Not sure how I feel about Notepad suddenly sprouting so many features. Wasn’t a big part of its appeal in how it was as barebones as you could get (basically just a wrapper around a win32...
Not sure how I feel about Notepad suddenly sprouting so many features.
Wasn’t a big part of its appeal in how it was as barebones as you could get (basically just a wrapper around a win32 textbox), making it lightning fast and guaranteed to not screw up plain text files? This use case feels distinct enough to keep WordPad around and have that being the text editing tool that gets all the bloat, with any development on Notepad being entirely in improving speed/responsiveness and squashing bugs.
Advanced Paste although I always forget to use it. Color Picker which is handy as a web designer Environmental Variables which I think I only used to lazily add a directory to my %PATH%, but...
Advanced Paste although I always forget to use it.
Color Picker which is handy as a web designer
Environmental Variables which I think I only used to lazily add a directory to my %PATH%, but still…
Command Palette, which is not the one I use because I use ALT+SPACE and I'm not sure which one that is. I used to use Launchy. The one I use has more options - like I can launch cmd as administrator.
Fancyzones - the best trick, btw, that took me a while to learn - if you drag the window carefully near the borders, you can have it resized to 2 or 4 zones, which is awesome for my usage. I have semi-overlapping windows that way :)
Hosts File Editor - also the lazy way to open and edit it :)
PowerRename - which I always forget about and rarely need, but is nice
There's a few more in there that I just don't reallyneed, but probably are useful to others :)
i love power rename. the power tools are so good and should be standard. what i really need is something like stardock fences or portals —- but from power tools. i use portals now and it’s kind of...
i love power rename. the power tools are so good and should be standard.
what i really need is something like stardock fences or portals —- but from power tools. i use portals now and it’s kind of crap.
This would work for me, but I can barely get my colleagues to use Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V. At least one of them is only capable of accomplishing anything by clicking on everything. I mainly use notepad as...
This would work for me, but I can barely get my colleagues to use Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V. At least one of them is only capable of accomplishing anything by clicking on everything.
I mainly use notepad as a way for those colleagues to not wreck my templates by pasting in whatever garbage they wrote somewhere else.
User education is definitely the biggest issue for these kinds of micro-tasks. That's why I tend to teach them right-click > "Paste as plain text" instead if the app supports it; that gets much...
User education is definitely the biggest issue for these kinds of micro-tasks. That's why I tend to teach them right-click > "Paste as plain text" instead if the app supports it; that gets much better retention and positive feedback than yet another keyboard shortcut to memorise.
I'm going to be pissed if this is not the case. I remember when they switched to the new calculator app, where the old one launched literally immediately on whatever machine and the new one took...
making it lightning fast
I'm going to be pissed if this is not the case. I remember when they switched to the new calculator app, where the old one launched literally immediately on whatever machine and the new one took like 3 seconds and still takes over a second on my current (not top of the line, but also not ancient) machine.
It infuriated me because we all know they do have the capability to make lightning fast apps and the reasons why they don't are probably really stupid, but we lack the capability to motivate them to do otherwise.
That appeal doesn't matter to most people. Most use cases don't care of their text is mangled as long as the system holds their text for a few minutes, and for that case the formatting is a...
That appeal doesn't matter to most people. Most use cases don't care of their text is mangled as long as the system holds their text for a few minutes, and for that case the formatting is a feature.
It matters to me, but there are a dozen people who could not care less for every one that does care.
The only concern I have is what file format it uses. I’m fine with it having a little more oomph and I’m hoping it can finally handle markdown as it’s insane that there’s not an easy easy to send...
The only concern I have is what file format it uses. I’m fine with it having a little more oomph and I’m hoping it can finally handle markdown as it’s insane that there’s not an easy easy to send formatted md files to business associates
The experience supports Markdown style input and files for users who prefer to work directly with the lightweight markup language. To get started, use the new formatting toolbar to apply formatting as you type or to selected text, including bold and italic styling, hyperlinks, and support for simple lists and headings.
It's not really like WordPad at all, which works with RTF documents instead of plain text. Notepad is gaining an option to render plain text as Markdown. Everything it saves is still plain text,...
It's not really like WordPad at all, which works with RTF documents instead of plain text.
Notepad is gaining an option to render plain text as Markdown. Everything it saves is still plain text, the user just gets to choose whether they see it rendered stuff likethis or *stuff like* **this** in the UI.
