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  #1  
Unread 08-11-2019, 10:09 AM
Daniel Kemper's Avatar
Daniel Kemper Daniel Kemper is offline
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Default In praise of notepad++

In praise of notepad++ as a poetry-editing tool

1. Crisp and clean plain-text only interface. Not cludgy or gooey.

2. Tab-completion of common words like texts or IM's.

3. HYUGE: Absolutely unintrusive autosave.
-It just stays right there, no "which draft", no weird auto-adjusments, no wondering where it saves.

4. HYUGE: Tabs as in tabbed browsing.
Multiple docs open at once.
Just click to move from one to the next -or ctrl+pagedown / ctrl+pageup
Get stuck on one poem, ctrl+pageup and work on the next

5. Line manipulation:
hold ctrl+shift, then arrow up/down to move a whole line intact up/down in the order of your poem.
*OR SELECT ENTIRE SECTIONS and move them up/down. No cut scroll, paste, etc.

6. Since it produces .txt files, they're readable by anything anywhere.

7. There are a gazillion other tweaks and customizations. The unique thing about this is that it's actually a code writer's/developer's tool. Applying it to verse is fascinatingly fun.

8. FREE FREE FREE
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Unread 08-11-2019, 05:59 PM
John Isbell John Isbell is offline
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Hi Daniel,

Nice to see this praise of a medium., and I'm glad this works so well for you. I always compose longhand, then type up in Word. I value the slowness of longhand composition, and tend to be unhappy with the few pieces I've composed onscreen. A personal taste. I would just add, as an enemy of spellcheck, that I don't like my words being completed for me by an algorithm. It is very often wrong, and requires of me an attention to being misguessed at which I find a bit antithetical to the state of mind I need. If I am typing, say, they're, their, it's or its, or some foreign language - to name a few examples - I know what I want and don't want an algorithm stabbing blindly in the dark. It is however true that after the fact, in Word, I am generally grateful for the underlinings of various colors that spur me to contemplate, say, my punctuation. The piece is already written by then.

Cheers,
John
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Unread 08-11-2019, 07:20 PM
Jim Moonan Jim Moonan is online now
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John, A good poem about algorithms would soothe my soul.

I have grown to like Google docs for many of the reasons Daniel likes notepad++. GD has a feature that allows you to create a doc and share it/work on it with others who use GD. I fantasize Eliot and Pound sharing The Waste Land...
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Unread 08-11-2019, 07:32 PM
Roger Slater Roger Slater is online now
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I do most of my first drafts on Notepad. If I like the draft at all, I then copy and paste it to Evernote where I polish it up. I think Evernote is fantastic since it is secure and available from any computer or even smartphone. Evernote also has lots of other uses apart from writing immortal verse. I haven't tried Notepad++ yet. I'll check it out. Thanks for the tip.
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Unread 08-11-2019, 10:35 PM
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Daniel Kemper Daniel Kemper is offline
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Hi John, yes definitely one size does not fit all. There is something organic about long-hand, which is very soothing. I don't exclusively compose in notepad++. Actually, I can grok with not liking tab-complete. It's just a feature I could easily envision some liking. It is seamless and unintrusive if not desired.

I'm like you in that I don't want to clean up while I compose and I think my many spelling and punctuation errors show that such checkers are not well done in notepad++. It is, after all, primarily a coder's tool. I just love the little thing though.

Jim, I like your take on Google Docs. Not sure why it never caught hold with me. (And it ought to because my kids schools use it so much.) I like to imagine Hopkins and Bridges, or Keats and... anybody.

Roger! Sounds kindred. I know a lot of people who totally adore evernote, not the least for the "reach it from any machine" feature that you mention. If you use notepad, you'll love notepad++.

Again, I'm not saying everyone should adopt. Should one size fit all, we'd probably have very little to write about. And I'm loving seeing the different composition media.
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Unread 08-11-2019, 10:52 PM
John Isbell John Isbell is offline
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Hi Daniel,

Yes, I agree, this is an interesting thread topic and I hope it draws more commentary.

Cheers,
John
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Unread 08-12-2019, 07:45 PM
Erik Olson Erik Olson is offline
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For my part, the program I use to write and edit is Scrivener. It works great for me because it allows me to easily look at two alternate iterations of text side by side.

Cheers,
Erik

Added later: One of its most useful draws I think lies in its core set-up, whereby: Scrivener files are called projects, not documents, because a project itself can house endless documents in an easy-to-navigate sidebar or Binder. I am a perennial revisor who will save a poem in different stages. Not only do I revise and correct continually, but sometimes revert to earlier versions, whether in whole or in part. That is why Scrivner is so useful to me because it combines what I get from Word in text manipulation with what I get from Evernote in the organization of files. There are more features than you or I will care to hear described. So you will have to take my word for it that it is actually worth every penny.

Last edited by Erik Olson; 08-13-2019 at 01:08 AM. Reason: excised the fat/redundancy
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