This is misinformation. They added the login requirement for their Generative AI and the actual notepad doesn’t require a login. But I guess we’re ragebaiting today.
Upvoted for visibility.
I recommend Notepad++.
I use Kate on the windows work pc
I love Kate, but I’ve only been using it since last August. Been using npp for a decade before that, even as my IDE, and I felt like it was stronger than Kate.
Kate has a lot of features that are not well documented or that you have to tape together to make something functional, while npp just works out of the box or with one of its many addons. Additionally the Kate documentation website is atrocious, lacking even basic search functionality. I had to join their IRC channel to get help figuring out something (path to some obscure config file that the latest version actually reads from), and while they were most helpful, I really shouldn’t have had to go through all that trouble.
Maybe my approach to trying to solve a problem was wrong, coming from Windows + npp.
Maybe I’ll give npp a test again. But I’ve been using kate because I’ve been using it on my linux system and found out I can install it at work on windows as well
I use Kate on the windows work pc
Is the Genevieve AI enabled by default?
After opening the notepad app does it ask you for that login?
Is your access to notepad restricted by the login?
“But it turns out that, while this screenshot is indeed real, those eagle-eyed enough should already be able to tell that something isn’t quite lining up here. In fact, nearly any Windows 11 user could open up the fully updated Notepad without getting this pop-up at all, even if they aren’t already signed into a Microsoft account. So, what’s the deal here?”
“The key is in the exact wording, identifiable within the first sentence: “Sign in with your Microsoft account to use Rewrite and its features in Notepad.” This is a prompt that exists, yes, but one that’s exclusive to Copilot+ PCs and explicitly requires the user to trigger it by clicking the Rewrite button, as confirmed by our own testing.”
Please read the article. No. My access to notepad is not restricted. I also don’t run any copilot features of any kind on windows 11. Yes, I believe Generative AI Copilot is enabled by default, but in this case the only time you get promoted to login is when you use a feature in notepad that directly needs copilot in order to work and you the user have to select that feature. Meaning you can use notepad without it entirely and never even see this prompt at all.
Microsoft is a tech giant with all the bad crap that implies. They do enough terrible things that we don’t need to lie to make them look bad.
Having this LLM bullshit in Notepad should be the real news
The title is quite sensational compared to the content. They only added an AI Rewrite feature for notepad that requires a Microsoft 365 subscription. Considering the cost of AI, and the fact that it will very probably run in the cloud, it is very reasonable that it isn’t free. Everything else about notepad remains free / included with the price you paid for the OS.
I agree, but the idea of adding AI to notepad is quite insane in its own right
Adding layers to paint was what surprised me
That’s actually very nice, one of the few Microsoft programs that I genuinely miss - layers are a quality of life feature that is actually really nice to have 👍
I think the idea is that you can use it for reformatting small sets of data I guess.
“make all the dates in this CSV iso-8601”
Genuinely very useful, however I feel that can be achieved without a login and paid AI subscription.
Heck, it probably can be done with a regex. (Yeah, I know)
There’s no need to kill three forests just to do the exact same work you could have done by opening your dataset in Excel.
You’re right of course.
Like the other commenter said for this specific problem you’d use a spreadsheet.
It’s just an example though and there are others, like maybe removing url encoding from a string or something.
Again this can be done in some other tool without much fuss, but the versatility offered by notepad will be useful for a lot of people.
Why? I mean, one of the main features of generative AI systems is to generate text (the quality of which I won’t get into), why not add this to something like Notepad. I agree that Notepad should be thought of as a lightweight, well, notepad, but still might be useful as a quicker alternative to Word.
The fact that Microsoft is trying to shove Copilot down our throats at every possible step is idiotic, I agree, but having an AI as part of a notes app doesn’t seem too weird.
They give Copilot out for free so it’s weird that they’re charging for the Notepad AI feature.
Hell, just copy and paste the content into Copilot and ask it to rewrite it, I bet it’ll just be doing the same thing but for free.
If you must use windows, Notepad++ is the way to go.
Vi
Clay tablets
ed is better
VSCode is better than np++ in every way
Startup time. RAM consumption. Privacy.
vscodium fixes the privacy anyway. It’s always open so startup times are no issue for me.
I still prefer to keep a stripped down, basic text editor though. Ah well, I’m not on windows so no big deal.
vscodium fixes the privacy anyway
At the cost of some features not working (e.g. Pylance, which is the default Python extension, as well as others by MS).
What do you use instead? Sublime?