Tildes, Reddit, and Discord all use Markdown (or some custom variant) for their comments/messages.
Those examples of markup are not plain text, they're rich text. If it has hidden elements, it is no longer a text editor which only edits using characters. It does not matter how it's saved, you...
Those examples of markup are not plain text, they're rich text. If it has hidden elements, it is no longer a text editor which only edits using characters. It does not matter how it's saved, you can't view how it is saved anymore since you'd need a plain text editor to view it, which notepad can no longer do.
Wordpad could save in plain text btw, which is why I wouldn't put it past them to use RTF. So I'm a bit curious if you've tested it or found info somewhere saying how it's saved?
I'm not sure you understand how this works. The point of Markdown is that it uses plain text. So what they're doing is offering two ways of viewing that plain text. If you type something like what...
I'm not sure you understand how this works.
The point of Markdown is that it uses plain text. So what they're doing is offering two ways of viewing that plain text.
If you type something like what I've typed in this comment and you enable Markdown view, it will look at same.
If, however, you typed something like *this* - then in regular view, it would look like that, but in Markdown mde it sould look like this, because Markdown translates asterisk-surrounded text to italics.
The underlying text, however, is still plain text. It is not rich text. There are no hidden elements. The entire point of Markdown is that it is intended to be useful in plain text view as well as interpreted view. That's why it's kinda magical.
The files will be saved in plain text.
If that doesn't make sense, think of it this way - they could add a feature to linkify URLs. So for example, if you typed https://example.com/ in Notepad right now, it's not clickable. But say they put something in the View menu like "Linkify URLs", and if you had that enabled, it would look through your plain text for URLs, and if it found any, would make them clickable. The text is still plain text.
That's what they'd be doing with Markdown. :)
Also, reddit and Tildes &etc. store the comments in the original plain text as well. When you edit your post on Tildes, you edit the plain text - that is displayed with Markdown formatting, but is stored as plain text. (reddit offers a WYSIWYG editor, so while you can edit in plain text, you might or might not choose to do so)
Thanks for trying to explain. This is why I like this place, lots of great people who can help get ideas through my thick skull. :) Sorry, all that explaining and I do know what markdown is (a...
Thanks for trying to explain. This is why I like this place, lots of great people who can help get ideas through my thick skull. :)
Sorry, all that explaining and I do know what markdown is (a very simple markup language). It's just too easy to see Microsoft storing that in an RTF format even if it defeats the entire point. Glad it sounds like it will be stored in plain text though.
Being stuck in "markdown mode" was my other concern. It sounds like you are saying notepad will allow you to toggle between plain text view and markdown view? If that's all it is, I can live with that. I can leave it toggled off if need be, that way I won't have to worry about accidentally formatting something.
Hope I can find a video of someone using it soon, or at least pictures showing the menus.
In fairness, I haven't seen it yet — but the article says the following: So it is not only a toggle, but you can permanently disable it. Apologies that I misread some of your concern re: text vs....
In fairness, I haven't seen it yet — but the article says the following:
You can switch between formatted Markdown and Markdown syntax views in the view menu or by selecting the toggle button in the status bar at the bottom of the window. If you prefer, you can disable support for formatting entirely in app settings.
So it is not only a toggle, but you can permanently disable it.
Apologies that I misread some of your concern re: text vs. RTF. :) Thank you for your patience with me :)
Seems a little bit pedantic, however I'll still disagree. iA Writer for example shows the markdown but still displays it formatted. So you would see # A title **bold text** Assuming notepad...
Seems a little bit pedantic, however I'll still disagree. iA Writer for example shows the markdown but still displays it formatted.
So you would see
# A title
**bold text**
Assuming notepad provides an option to view the markdown, it's still a next editor. And it's still only manipulating plain text even if it renders something different.
Me too. At first the idea was repulsive, but the choice of markdown was a surprisingly good one and redeems the whole thing. I'd still rather the markdown support have gone into WordPad, but this...
Me too. At first the idea was repulsive, but the choice of markdown was a surprisingly good one and redeems the whole thing.
I'd still rather the markdown support have gone into WordPad, but this is also OK.
Ooo, I like this. Especially if it works how it sounds to me: you essentially toggle between raw text and displaying the interpreted Markdown. That will rock!
Ooo, I like this. Especially if it works how it sounds to me: you essentially toggle between raw text and displaying the interpreted Markdown. That will rock!
