What is Notepad++ ?

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Notepad++ is a free (free as in both "free speech" and "free beer") source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several programming languages and natural languages. Running in the MS Windows environment, its use is governed by GPL License.

Notepad++ Release Key

Since the release of version 7.6.5 Notepad++ is signed using GPG with the following key:

• Signer: Notepad++
• E-mail: don.h@free.fr
• Key ID: 0x8D84F46E
• Key fingerprint: 14BC E436 2749 B2B5 1F8C 7122 6C42 9F1D 8D84 F46E
• Key type: RSA 4096/4096
• Created: 2019-03-11
• Expiries: 2021-03-10

https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/blob/master/nppGpgPub.asc

To build Notepad++ from source:

There are two components that need to be built separately:

• notepad++.exe: (depends on SciLexer.dll)
• SciLexer.dll : (with nmake)

You can build Notepad++ with or without Boost - The release build of Notepad++ is built with Boost.

Since Notepad++ version 6.0, the build of SciLexer.dll that is distributed uses features from Boost's Boost.Regex library.

You can build SciLexer.dll without Boost, ie. with its default POSIX regular expression support instead of boost's PCRE one. This is useful if you would like to debug Notepad++, but don't have boost.

To build notepad++.exe:

1. Open PowerEditor\visual.net\notepadPlus.vcxproj
2. Build Notepad++ like a normal Visual Studio project.

To build SciLexer.dll with boost:

Here are the instructions to build SciLexer.dll (for both 32-bit & 64-bit) for Notepad++:

1. Download the Boost source code.
2. Unzip boost. In my case, It's unzipped in C:\sources\boost_1_70_0
3. Build regex of boost. With the version 1.70, launch bootstrap.bat under the boost root, b2.exe will be generated beside of bootstrap.bat. For building boost PCRE lib, go into regex build directory by typing cd C:\sources\boost_1_70_0\libs\regex\build then launch C:\sources\boost_1_70_0\b2.exe toolset=msvc link=static threading=multi runtime-link=static address-model=64 release stage. Note that address-model=64 is optional if you want to build lib in 64 bits. For 32 bits build, just remove address-model=64 frome the command line.
4. Copy generated message from C:\sources\boost_1_70_0\bin.v2\libs\regex\build\msvc-14.1\release\address-model-64\link-static\runtime-link-static\threading-multi\libboost_regex-vc141-mt-s-x64-1_70.lib to C:\tmp\boostregexLib\x64\
5. Go in scintilla\win32\ then run nmake BOOSTPATH=your_boost_root_path BOOSTREGEXLIBPATH=your_built_lib_path -f scintilla.mak. For example nmake BOOSTPATH=C:\sources\boost_1_70_0\ BOOSTREGEXLIBPATH=C:\tmp\boostregexLib\x64\ -f scintilla.mak

To build SciLexer.dll without boost:

This will work with notepad++.exe, however some functionality in Notepad++ will be broken.

To build SciLexer.dll without PCRE support (for both 32-bit & 64-bit):

1. For 32-bit, open a command prompt for building (a.k.a. the Developer Command Prompt for VS2017)

   • From the IDE, you can do this by right clicking on a file in Solution Explorer, and clicking "Open Command Prompt". This will open up a command prompt with all the proper environment variables.
   • From the Windows Start screen/menu, type Developer Command Prompt for VS2017, and click/select the result.
   • From an already open command prompt, run vcvarsall.bat (e.g. "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\VC\vcvarsall.bat").

   For 64-bit, open VS2017 x64 Native tool command prompt.

2. Change directory (cd or pushd) to scintilla\win32\

3. Build SciLexer.dll with one of the following commands:

   • nmake -f scintilla.mak (normal build)
   • nmake DEBUG=1 -f scintilla.mak (debugging build)

4. Copy SciLexer.dll from scintilla\bin\ to the same directory as notepad++.exe.

   • For the Unicode Release configuration, the output directory (where notepad++.exe is) is PowerEditor\bin\.
   • For the Unicode Debug configuration, the output directory (where notepad++.exe is) is PowerEditor\visual.net\Unicode Debug\.

See the Notepad++ official site for more information.

Notepad++ Contributors