I LOVE Notepad++ and use it for all my plaintext editing needs, especially with the recently-discovered column-select mode (is that a new feature, or did I just miss it?)
Now there's only one missing feature I'd like to see -- full text justification. Back in '04 Don indicated (http://sourceforge.net/forum/message.php?msg_id=2826897) he wasn't interested in implementing this. Is there a plug-in that'll do this (TextFX doesn't seem to have it)? No, I'm no programmer, so I doubt I could develop my own.
Am I the only one left on the planet who still thinks fully justified text looks more profesional?
CJ
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> full justification would actually detract from column mode
Well, hmm, I understand what you're saying, but in my experience it hasn't, though various text editors I've used that support both column mode and full justification handle their interaction differently.
Just so folks don't think I'm talking out of my hat, three text editors I've used that support both column mode and full justification are Aurora (DOS only), Boxer and TSE. Both Boxer and TSE, like N++, are specifically intended as a programmer's editor (in case anyone wants to argue that programmers don't want justification). Another (GPLed) editor, which I've only played with, is Cream. It claims to support both columns and justification, but I can't figure out how to get them to work.
Back to your comment: in Aurora, if you select a columnar block then do a justify, text is re-wrapped and justified within the confines of the left and right margins of the defined column; i.e., it's a quick visual way to set both left and right margins of your paragraph; very handy. Boxer, OTOH, simply justifies the text within the columnar block, without re-wrapping the paragraph. In TSE, IIRC, if you try selecting a column then doing anything non-column/non-text block related, the block is unmarked first.
All of that is just to say 1) there ARE text editors which support both columnar operations and justification; 2) there are, specifically, programmer-oriented text editors which support both; and 3) column mode and justification can and do work together, sometimes quite well.
> Just as a general response to all "Notepad++ should have Feature X" posts:
Yes, of course, though I didn't say "should". I'm simply suggesting, as a member of the N++ community, a feature I would like to see added to N++. That's one of the functions of the community, no? Whether the feature is added, as you've said, depends on both the will of the community and of the developer(s). If the N++ community isn't interested in the feature, so be it. I simply don't think it's true that justification is incompatible either with code editing or column mode.
CJ
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Fully justified text isn't professional - even in Rich Text editors like Word. In fact, publication standards like MLA specifically says "Do not justify the lines of your paper at the right margin".
That doesn't mean justification doesn't have it's uses, but it makes no sense for a plain-text editor. Just use Word or OpenOffice if you want to justify text.
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>Am I the only one left on the planet who still thinks fully justified text looks more profesional?
Yes.
I also think spelling "professional" correctly looks more professional.
Sorry. I just couldn't pass up that opportunity; it was way too easy.
Actually I was going to defend you by pointing out that justified text is used in a lot of print media such as newspapers. Then to confirm it I grabbed some newspapers out of my trash, and as it turned out, none of them are justified. Maybe it's going out of style.
Anyway, Notepad++ was designed with programmers in mind, and for programmers, non-justified text with a proportional font is usually better. It helps to line things up in columns, which is especially nice for viewing logs and data files. Full justification would just get in the way.
My suggestion is just to get used to non-fully-justified text. I had a similar issue with working with a proportional font. I'm an amateur author, and I actually use Notepad++ for my writing. Non-proportional fonts like Times New Roman feel more "comfortable" to me, but I loved all the capabilities of Notepad++ so I had to make a choice. After a while I got used to using a proportional font for my writing, and now it doesn't bother me any more.
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Npp is chock full of features that "make no sense for a plain-text editor", beginning with its multitude of programmer features. Syntax highlighting, autocompletion and encoding support, just to name three, have nothing to do with "plain-text editing".
Npp also ships with a hex editor, even though hex editing has nothing to do with plain text. TextFX has a whole submenu devoted to "HTML tidying" -- yet HTML is far from "plain text" -- and another with over two dozen conversion options: convert text to binary/Hex64/code command; ROT13 encoding; submit to WC3 validation; export to RTF, Wikipedia search, Launch in Firefox -- are all useless for plain text editing.
