The Portable Freeware Collection Forums

Lightweight Notepad Replacement with Useful Features

http://sourceforge.net/projects/jovialnotepad/



Dl @ http://sourceforge.net/projects/jovialnotepad/files/

Review at http://www.instantfundas.com/2013/06/jo ... d-app.html

Jovial Notepad really looks like a rather interesting entry in its category, but... I find a DotNET v3.5 dependency much too excessive (at least below Vista ).

Perhaps we should be forgiving this venial dependency offense, your Honour, considering the amazing performances demonstrated by our Jovial defendant,
weighing in at an amazingly lean 50k footprint, in the face of a much beefier crowd of usual notepad suspects ?

I rest my case, your Honour, and beg for the court's indulgence...

__philippe

As I said, mighty interesting...

JovialNotepad v1.5

Following recent e-mail exchanges with Jovial's author Teck Hwa, I have the pleasure to report his gem of a NotePad has been upgraded to version v1.5,
which now includes the following new nifty features:

1. Main configuration settings are now kept in a "settings.ini" file.

2. My favorite: a new "Yellow Text highlighter" function (distinct from existing Syntax highlighter) has been implemented,
accessible via the right context key, alongside with other "pretty text" functions such as:
- text colors
- Blue highlight
- three levels of bullets

3. New experimental arithmetic expression evaluator accessible from the right context key

These goodies were added while retaining the original v1.4 complement of features (*) rarely seen together in such a small footprint tool (single 58k *.exe - Uncompressed !),
which makes Jovial my new champ in the notepad FeatherWeigth category.

Regrettably, I'll now have to put old faithful *Q-Jot* (former notepad LightWeight champ) out to pasture, for the following reasons:
- Q-Jot weights in at > 620k (ASPack - Compressed !), excluding various optional *.dll (vs Jovial standalone 58k module)
- Q-Jot development has ceased around 2008 (vs Jovial ongoing development)
- Q-Jot author is unreachable (vs Jovial's author's demonstrated readiness to consider suggestions for upcoming releases)

The king is dead, long live the King !

http://sourceforge.net/projects/jovialnotepad/

__philippe

Caveats:
All is not perfect for Jovial, yet:
1. JovialNP writes quite a few (superfluous ?) \OpenSaveMRU Registry keys for each created file; I presume those can't be avoided ?
2. As Midas noted above, JovialNP depends on .NET Framework (v4.030319)


========= (*) list of Jovial_NP v1.4 unusual notepad features

- terse, minimalist GUI presentation (no pretty icons cluttering the taskbar)
- two file saving formats (plain txt or *.RTF Rich Text Format)
- user customizable selection of "quick symbols" (special characters) ½ ¼ ¾ ® © ™ µ ° ? Ø ± ÷ € £ ¥ ¢
- user customizable international menu (English - French - Chinese languages built-in)
- ALT keybord shortcuts for "Upper case - Lower case - Title Case (capitalisation of words 1st char)"
- CTL keybord shortcuts for "Bold - Italic- Underline - strikeThrough"
- SQL syntax highlighting
- contents encryption / decryption
- image insertion (saved as *.RTF format file)
- right-click-context bullets insertion (3 indent levels)
- right-click-context colored text painting

============Added in version v1.5
- last window size and position stored in settings.ini file
- last closed file name kept in settings.ini file; used as default in "open file" dialog
- right-click context Yellow / Blue Text marker/highlighter function
- bug fixed "wrong file name displayed in last file open dialog"
- Experimental arithmetic expression evaluator accessible from the right context key

Original version Review (thanks to Baas)
http://www.instantfundas.com/2013/06/jo ... d-app.html

Midas wrote:As I said, mighty interesting...

But, still...

Midas @ http://www.portablefreeware.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=17028 wrote:I stopped worrying about the developers stampede towards DotNET after it got embedded by default in recent versions of Windows, and am 100% willing to accept the compromise. But, bearing in mind that the default framework in Windows 7 is version 3.0, if I'm not mistaken, and that most these applications are of a rather simple nature, I fail to grasp the advantages of forcing users to install yet another framework version just to run them, meaning DotNET v3.5/v4.0/v4.5 -- especially in the case of [...] 'portable' apps.

• 

__philippe wrote:weighing in at an amazingly lean 50k footprint, in the face of a much beefier crowd of usual notepad suspects ?

Yes but that's because most of it is in the dotNET framework such as the text editor where as the others are all self contained.

__philippe wrote:Perhaps we should be forgiving this venial dependency offense, your Honour

It's not a technology elitism. Certainly no program is perfectly portable, but we're trying to hit major groups, of which XP will likely remain for 1-2 years. Additionally, my experience on public computers in the case of libraries and computer labs is that they generally try to turn off/disable features they aren't directly using, so dotNET availability isn't purely based on operating system.

