So, turns out that they final push that convinced me to start learning Linux is the ol’ Text Document.txt of all things. Swear to God, I thought that it would be the automatic updates nuking my unsaved work (again), but here we are…
They could’ve added this to wordpad if they didn’t kill it.
The title is quite sensational compared to the content. They only added an AI Rewrite feature for notepad that requires a Microsoft 365 subscription. Considering the cost of AI, and the fact that it will very probably run in the cloud, it is very reasonable that it isn’t free. Everything else about notepad remains free / included with the price you paid for the OS.
I agree, but the idea of adding AI to notepad is quite insane in its own right
Adding layers to paint was what surprised me
That’s actually very nice, one of the few Microsoft programs that I genuinely miss - layers are a quality of life feature that is actually really nice to have 👍
I think the idea is that you can use it for reformatting small sets of data I guess.
“make all the dates in this CSV iso-8601”
“make all the dates in this CSV iso-8601”
This is a use of AI/LLM processing that I could agree with, if it could be trusted. Since it cannot, better to open in vim and regex replace, or process with Python.
That said, I’d rather store as epoch and display as ISO-8601 as the arithmetic is much less prone to error in epoch than any other format.
Yeah look I’m not an AI advocate at all. If I were confronted with this my first instinct would be to manipulate it in a spreadsheet because they can juggle data types like this pretty effortlessly.
The CSV / dates thing was just an example, but I still think it’s a good one. My assistant at work would 100% use notepad like this rather than using a spreadsheet.
It’s also worth pointing out that notepad + LLM would be a lot more flexible than a spreadsheet. Just paste whatever there and explain what you want in plain english. You don’t need to parse your request into regex or spreadsheet formulas. For you and I, we might have spent years interacting with regex and other things such that it’s a pleasant challenge when it arises. For 20 year old me it would have been a tedious impediment to whatever I was trying to achieve.
Genuinely very useful, however I feel that can be achieved without a login and paid AI subscription.
Heck, it probably can be done with a regex. (Yeah, I know)
There’s no need to kill three forests just to do the exact same work you could have done by opening your dataset in Excel.
You’re right of course.
Like the other commenter said for this specific problem you’d use a spreadsheet.
It’s just an example though and there are others, like maybe removing url encoding from a string or something.
Again this can be done in some other tool without much fuss, but the versatility offered by notepad will be useful for a lot of people.
Why? I mean, one of the main features of generative AI systems is to generate text (the quality of which I won’t get into), why not add this to something like Notepad. I agree that Notepad should be thought of as a lightweight, well, notepad, but still might be useful as a quicker alternative to Word.
The fact that Microsoft is trying to shove Copilot down our throats at every possible step is idiotic, I agree, but having an AI as part of a notes app doesn’t seem too weird.
They give Copilot out for free so it’s weird that they’re charging for the Notepad AI feature.
Hell, just copy and paste the content into Copilot and ask it to rewrite it, I bet it’ll just be doing the same thing but for free.
[obligatory linux boast] I really prefer Kate to Notepad because KDE makes superior, non AI encrusted software that actually works for it’s users. And it’s FREE!
I like Kate as a program but man KDE need to change how some of their app names appear in Plasma.
A new user looking through their start menu and seeing “Kate” will have no idea it’s a text editor/notepad. The same is true for multiple other programs.
Okular, Dolphin, Cantata… ask someone who’s never tried Plasma before what those programs do and I’d wager you’d get an incorrect answer for each one.
What does “Excel” do? What does “Steam” do? What does “Balena” do? What does “Conky” do?
Programs that we think of as being part of the OS, such as the included text editor, is a very different thing to something like Steam, imo.
Steam isn’t preinstalled on your PC, it’s not a core part of your desktop OS. You download Steam yourself, so you’d only do it once you already know what it is.
Third party apps kinda need unique names and branding like that to distinguish themselves.
A newbie won’t know what “Kate” or “Okular” do. They might know what “Dolphin” does because it has a folder as the app icon (although users of screen readers won’t see that). They will probably know what “Notepad” or “Text Editor” does, though.