I really don't think Npp is just a "plain-text editor". In any case there *are* plain text editors that can do full justification -- everything from Emacs to Pico to Qedit/TSE, to Vi/Vim implementations like Cream -- despite most of these being, like Npp, primarily programmers' editors. And what, really, is the difference between auto-indenting, which Npp does support, and line-centering that would cause the one, but not the other, to fall under useful plain-text features?
As to MLA guidelines (which have nothing to do with plain-text editing), they haven't kept the likes of Word, OppenOffice, or a slew of text editors (see above) from offering justification. And I'm having difficulty in finding a book on my bookshelves that *isn't* fully justified, despite their being professional publications.
CJ
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> I also think spelling "professional" correctly looks more professional.
:-) Yeah, I noticed that but of course, as Murphy would have it, not till after I hit "Post".
> I was going to defend you by pointing out that justified text is used in a lot of print
> media such as newspapers.
The newspapers I read are fully justified; notwithstanding that, however, I think newspapers may not be a fair bellweather, as their narrow column format tends not to be conducive to fully justified text (whitespace-to-text ratios go up as column width goes down). As for professional news publications, Time and Newsweek use full justification, as well as (as I noted in a previous post) pretty much every book publishing house. Which kinda suggests the answer to my original question is "Not hardly".
> for programmers, non-justified text with a proportional font is usually better.
I think you've got "proportional" and "non-proportional" switched around. Times-New Roman is proportional. Courier is non-proportional (aka monospaced).
> Full justification would just get in the way.
So would text wrapping. Just turn it off when you don't need it.
> My suggestion is just to get used to non-fully-justified text.
No, I think the answer is to find a text editor that has the features I want (it's not as if justification can't be done, after all, and relatively easily -- the algorithms are already out there), and two of the most important to me are column mode (which Npp does support) and full justification. Given that other text editors *do* support justification, I can't be the only one who wants it.
I *do* love Npp; this is the only "biggie" it lacks for me.
CJ
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>I think you've got "proportional" and "non-proportional" switched around. Times-New Roman is proportional. Courier is non-proportional (aka monospaced).
Oops. My mistake. Good catch. And just so I don't sound like a hypocrite, I admit that a mistake like that is also not professional.
>two of the most important to me are column mode (which Npp does support) and full justification.
That's kind of an ironic set of criteria, since full justification would actually detract from column mode because spreading out the text like that would make it difficult to select the columns. Of course, you probably meant that sometimes you need to work with column mode and sometimes you need to work with full justification, just not at the same time. That's fine.
Just as a general response to all "Notepad++ should have Feature X" posts:
Because Notepad++ is free (libre) software, anyone with the knowledge to edit the source code may do so. That turns it into somewhat of a democratic process. I don't like "Just fix it yourself" posts any more than you do (except in response to a deliberately obnoxious complaint or demand, which your original post clearly wasn't). However, you have to understand that Don only has a limited amount of time to work on features. He adds the ones he feels are most important at the expense of the ones that he doesn't. Other programmers may contribute to the project, but they'll work with the same mind set.
Look at it this way. The more a feature is desired in general, the more likely it will be desired by someone who has the ability to implement it. If Feature X is important to only one person, it's not likely that someone will implement it, but if Feature X is desired by 1,000 people, someone will almost assuredly add it (assuming it's not technically too difficult).
So asking for full justification is perfectly fine; you just have to understand that if few others find it as important as you do, you have to accept that it's not going to be added. And yes, sometimes this means you have to give up on a program that doesn't do what you want and find one that does. There's nothing wrong with that. For me, Notepad++ is the perfect editor. For you, it may not be.
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Notepad++ is intended to be a code editor. So this justifies the presence of syntax highlighting etc. Depending on how you look at it, you may also see HTML files as plain text files. It is possible to edit HTML as plain text. So please do keep saying that there are a lot of features in Notepad++ YOU don't need. Perhaps, if justification is SO important to you, this may trigger you into learning some programming and do the job yourself. No-one is stopping you, although a lot may doubt the number of users that really need this feature.
