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?
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).
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.
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.
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”
Fine. Notepad++ is better anyway
I prefer Sublime
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.
!linux@programming.dev could use more folks!
[obligatory linux boast] I really prefer Kate to Notepad because KDE makes superior, non AI encrusted software that actually works for it’s users. And it’s FREE!
personally i find kate struggles with large files. KWrite is a better analog to notepad IMO
Even though it’s typically associated with KDE and Linux, it’s also available on Windows. Good for people who haven’t made up their mind yet. It’s a great text editor with a feature-set similar to other advanced notepads.
I’ll be real though, if I hadn’t jumped ship 3 years ago, I’d be cutting my losses with Windows here.
I love Kate.
the news is more that they are trying to shoehorn AI in effing Notepad to make sure even those little snippets of text can be used for training
The age of Notepad having a paywall has arrived, with the simple writing software now prompting users to sign into a Microsoft account to access new tools such as Rewrite, a new feature that uses artificial intelligence to rewrite highlighted text.
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.
So notepad isn’t behind a paywall, AI features nobody was asking for is behind a paywall, and this headline is bullshit.
That’s my takeaway.
That’s my understanding, yes
I use Vim, actually
Same.
There always has to be one…
Fuck Ai. I just want Notepad to edit the most basic text. Why the fuck would I need fucking Ai bullshit in it? To rewrite what? INI game files? Hosts file?
Could MS suck any worse? It’s like they want people to not use their products. Capitalism is the ouroboros.
The fact that they choose to mess with Notepad is more telling than the value it has given the alternatives.
Notepad++ is my text editor of choice as someone who just edits the occasional file. I’m not a programmer or anything, but it’s nice to have those autocomplete and syntax highlighting features for config files. Helps me keep track of stuff better when editing.
Notepad is not free! Bah ha ha ha. Anyway, tons of options out there for those not to lazy to look.