Kate isn’t a part of the OS, though… the text editor that is a part of the OS is called “vi”.
It literally is. It’s part of the KDE Plasma desktop. It comes preinstalled.
The Vim, nano command line text editors also being there doesn’t mean Kate isn’t an OS app.
Would you say the Dolphin file explorer isn’t an OS/system app on the basis that you can use commands like cd, mv, cp, pwd in terminal? Because I certainly wouldn’t.
It’s part of the KDE Plasma desktop.
KDE is not “The OS”.
Would you say the Dolphin file explorer isn’t an OS/system app
That is correct. Dolphin is not a part of “The OS”. Case in point, you can install Kate, and Dolphin, on FreeBSD. And on Windows.
Having vi is a part of the POSIX specification, therefore, it is a part of the OS.
You’re sounding like one of those people that says “ummm ackshully it’s GNU + Linux, not Linux”
Yes, you can have a desktop without a desktop environment. Well done. Nobody does that in the desktop space. Kate is an OS program.
If you install a distro with KDE, you will have Kate. It’s an OS program.
Case in point, you can install Kate, and Dolphin, on FreeBSD. And on Windows.
Pahahaha, that’s not what defines whether a program is an OS one or not. You can run paint on Linux if you wanted to. Based on your definition, Paint therefore isn’t part of the Windows app suite.
Let’s get back on topic - do you think a normal user will hear “Kate” and think “ah, that must be the text editor!”, do you think they’ll hear “Dolphin” and think “ah, that must be a file manager of some kind!”?
If you must use windows, Notepad++ is the way to go.
ed is better
VSCode is better than np++ in every way
Startup time. RAM consumption. Privacy.
vscodium fixes the privacy anyway. It’s always open so startup times are no issue for me.
I still prefer to keep a stripped down, basic text editor though. Ah well, I’m not on windows so no big deal.
vscodium fixes the privacy anyway
At the cost of some features not working (e.g. Pylance, which is the default Python extension, as well as others by MS).
What do you use instead? Sublime?
For plain text, either nano on CLI or whatever built in basic text editor comes with LMDE.
Windows I used notepad, from now on I’ll add ++ :)
I guess you’re doing it wrong then? Stop parroting memes
Clearly this is a controversial statement. I’m team “use what’s available and preference tools that get the job done quickly.”
I work in several different languages. VSCode has TreeSitter and a bevy of slick plug-ins. NP++ does not. I can use VSCode on both Windows and Linux. If I’ve got a desktop environment, I will hands down pick VSCode over NP++ every time.
Otherwise, let’s be real, NeoVim is king.
NP++ was good 20 years ago during a time with much weaker competition and it’s been coasting on that good will ever since
It’s OK for a text editor (compared to something totally basic like notepad) but other text editors have caught up in every single category
like you said, VS Code is now the default go to code editor for a lot of people. if you don’t use VS Code, you use vim.
for non-coding uses, I don’t see the functional difference between NP++ or something basic like Gnome’s text editor
Completely agreed. At one point, maybe 12 years ago, I remember trying to learn NP++'s macro system. It was better than whatever we had at the time, but I’m glad I didn’t spend more time than I had to. Just a couple months ago, a coworker was raving about how great NP++ macros are … to do a task handily solved by some light regular expressions and/or column edit mode. Both REs and CEM are far more ubiquitous concepts than some bespoke, domain-specific language for defining repetitive tasks.
Those are 2 different use case pieces of software . NP++ is an editor while vscode is an IDE
I heavily use both and this is objectively untrue.
Vi
Clay tablets
GNU Emacs is the same everywhere you go (if you don’t mind the TUI)
Sounds like everyone is going to have to upgrade to Notepad++, but honestly, why are people even using Windows anymore? Who even uses Notepad? I want to see those numbers—like, what… 5,000 active users of Notepad, and they’re probably just grandparents whose grandkids couldn’t be bothered to install anything else.
