TED Notepad is

freeware Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for t ...

portable

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 u ...

software for Microsoft Windows, developed by Juraj Šimlovič since 2001, originally as a school project. It looks similar to Windows Notepad, but provides additional features, including experimental

line completion 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 ...

and selection jumping.

Overview

Key features of TED Notepad include simple text-only interface, large variety of text-processing tools, supplemental text clipboards, high accessibility through hotkeys, and respectable number of settings and options. The application offers several innovative and experimental features like secondary search or line-sensitive completion. It is often described as swiss-army-knife text editor on web forums. Amongst innovative features, there is a secondary search, which allows users to look for two different things at the same time. The editor also allows users to select text to the next occurrence while searching. Another unusual feature is in ''go to'' dialog, which offers to select text upon jumping and to jump relatively from the current position. One of the experimental features is a

. Besides the standard word completion, which is based on a dictionary of the actual document, TED Notepad provides a simple way to ''complete words'' also according to line similarities. In comparison to the word completion, the line completion is capable of auto-completing punctuation, special characters and source code operators. Therefore, on lines with many operators and braces, completing source code by similar lines can be more efficient than completing by words.

Features

Text tools

The most visible characteristic of TED Notepad is the number of text functions it offers, including: * Several letter case conversions. * Conversions of newlines between Unix and Mac platforms. * Tools for reversing text, words or entire lines. * Tools for word wrapping and unwrapping lines. * Tools for (un)indenting, (un)closing or (un)tabifying text. * Exhaustive tool for sorting lines. * Unique lines tool, which can exclude or count duplicate lines. * Tool for translating characters into other characters. * Tool for cutting columns from text and adding line numbers. * Extensive text statistics that calculate 12 different values about text. * Support for external user-defined text plugins like

grep grep is a command-line utility for searching plain-text data sets for lines that match a regular expression. Its name comes from the ed command ''g/re/p'' (''globally search for a regular expression and print matching lines''), which has the sa ...

Other features

Other practical features include: * Auto-save and file backup copy. * Favorite Esc key exit. * Many hotkeys. * Several internal clipboards for usual cliché. * File size limited only by actual memory available. * Word completion, based on the actual file dictionary - the words are offered according to words already typed. * Copy word/line above that quickly inserts words typed directly above - very handy for writing lists, where each line starts with the same/similar words. * Favorite files menu. * Auto indentation and Tabs as Spaces. * Minimize to System tray and stay on top.

Reception

Awards and reviews

* ''"Pricelessware"'' award from alt.comp.freeware participants in 2007. * ''"Top 10 Freeware"'' awards from editors of Freeware-Guide.com in March 2006, June 2006, July 2006 and November 2006. * ''"6/6 ranking"'' and ''"100% Virus & Spyware Clean"'' award from editors of NoNags.com. * ''"100% clean software"'' award from Softpedia.com reporting no adware, spyware or viruses present. * Multiple reviews by editors of IDG media in November 2006 and January 2007. * Review by editors of Svet Kompjutera in December 2006.

Criticism from users

To date, TED Notepad does not officially feature versions of the program in any language other than the original English version. The author furthermore forbids anyone to translate and distribute non-official nightly translations. Despite this, there are a few non-official translations for Chinese and French, downloadable directly from the main homepage of the program. The author warns, however, about possible danger that may come from using these translations. Because of standard windows editbox architecture used in TED Notepad, the editor does not support some of the advanced display and editing techniques like

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. ...

or block selection. Some users find these features to be the key features of many other professional text editors. Several users have requested improvements in design and visual feeling of the application, including the missing

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 ...

multiple document interface A multiple-document interface (MDI) is a graphical user interface in which multiple windows reside under a single parent window. Such systems often allow child windows to embed other windows inside them as well, creating complex nested hierarchie ...

. In response, the author stated that most of these suggestions were "out of scope" of his original interest.TED Notepad – An expanding Notepad replacement
/ref> To date, none of these features have ever been implemented. Several users also complained about the menu getting "crammed" by adding more and more features. Although the respectable number of various editing functions is the main feature of the application, it is also a sticking point of its design. Several users have reported various troubles when printing documents from TED Notepad, for example setting up a printing font size.

April Fools' hoax

On April 1, 2007, Juraj Šimlovič pulled an April Fools' hoax on the official web-page of the project. He claimed that

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...

was going to acquire all TED Notepad sources and copyrights for $701.556, which was the current size of the source code (in bytes). The author would no longer hold the right to develop and further distribute the program or its portions.TED Notepad – An expanding Notepad replacement
/ref> According to the report, which was added later to the same site, the hoax lowered visit count and visit-to-download rate.

References

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External links

TED Notepad - An expanding Notepad replacementTED Notepad manual and wiki
Freeware Text editors Windows-only freeware Windows-only software Windows text editors Notepad replacements