It's time for UI update!

Avik Biswas

HA. Nothing has changed with the way the UI looks – because it doesn’t NEED to. Don’t get me wrong, it would be OK if it looked more modern, but if developers are going to spend time developing, I prefer it to be functionality over fluff. And the developers seem to agree as the UI almost never gets changed purely for cosmetic reasons.

By a lot of thing changed i mean tools that exists now. There is Atom, Visual Studio code both are gaining traction lightning fast.
I do prefer functionality also looks too. I don’t like ugly tools.

What specifically does it lack? I find it very powerful and complete for my needs…of course, these are apparently DOS-era needs…LOL.

Extensions. Notepad++ has really small list of extension. Just look at sublime text’s or atom or vs code’s extension list. You can do ANYTHING!
As for specifically, well i would like middle mouse click and drag for multi select(available on atom and as extension on vs code)
linter? Codesniffer? Git integration? docblock integration? do i need to say anymore?

Hmmm…interesting…perhaps I could be more productive if a DOS port exists for Notepad++…

If only we had stucked on MS-Dos, the technological progress would not have boomed over the years. specially good gui is already proven to be more productive.

gstavi

I will add my vote to the anti change crowd.

When looking for a good coding editor under Linux I tried all of the “modern” products you described. And even though they are native on Linux I still prefer Notepad++ over wine. Mainly because it it not modern.

One of the good thing about free projects is that they care less about market share in order to survive (although developers still care because of ego). So they don’t need to make random changes and “modernize” things that work perfectly just to convince the crowds to spend more money.

Windows 8 and Windows 10 are both very modern and both suck. Specifically they are worse than Windows 7. I spent about a minute today trying to find “print” in a ribonized Microsoft Word. I would switch to a “menu” based version in a heartbeat.

Notepad++ has a huge list of plugins and I couldn’t care less if Sublime has more of them. I vaguely remember how impressed I was with Sublime smooth scrolling. It is very modern. But quickly anything that takes 0.2 seconds longer than it should starts to annoy the eyes and I turn off ALL the eye candy.

I work with git and I don’t want git integration.
It would be nice if Notepad++ could turn into a visual debugger but I don’t believe it can be done in high enough quality so i rather it would not try.
Notepad++ will ever be just one of the tools in my toolbox. Its a very important tool and I would like it not be broken. It is a text editor not a full development environment even though some of its plugins take it closer to this realm. It should not try to be Jack of all trades ending master of none. Please don’t let it become Eclipse.

What I hope for Notepad++ is extra polish for existing features and internal improvement to the code base. Sadly some extra work need to be done to support new OSes since Microsoft’s random modern changes break backward compatibility and cause glitches in Notepad++.
I would rather most of Notepad++ new features to be added as plugins so they will be optional and would not burden the core product. Perhaps for that the internal framework should be extended to provide more power for plugins over Notepad++. Perhaps one day you could even develop a plugin that turn it to be “modern”.

Vitaliy Tech

Hi all,

let me do my vote as well. I vote for more modern UI like a Ribbon, or at least change color of tabs to dark and make them a bit flat (I’m using VS2015 style) or add possibility to change it.

I suspect, Ribbon can take a lot of additional resources (but it depends from realization and for now main menu is too overloaded), so don’t insist on it, but tabs should be updated! The style of current tabs is so old fashioned!

I found in the Internet nice concept and it looks awesome. Hope, author doesn’t mind if I paste it here.
NPP Ribbon

NPP is one of my main working tools and the only one thing I’d like to see changed there is UI.

Atom and VS are beautiful but slow and don’t have needed functionality.

And I agree, it’s time to update UI :)

Tommie Hansen

One reason i still use NPP++ is because it is SUPER-LIGHTWEIGHT.
A problem with anything using Electron etc is that it is very resource hungry.

Just by not using Atom.io (my default editor otherwise) while on the run i literally get 2x the more battery life.

I really wished someone would fork npp++ and modernize it.

didsun

Hello, I use it more than 8 years and I really think that announces to UI update. I love it and will not replace NPP it for anything, but I would be very happy if there is an UI update.

rthx

My vote: No change to the UI, especially no UI like a Ribbon!

David Bailey

I hope that if there is a UI like a ribbon, it is user configurable, so people like me can configure it off!

Alan Kilborn

I don’t think there is anything to worry about, UI Ribbon or otherwise. Nothing’s changing anytime soon. That’s just a prediction, but it’s based upon history.

thunderbirdmoz

Please NO!!! Don’t change the UI. The thing I love about notepad++ is it is lightweight on system resources and diskspace. It is functional as it is. It does not need to be ‘modernized’. A lot of people still use the old XP interface because it works better. The look of notepad++ now might not match the default windows 10 ui but not everyone uses the same OS or has the ui set the same. notepad++ is a tool. It should not have things changed just because of a new fashion.

I don’t like the ribbon interface because it takes up more vertical space. Items in drop down menus are easy to find because they are in a list and your eyes only have to scroll down. If I want to access a function quicker, I can learn the shortcut or make a macro for it.

Please don’t change the colours or even the button icons unless there is some visual problem with them. Our familarity with the button icons and their button placement is what makes us able to use notepad++ quickly without having to waste time hunting stuff down or relearning things changed for no real reason.

Tommie Hansen

Few have mentioned the Ribbon Interface that is terrible and takes 10% of screen space etc. It’s more about making the UI modern and be able to follow the rest like Atom.io etc.

Devin McKeon

I support that the DEFAULT GUI should not change. Notepad++ is used often in education and so many educational tutorials are written with the current gui in mind. It would be very disruptive to change it.

