this post was submitted on 11 Jan 2024
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[–] DocMcStuffin@lemmy.world 246 points 10 months ago (17 children)

You know what's free (as in beer and speech) and not being enshittified? Notepad++

[–] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 93 points 10 months ago (14 children)

Fun fact: Most of the features that people liked about the "new" Windows notepad were just stolen from Notepad++ anyway.

So you may as well just use Notepad++ and enjoy a better experience, plus about a zillion other things like numerous plugins, syntax highlighting for just about every programming language under the sun, immensely configurable color schemes, etc., etc., etc.

[–] morrowind@lemmy.ml 38 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Hardly "stolen". Suff like tabs is very basic that n++ didn't invent.

[–] FaceDeer@kbin.social 22 points 10 months ago

And even if Notepad++ had invented it, it's not "stealing" to do the same thing. Notepad++ still has its tabs, nobody stole them. Copied them, maybe. Inspired by them, perhaps. "Stolen" is just a deliberately emotion-baiting term.

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[–] FaceDeer@kbin.social 20 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (10 children)

This is not enshittification. Here's where the term came from:

Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call this enshittification

In what way is adding an AI assistant to Notepad either "abusing their users" or "abusing their business customers?" It seems like it's just a useful new feature to me, that's still in the "be good to your users" phase.

[–] kogasa@programming.dev 31 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (13 children)

They're sacrificing the utility of the tool to make it part of their new AI-driven operating system as a service platform. The only thing notepad had going for it was its complete simplicity, reliability, and speed. Nobody wants notepad to try to rope you into this ecosystem, certainly not at the expense of those qualities.

Even with the recent updates, I'm over it. Notepad has crashed on me at least twice. Notepad. Crashed. There is no longer any reason to use it.

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[–] Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 10 months ago (6 children)

But… MUH BUZZWORDS!

(I really hate the Reddit-style overuse of that word.)

[–] Signtist@lemm.ee 17 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Ah, the enshittification of enshittification.

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[–] DocMcStuffin@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I like Cory Doctorow. I think his theory of enshittification is useful, but I find his definition flawed.

  • Why is it limited to platforms? Can't enshittification apply to other things like applications?
  • Are business customers really required or can that step be skipped?
  • The platforms dying thing isn't what we are seeing. For example, Amazon is absolutely enshittified. They're not dead. More like undead, continuing to shamble on consuming everything.

I still give credit to Cory for being an acute observer and coming up with a useful theory.

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[–] PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca 13 points 10 months ago

Unfff pump my veins full of Notepad++. I wanna feel the autosaving tabs course through me. I need that tabbed indenting experience. AAAAAAAAAAA

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[–] rivermonster@lemmy.world 82 points 10 months ago (14 children)

Notepad++, GET YOUR FOSS ON PEOPLE!

https://notepad-plus-plus.org/

If you're not using it, then you're going to be extremely happy when you switch!

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[–] simple@lemm.ee 80 points 10 months ago (5 children)

I know it's dumb but I was always a bit disappointed that Microsoft overhauled Paint in Windows 11 with layers and polish. To me, paint is always that terrible pre-packaged program that makes bad art. There was a community around making things in paint, which was noticeably impressive because making decent art in paint is a nightmare.

Now that it's actually fairly good... I don't know, it's lost its charm.

[–] wildginger@lemmy.myserv.one 29 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Its not actually good, and many actually good art programs far outshine it.

So its lost what made it unique, by being comedically bad, and become the death knell of most things in a capital focused system; mundane.

[–] Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

My primary use case for MS Paint is its almost non-existent system usage, to quickly crop screenshots or strip metadata from files. Paint.net handles almost every other use. Same rationale for Notepad and stripping formatting from copied text. Bloat the program with ‘value added USP features’ to compete with actual image editing software, and I’m out.

