If I have multiple desktops active can there be an open Notepad++ window on each

Ed Klein

I frequent run multiple desktops to seperate differant projects. But Notepad++ appears to only run on one desktop. If I try to open a document with Notepad++ my desktop switches to which ever desktop has an open Notepad++ session. Is there a way to start an additional session in each desktop

Thanks

Terry R

@Ed-Klein said in If I have multiple desktops active can there be an open Notepad++ window on each:

Is there a way to start an additional session in each desktop

There are a number of methods which might help, I will explain them but I haven’t given you all the solution, you will need to complete that yourself based on which idea you decide on.

Multi-instance mode. That comes with a caveat, last session to close will generally be the one to write the persistent version of config data ready for the next time. So for example if you say you set Dark Mode enabled (Preferences, Dark Mode) and that session is the last to close, then the next time Notepad++ starts Dark Mode will be enabled, even if the other sessions previously did not have it enabled.
Notepad++ allows for a commandline setting to determine where on the displays it will appear. These are -x and -y settings for the upper left corner of Notepad++. See the online manual here.
There is also another commandline setting that might alleviate any issues with using multi-session, -settingsDir. So you could elect to have multiple settings directories, one for each monitor/desktop. Each directory would contain all the config files that appear in the normal folder %appdata%\Notepad++. So with this method you would not need to set the x and y coords, rather with multi-instance enabled and using the settingsDir you would open Notepad++, move each instance to the required desktop and then close. On the next opening, the Notepad++ window would appear in the correct monitor. So each shortcut would need to refer to the correct alternate settingsDir
You could install multiple “Portable Notepad++” installations. In this case updating them is more of a pain since that will overwrite all the config data in each portable installation. Details are here

I suggest reading up on each, run some tests at the commandline to see which might best help you, then set about creating the right shortcuts to aid in running the preferred method.

Terry