Seriously though, Android, macOS, Steam OS, Android TV, Chrome OS, Debian, heck, Ubuntu, Linux Mint—so why are people making excuses to use Windows, other than because it’s on a work computer? Microsoft is lost in the sauce, like, “Hey guys, let’s make the operating system free and have people pay for Notepad.” You know what that sounds like? A car manufacturer giving away cars and charging to use the radio. When Windows became free, the quality became identical to the price.
I use notepad alongside notepad++ it is fine.
I use Notepad on my work computer daily. I never save any documents, but it is handy for a quick copy/paste of info I need for a short period of time. We aren’t allowed to install anything on the computers, so it’s what is available.
I could live without it, but I do find it marginally useful, basically as digital “scrap paper”.
Do you game? Cuz that alone is a solid reason to use windows. I know Linux is getting usable for it, but let’s be honest there is no more convenient OS when it comes to gaming and daily use than windows and you can’t tell me otherwise. I have tried to switch to Ubuntu or mint many times but it’s just not idiot proof enough for ur average how yet and I constantly found myself trying to troubleshoot issues I never ran into with windows. Yea I know Microsoft is the devil and all that, but they still provide the easiest to use OS out there!
Yeah, but have you seen the performance difference between Windows and Linux machines? SteamOS is absolutely crushing it when it comes to improving Linux, making it much more user-friendly. They’re even opening it up to other platforms, which is a huge win for everyone.
I game a ton and the only missing games these days are malware. I simply don’t play those games.
https://areweanticheatyet.com/
Daily use, however? Really? I have a completely ad-free easy to use experience, I actually give KDE to the elderly because it’s significantly easier to use for daily use outside of gaming.
Most peoples usecases are limited and linux is legitimately just better for that, having ads in your start menu and file manager are terrible for people who don’t know what they’re doing.
Considering most mmos don’t support Linux, as well as some games anticheat breaking seemingly randomly on updates, on top of the better performance for Nvidia gpus on windows is enough reason for a lot of people who game to stay with windows
Considering most mmos don’t support Linux
Only the ones that ship malware don’t work on linux.
as well as some games anticheat breaking seemingly randomly on updates
Yes, malware, kernel level anticheat is malware.
on top of the better performance for Nvidia gpus
This is almost completely resolved.
I understand people want their malware, but we should call it what it is.
Yes, if your only or at least primary reason for using your PC is to play games, you’ll have an easier time on Windows. That’s an undeniable fact.
However, that doesn’t mean you need Windows to play games. There is a huge amount of games that work on Linux, and outside of competitive MP games w/ invasive anti-cheat, VR, and maybe a couple other niches, pretty much everything works on Linux, though some games will need a few tweaks (ProtonDB for details).
The more people that switch to Linux, the more attractive the platform is for game devs, meaning the more likely we’ll get official support for more games. Look at what has happened since the Steam Deck’s launch, we’ve gone from devs completely ignoring Linux to some games spending actual resources to support it. That’s phenomenal!
If you want an alternative to Windows without all the crap Microsoft is shoving into it, Linux is your best bet. Consider trying it out, you may be pleasantly surprised.
That said, if you’re uninterested, that’s totally cool too.
Notepad is useful for saving a simple piece of info to your hard drive somewhere, it’s not a daily driver for code editing or anything. If I’m on the phone with some customer service rep and they give me some reference number, I’ll pop open notepad to write it down and save it.
Seriously though, Android, macOS, Steam OS, Android TV, Chrome OS, Debian, heck, Ubuntu, Linux Mint
Some of those are not competitors to Windows. Android, Android TV, Steam OS are installed on specialty devices.
macOS is not a good OS. I wouldn’t consider it a better alternative to Windows. macOS often lags behind Windows in certain features such as tiling Windows. Apple is more hostile toward developers than Microsoft is and Apple ships their own versions of coreutils which are vastly inferior GNU coreutils and often totally out of date (Apple uses a build of bash from 2007 that was the default shell until the switch to zsh, and they STILL ship this bash binary today).
