Notepad++ and OmniScript

Writing OmniScript in the default application, OmniStation, soon had me longing for something more. In that application there are no helps for the programmer. There is no language color coding and no hotkeys. Then I got on a big project developing a new website and we were introduced to a browser based scripting tool that does have some color coding. This was a welcome addition but this scripting tool also had some limitations and still no hotkeys. So I still wanted something more. Enter Notepad++.

Language Support

I had come across Notepad++ earlier but at that time I wasn't doing any programming so I didn't fully appreciate what it could do. Naturally there was no pre-programmed Notepad++ language support for OmniScript. So I set about setting up a user defined language for OmniScript. With colors for if/ ends, loop/endloops, routines, functions, comments and more, this made looking at and following scripts so much easier. I have continued to tweak this user defined language over the last couple of years and a growing number of scripters on our team are using it and Notepad++. It's worth having to paste script back into OmniStation over and over to be able to use the benefits of this great text editor.  

Other Great Features

Other great features of Notepad++ have made it one of my favorite programs of all time. The hotkeys are a great time saver. I constantly use them to delete or duplicate and move whole lines. Indenting or un-indenting whole sections at once has been another great benefit. And then there are the search features. Simply double clicking on a word and having all other such occurrences of the same word in that file automatically highlighted has been a huge help in avoiding and finding errors. Searching for all occurrences in one file or all open files has been wonderful for making changes or just tracing the flow of a program. I regularly have 30+ component scripts open at the same time and I can't say enough about being able to so easily search for all occurrences of a variable or term across all scripts at the same time, with all of the results so nicely cataloged for me. On top of all of that there are the great plugins.

I am constantly singing the praises of Notepad++ to my co-workers. I have often said that I want a Notepad++ shirt to wear. It has become goal of mine to at one point contribute to this great program.

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