When it comes to text editing tools, everyone must think of Notepad++ for the first time.
Notepad++ is a popular source code editor and a solid Notepad replacement for Windows users. It is a powerful utility that provides the best performance without taking up a lot of storage space.
Unfortunately, it's not available for Linux users. It is possible to install an unofficial Snap package, but considering it depends on the embedded version of Wine, it may not be satisfactory.
Is there a better alternative to Notepad++ as a text editing tool? Today, I would like to recommend an alternative tool for it: Notepad Next
Notepad Next: An Open Source Notepad++ Alternative
Notepad Next is an alternative for Notepad++ users on Linux, it is a cross-platform application that supports not only Linux but also Windows and MacOS.
Notepad Next is a C++ application that uses the Qt5 toolkit as its user interface. Compared to Notepadqq (another Notepad++-like editor), this application looks almost identical to Notepad++.
Notepad Next is designed to mimic the functionality and user interface provided by Notepad++. But the same level of product should not be expected as Notepad Next is still in active development (version 0.5 as of now) and needs some improvements. Having said that, Notepad Next is usable and stable for the most part.
Notepad Next Features
Notepad Next is a feature-rich source code editor that you can also use to replace your default text editor.
Some key features include:
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Folders as workspaces.
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Supports multiple languages, such as C++, YAML, XML, LaTeX, PHP, Python, R, Rust, etc.
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Tweaked to disable/enable parts of UI.
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Supports recording a macro, running it, saving the recorded macro.
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Find and replace functionality in files.
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line operation.
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Edit the inspector for details about the document.
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Indentation guide.
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Undo/Redo button.
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Zoom in/out.
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Lua console.
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EOL operation.
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Ability to convert uppercase ↔ lowercase. Cross-platform
It's also worth noting that, for now, the macOS version is experimental. However, it is available for Windows, Linux and macOS. So it should be a perfect cross-platform open-source text editor app once the developers figure it out.
Install Notepad Next on Linux
Notepad Next is available to Linux users as Flatpak and AppImage.
Download Notepad Next:
https://github.com/dail8859/NotepadNext/releases
For Linux just get the .AppImage package, add executable permissions and run to start the application.
I tried the Flatpak app for a simple test on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and it worked fine.
flatpak install https:/ /dl.flathub.org/repo/appstream/com.github.dail8859.NotepadNext.flatpakref