wxNote

An experimental, cross-platform (Windows / Linux / macOS / FreeBSD) text editor built on wxWidgets.

⚠️ Experimental software, under active development.

wxNote is built on wxWidgets' wxStyledTextCtrl (Scintilla + Lexilla) and runs natively on Windows, Linux, macOS, and FreeBSD from one codebase: tabbed editing, split views, theming, a native custom-language engine (Scintillua), macros, an integrated terminal, session restore, and full UI localization. Plugins are first-class via the project's own permissive, cross-platform Nib API; legacy Win32 Notepad++-ABI plugin binaries are additionally supported on Windows through an optional GPL bridge plugin (see Plugins below).

Project site & downloads →

Why the project exists, and why it's a from-scratch editor rather than a port, is told in docs/GOALS.md; how it's put together is in docs/ARCHITECTURE.md.

Status

Experimental, under active development. The Windows build is the most mature and feature-rich; the Linux, macOS and FreeBSD builds are structured and CI-wired but still being validated.

Implemented: tabbed editor with per-tab Scintilla documents, a split second view (MAIN | SUB — Move/Clone to Other View, with the split collapsing when a pane empties), syntax highlighting (Lexilla) with keyword lists for 98 languages (SciTE's, and the languages' own projects' where SciTE has none) and language detection from the file's name and first line, your own language definitions (languages.yaml: extensions, comment tokens and keyword lists, also edited in the Style Configurator), a native custom-language engine — Scintillua (Lua 5.4.7 + LPeg 1.1.0 lexer grammars run through a Scintilla container lexer; see docs/ARCHITECTURE.md), with legacy Notepad++ userDefineLang.xml files importable via the optional GPL udl-compat plugin (see Plugins), find/replace and find/replace-in-files, an incremental search bar (match-case / whole-word / regex toggles, live highlight-all, and an n-of-m match counter), find-driven multi-cursor (Select All Occurrences / Add Next), Go-to-line, dark mode, auto-indent / brace-match / smart-highlight, code folding (built-in lexers and custom Scintillua languages), bookmarks, a Document Map (minimap), a Function List (symbol tree, with rules derived independently from each language's own grammar — C++, Python, JS/TS, Java, C#, Go, Rust, Lua), a real integrated terminal (a genuine ConPTY/forkpty pseudo-terminal with libvterm emulation, so vim, htop, ANSI colour and the shell's own line editing all work; multi-tab, with a per-platform shell picker, and a redirected-pipe fallback on Windows older than 10 1809), a Clipboard History panel, a Project Panel (workspace tree of folders + files, saved as .yaml) and folder-as-workspace, pinned tabs, Restore Recent Closed File (Ctrl+Shift+T) + MRU Ctrl+Tab switching, an interactive status bar (double-click to go-to-line, convert EOL or encoding, or toggle INS/OVR), EOL detection, session restore, print + print preview, a customizable right-click menu (submenus, labels of your own, plugin commands), macro recording/playback (saved macros persist and are bindable in the Shortcut Mapper), (tail -f: reload on external change), four selectable (Tabler, Solar, IconPark, Streamline — see Credits), full UI into 8 languages (pl, de, fr, es, ru, ja, zh, ko), and a — see .

Plugins

wxNote's core hosts its own original, permissive, cross-platform plugin API, Nib (include/nib/nib.h) — a wxDynamicLibrary-based loader (.dll / .so / .dylib) with commands, event subscriptions, dockable panels, and document/editor access. The core reproduces no Notepad++ plugin ABI itself — it includes nothing from include/npp-compat/; its command ids live in the core's own src/command_ids.h.

Real Notepad++-ABI plugins (NPPM_* messages, FuncItem, NppData, …) are additionally supported through an optional cross-platform bridge, packages/npp-bridge: on Windows it LoadLibrarys prebuilt N++ .dll binaries, and on Linux/macOS it dlopens recompiled N++ plugins (.so / .dylib). Only the prebuilt Win32 .dll binaries themselves stay Windows-only. The bridge is itself just a Nib plugin: it loads Notepad++-ABI DLLs, surfaces their commands in the Extensions menu, and translates NPPM_* / FuncItem / SCNotification to and from Nib on their behalf — see packages/npp-bridge/README.md for exact NPPM_* coverage. Because this bridge reproduces Notepad++'s ABI, it is licensed GPL-3.0-or-later, kept isolated from the otherwise Apache-2.0 core (see LICENSING.md).

Legacy Notepad++ User-Defined Languages (userDefineLang.xml) are supported through a second optional plugin, packages/udl-compat: it parses your existing UDL files, translates each into a Scintillua Lua/LPeg lexer, and registers it with the core via the new nib.langdef API (it also ships a standalone udl2scintillua converter CLI). Because it knows the Notepad++ UDL format it is licensed GPL-3.0-or-later and kept isolated from the Apache-2.0 core, and is built as bin/nib/udl_compat.dll (see docs/ARCHITECTURE.md).

wxNote keeps its own settings, key bindings, themes, language definitions, sessions and workspaces as plain YAML files (see docs/SETTINGS_DESIGN.md); the core reads no Notepad++ format. A third optional plugin, packages/npp-compat, brings an existing Notepad++ setup across: Extensions > Import from Notepad++... translates config.xml into settings, shortcuts.xml into a key-binding scheme, and themes, contextMenu.xml and what was added to langs.xml into wxNote's own files, and it also opens a Notepad++ session or workspace (the npp2wxnote CLI does the same translations from a terminal). It reproduces Notepad++'s file formats, so it too is GPL-3.0-or-later and kept out of the core.

