Not only is Notepad++ free under the GPL licence but it is also possible to extend its functionality with plugins. Today I’ll be taking a look at the Notepad++ plugins repository which contains a few extra bells and whistles to take your text editor to the next level.

Notepad++ & Plugins

Notepad++ has already seen a few mentions here at MakeUseOf and has earned its place on our Best Of Windows Software list. We’ve also previously included it in our Windows text editor roundup, used it to find and replace words in multiple files and shown you how to switch out your default HTML source editor in favour of Notepad++. If you’ve not yet got it, head on over to the project homepage and download for free.

Luckily there is a healthy collection of third-party plugins, some of which have made their way into the latest Notepad++ release after proving their worth. The program has its very own plugin manager (which is ironically a plugin itself) from which to janitor your add-ons and updates.

Choosing the right plugins depends entirely on what you use Notepad++ for, and there are a good number to trawl through. Installing plugins used to involve downloading archives and extracting to the ‘plugins’ directory, and while you can still do this it’s much easier to choose Plugins from the main taskbar then Plugin Manager to bring up the repository.

Once the list has refreshed you will be presented with an array of available downloads. For a better idea of what each plugin does simply click and read the description. Installing the add-ons is easy – check the box next to the plugin and click Install. Multiple plugins can be installed this way which is great because Notepad++ requires a restart before they show up.

If you do want to use the traditional download-and-extract method you’ll need to find the plugins first. Luckily there are a good number located at the npp-plugins SourceForge project page.

Recommended Plugins

Once again there’s no one-size-fits-all here, and each of you will find your own preferred plugins based on primary usage. Saying that, the following plugins do have somewhat of a broad appeal:

Explorer – A simple file explorer that sits on the left-hand side of your screen. Double click and files will open, just like that.

Compare – A surprisingly useful plugin for comparing two files, side-by-side.

AutoSave - Always forgetting to save on time? Let AutoSave save for you! Can be configured to use a timer or when Notepad++ loses focus/is minimized.

Location Navigate – Quickly jump backwards and forwards to parts of the document that you have modified, rather than trawling through all the stuff in between.

Lorem Ipsum – One for the web designers, a simple Lorem Ipsum script for instant Latin copy text.

MultiClipboard – Provides access to the last 10 copied items. Ctrl+V pastes the last copied text whereas Ctrl+Shift+V lets you choose from a list of 10 memorised copies.

XBrackets Lite – Forgetting just one bracket can ruin your whole afternoon – never again with XBrackets Lite!

Falling Bricks – Who said plugins have to be useful? Here’s a very simple Tetris clone to distract you when the time is right.

Using The Plugins

Once you’ve selected the plugins you’ll want, hit Install and let them download. You will be notified that a restart is required, agree and Notepad++ will appear once again with your bounty of add-ons enabled.

To use the plugins, visit the Plugins menu in the main taskbar and select from there. Some will have multiple functions and options and others will be very basic “enable or disable” affairs. To remove plugins (or check for updates) launch the Plugin Manager again, choose the Installed tab, select a plugin and click Remove.

Conclusion

Hopefully you’ll find exactly what you’re looking for in this excellent plugins respository. It’s a fantastic way of turbo-charging Notepad++ to be even more useful, and the right add-ons can really help tailor the application to your needs.

If you have any personal favourites, plugins you can’t live without or if you prefer a different text editor entirely then let us know in the comments below this article.

You can’t edit formatted documents with this tool, but if you at least do your first drafts in TXT files you’ll find this tool useful. Even better, it connects with Dropbox, meaning your work will sync with all of your computers. Jessica pointed this tool out when she showed you how to edit and compile code online, but TextDropApp isn’t just useful for programmers. It’s also perfect for the writer on the move.

Using TextDropApp

Ready to check this out? Just head over to TextDropApp, click the “login” button and you will be re-directed to Dropbox. You will have to log into Dropbox, assuming you’re not already, and then you will need to give TextDropApp permission to read and edit your documents.

This makes sense: the app can hardly edit anything without permission. Still, some people might be worried. That’s smart, but according to the app’s creator Sam Nguyen, there’s not much to worry about:

TextDrop does not save your password. It doesn’t even see your password because it uses Dropbox’s OAuth system.