For any other Linux variant, the answer is the same as it has been for 20 years: normies don’t install their own OS, and also only use their machines to browse the internet, so it makes no difference to them.
Good thing whenever I set up Windows, Notepad is one of the things I nuke, using Geany to replace it.
This is a bad sign if MS gets emboldened and starts paywalling basic OS functionality at some point in the future, though.
Fucking click bait garbage article, but thankfully the article has a tldr at the top that basically contradicts the headline and saves you minutes of time to realize you’ve been baited;
TL;DR: Microsoft has introduced a paywall for Notepad, requiring a Microsoft 365 subscription to access new features like the AI-powered Rewrite tool.
Better headline: Microsoft forces you to pay to suffer through using their AI tool that no one asked for, application otherwise unchanged.
This seems like something that should be kept local. What’s the point of all these NPUs otherwise
This is misinformation. They added the login requirement for their Generative AI and the actual notepad doesn’t require a login. But I guess we’re ragebaiting today.
Having this LLM bullshit in Notepad should be the real news
They really do seem to be on a mission to cram it into everything
Can’t wait to see in 5 years while all of the LLM nonsense quietly gets shuffled further and further to the back until it’s gone like Cortana or Paint3D
Meanwhile has anyone noticed Microsoft has unhidden some genuinely useful older menus like Control Panel? Earlier in the windows 10 lifespan you couldn’t search for control panel and had to instead use constantly changing shortcuts and tooltips to gain access to it, but now you can just search for Control Panel and pull it right up. I’m not thrilled that I have to dig for the network adapter properties still but I’ll take the improvements I get
I hate
the information superhighwaythe world wide webthe blogospheresocial mediaweb2.0mobilethe cloudIOTblockchainar/vrgenerative AI
Yeah. This is why I’ve disabled copilot and Gemini on my devices altogether. It’s not worth it to have this nonsense filling up everything you use or rely on on a daily basis.
Is the Genevieve AI enabled by default?
After opening the notepad app does it ask you for that login?
Is your access to notepad restricted by the login?
No, only in so far as the button to use it existing passively
No
And no
“But it turns out that, while this screenshot is indeed real, those eagle-eyed enough should already be able to tell that something isn’t quite lining up here. In fact, nearly any Windows 11 user could open up the fully updated Notepad without getting this pop-up at all, even if they aren’t already signed into a Microsoft account. So, what’s the deal here?”
“The key is in the exact wording, identifiable within the first sentence: “Sign in with your Microsoft account to use Rewrite and its features in Notepad.” This is a prompt that exists, yes, but one that’s exclusive to Copilot+ PCs and explicitly requires the user to trigger it by clicking the Rewrite button, as confirmed by our own testing.”
Please read the article. No. My access to notepad is not restricted. I also don’t run any copilot features of any kind on windows 11. Yes, I believe Generative AI Copilot is enabled by default, but in this case the only time you get prompted to login is when you use a feature in notepad that directly needs copilot in order to work and you the user have to select that feature. Meaning you can use notepad without it entirely and never even see this prompt at all.
Microsoft is a tech giant with all the bad crap that implies. They do enough terrible things that we don’t need to lie to make them look bad.
I turned off that AI stuff as soon as I saw it. Click the gear icon in Notepad in the upper right to open settings and turn it off.
Oh, one of the first things I did was group policy edit anything to do with tracking, ads, or AI.
Upvoted for visibility.
I recommend Notepad++.
I use Kate on the windows work pc
I use Kate on the windows work pc
I love Kate, but I’ve only been using it since last August. Been using npp for a decade before that, even as my IDE, and I felt like it was stronger than Kate.
Kate has a lot of features that are not well documented or that you have to tape together to make something functional, while npp just works out of the box or with one of its many addons. Additionally the Kate documentation website is atrocious, lacking even basic search functionality. I had to join their IRC channel to get help figuring out something (path to some obscure config file that the latest version actually reads from), and while they were most helpful, I really shouldn’t have had to go through all that trouble.