I think there's a difference between basic and being completely devoid of features, which is how I would describe Notepad up to this point. It's very stuck in the 90s. On the MacOS side, TextEdit...
I think there's a difference between basic and being completely devoid of features, which is how I would describe Notepad up to this point. It's very stuck in the 90s. On the MacOS side, TextEdit is basic and easy to use, but also very comfortable to use. Not to mention the various similarly basic/good text editors available in various Linux distros.
On Windows one of the first things I do is install Notepad++ or SublimeText because notepad is so mind-bogglingly awful to use when tinkering with configs, text files, etc. So anything that can be done to make Notepad less awful to use is a win to me.
If you find yourself missing the simplicity of old Notepad, just plop a <textarea></textarea> in an HTML file and enjoy.
I didn't know MS was also developing edit, an open source cli text editor (to be) bundled with Windows. Seems natural to make notepad a bit more useful on the GUI end while giving us nerds a solid...
I didn't know MS was also developing edit, an open source cli text editor (to be) bundled with Windows. Seems natural to make notepad a bit more useful on the GUI end while giving us nerds a solid default for editing our server configs from cmd or what have you.
Oooo shiny, thanks for the info! I just know if I used something with markup I'd accidentally format some text and then be working for an hour trying to figure out why it broke. Q_Q Depending how...
Oooo shiny, thanks for the info! I just know if I used something with markup I'd accidentally format some text and then be working for an hour trying to figure out why it broke. Q_Q
Depending how they implement the Markup, I might just be using Notepad++ for everything at home and remove all the notepad shortcuts out of spite. >:)
For me I don't really want this as I use notepad to open text based files to keep original formatting. Normally I'll use Notepad++ all day, but when I'm on a server or anything like that..I don't...
For me I don't really want this as I use notepad to open text based files to keep original formatting. Normally I'll use Notepad++ all day, but when I'm on a server or anything like that..I don't want a bunch of formatting settings and bulk getting in the way.
I prefer to MS to concentrate on OS. Stability, performance, simple and powerful configurability. (Why I can't move TaskBar to the left or right? Why?). We have good and powerful Notepad...
I prefer to MS to concentrate on OS. Stability, performance, simple and powerful configurability.
(Why I can't move TaskBar to the left or right? Why?).
We have good and powerful Notepad alternatives: Notepad++, Notepad 2, Notepads, Notepad 3 etc. etc.
But I understand the reasons behind upgrading Notepad, its probably the same reasons why MS created Edge as Chrome alternative.
upd: spelling
The problem is that Microsoft don't have that much incentive to work on those things unless they have pressure from corporate clients to do so. I get the feeling that modern windows is built to...
The problem is that Microsoft don't have that much incentive to work on those things unless they have pressure from corporate clients to do so. I get the feeling that modern windows is built to serve corporate clients, while personal use of increasingly just an avenue for advertising to people through the devices they own.
I also prefer MS to focus on the OS. But, those are also different teams entirely. OS development is a different beast from application development. So, in that sense I don't think that them...
I also prefer MS to focus on the OS. But, those are also different teams entirely. OS development is a different beast from application development.
So, in that sense I don't think that them bringing new features to notepad detracts from the OS teams working on their thing. To be clear, Microsoft seems to be hell bend on distracting those teams with other things like AI integration, ads in the start menu, etc, etc. I am just saying that notepad gaining features doesn't belong in that list.
Seems to be toggleable markdown syntax which is surprisingly not terrible given the MS behavior but it is definitely a move away from the actual utility of the program. That was always that it was...
Seems to be toggleable markdown syntax which is surprisingly not terrible given the MS behavior but it is definitely a move away from the actual utility of the program. That was always that it was a basic text editor that was guaranteed to be available on a Windows system.
It would have been nice if they kept wordpad instead and gave notepad basic usability improvements such as better undo or better handling of large files.
I guess having two distinct utilities for two distinct purposes made too much sense but given all the other mangling of usability in Windows I don't really care.
So, they're turning Notepad into a gimped Wordpad, after they removed Wordpad, and they're advertising it as "modernizing" Notepad. Even though they already had a "modernized" notepad called...
So, they're turning Notepad into a gimped Wordpad, after they removed Wordpad, and they're advertising it as "modernizing" Notepad. Even though they already had a "modernized" notepad called Wordpad.
This is getting old. All they do is poorly copy Apple & Google and mangle their products for only gods know what reason.