So rest assured, your password is safe. TextDropApp, as a text editor, is very low-frills. You can’t customize much of anything, and there is no code syntax highlighting. This is a simple tool for simple purposes.

The minimalist interface works well on a variety of devices, so give it a try on your tablet or your smartphone as well as your browser. It’s a great, simple way to quickly edit a document in your Dropbox.

You can open any file in your Dropbox, provided it has a “.txt” extension.

You can also create new files and save them to whatever sub-folder you prefer. It’s a very functional tool.

Security Concern

I mentioned above that your Dropbox password is safe via this service. You should know, however, that the information you write may not be. Again, from app creator Sam Nguyen:

[TextDropApp] does transiently transmit the contents of your files through its servers, although it never saves any of your contents to disk. The transmission from your browser to the TextDrop server is unencrypted, so please only use TextDrop for non-sensitive material.

In summary, don’t use this app to make a list of your credit card numbers, because that information won’t be encrypted. Grocery lists or blog posts should be fine, though.

Conclusion

I have to say, I’ve been looking for something more or less like this for a year or so. I’m glad I found it, and will be making more use of it in the months to come.

What do you think? Do you like being able to quickly edit text documents in your Dropbox, or would you prefer something more full-featured, like Google Docs integration for Dropbox? Let us know in the comments below, along with any other useful Dropbox tools we might not know about.

We have previously reviewed OmmWriter for Mac. It has since been updated with additional features and versions for Windows and the iPad have been released. This review focuses on the Dana I version of Omm Writer, as seen in Windows 7. A donation-based upgrade to Dana II is available, which comes with additional audio and visual effects.

Writing Environment

OmmWriter takes over your entire screen and fills it with a serene background image and matching ambient music. A text box area accompanied by a simple menu is your writing space. As you start writing, you will hear typing sounds, adding to the serene atmosphere.

After a while, the bar on the right-hand side and the text box with the menu will disappear, leaving you with only a canvas for your words. This is perfect bliss for creative writing.

When you move the mouse, the surrounding structure comes back on. You can minimize or close OmmWriter by clicking the respective item in the top right of the bar on the right-hand side. Minimizing the application immediately fades out the music and you’re mercilessly returned to the bleak reality of your desktop.

Features

The whole point of OmmWriter is that it has almost no features. Nevertheless, there are some options that are nice to have and good to know about. So let’s have a look at what they are.

The menu has six different items: font, font size, background image, music, typing sound, and saving your document. Each comes with very few options. More precisely, you can choose between four different fonts, four different font sizes, three different background images, three different music loops (or off), three different typing sounds (or off), and you can save, save as or open files as .omm or .txt documents.

In addition, there is a word count in the bottom center of the text field.

Of course you can resize the text field to almost any size you like, as demonstrated below. Once your text exceeds the available space, the bar on the right-hand side will offer a scroll wheel.

And after all, some additional features are hidden in a traditional Windows menu that is uncovered at the very top when you hover in that area. The menu structure is dissected below. It contains some additional options, such as exporting your document to PDF, opening a new document, finding text, or transforming text.

Missing Features

Personally, I miss the option to personalize the background and the music. Also, for the darker background image, it would be nice to choose a lighter font color. It would also be nice to do some more formatting options to make the PDF export option worthwhile. To me that includes changing the font size only for highlighted text or making highlighted text bold, underlined, or italic. Without being able to format text, I don’t see much sense in exporting the document to PDF. That said, any additional feature would take away from the simplistic experience it offers, so maybe it’s just perfect the way it is.

Conclusion

OmmWriter is a great application to find serenity and peace for creative writing. It offers a very calm and relaxing, yet inspiring atmosphere. Features are stripped down to the minimum, preventing the writer to play around with options instead of focusing on the text. I would highly recommend OmmWriter to anyone who is easily distracted and needs a clean desktop environment to write well.

