Description
Notepad chokes on a 50 MB log, Notepad++ is Windows only, and a Beyond Compare licence costs real money — for two ordinary jobs, editing text and diffing files, assembling a decent toolset is oddly awkward.
Notepad-- merges them. It is an open-source Qt-based editor from China that runs on Windows, Linux, macOS and the domestic Kylin and UOS distributions, with the tabs, syntax highlighting, column editing and instant large-file loading that a Scintilla core provides. Its real draw is the built-in comparison: text, folder and binary diff modes, differences marked line by line and editable in place. GPL-3.0, 15.8k stars on Gitee.
Three diff modes: Text diff marks differences line by line and lets you edit and merge in place; folder diff shows what differs between two trees; binary diff compares byte by byte.
Handles large files: The Scintilla core opens and scrolls logs and data files of tens or hundreds of megabytes without freezing.
Syntax highlighting: Common languages and config formats, alongside column editing, multiple cursors and regex find and replace.
Encoding and line endings: Convert between UTF-8, GBK and UTF-16 and switch CRLF/LF at any time, which settles most mojibake and cross-platform issues.
Domestic OS support: Beyond Windows, Linux and macOS it targets Kylin and UOS explicitly.
Plugins and themes: Extensible through plugins with several bundled colour schemes, including a dark mode that is easy on the eyes for long log reading.
Notepad-- merges them. It is an open-source Qt-based editor from China that runs on Windows, Linux, macOS and the domestic Kylin and UOS distributions, with the tabs, syntax highlighting, column editing and instant large-file loading that a Scintilla core provides. Its real draw is the built-in comparison: text, folder and binary diff modes, differences marked line by line and editable in place. GPL-3.0, 15.8k stars on Gitee.
Features
Three diff modes: Text diff marks differences line by line and lets you edit and merge in place; folder diff shows what differs between two trees; binary diff compares byte by byte.
Handles large files: The Scintilla core opens and scrolls logs and data files of tens or hundreds of megabytes without freezing.
Syntax highlighting: Common languages and config formats, alongside column editing, multiple cursors and regex find and replace.
Encoding and line endings: Convert between UTF-8, GBK and UTF-16 and switch CRLF/LF at any time, which settles most mojibake and cross-platform issues.
Domestic OS support: Beyond Windows, Linux and macOS it targets Kylin and UOS explicitly.
Plugins and themes: Extensible through plugins with several bundled colour schemes, including a dark mode that is easy on the eyes for long log reading.
