orange line next to anything I type now, cant seem to figure out how to turn it off.:
is there a “Change history” button which is currently ticked. if so, untick it and see if it goes away.
Perfect!! Phew! Thank you that resolved it.
OMG, you just turned off one of the best (new) reasons to use N++.
I’m glad you feel good about doing this.
Better would have been to wonder what possible new benefit N++ was giving you, but, well, I guess not…Do you think that rude sarcasm is going to change their mind?
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@Ultimaximus said in Orange line next to anything I type now, cant seem to figure out how to turn it off.:
Do you think that rude sarcasm is going to change their mind?
Probably not, but not because of the “rude sarcasm”. A smart person, just an unknowing one, might get that kind of reply and think, “wow, if someone says that, maybe there really is something to it; I need to dig deeper…”. A non-smart person, well, we know what they’re going to do.
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@Alan-Kilborn said in Orange line next to anything I type now, cant seem to figure out how to turn it off.:
Change History is a big new feature. With all such things, there will be some “growing pains” and unanticipated consequences.
And those “growing pains” are a good reason to have the new feature be turned off by default, at least initially, whatever the argument is for having the feature default to being turned on in later versions.
My own preference is for new features to default to “off.” If I want a feature, I can check to see if it’s already implemented and just needs to be turned on. If I don’t want a feature, then clumsy, unwanted attempts by the program to be “helpful” are a plague and a nuisance.
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One way to reduce the freak-out factor of a new feature being on by default, especially when the feature impacts the experience of a typical user, is that after a version update, a pop-up appears with a very brief description of “what’s new”, a limited number of times. This sort of approach has been in use with s/w roll-outs for decades.
In the case of np++, the pop-up should not simply be the contents of change.log; people see a numbered list and may have good reason to not want to bother with it in the moment. Rather, it should be a friendly but terse description of just the most visible or important changes, and where users can find more info about them.
A plausible rule-set for when it appears could be: the first 5 or 10 times any of these events occur: open app, and, file open/save/close (but not if the open is part of a session open); a “views remaining” count could be shown.
I suppose it can get a bit complicated if for example a release doesn’t yet have all supported language translations up to date and such.
As for this “Display Change History” feature, “default on” seems like the right choice: the number of people who stand to benefit from it but wouldn’t know to turn it on vastly outnumbers those who will consciously prefer it off.
Still, this conversation would benefit from “default on” proponents understanding that when a sophisticated user sees a colored line show up unexpectedly with freshly edited lines, especially right after a version update, they might justifiably wonder if they’re seeing the artifact of a bug: “What the… Oh no! A wonky pointer is clobbering data in an output buffer… the app can crash at any moment! Maybe I should I downgrade. Maybe I should switch editors!” Someone working a mission critical task could get pretty nervous.
I think this is somewhat what I experienced for a short time, and later became glad about the feature.
Now that I’ve been seeing the feature for some weeks, I find the line is far too loud, ie, thick. Take a look at the screen shot in the first post above. Compare the line thickness to that of the vertical section of the ‘5’ in the line number. I see no reason for the former to be any wider than the latter. The change indication, much like line numbers, is only occasionally of interest, usually ignored. Both should be visually quiet making them easy to ignore, but not hard to see when you purposefully look.
