Super NoteTab -- A Worthy Replacement

When Microsoft devised or created the new operating system, Windows 95, it brought with it the Notepad of Windows 3.1 fame. This is not up to the quality of Win95, particularly as it is made the default reader for the text files spelling out properties, installation instructions and updates to so many programs. A particular limitation with Notepad is the almost invariable requirement to go through Edit | Word Wrap to get an initial screenfull of readable text from any file. There is no provision to save word wrap as the default setting.
Notepad deficiencies, of course, encouraged programmers to write many replacements, even back in the Win3.1 days. One of the best of those was Spad, a free program that I am sure is still available. Win95 has its free equivalent with even more features, Super NoteTab by Eric Fookes, that I obtained from Tucows on the Internet, and we'll look at some of those features now.
Super NoteTab can edit documents of any size up to the limit of computer memory and in any number up to the limit of system resources. Each document can have its own configuration of text, tabs and margins. A tab bar is attached to each open document to enable easy switching between documents. A cascading menu under File | Reopen provides a list of my nine previously opened documents for rapid reopening.
It has a user-friendly interface with a comprehensive toolbar and is highly customizable. Besides the usual features we would hope to see in a good text editor, such as sorting, joining, splitting and indenting lines, and changing case, its preferences cover font selection, file filters, page and text colours, and a link to a web browser. This latter feature is important as the program is web sensitive and will use the browser to open links in the text or to view HTML files. It will strip HTML tags from files for export or convert special characters to HTML syntax.
Like the browser it includes a Favourites menu from which files can be nominated for autoloading. Text filters permit conversion between ASCII, UNIX and MAC formats. And Text Statistics in the Tools Menu provide not only the word and character count for the current document or any selected block of text, but also an alphabetical list of every word used and its frequency as well as other fascinating facts. Printing from NoteTab supports page numbering, margins, headers and footers.
Importantly Super NoteTab does not make any entries in the Windows system registry or INI files. Its files can be put in the Windows directory or preferably in a dedicated folder, and it is most easily run by putting a shortcut on the Desktop. Uninstalling is as simple as removing the dedicated folder and its contents, but preserving any documents you might have saved there and want to keep.
Having NoteTab as a replacement for Notepad is not much fun if it has always to be run from the Desktop or Explorer. It should be made the default application for viewing .TXT and .DAT files at least. To achieve this it is only necessary to make minor changes within Explorer. The steps are: Open Explorer. Select View | Options | File Types. Scroll down to DAT File, highlight it and select Edit. Make no changes to the next screen but select Edit again. In this final screen, as the 'Application used to perform action' enter the path to NoteTab.exe, eg. C:\NoteTab\Notetab.exe. This can be typed in or found by browsing. Now click OK then Close. This takes you back to the File Types tab, and from there you can scroll down to the Text Document and repeat the editing process. Double clicking on TXT or DAT files will now open them with NoteTab instead of Notepad.
This editing of file type viewers is worthy of elaboration and I will expand on it in weeks to come. Those of you who are familiar and comfortable with these editing procedures may want to uninstall Notepad and replace it totally with NoteTab. But I don't intend to discuss that option here.

Super NoteTab is freeware and you are encouraged to use it and give it away. Updates can be found on Tucows or by visiting the creator's web site. Enjoy your computing!

Terry Bibo.