However, that being said… myself and (I imagine) many others would love a ui/ux redesign at least as an option. Perhaps by making a ribbon like ui option that can be enabled and is scriptable. That should keep the base very lightweight, yet allow downloading of third party ribbons. This would enable and inspire creative experimentation in ux/ui, and allow the community to discover new alternatives that could one day become the new default (at which point the conventional ui would be available via an option).

Being scripted is the key. Adding to the plugin api for creating ribbon components, allows to distribute ribbon custimizations as plug-ins. Only part that needs to really be native is the base ribbon ui (ribbon, tabs, components), customization (drag and drop components from list), and component/tab creation api accessible in python. Or allow some hook for a custom ui, and even those base parts could be packaged as an extention perhaps using Qt, but as a separate download.

I think the key here is offering a way for the community to create advanced ui/ux and experiment, while keeping the base notepa++ download small and light, and the default notepad++ gui consistent/conventional.

TLDR:

optional new ribbon ui
default ribbon empty (to keep notepadd++ light)
ribbon is scriptable with python.

Tommie Hansen

So this discussion seems to be getting nowhere so actually did a more ‘real-world’ mockup:

Mockup, new NP++

New NP++

Full size link: http://i.imgur.com/FqKopcM.jpg

Old, my custom style

Old NP++

Full size link: http://i.imgur.com/i0adi2H.jpg

Mustafa Serdar Sarıoğlu

Very Nice!
– Serdar

DaveyD

Plus 1 for the design…
Keeps the simplicity but makes it sleek!

Ethan Piliavin

@Tommie-Hansen your design is beautiful. Do you have a variant with a toolbar?

Its a shame that the NPP developers don’t prioritize aesthetics, your design is the most beautiful by far.

Joseph DeVore

OOh PLEASE NO, the UI is PERFECT the way it is ;^_^;
I CANNOT STAND the Metro UI style of Windows 8+… :p

TRUE, if it ain’t broke don’t fix!

Changing the UI to Attracting new users :Rolls-Eyes: is dumb…
so its attract new at the expense of ALL those that already use NP++, that’s just sad

NP++ is G.R.E.A.T. because its NP++ and not necessarily like other programs
for example the program, CCleaner updated their UI to be more Metro like and it S.U.C.K.S. its got so much white space now its hard to look at and see the difference between different data areas and stuff… ie from v4=great to v5=WHITE-SPACE-HELL.

so for all those clambering for a NEW UI, PLEASE GO FIND ANOTHER PROGRAM TO USE that meet your needs!

Tommie Hansen

@Ethan-Piliavin said:

@Tommie-Hansen your design is beautiful. Do you have a variant with a toolbar?

Its a shame that the NPP developers don’t prioritize aesthetics, your design is the most beautiful by far.

Thank you,

It isn’t my design per se but rather a mashup of NPP, Spotify and the Atom.io editor. The window chrome is Spotify, the editor parts Atom.io and the menus/status-bar etc NPP.

But no, no sample with a toolbar. The toolbar would need a bit more tinkering but there are lots of UI icons out there that would probably fit so anyone actually fixing the current UI could just implement any of the already made libraries that exist. The mashup is basically how i would use it, but of course a darker UI variant should support all the things that come with the default install.

Tommie Hansen

@Joseph-DeVore said:

OOh PLEASE NO, the UI is PERFECT the way it is ;^_^;
I CANNOT STAND the Metro UI style of Windows 8+… :p

TRUE, if it ain’t broke don’t fix!

Changing the UI to Attracting new users :Rolls-Eyes: is dumb…

There’s no “Metro UI”; the mockup is a mashup of Spotify, Atom.io and NPP. None of these conform to what is commonly known as “Metro UI”.
A darker UI doesn’t mean that a brighter one cannot exist and be the default so that people that want to keep the “Windows 95”-style for whatever reason can do that. Just like it works now but with the addition to change the window chrome itself and having a default bright/dark theme.
I’ve used NPP since forever, no one has said anything about attracting new users. It’s about conforming to best practices within visual design; one simple photographic rule we can apply is that the brightest point within a frame (say an editor) automatically becomes the focal point. Thus having super-brights in less important areas isn’t such a great thing to say the least.
“If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” … ? Again – no one has said anything about forcing anyone to use a darker and more modern UI. It isn’t like you’re forced to install newer versions either if an option to use a darker UI would be too painful for you.

Arno Welzel

The general UI is mostly a matter of taste - but there are other details which really don’t work well:

Dialog windows don’t even follow plain standards - regardless which Windows version you use. For example:

the “Find” window uses some kind of “toolbox” window decoration but also some weird “is sizeable” attribute even though you can’t resize the window anyway.
many dialog windows don’t show a border in Windows 10: for example Preferences and Style Configuratior
dialog style is not consistent in Windows 10: “Find” and “Preferences” use a white background while the shortcut mapper has a grey background with some custom style grey tabs which become white when active

At least Notepad++ should use a consistent GUI:

use standard Windows controls whenever possible
use regular Window style for dialog window title bars and borders and not “toolbox” style
use one style for all dialogs and not “Win32 default window background” and “Win32 dialog background” mixed

Andrés Zsögön

Is someone seriously suggesting the Metro UI for a software with a layout from a typical Windows 95 OSR2 program??

Just open the Find dialog and you’ll see that it’s crowded with useless options that should not even be there to begin with. I’m not asking for a fancy Find toolbar, like any software from this century already has, just to use a more reasonable layout.

Settings such as the Window transparency (?) are still present in the Find dialog, in the Year of Our Lord 2017… and you expect the Metro GUI or Visual Studio 2015 themes on this program? Please don’t.

First things first… put someone to work on reorganizing the layout with standards from this decade, and then discuss trivial stuff such as tab colors or monochrome icons (soon to be discarded by Microsoft anyway).