Notetab++ novice questions

[mapsonx]

I trying to set things up. I have several questions. I hope it is not too much for one thread.

1 I have both portable versions, from here and portableapps. How do I update the version form this site and maintain tre current settings. I tried to keep the current .xml files bu that did not help.

2. Toolbar size and labels. I want the larger toolbar, and if possible, button labels., but aI like the fancier icons I don’t know why the toolbars look different. This is from portableapps

This sites portable

If I add content to a new file, I am not prompted to save/dismiss, but when i open notepad++, that content is still there?? Is there a filw created. I’ve never experienced that type that of behavior before.

Also, this is strange. Upon opening this sites version after I trying to update it, both toolbars were now identical to portableapps, and it had the same content as the portableapps version. Are they cloud connected? Yes, I know, doesn’t make sense.

[PeterJones]

@mapsonx said in Notetab++ novice questions:

Notetab++

I think you mean “Notepad++”

I’ll answer your last one, first, because it’s not related to the others:

If I add content to a new file, I am not prompted to save/dismiss, but when i open notepad++, that content is still there?? Is there a filw created. I’ve never experienced that type that of behavior before.

That’s Settings > Preferences > Backup > ☑ Enable session snapshot and periodic backup option being turned on: as described in the backup settings in the User Manual, in that mode, Notepad++ will periodically take a snapshot of any edited files, and even remember those unsaved changes the next time you restart Notepad++. I, personally, am not a fan, because it lulls people into foolish behavior (like never saving/naming a file). However, that has been Notepad++'s default behavior for years… and it’s been there long enough that Microsoft took a page from Notepad++'s book (because in the “app” version of MS notepad that gets shipped with Windows 11 – the version that also now has tabbed editing, not the old win10-and-earlier one-window-per-file – now also keeps your unsaved changes from run to run).

If you don’t want to keep unsaved changes, and you want to be prompted before exiting Notepad++, you can turn off that option: congratulations for wanting to control your data. To better understand this feature, and other backup-related issues, I highly recommend reading the backup settings in the User Manual and this forum’s backup FAQ, just to get a better handle on what’s going on.

Now to your first question:

1 I have both portable versions, from here and portableapps.

Downloading from the official website is great. Downloading the portableapps version is a bad idea, because they edit the binary without saying what they change (in violation of the open-source license, IMO); we cannot guarantee that the portableapps version behaves in any way, shape, or form like the official Notepad++ release. Use portableapps at your own risk (or better, don’t use it, ever).

How do I update the version form this site and maintain tre current settings. I tried to keep the current .xml files bu that did not help.

It helped, but you might not have kept all the right files. The official Online User Manual for Notepad++ has a section devoted to upgrading the portable edition: https://npp-user-manual.org/docs/upgrading/#upgrading-a-portable-edition

2. Toolbar size and labels. I want the larger toolbar, and if possible, button labels., but aI like the fancier icons I don’t know why the toolbars look different.

For builtin icons, the “large” icons only come in the new “Fluent UI” look, hence the names in the Settings > Preferences > Toolbar section (was a sub-section of the General tab, before v8.8.0) are “Fluent UI: large” and “Filled Fluent UI: large”. If you have one portable set to “standard icons (small)” and another to “Fluent UI: large”, of course your toolbars are going to look different.

Also, this is strange. Upon opening this sites version after I trying to update it, both toolbars were now identical to portableapps, and it had the same content as the portableapps version.

When you updated your portable copies, you presumably overwrote all your config files, including your choice of which toolbar icon set you were using, so they went back to the same. (Though I’m surprised they went back to the “Fluent UI: large”, which your screenshot appears to be showing, because

Are they cloud connected? Yes, I know, doesn’t make sense.

No. (Well, not unless you had set the Cloud settings in the preferences dialog, and set them both to the same cloud folder.)

For builtin toolbar icons, your only choices are big/small and hollow/filled versions of the Fluent UI icons, or the old small-only standard icons. (That “standard icon” set has not, as far as I can remember, been published in a large-icon version. In Notepad++ 7.9.5 and earlier, before there were the “Fluent UI” icons, there were the ancient “small icons” and “big icons” and the “standard icons” (which were small, even then); I just double-checked v6.5 from 2013, the oldest copy I have downloaded right now, and the “standard” ones were only small, even then.)

You can customize the icons, if you don’t like any of the four Fluent options or the “standard icon” set. The Toolbar Customization section of the User Manual explains how to do that, and even provides a link to a zipfile with a copy of the ancient “big icons”, which are now called the “legacy” icons. But that download doesn’t come with big versions of the “standard icons”, either… so if that’s what you wanted, you’d still be out-of-luck. It might be possible to use image editor software and grab the “standard icons” out of the Notepad++ source code, and scale them from 16x16 .ico files to 32x32 .ico files – but I don’t know of anyone who has done that and made them public.

[PeterJones]

A few months ago, I said,

I don’t know of anyone who has done that and made them public.

After this conversation, I worked briefly on a workaround. I took the 16x16 standard-icon BMP files from the N++ source code, converted them to ICO format, then on all the files, I used an image program to upscale from 16x16 to 32x32, and make .ico files that have both 16x16 and 32x32 resolution files. The 32x32 are admittedly ugly (because they are just enlarged versions of the 16x16), but it’s at least a starting place, and will give the ability to have icons that are based on the standard icon set, but being able to use them in large-icon mode.

Assuming a standard installation of Notepad++ (using %AppData% config directory), to use these dual-resolution ICO files:

1. Go to %AppData%\Notepad++\ in Windows Explorer
2. Create a directory toolbarIcons and a subdirectory toolbarIcons\StandardDualResolution
3. Download the .ico files in https://github.com/pryrt/nppStuff/tree/main/StandardIconUpscaling/GIMP DualResolution 32x32 16x16 and unzip into toolbarIcons\StandardDualResolution\
   • update: added zipfile for easy download
4. Rename toolbarButtonsConf_example.xml to toolbarButtonsConf.xml
5. Edit that file, and near the end, change the line from <ToolBarIcons icoFolderName="" /> to <ToolBarIcons icoFolderName="StandardDualResolution" />
6. Save the toolbarButtonsConf.xml
7. exit Notepad++

The next time you run Notepad++, it should be using the custom versions of the standard icons. If you select Settings > Preferences > Toolbar and choose one of the “large” choices, it should use the custom icons in large (32x32).

This is obviously not ideal. But since there hasn’t been any official or publically-available 32x32 “originals” of those icons in 14+ years, that I can find, it’s the best thing I can think of for now. Someone with more image editing skill – or more AI skill – might be able to generate better 32x32 versions from the original 16x16 BMP files in the source code and create better-looking versions as ICO files. But until such happens, this might be a usable workaround.