Change Hotkey for Window submenu in Settings (has a duplicate now)

[Grossdm]

In the Settings menu, change the "hotkey" for the Window submenu to i from W.

Currently the Settings menu has two "hotkeys" for W:

• Word Wrap Settings...
• Window (submenu)

[craigo-]

Seconded.

[RaiKoHoff]

Related Issue #338

[hpwamr]

Understood. I will do it. 👍

[hpwamr]

The modifications are done.

- POPUP "&Window"
+ POPUP "W&indow"

Feel free to test the RC2 version: "Notepad3Portable_5.19.530.1001_RC2" or higher.
See "Notepad3 beta-channel access #1129" or download it from here Notepad3Portable.

[Grossdm]

@hpwamr, I'm sorry for taking a while to get back to you.

I'm confused with the beta-channel, the build that you made for this commit, and somehow portable versions of Notepad3 are involved.

From #1129, it looks like the beta-channel is closed - but there are several cloud hosting links listed.
I looked through the numerous builds on one of the Google Drive links, and decided to give up with that.

I then noticed that your "Notepad3Portable" link was not just to a portable apps website, but to a portable version of the specific build number that you mentioned!
So that's what I have downloaded. It is not a normal 7z-archive. 7-Zip v. 19.00 reports that it cannot be opened at a 7z archive. It says that it opens it as a Nsis archive. Also, there was a problem with files (image files) trying to overwrite each other during the extraction.

So now that I have this extracted, even if I can find the correct executable file per #1129, how should I use it?
Do I need to backup everything related to Notepad3 before touching this portable version?
I've had at least one portable app mess up my configuration files in the past.

I guess I'll just wing it. I'm pretty tired now.

[Grossdm]

Uh, well, yes you did make the change that I requested.
But now there are two additional main menus:

• Language
• Themes

Language is something that should be selected either during installation or during selection of the installation file.
If there is some overwhelming demand for a multi-lingual variant of Notepad3, put it in a sub-submenu.

I don't know what the Theme menu is for.

As it is, you've created two broken top-level menu hotkeys.
Alt+L doesn't open the new Language menu, it does what it has always done: prompts the user to select another app to "launch" the file.
Alt+T doesn't open the new Themes menu, which is fine by me. But the fact that T is the hotkey for this menu means that it is broken as well.

I may be overly critical from sleep deprivation. If so, please excuse my tone.

My suggestion is to remove both of these new menus.

[RaiKoHoff]

I think, the Language menu could be moved to a sub-menu of View.
The Scheme menu should be either moved to the Themes menu or vice versa, since they are closely related.
Regarding the Hotkeys:
Unfortunately a lot (all Alt-<Char> key combinations 🤔) are already bound to functionality since a long time and most users are used to it (Alt-T : Always On Top) - so it is no good idea to use them for menu. The menu points are still reachable via keyboard by pressing Alt and ´L´or T in sequence (not simultaneously).

To the community: Other opinions?

Ed.: The Themes menu is dynamically build from 2 fix entries (factory = "factory defaults" and standard = "current .ini-file customized style scheme") and additional entries, which can be created by export customized scheme settings to a "themes" sub-directory in parallel to the .ini-file (base filenames are shown in the menu).

[hpwamr]

From #1129, it looks like the beta-channel is closed

Well, "the issue #1129 is closed" , but NOT for the "beta-channel" 🤔

So that's what I have downloaded. It is not a normal 7z-archive. 7-Zip v. 19.00 reports that it cannot be

Please, read in issue #1129, "How to extract Files from PortableApps.com executable format" 🤔

[hpwamr]

To the community: Other opinions?

To open the discussion, I suggest that we build a "Notepad3Portable RC2 en-US version" with those 2 menu moved in: View->Display and View->Schemes

Edit:
Hi @RaiKoHoff , Yes, it looks a lot better. 😃 ❤️

Feel free to test the RC2 version: "Notepad3Portable_5.19.531.2232_RC.paf.exe.7z" or higher.
See "Notepad3 beta-channel access #1129" or download it from here Notepad3Portable.

[craigo-]

@Grossdm, you are not alone, see also issue #1058. It's a bit of a balancing act between UI best practice and, frankly, some amazing software whose feature list is very long. I did make some suggestions on how to alleviate these two conflicts, but as @RaiKoHoff pointed out at the time, they are very English-centric...

I'll have a look at the new build with the items moved and report back.

[Grossdm]

@craigo-, I understand and sympathizer with the goal of accommodating "other" languages.