Maybe my approach to trying to solve a problem was wrong, coming from Windows + npp.
Maybe I’ll give npp a test again. But I’ve been using kate because I’ve been using it on my linux system and found out I can install it at work on windows as well
Full access to notepad? So what, I need to pay to be able to toggle text wrapping or look at the about menu? It’s fucking notepad.
EDIT: I didnt expect so many downvotes taking sides with MS
It’s for the “AI” no one was asking for in the first place
hahahahahaha, they’re gonna charge admission to a dead end next. ta-da!!!
Are people just going to keep reposting this misleading shit headline of a post until no one reads the article and just goes along with it?
Are the people constantly reposting this even reading the article and realizing how illiterate they look?
The click bait will never die my friend.
We should never tire of pointing it out though.
We must fight!
It’s so stupid that they’re making these additions to notepad. There is a need to have a basic text editor on an OS that isn’t going to try to “help” by giving recommendations, automatically backs up files or whatever other shit they’re trying to jam into it.
They had wordpad and if they wanted to add additional features into that, that’s completely fine. There are use cases for something that does a bit more than a simple text editor like notepad can do.
My guess is that they tracked that people used notepad more often than wordpad so they removed wordpad. Then started making notepad more like wordpad without considering why people used notepad more frequently.
Telemetry was a mistake
It is batshit crazy. Notepad was never meant to be what they are making it into. Not even WordPad should have AI nonsense. It’s just not for that. It would be like adding advanced spreadsheet functionality to Microsoft Word. It’s not what that’s for, you have Excel for that.
Sure but with Wordpad I wouldn’t much care if they spam it up with this kind of crap. It’s something that doesn’t have much use now, because there’s notepad for basic text files and Word or Libre Office for actual word processing. So if someone wanted something to type up some notes that get automatic backups, and have AI recommendations (not that it would be me, but who knows?) just put it on there so we still have a simple text editor that’s installed by default.
If they’re going to enshittify something at least don’t enshittify the basic tools of the OS.
Notepad++ is way better anyway
I have always been partial to gedit, kate aint bad either.
(neo)vim for life :)
Linux
End of conversation.
I think that’s the start of the conversation. Which Desktop Environment?
I really like my KDE plasma
I want a clean, advanced, well designed desktop and Im okay with redoing my work flow
Use Gnome
Gnome is cool but can it be slightly more Windows?
Use Cosmic (PopOS)
I want lots of customization, advanced features, and a traditional windows desktop metaphor
Use KDE
I want Windows and don’t really care about customization
Use Cinnamon
Dude the Windows 9x look was fucking dope
Use Mate
Im installing this on a potato
Use XFCE
This is always so unfair to XFCE. Sure it is low impact on resources but it is also very flexible and customizable. Most people sleep on how good it can be outside of the low resources need.
Gnome is an opinionated desktop environment and that turns some people off. But it’s bold enough to make some design decisions and have a limited scope. KDE tries to be another Windows alternative.
Of course, you could go with a tiling window manager but my vote goes to Gnome. I’ve had a very smooth experience on Gnome for the last couple years.
Yeah, Gnome is like the Apple of the Linux world. The devs have the same kind of “we know better than you do” mentality towards design. The issue tracker is a lot of “hey the OS won’t let me do [edge-case scenario that an OS should be able to do, but which most users won’t bother with]” followed by the devs going “Gnome isn’t designed to support [edge-case scenario]. Bug report closed.” Like the devs have a very “it’s not a bug; It’s a feature” mentality, and anyone who runs into that bug must be using the OS “wrong”.
we know better than you do” mentality towards design
And I agree with them. I think people should pick whatever desktop environment needs the least amount of customization for their needs. Keep it simple. If Gnome works out of the box, use it. If KDE works out of the box, use it.
This is Gnomes biggest advantage to be honest. They have a singular vision of how they want their product to work and they aren’t concerned with edge uses.
I enjoy elements of so many DEs but I keep coming back to gnome because it’s just so well executed over the others.
