AkelPad is a small, expandable

text editor A text editor is a type of computer program that edits plain text. Such programs are sometimes known as "notepad" software (e.g. Windows Notepad). Text editors are provided with operating systems and software development packages, and can be us ...

for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

. AkelPad is distributed as free and open-source software, hosted on

SourceForge SourceForge is a web service that offers software consumers a centralized online location to control and manage open-source software projects and research business software. It provides source code repository hosting, bug tracking, mirrorin ...

where it has been downloaded more than 3 million times.

Unicode and codepages

AkelPad handles full Unicode files written in

UTF-8 UTF-8 is a variable-width encoding, variable-length character encoding used for electronic communication. Defined by the Unicode Standard, the name is derived from ''Unicode'' (or ''Universal Coded Character Set'') ''Transformation Format 8-bit'' ...

UTF-16 UTF-16 (16-bit computing, 16-bit Unicode Transformation Format) is a character encoding capable of encoding all 1,112,064 valid code points of Unicode (in fact this number of code points is dictated by the design of UTF-16). The encoding is variab ...

(LE or BE), and

UTF-32 UTF-32 (32- bit Unicode Transformation Format) is a fixed-length encoding used to encode Unicode code points that uses exactly 32 bits (four bytes) per code point (but a number of leading bits must be zero as there are far fewer than 232 Unicode ...

(LE or BE), and can auto-detect Unicode files with or without a BOM. BOMs (byte order marks) can also be omitted, if desired, from file writing. Codepages installed on the user's system can be used for reading or writing files; text can also be re-coded into other codepages. AkelPad implements an auto-detection

algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specificat ...

for the detection of some common codepages used (optional). AkelPad can also detect non-text (i.e.

binary Binary may refer to: Science and technology Mathematics * Binary number, a representation of numbers using only two digits (0 and 1) * Binary function, a function that takes two arguments * Binary operation, a mathematical operation that ta ...

) files and will issue a message. Binary files can, however, be loaded and edited (e.g. internal text) if desired.

Plugins

The program's architecture is structured to allow external plugins ( DLLs) for the extension of AkelPad's capabilities. At present, 31 plugins are implemented and available on AkelPad's homepage. Some of the more noteworthy plugins are: *Coder -

code folding Code or text folding, or less commonly holophrasting, is a feature of some graphical user interfaces that allows the user to selectively hide ("fold") or display ("unfold") parts of a document. This allows the user to manage large amounts of text ...

support,

autocomplete Autocomplete, or word completion, is a feature in which an application predicts the rest of a word a user is typing. In Android and iOS smartphones, this is called predictive text. In graphical user interfaces, users can typically press the tab ...

support,

syntax highlighting Syntax highlighting is a feature of text editors that are used for programming, scripting, or markup languages, such as HTML. The feature displays text, especially source code, in different colours and fonts according to the category of terms ...

and color themes. *ContextMenu - user can customize the main menu and some

context menu A context menu (also called contextual, shortcut, and pop up or pop-up menu) is a menu in a graphical user interface (GUI) that appears upon user interaction, such as a right-click mouse operation. A context menu offers a limited set of choic ...

s. *ToolBar - implements one or more user-configurable

toolbar The toolbar, also called a bar or standard toolbar (originally known as ribbon) is a graphical control element on which on-screen icons can be used. A toolbar often allows for quick access to functions that are commonly used in the program. Some ...

s. ToolBar buttons can access external programs if desired. *Explorer - embeds

Windows Explorer File Explorer, previously known as Windows Explorer, is a file manager application that is included with releases of the Microsoft Windows operating system from Windows 95 onwards. It provides a graphical user interface for accessing the file ...

into a separate pane in the user interface. *Scripts - scripts can access more than 40 internal AkelPad routines (for example,

Zen Coding Emmet (formerly Zen Coding) is a set of plug-ins for text editors that allow for high-speed coding and editing in HTML, XML, XSLT, and other structured code formats via content assist. The project was started by Vadim Makeev in 2008 and continue ...

) and can, of course, be user written. *Hotkeys - user can assign functions to specific keys or key combinations. Functions may be internal to AkelPad, external (i.e. run external applications) or plugin related. *SpecialChar - toggles (on/off) display of normally invisible ''special'' characters, i.e. space, tabs, newline, vertical tabulation, formfeeds and

null character The null character (also null terminator) is a control character with the value zero. It is present in many character sets, including those defined by the Baudot and ITA2 codes, ISO/IEC 646 (or ASCII), the C0 control code, the Universal Coded Ch ...

References

External links

Homepage

AkelPad download page

Plugin download page

Files at Sourceforge

AkelPad User Forums
{{DEFAULTSORT:Akelpad Windows text editors Free text editors Free software programmed in C++ Notepad replacements Software using the BSD license

Unicode and codepages

Plugins

See also

References

External links