Extend Notepad++ with Plugins

I have never paid much attention to the plugin support of Notepad++ until today when I went to the official download website to notice them for the first time. You all know that I setup my new computer and one of the applications that I cannot live without is Notepad++. Several of the listed plugins sounded quite useful and I thought it would be great to point other users in the right direction.

Adding plugins is a breeze. Notepad++ comes with a plugin folder that is a subdirectory of the root directory of the installation. Just place all downloaded plugins into that directory and they will automatically be recognized by Notepad++. If the plugin directory is not existing create it. The plugins can be configured from within Notepad++ by clicking on the Plugins menu in the toolbar.

The removal process works the same way, just delete files in the plugin directory to remove a plugin that you do not want to use anymore.

The main plugin page lists 26 plugins for the latest version of Notepad++. Here are the ones that I found useful and decided to install:

• XML Tools - XML Checker. Can auto-close tags and provides other useful features.
• Hex Editor - adds a Hex Editor to Notepad++
• Compare Plugin - compare two text files.
• FTP Synchronize - modify and upload files directly to a ftp server.
• Multi Clipboard - add up to ten text phrases to the clipboard.
• Windows Manager - great if you work with many open windows at once regularly.

Those are just five of the 26 available plugins. Most have been written for special purposes and are probably not useful to the majority of users.