Can you think of any convenient way to have an editor have a column mode in combination with your justification???
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Almost correct. The Notepad++ homepage on Sourceforge advertises it as both a "source code editor" and "Notepad replacement" (hence the name, presumably).
If it's "just" a code editor, then why does it support text wrapping? I can't think of a feature that'd screw up one's source code faster.
> So this justifies the presence of syntax highlighting etc
Which was , of course, my point. A previous anonymous poster suggested Npp was just a "plain text editor", in response to which I pointed out the plethora of programmer features.
> So please do keep saying that there are a lot of features in Notepad++ YOU don't need
I don't recall saying that. I highlighted the programmer features in response to the implication that Npp was just a "plain text editor".
In any case, yes of course Npp has features I don't need. It has features YOU don't need. It probably has features even Don himself doesn't need. How's that relevant?
> Perhaps, if justification is SO important to you, this may trigger you into
> learning some programming and do the job yourself.
No more than a broken fuel pump would goad me into becoming a mechanic just to fix my car.
> a lot may doubt the number of users that really need this feature.
Or you, at least :-). In any case, there *are* text editors which do text justification, which leads me to conclude there *are* users who desire the feature. If they're not part of the Npp, so be it. (Of course, that may be *why* they're not; ya never know.)
> Can you think of any convenient way to have an editor
> have a column mode in combination with your justification???
As I've already said, I'm not a programmer, so the obvious answer here is, no *I* can't; or at least I might be able to diagram out a flowchart, but I'd have no clue how to code it. However, since it has been done, then it *can* be done; it's not a technical issue that stands in the way of Npp doing justification. It's the desire of the community and of Don.
And if the will of the community doesn't desire it, or Don doesn't want to code it, that's fine. As a member of the Npp community, I'm simply suggesting a feature I'd like to see. Isn't that what the community does?
Thanks for your feedback,
CJ
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I LOVE Notepad++ and use it for all my plaintext editing needs, especially with the recently-discovered column-select mode (is that a new feature, or did I just miss it?)
Now there's only one missing feature I'd like to see -- full text justification. Back in '04 Don indicated (http://sourceforge.net/forum/message.php?msg_id=2826897) he wasn't interested in implementing this. Is there a plug-in that'll do this (TextFX doesn't seem to have it)? No, I'm no programmer, so I doubt I could develop my own.
Am I the only one left on the planet who still thinks fully justified text looks more profesional?
CJ
> full justification would actually detract from column mode
Well, hmm, I understand what you're saying, but in my experience it hasn't, though various text editors I've used that support both column mode and full justification handle their interaction differently.
Just so folks don't think I'm talking out of my hat, three text editors I've used that support both column mode and full justification are Aurora (DOS only), Boxer and TSE. Both Boxer and TSE, like N++, are specifically intended as a programmer's editor (in case anyone wants to argue that programmers don't want justification). Another (GPLed) editor, which I've only played with, is Cream. It claims to support both columns and justification, but I can't figure out how to get them to work.
Back to your comment: in Aurora, if you select a columnar block then do a justify, text is re-wrapped and justified within the confines of the left and right margins of the defined column; i.e., it's a quick visual way to set both left and right margins of your paragraph; very handy. Boxer, OTOH, simply justifies the text within the columnar block, without re-wrapping the paragraph. In TSE, IIRC, if you try selecting a column then doing anything non-column/non-text block related, the block is unmarked first.
All of that is just to say 1) there ARE text editors which support both columnar operations and justification; 2) there are, specifically, programmer-oriented text editors which support both; and 3) column mode and justification can and do work together, sometimes quite well.
> Just as a general response to all "Notepad++ should have Feature X" posts:
Yes, of course, though I didn't say "should". I'm simply suggesting, as a member of the N++ community, a feature I would like to see added to N++. That's one of the functions of the community, no? Whether the feature is added, as you've said, depends on both the will of the community and of the developer(s). If the N++ community isn't interested in the feature, so be it. I simply don't think it's true that justification is incompatible either with code editing or column mode.