If OmmWriter doesn’t quite cut it for you, have a look at these applications:

• Reduce Distractions and Achieve Writing Goals with FocusWriter [Mac, Windows, Linux]
• Four Free Creative Writing Applications For The Mac
• Two Minimalist Linux Text Editors That Make Writing Easy

Also if you’re struggling with writer’s block, be inspired by the following pieces:

• 5 Websites For Writers To Cure Writer’s Block With Freewriting Exercises
• 10 More Websites That Help Cure Writer’s Block With Writing Prompts
• A Writer’s Guide To Free Apps For Inspiration & Organization

What is your preferred writing environment and how do you get rid of distractions?

Three relatively new applications you might consider adding to your arsenal are Mou and MarkdownMail, for working in Markdown language; and a seriously magical Mac application, FormatMatch, for automatically reformatting copied and pasted text.

Let’s check them all out here.

FormatMatch

Typically when you copy text from one source, say a webpage or email, and then paste it in another text document, the copied text does not match the font style and size of the document you paste the text into. On a Mac you have to use the “paste and match style” keyboard shortcut command (Command+Option+Shift-V) to get the style match.

But now FormatMatch alleviates this annoying problem. This little app, which works in the background, will reformat text copied from one source, and match the format of the document in which you paste the text. Here’s an example:

When I copy formatted text from the MUO article on the right, and then paste into the TextEdit document on the left, it matches the style of the first sentence in that document.

You don’t have to use a keyboard shortcut or click any button. It’s all automatic, as if what the app does was built into the operating system. And if you frequently need to deactivate FormatMatch, you can do so in the menu bar or by using a keyboard shortcut.

FormatMatch is a free download from the App Store, but it’s an application that I would gladly would have paid as much as $10 for.

Mou

Unless you’re a web developer or a writer who works in HTML formatting, you might not be familiar with what is called Markdown, “a text-to-HTML conversion tool for web writers. Markdown allows you to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, then convert it to structurally valid XHTML (or HTML)” (Source: Daring Fireball.)

Based on my brief experience with Markdown, I think it’s whole lot easier to learn than HTML. And rather you’re learning Markdown for the first time or have been using it for a while, you will definitely want to check out Mou, a text editor that provides you a preview of your Markdown text as you write.

Mou is an excellent tool for learning the syntax, and it’s one that you might continue using as a text editor when you need to write in Markdown.

Mou even includes a built-in document that introduces you to the Markdown syntax. So you can start a new document in Mou and instantly start writing and Markdown let’s you actually see a preview of what you write. Markdown syntax seems almost intuitive.

In fact, sometimes writing in Markdown is easier than using keyboard shortcuts to format text, such as incorporating quotes and italics, documents headers, ordered lists, and hard line breaks.

MarkdownMail

If you get the hang of writing in Markdown and want to send out stylish HTML emails on your iPhone or iPad, you might want to purchase MarkdownMail ($2.99).

MarkdownMail enables you to write email that can include bold text, italics, bulleted lists and much more.

And with the built-in text expansion feature in iOS 5, you can set up some of your most frequently used Markdown properties to help you write using the syntax.

The app includes a preview button so you can see what your email will look like before it’s sent out. And from there you can send your Markdown formatted email in either HTML—in which the recipient of the email will view the formatted text—,or in Markdown, which will send the the actual syntax you used to write the email.

Let us know what you think of these applications. For other text editors for the Mac, check out the The Top 3 Free Coding Text Editors for Mac OS X.

Sure, websites are now powered by blog platforms like WordPress, or WYSIWYG editors like Kompozer, but the bottom line is that most hard core web designers will always find it necessary to pop open a text editor to tweak the style a little bit here, or to realign the template a bit more there.

I think that text editors are going to be around in the world of web design for a very long time, at least for those web programmers that are always neck-deep into improving and optimizing professional websites. So, it stands to reason that text editing tools would evolve that are more powerful and smarter; Tools created specifically for the needs of those hard-core web designers and web programmers.

Bluefish – The Text Editor for Programmers

For years, I was very adamant about sticking with Notepad, no matter what everyone else started using. In my opinion, WYSIWYG editors just padding way too much garbage into the code (particularly MS Word’s silly save-as-HTML feature).