I don't know, wordpad was already word-lite, and had some serious formatting issues for years. Notepad was a plain text editor, and still is, now just with markdown formatting views, for markdown...
I don't know, wordpad was already word-lite, and had some serious formatting issues for years.
Notepad was a plain text editor, and still is, now just with markdown formatting views, for markdown files. That makes sense to me. It's still plain text, it's still an open standard. This is certainly more focused towards power-users, and all of their power users tools are fundamentally better than anything pushed out by their marketing department, and this is certainly not where the marketing department would want to put their efforts towards.
If anything, Windows has needed a markdown processor for a long time, kind of surprised it took them this long.
I long ago found a better Notepad replacement. They can add all the features they want, but the fact is that I don't trust MS at this point and only use Windows when forced, and I don't use any...
I long ago found a better Notepad replacement. They can add all the features they want, but the fact is that I don't trust MS at this point and only use Windows when forced, and I don't use any other MS provided application if I can help it.
I've not liked a lot of the changes they've been making to Notepad, but honestly I don't mind this. I'm actually not aware of another non-Electron program that does this kind of inline Markdown...
I've not liked a lot of the changes they've been making to Notepad, but honestly I don't mind this. I'm actually not aware of another non-Electron program that does this kind of inline Markdown formatting. I could see myself using this for writing (though the Copilot integration still makes me feel icky - I wonder if you can strip that out).
I do still keep the original notepad.exe around, though. Nothing else is as barebones and quick-to-open. Often, that's what I want. Sublime Text also opens quickly, but it has a lot more UI, and since it's persistent my current programming project is usually open there. It adds extra friction to have to create a new tab. Plus, since last year or so the command palette has started to take multiple seconds to open after a cold boot - not sure why that happens, but it's the case on multiple of my machines.
Not sure how I feel about Notepad suddenly sprouting so many features.
Wasn’t a big part of its appeal in how it was as barebones as you could get (basically just a wrapper around a win32 textbox), making it lightning fast and guaranteed to not screw up plain text files? This use case feels distinct enough to keep WordPad around and have that being the text editing tool that gets all the bloat, with any development on Notepad being entirely in improving speed/responsiveness and squashing bugs.
same but also in case anyone doesn't know, MOST of the time you can do ctrl+shift+V. I always try that first, notepad second if that didn't work
You can make it all the time with PowerToys.
Powertoys has several handy little things in there.
FancyZones and power Run or whatever their dmenu thing is.
Advanced Paste although I always forget to use it.
Color Picker which is handy as a web designer
Environmental Variables which I think I only used to lazily add a directory to my %PATH%, but still…
Command Palette, which is not the one I use because I use ALT+SPACE and I'm not sure which one that is. I used to use Launchy. The one I use has more options - like I can launch cmd as administrator.
Fancyzones - the best trick, btw, that took me a while to learn - if you drag the window carefully near the borders, you can have it resized to 2 or 4 zones, which is awesome for my usage. I have semi-overlapping windows that way :)
Hosts File Editor - also the lazy way to open and edit it :)
PowerRename - which I always forget about and rarely need, but is nice
There's a few more in there that I just don't reallyneed, but probably are useful to others :)
i love power rename. the power tools are so good and should be standard.
what i really need is something like stardock fences or portals —- but from power tools. i use portals now and it’s kind of crap.
edit: terrible autocorrect fixes
This would work for me, but I can barely get my colleagues to use Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V. At least one of them is only capable of accomplishing anything by clicking on everything.
I mainly use notepad as a way for those colleagues to not wreck my templates by pasting in whatever garbage they wrote somewhere else.
User education is definitely the biggest issue for these kinds of micro-tasks. That's why I tend to teach them right-click > "Paste as plain text" instead if the app supports it; that gets much better retention and positive feedback than yet another keyboard shortcut to memorise.
The blogpost says you can disable formatting in settings, or clear the formatting from a toolbar button, so it should still function for that purpose.
I'm going to be pissed if this is not the case. I remember when they switched to the new calculator app, where the old one launched literally immediately on whatever machine and the new one took like 3 seconds and still takes over a second on my current (not top of the line, but also not ancient) machine.
It infuriated me because we all know they do have the capability to make lightning fast apps and the reasons why they don't are probably really stupid, but we lack the capability to motivate them to do otherwise.
That appeal doesn't matter to most people. Most use cases don't care of their text is mangled as long as the system holds their text for a few minutes, and for that case the formatting is a feature.