I do think giving consideration to the largest user base has significant merit, though.
Unless developers themselves both speak (and write) in multiple languages, I don't know how they can be expected to accommodate other languages which commonly use different keyboards (due to using different alphabets).

Are there plans (or methods) to have Hotkeys for Traditional Chinese?

[hpwamr]

Feel free to test the RC2 version: "Notepad3Portable_5.19.601.1002_RC2" or higher.
See "Notepad3 beta-channel access #1129" or download it from here Notepad3Portable

As far as I am concerned, this issue may be closed.... 🤔

[craigo-]

I've had a look at the menu reorganisation in builds 5.19.531.2232 (RaiKoHoff) and 5.19.601.1002 (hpwamr). A couple of discussion points:

1. View -> Scheme, View -> Themes, or Both?
   It feels a little odd having both Schemes and Themes under a Themes menu entry. Yes, they're closely related, but I'm finding myself looking for Scheme options and not intuitively looking for them under Themes. Having something like Scheme/Themes is starting to sound too unwieldy... Better that the Themes menu fall under a Scheme menu (as in RaiKoHoff's 2232 build) - although I would put Themes at the end of the list... But better yet, would it be OK to have both Scheme and Themes as the first two entries of the View menu (before the separator)? Hopefully that doesn't lengthen the menu too much..?

2. Keyboard Shortcuts: View Menu
   c.f. Issue Menu Navigation via Keyboard Shortcuts: tidyup #338. Now that the View menu has been truncated, its keyboard shortcuts could be optimised. For instance, there are a couple of duplications:

With the following hierarchy of guidelines in mind:

1. Where possible, assign each menu entry a letter
2. Where possible, avoid duplication/overloading
3. Where possible, assign the same letter as the entry's keyboard shortcut (accelerator key)
4. Where possible, assign the first free letter of the menu's first word

...here is a suggested list:

Menu Entry:	Current Key:	Suggested Key:
Scheme	(none)	S [changed]
Themes	T	T
Word Wrap	R	W [changed]
Long Line Marker	L	L
Indentation Guides	A	G [changed]
Show Wrap Symbols	P	R [changed]
Show Blanks	B	B
Show Line Endings	E	E
Hyperlink Hotspots	Y	H [changed]
Visual Brace Matching	V	V
Highlight Current Line	U	I
Mark Occurrences	K	K
Line Numbers	N	N
Selection Margin	M	M
Display	D	D
Toolbar	T	O [changed]
Zoom	Z	Z
Position	P	P

NB: other menus may also benefit from another look... If there is an appetite to do this, I'm happy to spend a bit of time on it - I'll track it on another issue.

[RaiKoHoff]

Notepad3 does not have a full-blown "Themes" selector (the skin change is missing - but this will not change in near future). But we have something, that comes close to it:
This is the collection of all (Lexer related/coupled) "Scheme"s. This collection we called "Theme".
You can have more than one Theme, aka more than one "Collection of Schemes".
So a single "Theme", seen as a "Collection of Schemes", is some kind of generic term or umbrella concept (not sure what would be the correct term here) for taking care of a collection of Schemes.
So the current menu structure reflects this hierarchy 🤔 - I don't know, if there would be a better wording, but wording would not change this semantic and hierarchy.

[hpwamr]

But better yet, would it be OK to have both Scheme and Themes as the first two entries of the View menu (before the separator)?

• Scheme
• Themes

The advantage of the @craigo- proposal is the reduction of a sub-menu in depth for the "Themes" menu.
Which is welcome for Belarussian, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, Polish and Russian languages ... 🤔

[RaiKoHoff]

A Theme is an umbrella concept for Schemes, so in any case this should be reflected by the menu structure.
A View would be an umbrella concept for Themes, so the canonical hierarchy would be View -> Themes -> Schemes. If you change a Scheme, the Scheme of the selected Theme is changed (and saved for this Theme, if enabled). This should be reflected by the menu hierarchy.

By the way, we have a little bug:
If the Factory-Default-Theme is selected, the Scheme-Config should be disabled (this is a read-only Scheme-Collection), cause it makes no sense to configure Schemes of this Theme.

[hpwamr]

Hello @Grossdm ,
We have reorganized the Themes, Scheme and Languages menus.

Hello @craigo-
We have modified the Hotkeys according to your list.
PS: It would be better to open a new issue if you want to submit new lists of Hotkeys. 🤔

Feel free to test the RC2 version: "Notepad3Portable_5.19.604.1006_RC2" or higher.

