I am a big fan of Notepad++ in windows and I have been using Notepadqq, a linux clone. Lately though, I have been experiencing more and more crashes and bugs with it. Looking for advice and wisdom. Is there something better? Should I stick it out and try and troubleshoot my problems with Notepadqq?
Edit: Just wanted to thank everyone for all the great advice! I know people can sometimes be territorial and/or religious about their choices here, but people in this thread were helpful and informative, so thank you!
I am trying out Notepad Next but I also installed Notepad++ with Wine. Both seem promising, thanks.
If you want a GUI, Kate is my favorite. Otherwise Neovim
I have been using kate a bit and it has been a decent experience so far.
Try Kwrite. I’ve liked it a lot more than Kate.
I get random crashes from kate in the last few versions (appimage). But other than that, it’s the best foss gui code editor.
If you want a gui editor maybe Kate?
+1 for Kate
VSCodium, or some similar VSCode build/derivative.
I know, I know, but the critical mass is just so useful. As a random example, there are specific extensions to support game modding in Paradox scripting language, or Rimworld XML. Nothing else has so many random niches filled.
It’s fast with big files (faster than anything I’ve tried other than ‘specialized’ log readers and such), it’s a fast search, it’s got good git support, it’s got support for sudo file editing…
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Pretty much everyone at work is using VSCode, maybe this is a good opportunity to dive in, thanks.
Notepadqq not the best reimplementation of notepad++ I am using NotepadNext https://github.com/dail8859/NotepadNext
I have gotten a lot of great feedback to this post, but if I had to give points for the most spot-on answer, you would get it. Thanks!
Sublime Text. On any platform. Nimble, mighty, extendable.
I’m a big fan of Sublime. It’s powerful while also good at getting out of the way
Paying for a text editor seems weird, especially one that’s closed source and only supports 3 platforms
Text editors are a really personal choice and there are a million different ones. I use either Kate or Micro. Both are great for my use.
Fair point. I have worn many hats through my IT career, I started out as a Windows NT admin back when it was cutting edge technology in the 90s. I fell in love with a text editor called Ultraedit that my org had a site license for. When I left that org after many years I missed Ultraedit and was delighted to find Notepad++ had most of features I loved. Now the course of my career has found me become a Linux admin and personal linux user for many years now. I have been using Notedpad-qq for years, but recently it seems to have gotten worse and I have had instances where crashes resulted in lost data. I liked the idea of having the same general UI and features as Notepad++ because I still need to use Windows at work. But I am reluctantly admitting maybe it is a time for a change.
Apologies for the digression, but I wanted to share some of the waypoints in my journey that influenced my personal choice.
Why don’t you just use the one you like? Wine isn’t the clunky near-useless thing it once was, you can probably just run the Notepad++ installer and use it like any other app.
I see it is Platinum on WineHQ, will give that a try thanks.
https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=2983
Try Geany if you don’t want a heavyweight; it’s in the repos. IMHO pretty similar to notepadqq.
BTW, I also have trouble with Qt apps crashing/freezing on Debian Stable. What distro/version are you on?
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I think I once tried vanilla SciTE and did not like it. Geany does a good job of packaging it into a well-integrated code-editor with IDE functionality.
my path was 15-20 years of vim, a decade of emacs, and a couple of years on sublime. these days i am using zed and i like it quite a bit (you can ignore the llm agent stuff, it’s only there if you want it). sometimes i just use the built-in gnome text editor. notepad++ is my go-to on windows and i didn’t find anything quite like it on linux.
geany and vscode are decent options as well.
as somebody else pointed out: text editors are deeply personal. you’re just gonna have to try a few and see what you like.
I also used Notepadqq for the first year I used Linux, I ended up switching to Kate since it did everything I liked about Notepad++ and it came installed with my KDE desktop soooo.
Also for the few times I gotta use a terminal text editor I use Micro (It really should be the default instead of Nano)
The Solaris version of vi, hardened against escape to shell and with no quality of life improvements. Builds character.
I also recommend giving up electricity and motor vehicles, real men calculate subnet masks by hand.
If push comes to shove, you can still use Notepad++ under Wine. It works.
I use Kate for my editing needs, fast and good regexp work, which is important for me.
Honestly just use whatever you want whenever you want. I mean for myself I’m currently using DOOM Emacs but that’ll change in a month or two when I decide to use something else. I’ll routinely rotate through Neovim/LazyVim, DOOM Emacs, Zed, Kate, whatever really. if something new comes along, i’ll use that for a bit. Hell sometimes I just can’t be bothered and will just use Nano.
But yeah, they’re all fine. use whatever you want.
Notepadqq has given me crashes and issues for years, and I once lost data. I use gedit for notes and fancy code editors for everything else