It matters to me, but there are a dozen people who could not care less for every one that does care.
The only concern I have is what file format it uses. I’m fine with it having a little more oomph and I’m hoping it can finally handle markdown as it’s insane that there’s not an easy easy to send formatted md files to business associates
It's right there in the link
Many programs both add to and replicate the original Notpead. There are notepad2, notepad3, notepad4, etc.
So, basically Notepad is becoming Wordpad from 20+ years ago.
Windows has officially jumped the shark.
It's not really like WordPad at all, which works with RTF documents instead of plain text.
Notepad is gaining an option to render plain text as Markdown. Everything it saves is still plain text, the user just gets to choose whether they see it rendered stuff like this or *stuff like* **this** in the UI.
Tildes, Reddit, and Discord all use Markdown (or some custom variant) for their comments/messages.
Those examples of markup are not plain text, they're rich text. If it has hidden elements, it is no longer a text editor which only edits using characters. It does not matter how it's saved, you can't view how it is saved anymore since you'd need a plain text editor to view it, which notepad can no longer do.
Wordpad could save in plain text btw, which is why I wouldn't put it past them to use RTF. So I'm a bit curious if you've tested it or found info somewhere saying how it's saved?
I'm not sure you understand how this works.
The point of Markdown is that it uses plain text. So what they're doing is offering two ways of viewing that plain text.
If you type something like what I've typed in this comment and you enable Markdown view, it will look at same.
If, however, you typed something like *this* - then in regular view, it would look like that, but in Markdown mde it sould look like this, because Markdown translates asterisk-surrounded text to italics.
The underlying text, however, is still plain text. It is not rich text. There are no hidden elements. The entire point of Markdown is that it is intended to be useful in plain text view as well as interpreted view. That's why it's kinda magical.
The files will be saved in plain text.
If that doesn't make sense, think of it this way - they could add a feature to linkify URLs. So for example, if you typed https://example.com/ in Notepad right now, it's not clickable. But say they put something in the View menu like "Linkify URLs", and if you had that enabled, it would look through your plain text for URLs, and if it found any, would make them clickable. The text is still plain text.
That's what they'd be doing with Markdown. :)
Also, reddit and Tildes &etc. store the comments in the original plain text as well. When you edit your post on Tildes, you edit the plain text - that is displayed with Markdown formatting, but is stored as plain text. (reddit offers a WYSIWYG editor, so while you can edit in plain text, you might or might not choose to do so)
Thanks for trying to explain. This is why I like this place, lots of great people who can help get ideas through my thick skull. :)
Sorry, all that explaining and I do know what markdown is (a very simple markup language). It's just too easy to see Microsoft storing that in an RTF format even if it defeats the entire point. Glad it sounds like it will be stored in plain text though.
Being stuck in "markdown mode" was my other concern. It sounds like you are saying notepad will allow you to toggle between plain text view and markdown view? If that's all it is, I can live with that. I can leave it toggled off if need be, that way I won't have to worry about accidentally formatting something.
Hope I can find a video of someone using it soon, or at least pictures showing the menus.
In fairness, I haven't seen it yet — but the article says the following:
So it is not only a toggle, but you can permanently disable it.
Apologies that I misread some of your concern re: text vs. RTF. :) Thank you for your patience with me :)
Was that always there? 😅 Apparently I need to re-read things when I'm more awake before commenting.
Seems a little bit pedantic, however I'll still disagree. iA Writer for example shows the markdown but still displays it formatted.
So you would see
# A title
**bold text**
Assuming notepad provides an option to view the markdown, it's still a next editor. And it's still only manipulating plain text even if it renders something different.
I am surprisingly okay with this.
Me too. At first the idea was repulsive, but the choice of markdown was a surprisingly good one and redeems the whole thing.
I'd still rather the markdown support have gone into WordPad, but this is also OK.
Ooo, I like this. Especially if it works how it sounds to me: you essentially toggle between raw text and displaying the interpreted Markdown. That will rock!
Yeah, markdown was a very good choice.
I think there's a difference between basic and being completely devoid of features, which is how I would describe Notepad up to this point. It's very stuck in the 90s. On the MacOS side, TextEdit is basic and easy to use, but also very comfortable to use. Not to mention the various similarly basic/good text editors available in various Linux distros.