Yeah my only complaints with gnome are the lack of system tray and the fact that sticky keys don’t work well
The devs have the same kind of “we know better than you do” mentality towards design
It’s not “we know better than you do”
It’s “we have a vision for the desktop environment”
If you granted the user every little thing they wanted, you don’t become a better piece of software. You end up middle of the road. There are limited resources and by keeping a limited scope and having a clear idea of what you want to accomplish- you can do what you aim to do really well. Instead of being mediocre at a lot of things.
My experience with Gnome- it does 95% of what I need a Desktop Environment to do (and certain things others don’t do very well). Some features like
- Being able to push a button, start typing an application’s name, and push enter to start that application
- Being able to push a button, and immediately see at a glance all of the windows I have open and quickly navigate to them
- Being able to easily set keyboard hotkeys so that I launch applications and can run my own custom scripts with the push of a button
Example- I have a script that I set to “Control+Num Pad 5” that opens up a Gnome folder search dialog. I navigate to a folder and click “Ok” and then 4 terminals open on my left monitor. Three small ones stacked on top of each other on the left, one big one on the right. Basically like a tiling window manager. This script has custom commands that run depending on the directory. If I open a react-native folder, it runs an Android emulator and neovim on the big terminal.
Setting that script to a hotkey is as simple as going to “settings -> keyboard -> shortcuts” and just typing in the path to the script and the hotkey combination
- Being able to easily run scripts on files and directories directly from Nautilus (Gnome’s file manager)
Example- When I right click on a pdf file in Nautilus, I have custom scripts that I can run. One is “splitPdf” which creates a new folder called “split” and then creates n.pdf files where n is the number of pages in that pdf. I also have “compressPdf” which will compress the pdf as much as possible and pops up a notification showing you how much. I have one for .xlsx and .doc files called “printPdf” that converts those to pdf files.
Those scripts can be whatever language you want, they just have to be executable, and you just drag and drop them into a specific folder (
~/.local/share/nautilus/scriptsif I remember correct)Those 4 things I think Gnome does better than any other default desktop environment I’ve ever used and I’ve used a lot over the course of my life. The remainder of the items (the 5% of stuff Gnome can’t do) I have found custom plugins and in one scenario it only took me a couple hours to write my own custom plugin.
MacOS does #2 and #4 well by default (although it’s harder to write scripts with their clunky apple script language whereas with Gnome because you can just use regular old fish or bash scripts). With certain applications (like better-touch-tools or karabiner) you can get similar functionality as Gnome.
Windows with Autohotkey does #3 although you have to again use a clunky language (even clunkier than Apple script)
KDE can do #1 (search/launch apps), but feels slower and less streamlined than Gnome’s immediate overview. It does #2 (window overview) and #3 (keyboard shortcuts), but buries these features under layers of settings and inconsistent menus. For #4 (file manager scripts), Dolphin technically supports actions, but configuring them requires wrestling with clunky .desktop files whereas on Gnome you just use fish or bash or python or javascript or whatever the hell you want and stick it in a directory.
In my opinion, Gnome is miles ahead of KDE and while it’s obviously not as polished as MacOS, it has accomplished so much more with its limited resources than a megacorp like Apple does.
What I love is it gets rid of stuff that’s useless. For example desktop icons. What’s the point of having some directory on your computer that’s somehow different than all the other directories? So that you can clutter up your background?
I 100% agree that desktop icons are an outdated concept and I love that Gnome got rid of them in order to focus on the fundamentals. It’s often not about what you add, but what you take away.
IMO:
-
want to show off? i3wm with gaps and rofi for menu launcher. Add it some transparency effects too.
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want the MacOS style? Gnome. Default on a lot of distros.
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want something stable? XFCE. Install and forget.
Things preventing me from moving to Linux : video games and Adobe Lightroom.
Most video games work through proton on Steam. Lightroom has a web app you can use instead.
Plus RawTherapee and DarkTable are pretty good, and actually free, Lightroom alternatives to boot.
…my cracked version of Adobe CS6
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