CJ
Fully justified text isn't professional - even in Rich Text editors like Word. In fact, publication standards like MLA specifically says "Do not justify the lines of your paper at the right margin".
That doesn't mean justification doesn't have it's uses, but it makes no sense for a plain-text editor. Just use Word or OpenOffice if you want to justify text.
>Am I the only one left on the planet who still thinks fully justified text looks more profesional?
Yes.
I also think spelling "professional" correctly looks more professional.
Sorry. I just couldn't pass up that opportunity; it was way too easy.
Actually I was going to defend you by pointing out that justified text is used in a lot of print media such as newspapers. Then to confirm it I grabbed some newspapers out of my trash, and as it turned out, none of them are justified. Maybe it's going out of style.
Anyway, Notepad++ was designed with programmers in mind, and for programmers, non-justified text with a proportional font is usually better. It helps to line things up in columns, which is especially nice for viewing logs and data files. Full justification would just get in the way.
My suggestion is just to get used to non-fully-justified text. I had a similar issue with working with a proportional font. I'm an amateur author, and I actually use Notepad++ for my writing. Non-proportional fonts like Times New Roman feel more "comfortable" to me, but I loved all the capabilities of Notepad++ so I had to make a choice. After a while I got used to using a proportional font for my writing, and now it doesn't bother me any more.
Thanks for your reply.
Npp is chock full of features that "make no sense for a plain-text editor", beginning with its multitude of programmer features. Syntax highlighting, autocompletion and encoding support, just to name three, have nothing to do with "plain-text editing".
Npp also ships with a hex editor, even though hex editing has nothing to do with plain text. TextFX has a whole submenu devoted to "HTML tidying" -- yet HTML is far from "plain text" -- and another with over two dozen conversion options: convert text to binary/Hex64/code command; ROT13 encoding; submit to WC3 validation; export to RTF, Wikipedia search, Launch in Firefox -- are all useless for plain text editing.
I really don't think Npp is just a "plain-text editor". In any case there *are* plain text editors that can do full justification -- everything from Emacs to Pico to Qedit/TSE, to Vi/Vim implementations like Cream -- despite most of these being, like Npp, primarily programmers' editors. And what, really, is the difference between auto-indenting, which Npp does support, and line-centering that would cause the one, but not the other, to fall under useful plain-text features?
As to MLA guidelines (which have nothing to do with plain-text editing), they haven't kept the likes of Word, OppenOffice, or a slew of text editors (see above) from offering justification. And I'm having difficulty in finding a book on my bookshelves that *isn't* fully justified, despite their being professional publications.
CJ
> I also think spelling "professional" correctly looks more professional.
:-) Yeah, I noticed that but of course, as Murphy would have it, not till after I hit "Post".
> I was going to defend you by pointing out that justified text is used in a lot of print
> media such as newspapers.
The newspapers I read are fully justified; notwithstanding that, however, I think newspapers may not be a fair bellweather, as their narrow column format tends not to be conducive to fully justified text (whitespace-to-text ratios go up as column width goes down). As for professional news publications, Time and Newsweek use full justification, as well as (as I noted in a previous post) pretty much every book publishing house. Which kinda suggests the answer to my original question is "Not hardly".
> for programmers, non-justified text with a proportional font is usually better.
I think you've got "proportional" and "non-proportional" switched around. Times-New Roman is proportional. Courier is non-proportional (aka monospaced).
> Full justification would just get in the way.
So would text wrapping. Just turn it off when you don't need it.
> My suggestion is just to get used to non-fully-justified text.
No, I think the answer is to find a text editor that has the features I want (it's not as if justification can't be done, after all, and relatively easily -- the algorithms are already out there), and two of the most important to me are column mode (which Npp does support) and full justification. Given that other text editors *do* support justification, I can't be the only one who wants it.
I *do* love Npp; this is the only "biggie" it lacks for me.
