TextPad is a

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 ...

developed by Helios Software Solutions. It is currently in its eighth major version. TextPad was initially released in 1992 as

shareware Shareware is a type of proprietary software that is initially shared by the owner for trial use at little or no cost. Often the software has limited functionality or incomplete documentation until the user sends payment to the software developer ...

, with users requested to pay a registration fee to support future development. As of 1996 the company was an associate member of the

Association of Shareware Professionals The Association of Software Professionals (ASP), formerly Association of Shareware Professionals, was a professional association for authors and developers of freeware, commercial, and shareware computer software. It was formed in April 1987, and ...

. By 1998 the company was pointing out that the editor was "shareware (try before you buy)" and payment was necessary to continue to use it.

Features

Key features include: * The ability to maintain block indents * Automatic code indentation (see

indent style In computer programming, an indentation style is a convention governing the indentation of blocks of code to convey program structure. This article largely addresses the free-form languages, such as C and its descendants, but can be (and often ...

) *

Regular expression A regular expression (shortened as regex or regexp; sometimes referred to as rational expression) is a sequence of characters that specifies a search pattern in text. Usually such patterns are used by string-searching algorithms for "find" or ...

based search and replace, including multiline regex * Macro recording feature to facilitate complex text transformations and data processing. ** Macro feature supports multiple

regex A regular expression (shortened as regex or regexp; sometimes referred to as rational expression) is a sequence of characters that specifies a search pattern in text. Usually such patterns are used by string-searching algorithms for "find" or ...

searches (and replacements) within a macro *

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 ...

(extendable to many different languages) * Ability to call external programs (such as

compiler In computing, a compiler is a computer program that translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primarily used for programs that ...

s) ** Regex matching can be used to jump to a line number in a file given in the output from external programs (e.g. to locate the cause of a compiler error) ** Automatic integration with

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...

JDK, if JDK is already on the machine * Large file support * Support for editing multiple files, with tabbed document selection * Block select mode * Synchronized

scrolling In computer displays, filmmaking, television production, and other kinetic displays, scrolling is sliding text, images or video across a monitor or display, vertically or horizontally. "Scrolling," as such, does not change the layout of the text ...

of multiple files * Clip libraries –

snippet management Snippet is a programming term for a small region of re-usable source code, machine code, or text. Ordinarily, these are formally defined operative units to incorporate into larger Module (programming), programming modules. Snippet management is a ...

for reusable portions of text to insert into documents * Clipboard history – Allowing TextPad to function as a multiple clipboard tool * Bookmarking of lines, therefore allowing users to copy specific lines (e.g. log file error messages), and then paste them to another document. * Multi-lingual support: User interface is available in seven languages with spelling dictionaries available in ten languages.

Clip Library

The Clip Library is a TextPad sidebar that allows users to store small items persistently, and then use them easily. In other editors such as

Komodo Komodo may refer to: Computers * Komodo Edit, a free text editor for dynamic programming languages * Komodo IDE an integrated development environment (IDE) for dynamic programming languages * Komodo (chess), a chess engine People * Komodo ...

, a clip library is known as " snippets". There are clip libraries available.

Reception

TextPad has received generally favorable reviews. In 2015 Mike Williams of PC Advisor called it "an excellent

Notepad A notebook (also known as a notepad, writing pad, drawing pad, or legal pad) is a book or stack of paper pages that are often Ruled paper, ruled and used for purposes such as note-taking, diary, journaling or other writing, drawing, or scrapbook ...

replacement with a stack of essential features." Download.com described it in 2014 as an affordable editor suited for coding, "neither the most powerful nor most expensive shareware text tool, though many users will find it more than meets their needs at a fraction of the cost of similar tools."

References

External links

* {{Official website, https://www.textpad.com/ 1992 software Shareware Windows text editors Clipboard (computing)

Features

Clip Library

Reception

See also

References

External links