Recommend a simple text editor?

[sheik]

Can anybody recommend a nice lightweight plaintext editor please?

Ideally I'd like the following features:
-ability to open files from any directory, even if it is nested several levels deep.
-Works with plain text files and saves as .txt and other user chosen extensions.
-Will let me try and open any file (PHP, HTML etc).
-Variable font size when viewing the document (cleartype would be good too).
- Fast to start the app.
- Stable and won't slow my system down.
- Unicode (utf-8) support would be nice.
- Tabbed multi-document support would be cool as well, but isn't essential
There must be something close to the above available for PPC but I haven't found anything usable. The PC equivalent of what I'm after would probably be textpad (www.textpad.com).

Incidentally, I realise PocketWord can work with .txt files but it takes an age to load on my Toshiba E570 (admittedly this is made worse due to it scanning Mazingo files on my storage card, but it is still quite slow even if I remove that card).

I'd be interested to know what other people use to write down notes, thoughts, snippets of creative writing, simple HTML editing etc? I always prefer simple text files as I can transfer them around using storage cards really easily. I rarely need to be able to draw or markup my text in any way when using my PDA.

Thanks,

/\dam

[davidspalding]

Doesn't have all the features you want, but most of the big ones.

I use the editor that comes with Ghisler.com's Total Commander CE. I haven't touched Pocket Word in months, I do all the editing in TC's editor. I believe you can open multiple documents for editing, too. (Helps if you use Gigabar or another task switcher which will show you that multiple instances are open, as it doesn't do the MDI tab thing.)

[rhmorrison]

I use the editor that comes with Ghisler.com's Total Commander CE.
I totally agree, I am also a big fan of Total Commander for PocketPC (http://www.ghisler.com) - Highly recommended.

[oe1kenobi]

I live by GigaPad (included with the latest beta of Giga bar). Get it here: http://www.tekguru.co.uk/gigabar/

If you don't want to keep GigaBar, you can install it, copy the GigaPad.exe, then uninstall. Works great, only thing one your list missing it multiple document support, but I prefer running the app more than once and using my task manager (GigaBar in my case) to switch between them.

-Richard L. Owens

[sheik]

I live by GigaPad (included with the latest beta of Giga bar). Get it here: http://www.tekguru.co.uk/gigabar/

Thanks for the tip.
I went to the site and downloaded both the cab and desktop installs but both said that the beta had expired.

Also, the Gigabar site says: "Two things are cool about the GigaBar. First, it's free! Second, it's not proprietary."

However, the expiry message I am getting is telling me to go to buy.gigabar.com to register it. What is the deal with this software, is it free or not?

Many thanks,

/\dam

[sheik]

Doesn't have all the features you want, but most of the big ones. [...]
I use the editor that comes with Ghisler.com's Total Commander CE.


Many thanks for telling me about this program, I haven't had a chance to play with it yet but it installed smoothly and seems to do a whole lot of useful stuff (the website implies it can do a search for text within a file which is great :) )

/\dam

[oe1kenobi]

I live by GigaPad (included with the latest beta of Giga bar). Get it here: http://www.tekguru.co.uk/gigabar/

Thanks for the tip.
I went to the site and downloaded both the cab and desktop installs but both said that the beta had expired.

Also, the Gigabar site says: "Two things are cool about the GigaBar. First, it's free! Second, it's not proprietary."

However, the expiry message I am getting is telling me to go to buy.gigabar.com to register it. What is the deal with this software, is it free or not?

Many thanks,

/\dam
Oops, I forgot about that. It is free, but the latest beta is pretty old, so you have to "register" it (for free). They set it all up to be shareware, then haven't updated it in a year. Still the best taskmanager by my books though.

Just input your details at buy.gigabar.com and it automatically emails you back the registration code.

-Richard L. Owens

...man, as I actually type this out it seems less and less cool...

[davidspalding]

Re: Gigabar Beta

I can't remember, is 2.xB supported only on ARM, or MIPS as well...?

[oe1kenobi]

The .exe installer (which is the newest version anyway: V1.90.31 of 5-2-02) has .cab's for ARM, MIPS, & SH3.