CJ
>I think you've got "proportional" and "non-proportional" switched around. Times-New Roman is proportional. Courier is non-proportional (aka monospaced).
Oops. My mistake. Good catch. And just so I don't sound like a hypocrite, I admit that a mistake like that is also not professional.
>two of the most important to me are column mode (which Npp does support) and full justification.
That's kind of an ironic set of criteria, since full justification would actually detract from column mode because spreading out the text like that would make it difficult to select the columns. Of course, you probably meant that sometimes you need to work with column mode and sometimes you need to work with full justification, just not at the same time. That's fine.
Just as a general response to all "Notepad++ should have Feature X" posts:
Because Notepad++ is free (libre) software, anyone with the knowledge to edit the source code may do so. That turns it into somewhat of a democratic process. I don't like "Just fix it yourself" posts any more than you do (except in response to a deliberately obnoxious complaint or demand, which your original post clearly wasn't). However, you have to understand that Don only has a limited amount of time to work on features. He adds the ones he feels are most important at the expense of the ones that he doesn't. Other programmers may contribute to the project, but they'll work with the same mind set.
Look at it this way. The more a feature is desired in general, the more likely it will be desired by someone who has the ability to implement it. If Feature X is important to only one person, it's not likely that someone will implement it, but if Feature X is desired by 1,000 people, someone will almost assuredly add it (assuming it's not technically too difficult).
So asking for full justification is perfectly fine; you just have to understand that if few others find it as important as you do, you have to accept that it's not going to be added. And yes, sometimes this means you have to give up on a program that doesn't do what you want and find one that does. There's nothing wrong with that. For me, Notepad++ is the perfect editor. For you, it may not be.
Notepad++ is intended to be a code editor. So this justifies the presence of syntax highlighting etc. Depending on how you look at it, you may also see HTML files as plain text files. It is possible to edit HTML as plain text. So please do keep saying that there are a lot of features in Notepad++ YOU don't need. Perhaps, if justification is SO important to you, this may trigger you into learning some programming and do the job yourself. No-one is stopping you, although a lot may doubt the number of users that really need this feature.
Can you think of any convenient way to have an editor have a column mode in combination with your justification???
> Notepad++ is intended to be a code editor.
Almost correct. The Notepad++ homepage on Sourceforge advertises it as both a "source code editor" and "Notepad replacement" (hence the name, presumably).
If it's "just" a code editor, then why does it support text wrapping? I can't think of a feature that'd screw up one's source code faster.
> So this justifies the presence of syntax highlighting etc
Which was , of course, my point. A previous anonymous poster suggested Npp was just a "plain text editor", in response to which I pointed out the plethora of programmer features.
> So please do keep saying that there are a lot of features in Notepad++ YOU don't need
I don't recall saying that. I highlighted the programmer features in response to the implication that Npp was just a "plain text editor".
In any case, yes of course Npp has features I don't need. It has features YOU don't need. It probably has features even Don himself doesn't need. How's that relevant?
> Perhaps, if justification is SO important to you, this may trigger you into
> learning some programming and do the job yourself.
No more than a broken fuel pump would goad me into becoming a mechanic just to fix my car.
> a lot may doubt the number of users that really need this feature.
Or you, at least :-). In any case, there *are* text editors which do text justification, which leads me to conclude there *are* users who desire the feature. If they're not part of the Npp, so be it. (Of course, that may be *why* they're not; ya never know.)
> Can you think of any convenient way to have an editor
> have a column mode in combination with your justification???
As I've already said, I'm not a programmer, so the obvious answer here is, no *I* can't; or at least I might be able to diagram out a flowchart, but I'd have no clue how to code it. However, since it has been done, then it *can* be done; it's not a technical issue that stands in the way of Npp doing justification. It's the desire of the community and of Don.
And if the will of the community doesn't desire it, or Don doesn't want to code it, that's fine. As a member of the Npp community, I'm simply suggesting a feature I'd like to see. Isn't that what the community does?
Thanks for your feedback,
CJ