The Nightmare %> Issue
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I’ve posted this bug on GitHub, but it hasn’t been fixed. It drives me NUTS.
Whenever a comment is written into the editor for a Classic ASP file, it is taken as a literal end of code literal, as in the following example:
’ 2) Later in the page content:
’
’ <p>
’ We provide professional event production and rental services <%= LocationPhraseServiceArea %>.
’ </p>To “fix” this, I have to put a space between the % and the >, as in: % >.
It seems like such an easy fix–I really don’t know why this isn’t getting any traction.
DEBUG INFO:
Notepad++ v8.8.7 (64-bit)
Build time: Oct 19 2025 - 16:19:15
Scintilla/Lexilla included: 5.5.7/5.4.5
Boost Regex included: 1_85
Path: C:\Program Files\Notepad++\notepad++.exe
Command Line: “C:\Program Files\Notepad++\change.log”
Admin mode: ON
Local Conf mode: OFF
Cloud Config: OFF
Periodic Backup: ON
Placeholders: OFF
Scintilla Rendering Mode: SC_TECHNOLOGY_DEFAULT (0)
Multi-instance Mode: monoInst
asNotepad: OFF
File Status Auto-Detection: cdEnabledNew (for current file/tab only)
Dark Mode: ON
Display Info:
primary monitor: 1280x1024, scaling 100%
visible monitors count: 1
installed Display Class adapters:
0000: Description - Microsoft Basic Display Adapter
0000: DriverVersion - 10.0.17763.1
OS Name: Windows Server 2019 Datacenter (64-bit)
OS Version: 1809
OS Build: 17763.7792
Current ANSI codepage: 1252
Plugins:
AutoSave (1.6.1)
mimeTools (3.1)
NppConverter (4.7)
NppExport (0.4)
SQLinFormNpp64 (5.3.35) -
@Bjorgen-Eatinger said in The Nightmare %> Issue:
I’ve posted this bug on GitHub, but it hasn’t been fixed. It drives me NUTS.
You mean https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/issues/17072, submitted a couple weeks ago? Trust me, there are tons of more important bugs that have languished for years. The fact that yours has been there only a few weeks is nothing in comparison.
Just how much did you pay for Notepad++ that you think it warrants you personal bugfixes guaranteed within N days? Especially since every contributor to Notepad++, including the owner, is an unpaid volunteer, in it only for the love of the app – but that means that when they are able to submit fixes depends on their life and commitments outside N++, and they have to prioritize their contributions accordingly.
It seems like such an easy fix–I really don’t know why this isn’t getting any traction.
It seems to you like an “easy fix”, but have you ever dug into the library that Notepad++ uses for syntax highlighting, or the wrapping that N++ has to put around that library? Very little in that would be what I would classify as “very easy”.
For example, the HTML lexer has to handle not just XML but also ASP and PHP and JavaScript, among other things. The interplay between those is all very complex, and it doesn’t surprise me that some of the edge cases are not fully ironed out.
And I am also not convinced that the bug is in N++ itself, and not in the library that N++ uses: if it’s the latter, someone would have to prove it to that library’s developers, and they would have to fix it before the fix could propagate to N++
As someone who has contributed to N++ somewhat, I can assure you that every time I have taken on a fix, it has been harder than I originally anticipated – my most recent submission, I thought would only take a day or two, but actually took me weeks. Claiming it’s an easy fix, without accompanying that claim with working code, is just proof that the individual is not qualified to asses the difficulty of the issue.
Would it be great if all bugs in Notepad++ could be fixed instantly? Of course. But that’s not the real world.
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@Bjorgen-Eatinger said in The Nightmare %> Issue:
I’ve posted this bug on GitHub
That would be Issue #17072.
It seems like such an easy fix–I really don’t know why this isn’t getting any traction.
Most likely not an easy fix at all, because this highlighting is applied by the lexer for ASP, which is used by Notepad++ but comes from an entirely different project, Lexilla. I’m not familiar with that code at all, but it looks like similar problems have been around for a long time. It might be a case where attempting to fix one problem causes another and re-engineering the entire approach is just not practical.
My (personal) conclusion is that syntax highlighting in Notepad++ (which depends on Scintilla, which depends on Lexilla) will never be perfect, because it does not do a full syntax analysis. If you want full syntax analysis, you need to use an IDE appropriate to the language(s) in use. A general-purpose text editor like Notepad++ can provide enough syntax highlighting to be helpful most of the time, but especially when one language is embedded in another (like VBScript within HTML in ASP files), it just can’t do the job of a purpose-built IDE.
I don’t know if there is an IDE designed for ASP, but if there is, you might be happier with that.
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@Bjorgen-Eatinger said in The Nightmare %> Issue:
I’ve posted this bug on GitHub, but it hasn’t been fixed. It drives me NUTS.
I can tell you that this is almost certainly a Lexilla problem. I know that doesn’t matter to you as an end user; but as a practical matter, it means that reporting it as a Notepad++ issue is unlikely to yield useful results.
If you care enough about this, your first step should be to try to reproduce the same behavior in SciTE. Since Scintilla, Lexilla and SciTE are all related, it will be easier to get the maintainers of those projects to attend to a bug report if the bug can be demonstrated in SciTE.
If the same bug does not occur in SciTE, then it is a Notepad++ issue after all. Failure to reproduce in SciTE would be information you should definitely add to your Notepad++ issue, as it would indicate the problem isn’t what it appears to be.
If the same bug does occur in SciTE, then the place to document the problem is in the Lexilla issues.