See "Notepad3 beta-channel access #1129" or download it from here Notepad3Portable.

[Grossdm]

It's clear that everyone has been putting in significant effort toward improving the interface generally.
Thanks to all for these efforts!

I'll try the new build as time allows.

[craigo-]

@hpwamr's 5.19.604.1006 RC2 build...

Appearance -> Scheme Collection: I like it 👍 . (I was processing @RaiKoHoff's explanation above, and came to the conclusion that there might be a better name than "Themes". In my head, I was starting to call them "SchemeSets".)

Wondering if it might now be best to rename "Dark Theme" to just "Dark"..?

Thanks for altering the keyboard shortcuts for the View menu items. I have noticed that one has not been done: Highlight Current Line (I)..?

I'll have a look at the keyboard shortcuts for the other menus and open a separate issue if I see the need for change.

[RaiKoHoff]

The "Theme" names after "Factory Defaults" and "Standard Settings" are based on the base filename in the sub-directory "./themes/..", so this can easily be adapted. By the way, if you add other "Scheme Collections" (as exported .ini files") here, you will get these filenames as menu entries ... ;-)

[hpwamr]

Thanks for altering the keyboard shortcuts for the View menu items. I have noticed that one has not been done: Highlight Current Line (I)..?

Hi @craigo- , Its's done (overlooked) 😏

Feel free to test the RC2 version: "Notepad3Portable_5.19.605.1007_RC2" or higher.
See "Notepad3 beta-channel access #1129" or download it from here Notepad3Portable.

Edit: I will be abroad for the next 2 weeks with limited Internet Access... 😕

[craigo-]

Thanks for that @hpwamr.

Sorry, hopefully the last iteration for the View menu in its current form... Now that we no longer have "Themes" as a submenu, that gives us the opportunity to optimise further:

Menu Entry:	Current Key:	Suggested Key:
Mark Occurrences	K	O [changed]
Toolbar	O	T [changed]

[craigo-]

The "Theme" names after "Factory Defaults" and "Standard Settings" are based on the base filename in the sub-directory "./themes/..", so this can easily be adapted. By the way, if you add other "Scheme Collections" (as exported .ini files") here, you will get these filenames as menu entries ... ;-)

Yes, as I was testing I figured this out. Pretty cool. Hopefully, renaming "Dark Theme" to "Dark" in the repository is already on your list (or you've possibly already done it) 👍

Something else I have noticed:

• If you make any changes to the themes in the filesystem (rename, copy)
• If you export "Scheme Collections" via the `Customize Schemes" UI and save them to the Themes folder

...the changes are not available to Notepad3's Scheme Collection menu until after restarting the application. Worse, if you select a menu option that no longer corresponds to a filesystem entry, there is no warning or error. Could the menu entries be made more dynamic, i.e. whenever the Scheme Collection menu is expanded? If there are potential performance problems in doing so, could it at least be refreshed when exporting schemes via Customize Schemes?

[hpwamr]

Sorry, hopefully the last iteration for the View menu in its current form... Now that we no longer have "Themes" as a submenu, that gives us the opportunity to optimise further:

Feel free to test the RC2 version: "Notepad3Portable_5.19.605.1009_RC2" or higher.
See "Notepad3 beta-channel access #1129" or download it from here Notepad3Portable.

[Grossdm]

Hello everyone,
I'd like to say that following the many different development builds and the fact that (apparently) different contributing developers create their own builds is not intuitive.

It is great that so many are working on this project, but this seems to create this problem.

Perhaps I have overlooked a README or other documentation that would clarify these things.

Please share some thoughts or guidance.

Thanks,
Doug

[hpwamr]

I'd like to say that following the many different development builds and the fact that (apparently) different contributing developers create their own builds is not intuitive.

Hello @Grossdm,
Yes, for our "convenience and to avoid interference", there are several sets of "build" numbers, but don't worry, the sources files are identical and the final release is unique... 😉

Bear in mind that this workplace is for developers to help the users of Noptepad3 AND also to develop and test new Notepad3 features !
The versions of Notepad3 that you can find here are almost always "Alpha" or "Beta" versions that could be buggy and unstable ! 🤔

For a stable Notepad3, I advise you to download the latest version (Installer and Portable) here: https://www.rizonesoft.com/downloads/notepad3/ (Find it near the bottom of the page) 👀.

Edit: See message #1126 (comment) and following. 😃