For plain text, either nano on CLI or whatever built in basic text editor comes with LMDE.
Windows I used notepad, from now on I’ll add ++ :)
I guess you’re doing it wrong then? Stop parroting memes
I heavily use both and this is objectively untrue.
Those are 2 different use case pieces of software . NP++ is an editor while vscode is an IDE
Clearly this is a controversial statement. I’m team “use what’s available and preference tools that get the job done quickly.”
I work in several different languages. VSCode has TreeSitter and a bevy of slick plug-ins. NP++ does not. I can use VSCode on both Windows and Linux. If I’ve got a desktop environment, I will hands down pick VSCode over NP++ every time.
Otherwise, let’s be real, NeoVim is king.
NP++ was good 20 years ago during a time with much weaker competition and it’s been coasting on that good will ever since
It’s OK for a text editor (compared to something totally basic like notepad) but other text editors have caught up in every single category
like you said, VS Code is now the default go to code editor for a lot of people. if you don’t use VS Code, you use vim.
for non-coding uses, I don’t see the functional difference between NP++ or something basic like Gnome’s text editor
Completely agreed. At one point, maybe 12 years ago, I remember trying to learn NP++'s macro system. It was better than whatever we had at the time, but I’m glad I didn’t spend more time than I had to. Just a couple months ago, a coworker was raving about how great NP++ macros are … to do a task handily solved by some light regular expressions and/or column edit mode. Both REs and CEM are far more ubiquitous concepts than some bespoke, domain-specific language for defining repetitive tasks.
Install time? Startup time? Useless bloat?
I usually use my work laptop for personal bits and bobs which is Ubuntu but I turned on my personal Microsoft PC recently to do some stuff and couldn’t believe all the pop-ups and noise! I promptly moved all my data onto a external drive and did a fresh install of Ubuntu.
All the Linux posts and Linux loving Lemmy users are what keep me away from Linux.
They’re like the Rick and Morty fans of PC software
Guess that’s what happens when Windows drives me insane
Not our fault you won’t listen to common sense and reason. Enjoy your bloated fascist spyware just because you think Linux users are creepy or whatever the fuck you think.
Great example of what I’m talking about
Fine. Notepad++ is better anyway
It’s a lot more feature filled and frankly not very nice looking if all you want is a simple replacement for Notepad. Notepads (with an s) is much better imo.
Thanks for mentioning Notepads, never heard of it but it looks interesting. I already use quite a few different note taking apps, but still often start with Notepad when I don’t know where the info will eventually end up…
I prefer Sublime
Is it though? I still always open notepad for random text stuff. What is better in ++?
- Keeps your progress if you exit without saving
- Supports tabs so you don’t have 5 separate notepad windows open
- syntax highlighting for programming languages and markdown format
- plugin support
- can handle extremely large text files (I’ve opened 50gb text files and used ctrl+f to find terms and it worked fine)
- superb tools for manipulating text (e.g., use reg expressions). Super easy and flexible in making mass edits.
- dark mode support. That alone makes it superior lol
If you just need a quick window open to make a note you might actually prefer Sticky Notes over Notepad!
+10000 for notepad++, its he swiss army knife of file editing tools. Adding:
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Plugins: CSV being read as a small dB table you can query is a game changer. Or have a JSON plugin that auto formats and queries as well as opens the JSON in a clickable nested window.
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Pinned tabs: pin important tabs, I use one as a todo list.
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Search for text within files in a folder: need to find a specific bit of text in one of dozens/hundreds/thousands/millions of files somewhere? Its lightning fast and works a treat
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Search and replace with regex: amazing feature, use regex patterns to find complex parts of your files and replace them with something else Bulk operations: remove newline, replace line breaks etc
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Multi format support: see line breaks from different OSs like Unix and windows and amend them Portable install: you dont have to install it, you can use a portable version
So much more, get it and you won’t look back.
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A few of those features are available on Notepad as well, just FYI.
Out if curiosity, which ones? Because I don’t see any of those features and am on W11…
On my W11 work machine I got dark mode, saving unsaved drafts and tabs
Ahh interesting. Is that a Windows 11 thing? I haven’t taken the plunge
Your first two points are part of Notepad now too. Everything else you’ve said is true though, including the find and replace function supporting regex. It’s amazingly powerful for editing.
It also supports line numbering, which seems like a small thing but is really helpful.
Ah thanks for the first proper answer. Sounds good, I will give it a try.
