I don't know about vista but in xp for those of you who don't want to edit the registry, all you have to do is copy a shortcut for notepad to your sendto folder under documents and settings\username.

Personally I find Textpad to be a great replacement for notepad. It color codes for scripting, can save in windows or unix formats, can do macros and is pretty bloat free too.

jmange

Actually, the easiest way to do this is to place a shortcut to the application in the following folder:

C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\SendTo

Where USERNAME is replaced by your username. This works on Windows XP.

karstetter

Notepad will fail horribly if you pass it a Unix-formatted text file, however. So I'd probably switch that to Notepad++ or some other editor. Others who don't have to deal with multiple platforms won't have this as a problem.

mwrenfro

i like how in the screenshot is "edit with notepad++". notepad ++ is a program that i find really helpful in that when im worknig on a website i can switch from file to file in tabs.

thanks for the tip. this is a keeper.

gowood08

Actually, I'd say the first words of this article should be "Due to", not "Despite". I've got enough over-featured bloatware that notepad is often a happy respite.

Thanks for the tip. It's an obvious idea, but one I've completely missed.

witeowl

The single best thing about notepad for me is it's ability to delete all meta-tagging and formatting data and leave you with pure text. When pasting data from one program to another (such as pdf, html, or a table in a presentation into word) it's the fastest way to eliminate all the extraneous data that messes up the format in the new document.

drotor

@drotor: No, the single fastest way to remove formatting when copy-pasting is with PureText: [www.stevemiller.net] Just Win-V instead of Ctrl-V.

CWW

@karstetter:
WOW ... best tip of the year :-)

Amazing how easy that was.

muzee

Second vote for Karstetter's solution. No additional software to install, no registry editing required. You can drop shortcuts to Notepad, Wordpad (which handles larger files & includes find/replace), or whatever you want into that 'send to' folder.

tinyhands

In my opinion it's pretty lame to have "open with wordpad" if you already have "Edit with Notepad++" in your context menu..

:)

highball

@CWW: @drotor:

Don't forget "Paste Special", then choosing "Unformatted Text" Faster and more efficient than opening notepad and pasting it in. Obviously not possible all the time, but quite useful when its available.

JeffDrake

Oh and I hate to double post but this is the flip side of the same coin -- there will be times when instead of wanting to add context menu entries, you will be removing unwanted context menu entries.

To do that, fire up regedit.exe and then follow the nice instructions given here:

[www.jfitz.com]

genghis_schmengis

Another thing you can do if you want to power use your context menu is you can open Windows Explorer, go to Tools, Folder Options, File Types, select a file type, such as txt, and then with the Advanced button get to the Edit File Type window, which will let you create all sorts of custom actions for a given file type or change default settings to use a preferred program instead.

genghis_schmengis

Thirding Karsetter. If you "send to notepad," the file opens. For a little while, I was finding so many new uses for "send to" that I added a shortcut to the send to folder. So now I can right-click and send a program to "send to."

Is there a significant difference that makes a registry hack a better choice here?

rmkoske

w00t notepad++ gettin' some love, kinda. Its about time, its my favorite text editor out there.

Swizzler121

Didn't "Create Custom Context Menus by File Type" from Jan 8 cover doing this without the registry?
[lifehacker.com]

pschroeter

Here is another simple tip. If you use Rocketdock, just place Notepad in the dock - then drag whatever file you are interested in onto the Notepad in the dock and it will open.

Trandrewo http://www.mobileframe.com

@pschroeter: No, that works only for registered filetypes. The catch-all "*" isn't available in the dialoge window.

ignorant

And of course, related to this is the ability to open a command prompt at a specific directory from the shell. Instructions here. As a programmer, when I sometimes need to run a test from a specific directory, this is invaluable.

mmcalli

Lots of notepad++ fans here...I found it kind of clunky, though...notepad2 is the slim editor for me!

rsd212

Another vote notepad2.

ignorant

@rsd212: Notepad2 is also my tool of choice.

dphelan