Why is it that authors of software such as JZip assume that when I first install/run their software I really want them to steal my .zip associations?

Did they ask before doing so? I don't think so - I'm sure I'd have noticed and answered no. This is exceptionally bad practice.

This is even more infurating in Windows XP where there is ZIP folders support - meaning that I rarely use third-party zip tools.

In an effort to actually review the software in question, it looks reasonable and attempts to be a free WinZIP. Unfortunately it seemed to take about 10 seconds to load on my Pentium 4 2.5Ghz computer (whilst consuming more than 60% processor time) and doesn't seem to support the functions of WinZIP that are truly useful - i.e. un-tarring, mime decoding and the rest.

Oh, and don't even get me started on XML Spy stealing ".txt". Grrrrr.

This is cool: SpiderMonkey. It's a freely available embeddable JavaScript engine implementation, written in C. It's presumably under the MPL.

It would be nice to build a scripting engine into Programmers Notepad at some point - something like either JavaScript or Python would be good. One to keep an eye on.

I don't know about the consequences of using MPL code with PNs open-source license. If anyone has any ideas on that, please comment...

I've just implemented SmartStart - a simple function which automatically selects a PN2 scheme based on what you type when you first open a blank non-styled document.

e.g:

1. press: Ctrl-N
2. type: #ifndef
3. SmartStart selects the C++ / C scheme for you.

It's a good feature and credit for the idea goes to David Symons. Of course SmartStart is user customisable, but there is no gui for it yet. Settings are stored in an XML file in the Application Data directory. The GUI will be in place for 0.4 - which by the way will be nicknamed miles.

It's nice to know (please note sarcasm here) that microsoft is e-mailing everyone security patches these days. I got this in my e-mail today, from Microsoft Internet Security Division [bpagifym_335104@CXEaIE.com] - yes, that looks like a microsoft.com e-mail address to me (again, note sarcasm).

<quote>
Microsoft Customer

this is the latest version of security update, the
"March 2003, Cumulative Patch" update which eliminates
all known security vulnerabilities affecting Internet Explorer,
Outlook and Outlook Express as well as five newly
discovered vulnerabilities. Install now to protect your computer
from these vulnerabilities, the most serious of which could allow
an attacker to run executable on your system. This update includes
the functionality of all previously released patches.

Microsoft Product Support Services and Knowledge Base articles
can be found on the Microsoft Technical Support web site.
For security-related information about Microsoft products, please
visit the
Microsoft Security Advisor web site, or Contact us.

Please do not reply to this message. It was sent from an unmonitored
e-mail address and we are unable to respond to any replies.

Thank you for using Microsoft products.

With friendly greetings,
Microsoft Internet Security Division

---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by McAfee anti-virus system (http://www.mcafee.com).
Release Date: 25.2.2003

</quote>

You have to love them for the cute little fake virus free notice at the bottom of the e-mail - pure genius. People who send this stuff should be hung drawn and quartered.

Want your files to look "cool" in XP? Check out http://www.foood.net/ where there are some great high colour icons for file types and all sorts of other things.

This week I have been mostly working on:

User-defined syntax highlighting
This allows any user to define a simple language syntax without writing a scintilla lexer. The code basically implements a highly generic scintilla lexer in an external lexer dll. When this dll is loaded it looks for user syntax files and loads the settings from each into an instance of this generic lexer (note: this may be optimised in the future to only load on request for speed reasons).

The syntax for the languaged is defined using really simple XML, and therefore the same file can contain the elements required to make it a Scheme definition for PN2. One file defines both the syntax and the user-controllable elements such as colouring options and keywords.

Scintilla hotspot support
This allows certain styles in Scintilla to be marked as "hot spots". These spots are reactive - when the user moves the mouse over them the cursor changes to indicate that there is an associated action possible. When the user clicks (or double-clicks) a special "hot spot clicked" notification is sent to the container.

This will be used in Programmers Notepad 2 to allow clickable URLs and also in matching tools output such as compiler messages.

Header-switch for C++
When using the cpp scheme, my local copy of PN2 now allows you to switch from a header to an implementation file or vice versa using a key combination.
I haven't entirely decided yet if I've implemented it the correct way, different file types will require different special functionality and I don't want the code to get really messy.

One of the posts that were lost when I moved hosts was a rant about the ratings on tucows. Programmers Notepad got 4 cows, which is great - but I thought that some of the criteria on which programs are judged were a little, um, less than clever.

One of the comments on the rant included a link to "Only the best freeware", a website which aims to include only the best pieces of software in any category - to avoid visitors having to scroll through hundreds of identical or similar entries in any one. What a great idea!

Unfortunately, ConTEXT is currently their "best-of-breed" text editor. A good goal for programmers notepad 2 is to change this.

Patrick Houweling from onlythebestfreeware.com:

I've tried a zillion editors, and currently I'm using ConTEXT, which is therefore also listed on OTBF. While PN1 is a very good editor and has some features ConTEXT doesn't have (open from the internet, find in multiple files, customize keyboard shortcuts, HTML preview), it misses a two things I really need in an editor:

1) An easy way to create my own language schemes. I've never really understood the SyntaxMemo stuff. Hopefully the PN2 schemes are easier to set up.

2) Parsing of a tool's output. I'd like a double-click in the output pane to take me to the corresponding line in the editor. I've found no way to do this in PN.

regards, Patrick

I should point out that PN1 does support a simplistic implementation of request 2, in that it does recognise line numbers in the form: "line: nn" but I completely agree that this needs improvement. I'm happy to say that both of these things are planned (eventually) for programmers notepad 2. The second is planned for the next release.

link: Only the best freeware.

The release monkey overlooked a slight problem, so coltrane has been re-uploaded to sourceforge with a minor bugfix:

A last-minute bug fix has been applied to coltrane that fixes a bug occurring when using tools and not capturing their output. The new version number is 2.0.3.30. If you downloaded coltrane before 4pm GMT on 10/03/2003 (not many of you) then you should re-download.

My apologies for any inconvenience caused.

... from sourceforge news.

With lots of thanks to Kiriakos Vlahos, I have released an updated version of this wrapper which adds a number of properties that are surfaced in delphi-style and the control now works at design time. Schemes are also now available without coding all of the details for each use. Great work Kiriakos!

Download here.

The release monkey has been hard at work and is proud to bring you: Programmers Notepad 2, version 0.3 (nickname: coltrane).

Please enjoy.

The website has been moved from hosting in the UK to hosting in the US to save costs. The hosting company is still the same, but the site is just at a different address. Unfortunately, a few bits of data (such as a couple of blog entries) were lost in the changeover. No great loss.

There will be a new release of PN2 in the next day or so.