---
title: I'm Using Notepad++
date: 2015-10-27
---

#### Again

UPDATE! I've started using Atom (thanks to Oliver Dunk for reminding me
about it), enjoy it a ton with the remote-edit package. I'll have a
follow-up post with more thoughts :P

Maybe I'm just crazy. Or maybe there are some things I just really need
my development area to do. Because of my job as CTO of a YouTube
Network, I need to do a lot of work on the website, which means I need
real-time access to it. I have a locally hosted server using XAMPP, but
it's not enough -- for example, when I have subdirectories, or
a .htaccess rule, I have to do this

```
<link href="/projectname/css/bootstrap.min.css" rel="stylesheet">
```

which is obviously incorrect when deploying it to a real server.

Maybe I should explain a bit more -- for the past few months, I've been
sticking with Visual Studio Code, Microsoft's entry into the text-editor-that-also-has-syntax-highlighting-and-other-IDE-stuff area
(or as I sometimes call it, simple IDEs). It's not bad, but for things
like plugin support, it simply isn't there.

So why Notepad++? A piece of software that looks like it's from the 80s?

Well, for one, NppFTP. A small plugin that allows me to edit and upload
file in basically real-time on a server. I've been using it for about 20
minutes and it's already *super* useful. Second, oodles of
customization. I'm just getting back into it, but I already like it (the
top bar is still ugly though).

![Seriously what do half these
buttons do](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*ANZjRhNHF9e6Hd3uzAl-dg.png)

As soon as vsCode adds FTP support, I'll probably immediately switch
back to it. I love the aesthetic, and the autocomplete is *decent*. But
for the time being, I'm sticking with Notepad++.