-Richard L. Owens

[davidspalding]

YEp, that's what I tried. It failed on my Casio. Wouldn't respond unless in teh cradle. Wierd, that.

But Gigapad made it worth the experiment. ,:) Now, .TXT files are no longer associated with PocketWord(pad). Yeaaah. :D

[oe1kenobi]

YEp, that's what I tried. It failed on my Casio. Wouldn't respond unless in teh cradle. Wierd, that.

But Gigapad made it worth the experiment. ,:) Now, .TXT files are no longer associated with PocketWord(pad). Yeaaah. :D
So, it did install when you tried it with your Casio in the cradle? If not, you can open the .exe in your favorite .zip program (it's really a self-extracting .zip file) and rip the required cab's out by hand.

-Richard L. Owens

[pauliu]

About simple text editor, I like PocketNotepad from tillanosoft

http://www.tillanosoft.com/ce/pnotepad.html

[sheik]

About simple text editor, I like PocketNotepad from tillanosoft

That's strange, I just downloaded this and it seems I've already tried it. I'd need to check but I think I may have stopped using it because it can't open files from more than one folder deep?

I arrange my storage cards as I have always done on computers, with nested subdirectories. It really annoys me that lots of PPC apps can only see one level deep :bad-words:

/\dam

[oe1kenobi]

...I may have stopped using it because it can't open files from more than one folder deep?

I arrange my storage cards as I have always done on computers, with nested subdirectories. It really annoys me that lots of PPC apps can only see one level deep :bad-words:

/\dam
That's an in-built Microsoft problem. The PocketPC system says that user files have to: (1) be in a My Documents folder in the device, card, etc and (2) can only have one sub-folder level below that.
To force this restiction, the built-in open and save file dialog boxes restrict you. Many programs build their own file dialog boxes to aviod this regrettable "feature", and tillanosoft offers the tgetfile.dll (http://www.tillanosoft.com/ce/tgetfile.html) as one option. Once the tgetfile.dll is installed, all the programs on the PocketPC that support it (such as PocketTV and others) will use tillanosoft's file dialog boxes.

So, PocketNotepad from tillanosoft needs to have tgetfile.dll installed to be able to use all file folders.

Another neet hack for this is File Dialog Changer V1.21 (http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley-Cupertino/2039/filedlgchg.lzh) which hooks inplace-of the system file dialog box call, so all programs (even Pocket Word) don't have the restrictions.
The authors site is here (http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley-Cupertino/2039/) English translation via excite.co.jp is here (http://www.excite.co.jp/world/url/?wb_url=http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley-Cupertino/2039/&wb_lp=JAEN&wb_dis=2&wb_co=excitejapan)

To install File Dialog Changer V1.21, uncompress the .lzh on the PC, copy the CAB to your PocketPC, run it, then run FileDialogChanger.lnk that's added to your Programs menu. You can add this to your \Windows\StartUp folder if you always want it on.

-Richard L. Owens

[pauliu]

Yes, you need to install tGetFile.dll to make PocketNotePad access all the folders. You can get it on same website.

Note: If you install the latest version 3.1, better not to use the setup program, just select the right cab file to install. The setup program installed a wrong HPC version to my 5450.

[davidspalding]

YEp, that's what I tried. It failed on my Casio. Wouldn't respond unless in teh cradle. Wierd, that.

But Gigapad made it worth the experiment. ,:) Now, .TXT files are no longer associated with PocketWord(pad). Yeaaah. :D
So, it did install when you tried it with your Casio in the cradle? If not, you can open the .exe in your favorite .zip program (it's really a self-extracting .zip file) and rip the required cab's out by hand.

-Richard L. Owens

Um. No, it installed just fine from the EXE, but none of the icons would respond to taps until the PDA was cradled. Once cradled, all the taps that were ignored were acted upon in rapid fashion. Bizarre.
____________

FWIW, I hardly open files from the applcation. I like a "document-centric" interface, so I launch almost all files from Total Commander CE. So that "feature" of PPC is bypassed. Typical of Microsoft, a third party app is needed to make the Microsoft OS truly usable.

