Yep, Microsoft is Updating Notepad for Windows 11 Too
- Paul Thurrott
- Oct 09, 2021
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32
After seeing the WinUI spit shine that it gave to Paint in Windows 11, it is no surprise that Microsoft will give Notepad a similar update.
“Notepad Windows 11 design leaked by Microsoft engineer then quickly deleted,” FireCubeStudios’ official Twitter account tweeted. “We can see a new Fluent Design windows 11 settings for the app and also a WinUI menu bar.”
This is acceptable to me, as I was worried that Microsoft might ruin Notepad’s simplicity with a toolbar or command bar of some kind and other extraneous UI. But it appears that the WinUI-based menu bar is simply a cleaner, more scalable version of the normal Notepad menu bar, its only real user interface, similar to what I created previously with the WPF and UWP versions of my .NETpad application.
Let’s hope that’s all that’s changing.
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Conversation 32 comments
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sherlockholmes
Premium MemberLog in to Reply<p>I think Mary Jo will not notice that at all 😛 </p>
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rwtodd
Log in to Reply<p>hmm… hopefully Word Wrap moved to the ‘view’ menu, since there’s no Format menu depicted. Also the "enable classic editing experience" option makes me think they’ve replaced the ancient edit control. But I guess two screenshots is too little to go on.</p>
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bschnatt
Log in to Reply<p>A dark mode would be very welcome, but I won’t be on Windows 11 for some time. I’d like to see it come to Windows 10…</p>
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winner
Log in to Reply<p>We need a Mary Jo seal of approval before we can accept this change.</p>
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polloloco51
Log in to Reply<p>Notepad, is literally one of the very few apps that’s never been updated since Windows 1.0 (except for UI).</p><p><br></p><p>That’s a great thing! ? </p><p><br></p><p>Simplicity is everything!</p>
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solomonrex
Log in to Reply<p>It was literally updated in 2019. Now that they’ve started tinkering with it, they’ll never stop.</p><p><br></p><p>Glad there’s no ribbon though!</p>
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matsan
Premium MemberLog in to Reply<p>hmmm. Isn’t that ruined notepad called wordpad?</p>
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hrlngrv
Premium MemberLog in to Reply<p>Pardon the ill will, but why no ribbon UI for Notepad? Just because it’s never had a toolbar? Or does <em>as simple as possible</em> mean <strong>only menus</strong>?</p><p><br></p><p>Pity no discussion of the difference between Default and Classic <em>file editing experiences</em>.</p>
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jimchamplin
Premium MemberLog in to Reply<p>Twofold I think. 1) Notepad really doesn’t need that sort of UI. 2) I think the ribbon is on its way out.</p>
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hrlngrv
Premium MemberLog in to Reply<p>I can hardly wait for the ribbon to die off. I used Excel 2003 with a vertically oriented menu toolbar on the left.</p><p><br></p><p>To me, the quintecence of MSFT’s design acumen is summed up by the ribbon eating too much vertical screen space as monitors gained horizontal pixels and lost vertical pixels. The nastiest laptop ‘upgrade’ I suffered through at work was when the 1280×800 Compaq was replaced by a 1366×768 Dell, and that was back in Office 2003 days. EVERYTHING with a ribbon SUCKS at 1366×768.</p>
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fishnet37222
Premium MemberLog in to Reply<p>That’s why I keep the ribbon collapsed by default. All I see is a row of tab headers.</p>
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bschnatt
Log in to Reply<p>You had to write this article, Paul? Are you *trying* to give Mary Jo a heart attack? Geez…</p>
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ronh
Premium MemberLog in to Reply<p>Paul</p><p>"Yep, Microsoft is updating notepad for Windows 11 too"</p><p><br></p><p>MJF</p><p>"Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo</p><p>Wait, what is different?"</p><p><br></p>
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wpcoe
Premium MemberLog in to Reply<p>I could totally hear that in her voice. ?</p>
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Username
Log in to Reply<p>I’ve been listening to WW for a long time (way before MJF joined) and I can’t recall her calling out anything other that Notepad. Despite her Microsoft corporate and enterprise slant, I’d expected a Windows veteran to use more applications. <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Seems to me a Chromebook would suffice for her use-case.</span> <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Is there a “what I use” article by MJF?</span></p>