We obviously have some dotNET 4.0 entries on the site, but I think it's reasonable to suggest that these tools are *less* portable than those without it so if a non-dependent tool is available, it will generally have the focus. Regardless, things like size, speed, features, and other aspects certainly enter into it, and I agree that a 50k footprint is nothing to sneeze at.

(Side note: many of the things I'm saying here have already been said before, but I couldn't track down the forums where they were discussed. The above paragraph I think is something that guinness or SYSTEM suggested a while back, and I agree.)

JovialNotepad V 1.5.1 released

http://sourceforge.net/projects/jovialnotepad/

Changelog ---------- 25/12/2013

- Fixed program crash when saving a new file with invalid filename characters as first line text
- Re-added "Syntax Highlight" feature. Currently only XML and SQL syntax are supported

Cheers,

__philippe

Jovial Notepad v1.6 released (11-JUN-2014)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/jovialn ... p/download

Getting better and better, still tiny sized (65k *.exe)...

Manual available: Jovial Notepad usage notes (v1.5.3):
http://cznic.dl.sourceforge.net/project ... 4-0531.pdf

Changelog history: (v1.5.1 -> v1.6)

Version 1.6
--------------
- Fixed: Menu "View > Source Folder" not opening source folder in Windows Explorer
- Fixed: Program crashed when click "Math Evaluator" on an image
- Fixed: Exception upon saving as new file when "lang_default.txt" is not present.
- Added new menu item, "Insert\Opened File Path" to insert currently opened file path in text area
- Added new menu item, "Settings\Dispay Filespec" to display filename with full path on title bar
- Added new menu item, "Bookmarks" that lets user save up to three line location

31/05/2014 (Version 1.5.3)
- fixed the resetting of font to default 10px restarting program
- fixed tooltip not showing on menu item "View\Source Folder" on first mouse over
- fixed window position not retrieved correctly on form load
- added German.txt language file
- added more info to "Help\Text Edit Shortcut Keys" menu (refer to the Usage Notes PDF for more Shortcuts)
- added Jovial Notepad Usage Notes PDF document

22/05/2014 (Version 1.5.2)
- added check for invalid rtf format when opening
- disabled "cut" right-click context menu item when no text is selected.
- added "higlight red" right-click context menu item
- fixed frame title displaying text after clicking Cancel at SaveAs dialog
- added shortcuts keys to bullet (ALT-1, ALT-2, ALT-3)
- increased bullet indentation spaces
- added saving user selected font to settings.ini

25/12/2013 (Version 1.5.1)
- Fixed program crash when saving a new file with invalid filename characters as first line text
- Re-added "Syntax Highlight" feature. Currently only XML and SQL syntax are included

Cheers,

__philippe

Tested: Portable

A usage file was created at user\current\AppData\Local\Microsoft\CLR_v4.0_32\UsageLogs\JovialNotepad.exe.log, but that's because it's created in C# (wonderful language) so it's to be expected.

guinness wrote:Tested: Portable

A usage file was created at user\current\AppData\Local\Microsoft\CLR_v4.0_32\UsageLogs\JovialNotepad.exe.log, but that's because it's created in C# (wonderful language) so it's to be expected.

Not all .net software write to that log, I think.

It's up to the CLR.

Jovial Notepad is at version 1.7a:

Version 1.7a (30/11/2014)
------------------------
This release just updated the "Jovial Dictionary" extension from 1.0.0 beta to 1.0.0 release version.
Jovial Notepad remains the same as version 1.7.
The latest extensions can also be downloaded separately at: https://sourceforge.net/projects/jovial ... xtensions/


Version 1.7 (16/11/2014)
--------------------------
This version adds line numbering on the left of the text area.
This version also "extensions" feature. Refer to more information on this at https://sites.google.com/site/jovialnotepad/extensions.
The "Math Evaluator" function has been removed in favour of the "Jovial Calculator" Extension added in this version.
Two more language files for Polish and Russian have been added.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/jovialnotepad/files/

Quick symbols menu is a novel idea. Might try this app.

While not at my Windows machine currently, can anyone tell me if Ctrl+B/Ctrl+I functions for Bold and Italic? Or are such formatting features not present?

Edit:

__philippe wrote: ========= (*) list of Jovial_NP v1.4 unusual notepad features

- ALT keybord shortcuts for "Upper case - Lower case - Title Case (capitalisation of words 1st char)"
- CTL keybord shortcuts for "Bold - Italic- Underline - strikeThrough"

Looks like this answered it, nice.