I was very tempted to try Notepad++ when I first heard about it. Then, after reading Simon’s article on Sublime Text, I was tempted yet again. I’ve always been hesitant to jump on any bandwagon until a good, solid winner takes root.

This year, I have to confess that I’ve finally found a code editor that I can’t resist – it’s called Bluefish.

When you first setup Bluefish, you’ll see the first reason I like it so much – it is designed to handle a huge assortment of programming languages, from straight HTML and PHP to Java, VB and even ASP. The kind of flexibility is a nice thing to have in a code editor, especially if you often have your hands into many different programming languages.

And Bluefish does programming well. But before we get to that, I wanted to just show you how cool this program looks. Up to this point I haven’t found a coder’s editor with this kind of aesthetic coolness on the front end – with the most important, easy-to-find tools and tabs right at your fingertips on the main screen, depending what code you’re focused on at the moment.

As you can see, file navigation is right there on the left – no need to flip back and forth between Windows Explorer and your editor. Do all of your file exploring from right within the application itself.

That includes all of the usual things you can do with a file explorer, like moving or renaming folders and files.

When you launch a new document from the file menu, if you choose template you’ll see that Bluefish has a few pre-built program templates available. This is especially useful if you write a lot of web pages, for example, and don’t want to recreate the same generic XHTML or PHP structure. Instead, just launch Bluefish’s template and you can immediately get into creating the content.

The pic below is the standard HTML template with the header, title and body tags pre-built for you. As you can see, lines are numbered, and while you’re typing the application has a feature where it will auto-complete tags for you.

As you can see in the menu bar, there are also pre-built code snippets available under each program language. For example, HTML has standard code for web forms, and PHP has standard code snippets for how to connect to an ODBC or MySQL database.

This can save a lot of time if you’re the kind of person (like me) that often forgets the exact syntax to do some of the most basic things. To complete the code snippet for you, the program will ask you for the details. In the case of making database connections, it’ll ask you for the data source and the login details. Then it’ll basically write the code for you.

The same is true for a whole list of HTML tasks – making this app a web designers dream. You can code the same web page in half the time using Bluefish. Just tap the element that you want, provide the dialog box with a few details, and the code gets typed up and inserted for you.

It isn’t WYSIWYG, but in my opinion it’s ten times better. You know what you want to do in the code, you just don’t have time to keep checking your reference book for the right syntax – so Bluefish lets you cut the headache.

More programming aids are available from the top menu as well. If you have an HTML file open, click the “Tags” menu and you’ll see dozens of quick code functions available to choose from. Create a web form with a fraction of the effort.

As though the programming aids and tools weren’t enough, don’t forget to check out the “Tools” menu where you’ll find the ability to organize your code by joining/splitting lines, indenting, or using a filter to strip all empty lines from your code.

At the bottom of the main window, you’ll also find an output variable area for coding in languages like PHP or C++, useful to see whether your code is really doing what you want it to do.

I think it’s safe to say that Bluefish has won over my heart when it comes to “intelligent coding” rather than just hacking away in Notepad. So, give Bluefish a try and let us know whether it simplified your programming experience at all. what do you like about it? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

If you are a Mac user and have never used a text expansion application before, a new program aptly called DashExpander can help you type much faster and work more efficiently. DashExpander does not have the advanced professional features of the programs listed above, but it is useful if you don’t already have such a program installed on your Mac or if you only have a limited need for one.

How It Works

All text expansion Mac programs work similarly in that they automatically replace an abbreviation that you type with an assigned snippet, such as a word, phrase or entire paragraph. So when I want to type my name, for example, I type the abbreviations “bkc”, and Typinator replaces that abbreviation with my full name. DashExpander works the same way with a few unique features of its own.

DashExpander has four main parts – a window for an abbreviation, another window for the corresponding text expansion, a quick search window, and a sliding panel for your assigned tags. DashExpander provides a fairly useful tutorial for getting started with the program, but let’s go through a few samples step-by-step.

If you haven’t already done so, download DashExpander from the Mac Store and install it on your Mac, which must be running OS X Lion. To quickly see the program in action, launch TextEdit, or a similar application and type the abbreviation, “hhello“. DashExpander will replace what you just typed with the words, “Hi there!”. While this is not the best example of what DashExpander can do, it does show how typing one abbreviation saves you the trouble of typing two separate words.

