Slight bug in NotepadWS?

---

NotepadWS is great! I like it not only for its features, but especially because it's the only .NET CF editor that can open and save my text files in my device's native ANSI encoding without losing the extended characters, such as accents, etc. The other editors either lose them, or save the file in UTF-8, which then comes out wrong in Word.

Nevertheless, I have a problem which isn't easy to describe, so I hope you'll bear with me if my post gets rather long.

Could someone please create a sample file in NotepadWS, save it, then delete a line or two -- or even just a few characters -- from the top and save the file again, making sure to overwrite the original. Finally, please close the file, reopen it and see what the bottom of the file looks like.

When I do this, the file keeps its original length, because it appends as many characters to the bottom as I've deleted from the middle or top. The extra characters are copies of whatever appeared at the bottom originally.

For example, I had a file in which the last line ended with chinook. I deleted four characters from the top, and wound up with chinooknook. LOL

This has been reported to the developer by e-mail, but there's been no response, and I'm now wondering whether this is a bug in NotepadWS, or perhaps just caused by an incompatibility between .NET CF 3.5 and my older WM5 device.

I'm using NotepadWS 2.56 at the moment, but 2.55 does this, as well. As a workaround, I've been saving edited versions of files to a different folder and copying them back later with my file manager, but I'd appreciate knowing whether anyone else is seeing the same behavior.

Originally Posted by Foliator

Could someone please create a sample file in NotepadWS, save it, then delete a line or two -- or even just a few characters -- from the top and save the file again, making sure to overwrite the original. Finally, please close the file, reopen it and see what the bottom of the file looks like.

...

I can confirm this behavior with 2.55 and 2.56. Looks it might be some kind of buffer issue when he is writing out the file.

For the Developer, I am running a CDMA Touch Pro2 with an Energy 6.5.3 ROM.

To answer a question by the op, it does not appear to be a CFNet3.5 and older WinMo OS version issue.

Originally Posted by 12aon

I have a bit of a request: would you consider adding file 'scheme' functionality. Say you are looking a reg file, the 'scheme' would highlight certain predefined key words or phrases making it more readable. The same could then be true for .xml, .mscr or any other file that can be read by notepad. You think that would be doable?

I was thinking of asking the Dev a similar request. Basically allow for some kind of transformation functionality. Likely a XML schema to map keywords to colors, font types (eg, bold or underline), etc. Just like your thoughts, it would make reading files like HTML, CSS, REG, and XML easier.

But given how much the dev has done so far based on user comments, he's been very accommodating, so hopefully something like this would be put in later down the road. Regardless, the app is definitely donation worthy for me once he knocks out a few other minor bugs out.

Originally Posted by powinmo

I can confirm this behavior with 2.55 and 2.56. Looks it might be some kind of buffer issue when he is writing out the file.

For the Developer, I am running a CDMA Touch Pro2 with an Energy 6.5.3 ROM.

To answer a question by the op, it does not appear to be a CFNet3.5 and older WinMo OS version issue.

Thanks for the response. Hopefully the developer can track down the problem.

One thing that came to mind was that it might be an unfortunate byproduct of whatever the app uses for dividing up a large file into several sections and reassembling them when the file is saved. That feature works fine here, and I've been able to edit very large .txt files successfully.

As I mentioned before, it doesn't occur when the edited file is saved to a different folder, or under a new name, for that matter.

FYI: This is a Dell Axim x51v PDA with a VGA display. It has no phone capability, and I'm using the stock WM5 ROM.

just back from holidays...

however, i confirm there's a bug overwriting existing files, it will be solved.

about the ability to highlight phrases and edit xml schemas.. i'm taking a look to the possible solutions and i will try some code.. hope to give good news soon

regards

Originally Posted by xdaid

just back from holidays...

however, i confirm there's a bug overwriting existing files, it will be solved.

Glad to hear it! Luckily your app is still usable even with the bug, so it can't be very serious.

about the ability to highlight phrases and edit xml schemas.. i'm taking a look to the possible solutions and i will try some code.. hope to give good news soon

Something like this exists in a freeware text editor called cke, which uses so-called syntax files to color various things like HTML tags, etc. The colors can be configured from within the program. However, cke's development came to a dead stop ages ago while still in its alpha phase, and it isn't nearly as stable as NotepadWS.

two bugs fixed:

- the issue on overwriting files with shorter ones

- another bug which came with read-only files:

since NotepadWS uses device-specific encoding to read and write characters, it allows to preserve special chars (e.g. chars with accent, like Foliator said), but it also needs to read and write files in a certain way. This caused crashes while opening read-only files. Now it works propely.

Last but not least, now you have the option to force NotepadWS to remove the read-only attribute and then save the file.

Version 2.57 @ first post

Wow, that was fast! Just tried 2.57, and the two bug fixes make this editor nearly perfect.

Now, if only it could ...

Not to worry; I'm only joking. Excellent work!

Originally Posted by xdaid

two bugs fixed:

- the issue on overwriting files with shorter ones

- another bug which came with read-only files:
...
Version 2.57 @ first post

Thank you xdaid for keeping the application updated.

No worries on the other request(s) we've been asking for, I would consider those low priority I'd prefer stability first and I'm sure many of us here appreciate the fact you are very responsive in addressing those usability issues.

Originally Posted by xdaid

two bugs fixed:

- the issue on overwriting files with shorter ones

- another bug which came with read-only files:

since NotepadWS uses device-specific encoding to read and write characters, it allows to preserve special chars (e.g. chars with accent, like Foliator said), but it also needs to read and write files in a certain way. This caused crashes while opening read-only files. Now it works propely.

Last but not least, now you have the option to force NotepadWS to remove the read-only attribute and then save the file.

Version 2.57 @ first post

Any news about a WQVGA version?