Visual Notepad2

Back in January I posted about Visual Notepad and at the end of the post I gave a passing mention to Notepad2.

Well, it deserves a little more than that: Notepad2 is the shiznit. I've even dropped a copy in my system32 folder and called it "n2.exe" so I can start it from the run dialog super quick.

It has tons of cool features that I won't list here (read about them whilst you're downloading it - go on).

However, there is one cool feature I want to discuss that I've recently taken advantage of.

Notepad2 has the ability to launch the current document. You can either launch it with the default handler for the file extension or select an application to open the file. I realised that this could be a great way to get my Visual Notepad code to build without having to keep flipping between windows.

The script

All I need is a batch file that can execute the build for me. Easy peasy:

In summary, the script sets up the console to work as a Visual Studio 2005 command prompt and then builds the file passed in the command line. If the build didn't error the application is launched in the current window. You should note that the new exe file is always located in the C:\temp directory and called visnotepadapp.exe but you could easily change that. Also, the csc.exe args specify the TRACE and DEBUG conditional compilation constants.

You now need to put this script into a text file with a .bat extension (why not use Notepad2?) and save it into a nice clean folder; I used "C:\temp\n2apps\n2build.bat" (or you can download it).

Using it in Notepad2

The default extension for a .cs file is Visual Studio and I don't want to muck around with that so I'd have to use the Open With functionality. That's OK because I can quickly access this option with the keyboard command Alt+L, which brings up this dialog:

You can use the little button with an arrow to specify the default directory for the list of applications shown in this dialog so just point it to the folder containing your new batch file.

Now when you want to build your Visual Notepad code you just press Alt+L followed by the Up cursor (to select n2build.bat) and hit ENTER.

Thanks to Simon Gent for his help with the script, which you can download here.