If you start each of your e-mails with the same greeting, such as “how are you?“, then you could create a text expansion–assigning your greeting with say a three letter abbreviation like “hwy.” This is a safe abbreviation because no words in English language begins with these three letters.

Adding Expansions

Open DashExpander from your menu bar, or by typing the keyword shortcut Option+Space bar. If DashExpander’s expansion editor opens with an existing snippet, simply ignore it and click on the “Add New Snippet” at the bottom of the editor.

To make the process easier, I suggest you first type the word(s) that you want to be expanded  in the larger box of DashExpander. Your expansion can be as short or as long as you would like.

Now assign your snippet an abbreviation, which should be a group of letters or words that you can remember for that expansion. Try to make the abbreviation represent the expansion as closely as possible. So if the expansion is a template thank you letter, then the abbreviation might be “tthankyou” or “tty“.

After your expansion and abbreviation are set up, you can use the tagging feature to organize and categorize your snippets.

Advanced Expansions

DashExpander includes a unique feature for adding text to an expansion before it is pasted into a document. For this type of snippet, you set up an expansion as described above, but in places where you want to add unique text, you type a placeholder, surrounding it with four underscores, as shown in the sample below.

When you type your assigned abbreviation, DashExpander will present a text editing window in which you can add the custom words or names to your snippet before it’s pasted.

You can navigate from one placeholder to the next by pressing the Return or Tab key.

DashExpander’s snippet management features are limited when compared to more advanced programs, so you will definitely want to tag each of your snippets. To open and close the Tags panel, click on the tiny cloud icon on the left side of DashExpander. Try to use tags that will group together similar snippets.

Dropbox Sync

Another great feature of DashExpander is Dropbox synchronization. This means that if you want to use DashExpander on two or more different Macs, you can synchronize your snippets between them using your Dropbox account.

To use your Dropbox account, click on the gear button on the right side of DashExpander. In the pop-up window you can change the location of the DashExpander file to a Dropbox folder. You will of course use the same Dropbox folder for each Mac.

There are several features missing from DashExpander, such as the ability to only activate an expansion only after the spacebar is pressed, or to make some expansions only work in specified applications.

Despite its limitations, DashExpander is a great text expansion mac program for learning how to use text expansion in your workflow. If you like the program, please consider rating the app in the Mac App Store where it can be downloaded for free. And let us know what you think of it.

In a follow-up article, I will share some other different ways you might use DashExpander or a similar program. If you’re a Linux user, check out this MUO article about the text expansion program, Autokey.

There will never be a shortage of these type of applications, but Blue Mango has produced an app that stands out amongst the rest. Similar to its flagship professional application ScreenSteps, it has released the beta version of an application called Clarify. Clarify is for when you want to produce step-by-step instructional documents that include screenshots and annotations for quick online sharing.

Clarify’s Purpose

Advanced screenshot applications like Jing and Skitch include annotation tools which can be applied after a screenshot is taken. You can see how such tools are used in the screenshot below. Clarify also includes annotation tools, but it goes a step further.

If you are a writer, developer, on-site computer technician, or the go-to tech person in your family who needs to provide step-by-step instructions for using a piece of software, or to explain a complex website, Clarify helps you develop and communicate your instructions easily and clearly.

Main Features

Clarify is both a screenshot program and a text editor. You create your documents within the application, and then export them via e-mail, PDF, or your free online Clarify account. You start a new topic or subject in Clarify, provide a brief description, and then add a series of screenshots which will help communicate what you’re trying to explain.

Similar to other screenshot tools, Clarify provides three different ways to initiate a screenshot. The most common method is to use the default keyboard shortcut (which can be changed in its Preferences) or click the camera icon in the toolbar.

You can also access Clarify from your menu bar, which includes options for delayed screen capture and the ability to automatically upload screenshots to your Clarify account.

In terms of screen capture tools, Jing and Clarify mirror one another. However, if you try to capture say a dropdown menu item, Clarify will automatically hide that action, which means you can can’t capture it. That is one of reasons why I use Jing. The shot below could not be taken with Clarify; I had to use Jing.