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david.thunderbird
Log in to Reply<p>MJF swings a mean bier mug.</p>
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darkgrayknight
Premium MemberLog in to Reply<p>Chromebook does not have Notepad ;)</p>
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david.thunderbird
Log in to Reply<p>and while I’m here, what is with the cookie thing on registered user pages?</p>
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shark47
Log in to Reply<p>Nice! I prefer Notepad to OneNote because of its simplicity, so this is good.</p>
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igor engelen
Log in to Reply<p>yep! I used to write real notes on paper for years and at some point realised how much paper I was gathering and throwing away.</p><p>For a couple of years now I use Notepad for an ‘ongoing/todo’ list and 2-3 separate textiles for the bigger/longer projects I’m working on.</p><p>For me personally it’s also a way to stop myself from going overboard with formatting and layout.</p>
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phil_adcock
Log in to Reply<p>I’m in the opposite camp. I prefer OneNote because I usually take notes inside physical notebooks and then manually copy those notes over to a notebook inside OneNote. Rather than having several text files or having to create a document Indexed with chapters and the such. (Church Sermons and Bible study notes) I have a separate notebook for each physical notebook I have. Then when I’m searching in onenote and find what I want I’m able to also look back at the physical notes for any images or things I’ve stored inside the physical copy that accompany that lesson. I know it’s a weird system but it works for me and I like it.</p>
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jdawgnoonan
Premium MemberLog in to Reply<p>Dark mode support is all that Notepad really needs (and has needed for years). I am happy to see that they aren’t adding much else. I still say, it is amazing how much effort it evidently takes to update classic Windows apps. Hopefully during these refreshes they are making it so that it is easier to update them in the future. Otherwise, this update will be the last one that Notepad sees for another couple of decades. </p>
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oscar90
Log in to Reply<p>Real men use Wordpad. </p>
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mattbg
Premium MemberLog in to Reply<p>For a long time, if you wanted to edit files with UNIX line endings then this was the better tool :)</p><p><br></p><p>For some it still is. As in my case, where the company I work for is still on a version of Windows 10 that doesn’t have the version of Notepad that can handle UNIX line endings.</p>
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behindmyscreen
Log in to Reply<p>I just download the self-contained notepad++.</p>
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ianw789
Log in to Reply<p>No, they don’t use any of that GUI nonsense. Command line only is the way to go. Real men use edlin. (www.computerhope.com/edlin.htm)</p>
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arthemis
Log in to Reply<p>You are wrong, real, real men use vi.</p>
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SYNERDATA
Log in to Reply<p>It irks me that they don’t make it decently usable and fully configurable like choice of background and foreground colors so that dark mode users can also use it. It’s like they have someone who does not use a notepad all day and night coding it like it were some unimportant program no one uses.</p>
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behindmyscreen
Log in to Reply<p>it irks you that they kept it a basic text editor that does it’s job very well? </p><p><br></p><p>The last thing that irked me with note pad was the lack of handling Unix line endings and that was fixed.</p><p><br></p><p>Maybe a plugin system would be nice fun but I think that defeats the purpose of the thing.</p>
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kshsystems
Premium MemberLog in to Reply<p>notepad shows as recently being updated in the Windows11 store, but i do not see anything different. Also no settings option… maybe it is not out yet?</p>
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techm2
Premium MemberLog in to Reply<p>I would love to see the AutoSave feature added. I lose a lot of notes for various reasons.</p>
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dougkinzinger
Premium MemberLog in to Reply<p>I have to say – I am not a fan of the newly-redesigned Paint in Windows 11. It is slower to open and has much in the way of wasted screen space.</p>