Just to point out that on Win11, Notepad also:
- Keeps progress without saving
- Supports tabs
I use a bunch of text editors / note taking apps regularly (or semi-regularly) and Notepad is one of them (among others also Notepad++, VSC, Obsidian, Geany, Notion…).
A lot of those are features of notepad.
Specifically: tabs, dark mode, and retention of unsaved documents. They’re apps for very different purposes, but Notepad has had some nice little updates over recent years.
Notepad++ isn’t trying to shoehorn in AI for starters. It’s clear Microsoft is praying the current gimmicky narrative of AI will let the masses not realize this is a privacy nightmare.
Notepad does that neither for me and has not for >20 years. So is there something that is actually better or not?
Yes, it objectively is. And so are various other text editor options that are out there.
But just speaking about Notepad++, you can scale it down to a very simple text editor (like Notepad), it you can easily ramp it up to a much more feature rich one. And for me, the ability to have a vertical list of files is a big plus. As is its ability to optionally show line numbers.
So it is better because it can do more, but I assume not too too much? Because then we can also use word?
They have different use cases. Notepad++ is for manipulating text, strings, and code. It’s got very powerful tools for it.
Word is for making things look pretty. You can change typefaces, fonts, size. You can add pictures and diagrams and arrange them on the page.
the only thing I need it for is to select text vertically (by holding left alt). there are a few similar ones for linux but some crash and the rest don’t have a dark theme, so I still use it with wine.
Holy moly, that works? I needed precisely that feature earlier! Nice.
Fucking click bait garbage article, but thankfully the article has a tldr at the top that basically contradicts the headline and saves you minutes of time to realize you’ve been baited;
TL;DR: Microsoft has introduced a paywall for Notepad, requiring a Microsoft 365 subscription to access new features like the AI-powered Rewrite tool.
Better headline: Microsoft forces you to pay to suffer through using their AI tool that no one asked for, application otherwise unchanged.
This seems like something that should be kept local. What’s the point of all these NPUs otherwise
LLMs in general is a tool no in one asked for
So… who wants to bet that the new version of Notepad is not constantly scraping anything you type into it and feeding it into the AI, regardless of whether you’re paying for this feature or not?
Tbf, they already control the os itself. They already have access to all of the keystrokes. Implementing it just in notepad feels like a rube goldbergy way of scraping user data.
Sublime text ftw
Notepad++ on windows is kind of the GOAT IMO.
The search and replace UX is 10 years behind. The sole reason I use sublime text instead
Npp has normal, with special characters and regex, does sublime has something better there?
They said UI, so I don’t think they meant features. But honestly I’ve never been unhappy with their UI, aside from one day with multiple replaces across a few files where the autofill from clipboard kept deleting the expression I wanted to be in there as I navigated through what I needed to do.
But that was fine, anyway, it got through it and I’m just happy with the “apply to all open documents” setting. Saved me at least an hour.
They achtually said UX which is User Experience.
The regex engine was not full featured last time I tried. Done know which implementation they use, but it was lacking basic features like end of line matching (if I remember correctly).
I’m a happy sublime user myself but the search UI is one thing I particularly don’t like about it.
I like how sublime looks. But it is absolutely ridiculous that is has no settings UI and expects you to go and manually edit a json file to change even basic settings. Insane. So that’s a no from me.
Case in point: Windows 11 “Light” (LTSC) from Microsoft has the classic and advertisement-free version of Notepad.
Notepad++ FTW
Sublime Text for me. It has some nifty features that NP++ doesn’t, and looks better out of the box.
How about jottr? https://github.com/mfat/jottr
I don’t think it’s ragebait/clickbait. I think it’s really problematic that just a simple text editor get this bad by enshittification.
Sounds like they’re slipping cloud based AI assistance into the deal, which is the opposite of what Notepad is “good” for.
Gotta squeeze every single cent from every single opportunity, otherwise line might not go up indefinitely.
But it is though, it’s for a feature that you don’t need and can just turn off and never see again…
I think you got used to used to it, if you would use Linux for 15 years (like me), then going back to Windows really shows all these problems of Microsoft.
The biggest problem here that you get this pop-up in the first place… And I’m pretty sure it’s not only Notepad, all Microsoft products (including Windows) is getting worse and worse due to enshittification.
It should be noted that you can still use Notepad without a Microsoft account, and users can go as far as removing the Rewrite icon completely from Notepad. Despite the ability to still use the software without an account, Microsoft has received some criticism for implementing what is most definitely a paywall/advertisement for a built-in piece of Windows software.