On Windows one of the first things I do is install Notepad++ or SublimeText because notepad is so mind-bogglingly awful to use when tinkering with configs, text files, etc. So anything that can be done to make Notepad less awful to use is a win to me.
If you find yourself missing the simplicity of old Notepad, just plop a
<textarea></textarea>in an HTML file and enjoy.You can copy the old
notepad.exeexecutable from Win7/Win8/Win10 and it works fine. No dependencies needed. It's a standalone app.I didn't know MS was also developing
edit, an open source cli text editor (to be) bundled with Windows. Seems natural to make notepad a bit more useful on the GUI end while giving us nerds a solid default for editing our server configs from cmd or what have you.https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/edit-is-now-open-source/
Oooo shiny, thanks for the info! I just know if I used something with markup I'd accidentally format some text and then be working for an hour trying to figure out why it broke. Q_Q
Depending how they implement the Markup, I might just be using Notepad++ for everything at home and remove all the notepad shortcuts out of spite. >:)
The files edited in notepad will remain in plain text. Just like you can toggle line wrapping on and off. It's still plain text.
For me I don't really want this as I use notepad to open text based files to keep original formatting. Normally I'll use Notepad++ all day, but when I'm on a server or anything like that..I don't want a bunch of formatting settings and bulk getting in the way.
As u/Wes points out up above:
So you should still be good to go. ^.^
I prefer to MS to concentrate on OS. Stability, performance, simple and powerful configurability.
(Why I can't move TaskBar to the left or right? Why?).
We have good and powerful Notepad alternatives: Notepad++, Notepad 2, Notepads, Notepad 3 etc. etc.
But I understand the reasons behind upgrading Notepad, its probably the same reasons why MS created Edge as Chrome alternative.
upd: spelling
That's the dream isn't it? :/
The problem is that Microsoft don't have that much incentive to work on those things unless they have pressure from corporate clients to do so. I get the feeling that modern windows is built to serve corporate clients, while personal use of increasingly just an avenue for advertising to people through the devices they own.
I also prefer MS to focus on the OS. But, those are also different teams entirely. OS development is a different beast from application development.
So, in that sense I don't think that them bringing new features to notepad detracts from the OS teams working on their thing. To be clear, Microsoft seems to be hell bend on distracting those teams with other things like AI integration, ads in the start menu, etc, etc. I am just saying that notepad gaining features doesn't belong in that list.
Seems to be toggleable markdown syntax which is surprisingly not terrible given the MS behavior but it is definitely a move away from the actual utility of the program. That was always that it was a basic text editor that was guaranteed to be available on a Windows system.
It would have been nice if they kept wordpad instead and gave notepad basic usability improvements such as better undo or better handling of large files.
I guess having two distinct utilities for two distinct purposes made too much sense but given all the other mangling of usability in Windows I don't really care.
So, they're turning Notepad into a gimped Wordpad, after they removed Wordpad, and they're advertising it as "modernizing" Notepad. Even though they already had a "modernized" notepad called Wordpad.
This is getting old. All they do is poorly copy Apple & Google and mangle their products for only gods know what reason.
I replied to your other comment, but other criticisms of the company aside, that is not what they're doing. :)
I don't know, wordpad was already word-lite, and had some serious formatting issues for years.
Notepad was a plain text editor, and still is, now just with markdown formatting views, for markdown files. That makes sense to me. It's still plain text, it's still an open standard. This is certainly more focused towards power-users, and all of their power users tools are fundamentally better than anything pushed out by their marketing department, and this is certainly not where the marketing department would want to put their efforts towards.
If anything, Windows has needed a markdown processor for a long time, kind of surprised it took them this long.
I long ago found a better Notepad replacement. They can add all the features they want, but the fact is that I don't trust MS at this point and only use Windows when forced, and I don't use any other MS provided application if I can help it.
I've not liked a lot of the changes they've been making to Notepad, but honestly I don't mind this. I'm actually not aware of another non-Electron program that does this kind of inline Markdown formatting. I could see myself using this for writing (though the Copilot integration still makes me feel icky - I wonder if you can strip that out).
I do still keep the original
notepad.exearound, though. Nothing else is as barebones and quick-to-open. Often, that's what I want. Sublime Text also opens quickly, but it has a lot more UI, and since it's persistent my current programming project is usually open there. It adds extra friction to have to create a new tab. Plus, since last year or so the command palette has started to take multiple seconds to open after a cold boot - not sure why that happens, but it's the case on multiple of my machines.