TED Notepad
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| TED Notepad | |
 TED Notepad 5.2.1 |
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| Developer: | Juraj Simlovic |
|---|---|
| Latest release: | 5.2.1 / November 13, 2006 |
| OS: | Microsoft Windows |
| Use: | Text editor |
| License: | Freeware |
| Website: | http://jsimlo.sk/notepad/ |
TED Notepad is a freeware text editor for Microsoft Windows. The software has been developed by Juraj Simlovic since 2001, originally as a school project. It has a similar cosmetic look to Notepad, but provides more features, especially for advanced plain-text editing. The application is portable and fits on a USB flash drive and does not require an installation. You can find several innovative features too, like a second search or a line completion.
Unlike many other similar applications, TED Notepad really supports Unicode and UTF-8 encodings, which means you can write Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Russian, Bulgarian and Arabic characters in a single file. It supports bi-directional editing as well, which is also quite rare among others. Practically transparent support for Unix and Mac newlines is also very comfortable. One does not have to wonder about files from other platforms.
One unusual and innovative feature is a second search, which allows a user to search for two things at the same time. With a feature that selects the text along searching (text between the actual position and the next occurrence is selected), this represents an easy/quick way to select blocks of text that are enclosed with specific phrases, e.g. paragraphs in HTML.
Another innovative feature is a line completion. Along the standard word completion, based on a dictionary of the actual document, TED Notepad provides a way to complete words also according to similar lines. In comparison to the word completion, the line completion is capable of completing punctuation, special characters and code operators. Therefore, completing source code by similar lines can be sometimes quicker than a completing by words, especially on lines with many operators and braces.
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[edit] Text tools
The most visible characteristic of the editor is the amount of text tools it offers. Starting with basic tools for letter case conversions and conversions of newlines between platforms, one can also find tools for reversing text, lines or words. The tools menu also does not lack tools for enhanced replacing, unwrapping (joining) lines of paragraphs, committing actual word wrapping, tools that (un)indent or (un)tabify text, tools for including and excluding files, inserting date and time or actual file name.
The application offers a dialog for sorting lines that is probably the most exhaustive out there. Unusual unique lines tool provides a method to exclude duplicate lines or to count them. Translate characters tool resembles a converter between character sets and a very simple cryptographic tool. Cutting of columns and adding numbers to them repays the missing block selections. At the end of the tour, there are extensive text statistics that calculate about 12 different things about text.
The author of the software also added a support for user defined text plugins. Its manual describes how to write a text tool of your own and how to launch it from the main application.
[edit] Other features
Other practical features may include:
- 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.
[edit] Acquisition by Microsoft
On April 1, 2007, Juraj Simlovic pulled an April Fools' hoax on the official web-page of the project. He claimed that Microsoft 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.[1]
According to the report, which was added later to the same site, the hoax took its price in visit count and visit-to-download rate.