It’s so stupid that they’re making these additions to notepad. There is a need to have a basic text editor on an OS that isn’t going to try to “help” by giving recommendations, automatically backs up files or whatever other shit they’re trying to jam into it.
They had wordpad and if they wanted to add additional features into that, that’s completely fine. There are use cases for something that does a bit more than a simple text editor like notepad can do.
My guess is that they tracked that people used notepad more often than wordpad so they removed wordpad. Then started making notepad more like wordpad without considering why people used notepad more frequently.
It is batshit crazy. Notepad was never meant to be what they are making it into. Not even WordPad should have AI nonsense. It’s just not for that. It would be like adding advanced spreadsheet functionality to Microsoft Word. It’s not what that’s for, you have Excel for that.
Sure but with Wordpad I wouldn’t much care if they spam it up with this kind of crap. It’s something that doesn’t have much use now, because there’s notepad for basic text files and Word or Libre Office for actual word processing. So if someone wanted something to type up some notes that get automatic backups, and have AI recommendations (not that it would be me, but who knows?) just put it on there so we still have a simple text editor that’s installed by default.
If they’re going to enshittify something at least don’t enshittify the basic tools of the OS.
Notepad++ is way better anyway
Linux
End of conversation.
I think that’s the start of the conversation. Which Desktop Environment?
I want a clean, advanced, well designed desktop and Im okay with redoing my work flow
Use Gnome
Gnome is cool but can it be slightly more Windows?
Use Cosmic (PopOS)
I want lots of customization, advanced features, and a traditional windows desktop metaphor
Use KDE
I want Windows and don’t really care about customization
Use Cinnamon
Dude the Windows 9x look was fucking dope
Use Mate
Im installing this on a potato
Use XFCE
Just try out multiple desktops in a live environment and see what you like before you commit. In fact, I recommend people to use a linux live session for several weeks or months before switching, just to get used to it.
I really like my KDE plasma
IMO:
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want to show off? i3wm with gaps and rofi for menu launcher. Add it some transparency effects too.
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want the MacOS style? Gnome. Default on a lot of distros.
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want something stable? XFCE. Install and forget.
Things preventing me from moving to Linux : video games and Adobe Lightroom.
Most video games work through proton on Steam. Lightroom has a web app you can use instead.
Plus RawTherapee and DarkTable are pretty good, and actually free, Lightroom alternatives to boot.
…my cracked version of Adobe CS6
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Gnome is an opinionated desktop environment and that turns some people off. But it’s bold enough to make some design decisions and have a limited scope. KDE tries to be another Windows alternative.
Of course, you could go with a tiling window manager but my vote goes to Gnome. I’ve had a very smooth experience on Gnome for the last couple years.
Yeah, Gnome is like the Apple of the Linux world. The devs have the same kind of “we know better than you do” mentality towards design. The issue tracker is a lot of “hey the OS won’t let me do [edge-case scenario that an OS should be able to do, but which most users won’t bother with]” followed by the devs going “Gnome isn’t designed to support [edge-case scenario]. Bug report closed.” Like the devs have a very “it’s not a bug; It’s a feature” mentality, and anyone who runs into that bug must be using the OS “wrong”.
we know better than you do” mentality towards design
And I agree with them. I think people should pick whatever desktop environment needs the least amount of customization for their needs. Keep it simple. If Gnome works out of the box, use it. If KDE works out of the box, use it.
This is Gnomes biggest advantage to be honest. They have a singular vision of how they want their product to work and they aren’t concerned with edge uses.
I enjoy elements of so many DEs but I keep coming back to gnome because it’s just so well executed over the others.
Well… it just removes so much toxicity from the outset
People at Microsoft doesn’t understand what people use Notepad for.
If they wanted to add AI features, they should have added it to WordPad, and make it more modern / add some useful functions.
They killed wordpad.
Can’t wait for them to remove Calculator, since you can ask AI to calculate stuff, you know.
Add it to OneNote then?
Yeah but no one uses wordpad. They put it in notepad for the exact reason you’re saying: because people use it.
If they made it more useful, people would use it. Making support for modern formats, maybe even Markdown could have been added and it would already be 5x more useful. Also add another set of basic features like tables, some advanced formatting to the mix as well.
If they made Wordpad generate Markdown instead of RTF (or as well as, but by default) then I’d consider using it. As it is, I already pay for a Jetbrains license, so I just use Fleet. Massive overkill for note-taking, but it’s there and it works.
Microsoft what the fuck are you doing.
You fucking idiot’s.
