Phenquestions
Notepads is the newest text editor on the block, and it looks gorgeous. The developer, Jackie Liu, says he made it to be a fast app which feels like the good old Notepad.
As a fan of most text editor and file manager apps, this one caught my eye a while ago, but I didn't try it until the Windows Store debut, because the installation required tinkering with a couple of extra settings in Windows.
Do note (pun intended), that the app is still in beta, but it's stable, and it just works. Sadly, since it is a UWP app, it offers very limited in terms of functionality. Despite that it supports a lot of document formats, I counted over 40 supported formats including TXT, HTML, XML, CSS, to name a few. There are a few features which impressed me.
Notepads - Why it could be a good alternative
This is perhaps my favorite feature in Notepads, each document opens in a tab. Control + tab switches to the next open tab; not a unique feature for a text editor but still an essential feature.
Hopefully this will fix the constant alt-tab-ING which I do and end up on the wrong document, and repeat the process. Other handy shortcuts in the app include Ctrl + N or T to open a new document, Ctrl and + (to increase) or Ctrl and - (to decrease) changes the font size, and you can use Ctrl and 0 to reset it. Though it isn't mentioned in the description, Notepads supports unlimited undo and redo. Take that Notepad!
Clicking the menu button in the corner of Notepads UI, brings up your basic options like New, Open, Save, Save As, Find, Replace and Settings. The Settings has its own menu, which appears on the right edge of the screen. Here you will be able to toggle Word wrap, change the font, switch between different Line Ending options, set a default encoding format, and the Tab key behavior (to define the number of spaces). Hit the monitor and brush icon, to get to the Personalization menu. This is where Notepads really stands out. You can switch between a Light theme, a Dark theme or set the app to use your Windows mode.
It also has options to modify the background tint opacity, but it isn't quite like the frosted glass we had in Aero. The Accent color options allow you to set your custom color from the RGB/Hex palette, or you can use your default windows accent color. It would be nice if we could alter the background color too.
You can launch the app quickly from Command Prompt or Powershell. You can use hand-writing input with Notepads, if you like that. If you have tried the Windows Terminal (Preview) app that Microsoft released, you'll find that Notepads is nearly identical in the layout style.
There are a few known issues like the fact that it only works on Windows 10 1809 and above. Files larger than 1MB don't open. You may want to check on the Github page for more information, and the source code of the app.
If you just want to do some basic text editing, give Notepads a try, it's free, open-source, and looks modern. The app does use a lot more RAM than the classic Notepad, but since it's in the 20-30MB range, it shouldn't be an issue on most computers. Though the developer says he would like to prevent the app from becoming bloated, he also dropped a hint that more features are on the way.
Now You: which text editor do you use?
