files too large for notepad into metapad?

Hi

(W98)

when trying to open a file too large for Notepad, I get prompted to use Wordpad instead...

I'd like to replace Wordpad (in this context) with Metapad, so that if Notepad finds the file is too large, the file goes into Metapad as straightforwardly as possible.

any instruction on how to go about this would be very helpful - some kind registry guru perhaps?!

very best wishes, HJ.

(**edit - I've attached metapad to the edit-with list and IE toolbar OK already...)

 

Hello Hugh,
I'm not familiar with Metapad, but if it's a simple .exe you
could try renaming Wordpad and putting Metapad in the Win
folder and renaming it WordPad - but I am sure you have
considered this already. . .
regards

 

Hi merlin...

aha - the fundamental approach

...which I did indeed consider, and it would certainly work for my TXT and HTM files; but then it would also have the unfortunate side-effect of shunting everything currently assigned to WordPad into Metapad.

I was hoping to find a way of redirecting the "cop-out" behaviour for Notepad, to keep the other things assigned to Wordpad as they are...

Metapad's truly excellent for text (of various flavours), but it cannot handle *.wri for example.

thanks for the reply, and best wishes

HJ

 

Hi again Hugh,
On the same theme, you could assign any file associations that you want to keep using WordPad with, to the newly renamed
WordPad.exe
regards

 

Hi Hugh,
Just had a look at Metapad and have an idea you would
be pleased with NoteTab.com products to replace NotePad,
MetaPad and WordPad. The Lite version is free and quite
poweful/flexible.
regards

 

I use Metapad too. My solution for this in XP was just to associate all txt files with it and forget about Notepad. Is this something you don't want to do? How about a putting a shortcut to it in your send to menu and just use that when you know the file is too big for notepad? If you're using Win98, I believe the size limit is something like 57 or 58kb. When I used Win98, I just left all associations the way they were and renamed Notepad.exe, then renamed Metapad.exe to Notepad.exe. I don't remember why I went that route but there was a problem of some sort if I tried associating txt files with it. Maybe it was just because I wanted log files etc. to open with it and was just to lazy to change all the associations. Also could have been because I wanted to be able to right click on .bat files etc. and choose edit to have them open in Metapad. I just don't remember for sure. Anyway, it worked fine.

With WinXP renaming things doesn't work. If you rename Notepad.exe to something else, XP just immediatly puts a new one back. Possibly it would work if you turned off file protection but I decided not to do that so I just changed the file association.

 

Hi again

Goodness - it's not a registry thing at all, the other program's name is (was ) actually written into notepad.exe; I'd thought there must be something in the registry to work as an error handler... but I was wrong...

Although they say notepad goes up to 64k (or a bit less), in real terms it tops out at half of that if you are actually trying to edit (rather than just look at) something with it... during copy/paste etc. the effective size seems to double for a moment, and all has to fit into one segment

Metapad's really good! ...been trying to find a decent Notepad-like editor for larger files for ages now - loads of them "out there" but all the ones I tried were too good at recognising fonts and things - precisely what I was trying to avoid.

Now all I need to do is to learn how to use the keyboard without all the typingf errobs and thumbs.

thanks for the replies, and best wishes, HJ.

 

Metapad

Hi HJ: I did as you just said, stuck a s/c to meta on the bar. I use it for all notes, whether quick, large or small. Might throw some text into Editpad Lite tho', for printing. It has humungus abilities, & lots of fonts, etc. George.

 

Another vote for .

EditPad Lite
http://download.jgsoft.com/editpad/EditPadLite.zip
EditPad Lite is a general-purpose text editor that works with Windows 95, NT4, 98, 2000, ME and XP. It is designed to be small and compact, yet offer all the functionality you expect from a basic text editor.
EditPad Lite is free for non-commercial use.

 

erm, what I'd been searching for was something that didn't know about fonts and the like

must have gone through nearly a dozen before I ended up with Metapad; Quickpad came fairly close but doesn't take to the scroll wheel on the mouse...

(still using Zed quite a bit!)(anyone remember Zed?)

EditPad's pretty cool though...

best wishes, HJ

 

Change from W/P-M/P.

HJ: Can you not rename wordpad.exe to wordpadold.exe, move it somewhere, then rename Metapad to Wordpad & place in W/Access? That would make it open with it, no?? Hey, now I'm French, eh?? George.

 

George

I've sussed it! - was a bit too cryptic earlier maybe (is/was ) was meant to indicate that having discovered that 1) the handover to wordpad.exe is controlled by notepad itself, not the registry (as I'd pre-supposed) and that 2) there's zillions of other references to wordpad up and down the registry, many of which were quite abstruse - so I didn't want to go down the whole lot - if it had just been re-assigning a few file types that would have been easy enough, but there were masses and a lot of them would have been a puzzle, might well not have taken to anything other than wordpad... might have cause all kinds of problems trying to use metapad for that lot...

...so I ended up changing the references to wordpad inside notepad.exe instead (with a hex editor) as it seemed the least likely to cause chaos - and it works fine. Will freak out SFC next time I run it, I'll just have to tell it to "believe" the new version's for real.

There's three references, one's for the alert "do you want to use wordpad intead ", one's for the cop-out alert "couldn't launch wordpad" and one for the actual handover, it's the name of the file wordpad.exe. Whatever you hand over to has to be in the same folder as notepad. And watch out for the 0x0b immediately beforehand, (= 11 decimal) it's the number of char in wordpad.exe... but as metapad.exe is also 11 char that didn't need alterating in my case.

So this way I could leave all the other associations for wordpad the same as they were and get just the handover from notepad on a large file "switched over ", which is really what I was after.

best wishes, HJ.

 

Cleverly solved Hugh ! Admire your knowledge depth.
regards

 

Cleverly Solved

I'll say!! Thanks for reply, George.

 

c'mon guys - I didn't actually work it out myself! - went trawling the internet to see if I could get any clues as to where it was in the registry, why I was missing it. Which is where the idea for the solution came from - I found a page which pointed out that the behaviour was down to notepad itself and not the registry at all - no Sherlock Holmes job involved...

best wishes, HJ.