The Q&A that I didn’t understand was https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/topic/20992/disable-all-notepad-keyboard-shortcuts?_=1714585277224 and I had no idea what Macro Express is nor how it affects NPP.

I had never heard of it when that person asked about its interface with Notepad++, either. It’s just some external application which sounded to me like it was similar to AutoHot Key in its behavior.

The Q&A that I didn’t understand was https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/topic/20992/disable-all-notepad-keyboard-shortcuts?_=1714585277224 and I had no idea what Macro Express is nor how it affects NPP.

RE: Autosave, I’d completely forgotten that I had to load a plugin, as it seems such a normal editor feature. Given that I’ve no idea how the plugin was removed, though I did update NPP recently. I can’t even blame drink, or the cat!

I’ll disable the Full screen & Post-It modes as I never use those.

Hi

Somehow I pressed a combination of keys which closed all my docs, disabled the file periodic save feature and did who knows what else.

There is no single combo of keys that could disable periodic save; it would have had to be the quite explicit sequence of keystrokes Alt+T to get the Settings menu, then P for preferences, then b to get to “Backup” page, then the right keystrokes to toggle the “Enable session snapshot and periodic backup” to unchecked. The chances of that are … unlikely, at best.

Another time another key combo rearranged the display so all the menu options had disappeared. I can;t recall how I recovered from that.

You probably did F11 (View > Toggle Full Screen Mode) or F12 (View > Post-It), either of which can be undone by doing the same key again.

So it seems that it’s too easy for fat fingers to wreak havoc,

I have rarely accidentally hit F11/F12, and never wreaked such havoc as accidentally changing something inside the Preferencs dialog. You’ve got impressively-talented fat fingers. ;-)

so is there any way to save all settings?

%AppData%\Notepad++\config.xml 🛈 contains all the settings that you referred to, so making a backup copy of that could be a safeguard for you. (Or, if you’re really paranoid, back up the entire %AppData%\Notepad++\ hierarchy.)

Alternatively is there a way to disable all or most of shortcut key functions?
…
However I see there is a Shortcut Mapper so could I just disable all those?

In one fell swoop, no. Settings > Preferences > Shortcut Mapper is where you’d do it manually. But you wouldn’t want to actually delete them all (especially the ones on the Scintilla tab, because then none of your copy/paste/arrow-key stuff would work).

And there is no way to turn off Windows menu accelerators – Alt+T to get to Settings menu, and similar – those are defined by the OS, not by Notepad++ (other than it’s possible for an app to suggest which letter would be best for the accelerator). Alt+Letter is just the way that Windows menu bars have worked since approximately Windows 3.11 in the early 90s.

My recommendation: nothing’s going to save you from your talented preference-change, because there is no hotkey that can change those preferences. However, if you never use Full Screen or Post-It modes, you could easily just turn off those two.

One reply to a question on the latter that might have been related (I didn’t understand it or the answer) seemed to be in the negative.

Too bad you didn’t link to that question/answer, because given that context, we could have tried to enlighten you. As it is, there’s nothing we can say.

Meanwhile if anyone knows how to re-enable periodic file saving (not session backup), that would be great too since I can’t find it anywhere in the preferences. :-(

Notepad++'s only native “periodic file saving” is the “session snapshot and periodic backup” – that’s the way it’s always been. Do you mean the AutoSave plugin? We have a FAQ that explains Notepad++'s backup options, including the built-in and the AutoSave plugin, and the User Manual > Preferences > Backup section has lots of details, too.