Microsoft saw how the Apple ecosystem lock-in has benefited them long term, and made big pushes to ‘improve’ their first party software and close the ecosystem to the Microsoft store. Vanilla Windows fresh off an install throws all kind of “You sure? Like for real sure?” UAC warnings popups at any executable, while seamlessly processing their App Store use. Zero-low literacy users want that kind of UI/UX and Microsoft sees money to be made funneling them towards first-party and ‘partner’ software

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[–] Codename_goose@sh.itjust.works 12 points 10 months ago

I can understand and get behind this sentiment. At an old job we had iMacs and I would use Apple’s numbers program to make pixel art in the tables by coloring each cell.

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[–] Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de 55 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

I always thought that my local use of a plain text editor should use a lot of CPU power (and electricity) in a huge data center.

[–] freebee@sh.itjust.works 11 points 10 months ago

Your owners gotta know what you're doing at all times eh. Can't leave notepad out of the ~~tracking~~ eco system

[–] SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 31 points 10 months ago

Bring back clippy. "I see you want a barebones, simple text editor. Let me ruin that for you."

[–] nikita@sh.itjust.works 28 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Fuck Notepad. All my homies use Kate.

[–] ikidd@lemmy.world 19 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Kate is freaking awesome. So many nice features for coding short of using a full IDE.

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[–] ArkyonVeil@lemmy.dbzer0.com 25 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Been a Windows user for a really long time. A few times I tried to switch over to Linux, but it just wasn't doable for a myriad of reasons. Windows 11, I have words with it. Many bad ones, but thankfully there are many users like me that for one reason or another did not switch and put time in to beat the badness out of it via mods.

Windows 12... I'm not so sure if I'll even "upgrade" to it. It really depends on how much Microsoft decides to wire up the OS to their servers. Look, I wouldn't mind at all if I could have "smart" tools with AI assistance, but the problem for me is the lack of choice. Currently, if you don't use their crap software, what mostly travels over the wire is telemetry, and if you go offline no harm done. But make no mistake, useful AI models are too fat to run on most computers. Heck I built mine with AI in mind, but will Microsoft even give me the choice of using my own AIs? (Here's a hint, it starts with N, has a V and ends with an R)

But what if the OS starts requiring it to be online only because of their AI features? Maybe we'll have to start paying for Windows again in subscriptions to pay for the obligatory AI? Or what about scrubbing options away from the settings so you can't "misuse" your own device and have to ask nicely to their AI to do it for you?

There is a road here, and I do not like it. Thank goodness Linux is better than it has ever been.

PS: As for the notepad thing, I'm completely in agreement that it should remain without AI. Such a simple tool for scribbling down notes should be kept lean, simple and fast. Things that Microsoft and their engineers have long forgotten how to do.

[–] LWD@lemm.ee 25 points 10 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)
[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 22 points 10 months ago (2 children)

LEAVE NOTEPAD ALONE!

seriously though. I can't imagine anything I'd rather have be more basic than notepad. It's entire literal existence is to open, edit and save basic text files. There's zero need for additional features or updates.

I mean, I don't even see their precious AI in office yet, and they're getting hard over adding it to fucking notepad? I expected an AI powered clippy to return to office before this shit.

Throws table

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[–] samus12345@lemmy.world 19 points 10 months ago

Microsoft is not a creative company!

[–] Somewhereunknown7351@kbin.social 17 points 10 months ago (2 children)
[–] ryper@lemmy.ca 33 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)
[–] vsh@lemm.ee 16 points 10 months ago (1 children)
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[–] DosDude@retrolemmy.com 13 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Now do paint. Or even more useless: calculator.

No need to "fix" notepad. It does what it has to. If you're a power user, you can download something else. But I'll bet it won't have Ai in it.

[–] Sheeple@lemmy.world 11 points 10 months ago (5 children)

Why the fuck would I ever want AI in my calculators? Even Algebra never required AI in the past

[–] Hyperlon@lemmy.world 11 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)

Because AI is obviously better at solving math than the code programmers wrote. Duh. /S

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[–] chemicalwonka@discuss.tchncs.de 13 points 10 months ago

I don't use Windows since 2018 but.....

1000089307

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