Annotation Tools

Each time you make a screenshot using Clarify, the image file automatically gets added and displayed in your document, saving you the necessary steps of dragging it from your desktop. So essentially, each step in your document can be represented by a corresponding screenshot. The annotation tools in Clarify include shapes and arrows, and text boxes.

The annotation toolbar includes features for changing the font style and colors of annotations. Clarify also has a Number Sequence tool that enables you to quickly add bulleted numbers to screenshots in your document. This is ten times faster than creating them in applications like Word.

Another cool related feature is the ability to add a “Create Lists From Sequence” that you can add in the text part of your document, again another useful timesaver.

Annotations, screenshots, and entire steps can be moved around, replaced, or cut even after the document is saved.

Exporting Documents

While you could use Clarify to create a multi-page document or guide, the program is geared more towards quickly sharing your instructions via e-mail, Twitter, or anywhere else online. You can also export documents as PDFs.

Clarify contains nearly all of the basic features of the more professional program, ScreenSteps, except Clarify cannot export documents to Word or blog sites. Not everyone needs an advanced screen capture program like Clarify, but if you communicate how-to instructions on a regular basis, you will find this program to be a huge timesaver.

The beta version of Clarify is currently free and available for download for Mac OS X Snow Leopard and Lion. Give it a try, and let us and the developers know what you think.

One of the best candidates for the editor is PlainText. It’s a free iOS text editor with the ability to synchronize to your Dropbox account. It means that you can edit your documents on the road using your iOS device and then continue the process on any computer using any text editor.

Playing With Folders

There are lots of text editors available for iOS. Other than the ability to use Dropbox to sync the documents, another thing that sets PlainText apart from its competitors is the ability to organize the text files into folders and sub-folders. If you deal with only one or two text documents, this feature might mean nothing. But, for those who interact with lots of texts, being able to separate them into folders means everything.

There are many small things about PlainText that will make you like the app. One of them is that it remembers the last location you were at when you left the app. The start point is the “Documents” view, and the first thing that you should know is that you can rename any document or folder by tapping on the small arrow next to the document’s/folder’s name.

There are several things you can do at the root – you can view documents, dive into a folder, search for text or a document, and delete any document or folder by sliding your finger on the name and tapping the “Delete” button.

You can tell which ones are folders and which ones are documents by looking at the small arrow at the right side of the screen. Every folder has an arrow next to it.

At the bottom of the screen are the tools. They are Settings, Search, Add New Folder, and Add New Text File.

When you are inside a document, you can easily go back to the folder by tapping the bold arrow on the left. Editing the document is as easy as tapping on the text and typing using the keyboard, which will automatically appear from below. To hide the keyboard, tap the small transparent keyboard icon above the keyboard.

Dealing With Dropbox

To link PlainText to your Dropbox account, go to Settings and choose Dropbox. There are other things you can customize from inside the Settings window, such as linking TextExpander with PlainText so that you can use short abbreviations to write longer words.

If your PlainText is already linked to your Dropbox account, you can use the “Unlink from Dropbox Account” button to change the location where you want to save your documents. Tap on the “Unlink” button to confirm the action.

By default, PlainText will store all the documents created with the app in a Dropbox folder with the same name: “/PlainText“. To change the location, type the folder’s name in the “Link Folder” field. If you write a name which doesn’t exist, PlainText will automatically create the folder for you.

You can change the file types that will be synchronized to PlainText, but I advise you to leave this setting alone.

After that, tap the “Link to Dropbox Account” button to connect PlainText to your Dropbox account. Fill in your Dropbox account email address and password before tapping on the “Link” button at the top right corner of the screen.

If you are using the iPad version of PlainText, then you are in for a treat. The size of the iPad screen makes PlainText very comfortable to use. You can expand the text area to full screen by tapping on the small arrows icon above the keyboard on the right.

So far, PlainText is my favorite text editor on iOS devices. Some will argue that Evernote is better, but I like the minimalistic approach of PlainText better than Evernote’s interface.

Have you tried PlainText? Or do you have your own favorite iOS text editor? Share your opinion using the comments below.