[sheik]

Just a quick thank you to the kind people that posted to this thread.
PocketNotepad combined with tGetFile.dll has already made my PPC much more usable to me and Total Commander is excellent.

I did install File Dialog Changer V1.21 but it didn't seem to make any difference on my device, certainly not with PocketWord anyway.

Thanks again!

/\dam

[Kaber]

Now if only Pocket Notepad could open bigger files.

[oe1kenobi]

...I did install File Dialog Changer V1.21 but it didn't seem to make any difference on my device, certainly not with PocketWord anyway.

Thanks again!

/\dam
File Dialog Changer does work, just make sure you run it after you install it. You should get a "Hook installed" message, or something. (You have to re-run it after soft resets.) Then, in PocketWord, use Tools->Save As to see the new dialog. I'm not sure how to get the open dialog box in PocketWord.

I've taken to only having File Dialog Changer installed, since programs written to use tsGetFile.dll call the normal system file dialog boxes if tGetFile.dll is not installed, so they end up using the File Dialog Changer dialogs instead, too.

-Richard L. Owens

[oe1kenobi]

Now if only Pocket Notepad could open bigger files.
GigaBar opens large files. I'm not sure how large, but it was happy to open an 80KB .txt file (an ebook) that Pocket Notepad balked at. 8)

EDIT: Scratch that, GigaPad loads the file without a warning, but anything after 30,000 Bytes is blank. Still, 30000B is slightly larger than Pocket Notepad's 28671B limit, and GigaPad has that cool customizable toolbar.

-Richard L. Owens

[Kaber]

thx i'll check it out

[sheik]

File Dialog Changer does work, [...] in PocketWord, use Tools->Save As to see the new dialog. I'm not sure how to get the open dialog box in PocketWord.


Ah yes, thanks, I have it working now. I was looking for an open dialog and of course Word doesn't seem to have one.

I think I am pretty much sorted now thanks to the posts here. I can use Total Commander to browse anywhere I like. I can then open a text file in Word if I want to or I can use Total Commander's filetype override feature to open my file in Pocket Notepad instead.

The only slight restriction is what one person already said, there is a size limitation on Pocket Notepad of 64k. This applies to Total Commander's inbuilt text viewer too. So I will probably try and get Gigapad registered. Opening and searching a 400Kb file in Pocket Word is sloooow...

Cheers,

/\dam

[oe1kenobi]

...The only slight restriction is what one person already said, there is a size limitation on Pocket Notepad of 64k. This applies to Total Commander's inbuilt text viewer too. So I will probably try and get Gigapad registered. Opening and searching a 400Kb file in Pocket Word is sloooow...

Cheers,

/\dam
(1) Actually, the size limit in Pocket Notepad is 28,671 Bytes.
(2) I goofed on GigaPad's abilities: GigaPad loads the file without a warning, but anything after 30,000 Bytes is blank. Still, 30000B is slightly larger than Pocket Notepad's limit, and GigaPad has that cool customizable toolbar. (I don't know exactly what Total Commander's inbuilt text viewer's limit is - I've never used it.)
(3) You don't even need to register GigaBar if you only want GigaPad - just grab the \Program Files\GigaBar\GigaPad.exe file and then uninstall the rest if you don't want it. Then again, you do want GigaBar, so go for it.

-Richard L. Owens

[davidspalding]

Interesting ... I can open up a 43.5 kb ascii file in Gigapad and it reads all the way tothe end.

The toolbar can be customized?! Didn't even see that. Oh, BABY! >:d

[oe1kenobi]

Well, I've heard others quote the 30000Byte figure for GigaPad, and that is where it stopped accepting input when I tried pasting ~70KB into a new txt file in GigaPad. So, just be aware that large files may have problems.

-Richard L. Owens

[davidspalding]

Ah, good clarification, thanks. Gigapad opened hte entire file without blank space, but wouldn't allow further input. :_(

Darn. That date/time insert is something i use in Notepad and Word. I usually map F5 to that in any application that does it. (To match good ol' Notepad.)