Building

Requires CMake ≥ 3.20, a C++17 compiler, and Ninja. wxWidgets 3.3.1 is fetched and built automatically on first configure (expect that one to take a while; builds are incremental after). The native language engine's runtime — Lua 5.4.7 + LPeg 1.1.0 (built as a lua_lpeg static library) plus Scintillua's lexer.lua — is likewise fetched automatically on first configure, so the initial configure needs network access.

cmake -S . -B build -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build --target wxnote
# -> build/bin/wxnote   (wxnote.exe on Windows)

• Windows — the MSVC compiler from Visual Studio 2022 Build Tools (the build itself is CMake + Ninja; MSBuild and solution files are not used); the native dark-mode code and the optional packages/npp-bridge (Notepad++-ABI plugin bridge) compile in here.
• Linux — needs GTK3 dev headers: sudo apt-get install build-essential cmake ninja-build pkg-config libgtk-3-dev
• macOS — needs the Xcode command-line tools.
• FreeBSD — the base system's Clang, plus pkg install cmake-core ninja pkgconf gtk3 (packages carry their headers; there are no separate dev packages).

Plugins:

• Nib plugins (native, cross-platform): drop Plugin.dll / Plugin.so / Plugin.dylib into <exe>/nib/ next to the executable.
• Notepad++-ABI plugins (Windows only): drop Plugin/Plugin.dll into <exe>/plugins/Plugin/. This additionally requires npp_bridge.dll to be present in <exe>/nib/ (built automatically alongside wxnote on Windows) — the bridge is what actually loads and translates for these plugins.

Layout

src/                 the wxNote application (main.cpp + the data-driven menu engine, the Scintillua
                     language engine (scintillua_engine.{h,cpp}), terminal panel, command_ids.h,
                     platform shims; src/plugins/nib_test_plugin is a Nib-native test plugin)
packages/            npp-bridge (optional GPL Notepad++-ABI bridge, builds on every OS — loads real
                     Notepad++ plugin DLLs on Windows, recompiled npp_shim plugins on Linux/macOS; itself a Nib plugin),
                     udl-compat (optional GPL Nib plugin: imports legacy Notepad++ UDLs as Scintillua lexers),
                     npp-compat (optional GPL Nib plugin: translates a Notepad++ setup - config.xml, shortcuts.xml,
                     themes, contextMenu.xml, sessions, workspaces - into wxNote's own YAML files),
                     test_plugin (a Notepad++-ABI test fixture, Windows-only, never shipped)
include/nib/         the project's own permissive, cross-platform plugin API (nib.h)
include/npp-compat/  clean-room Notepad++-ABI headers (consumed only by packages/npp-bridge,
                     packages/npp-compat and packages/test_plugin — the core includes nothing from here)
resources/           toolbar icons (icons/ = Tabler default, icons-solar/, icons-iconpark/,
                     icons-streamline/), themes/ (Default.yaml is the light default), contextmenu.yaml, fonts,
                     locale/ (8-language i18n catalogs)
third_party/         scintilla + lexilla (both permissive, HPND), lua + lpeg + scintillua (the custom-language engine, all MIT), libvterm-tables (generated DEC tables for the fetched libvterm terminal core, MIT), wxbf (wxBorderlessFrame, wxWindows Licence)
installer/           packaging scripts: windows/ (NSIS), linux/ (AppImage, .deb, .rpm, Flatpak), macos/ (.dmg), freebsd/ (.pkg)
docs/                GOALS.md (why the project exists), ARCHITECTURE.md (how the editor is put
                     together), CREDITS.md (everything used or consulted during development)

Installing

Grab the latest build from the project site's Download page (picks the right asset for you) or straight from Releases:

• Windows — the NSIS installer, for x64 (wxNote-<version>-Setup.exe) or Windows-on-ARM (wxNote-<version>-arm64-Setup.exe)
• Linux — an AppImage, .deb, .rpm, or .flatpak (flatpak install wxNote-<version>.flatpak), each available for x86_64 and ARM (aarch64/arm64-suffixed assets), plus a .deb for riscv64
• macOS — a .dmg, built separately for Apple Silicon (wxNote-<version>-arm64.dmg) and Intel (wxNote-<version>-x86_64.dmg) — pick the one matching your Mac's chip
• FreeBSD — a package for FreeBSD 15 or 14 on amd64 (wxnote-<version>-freebsd15-amd64.pkg). pkg add looks for dependencies only beside the file, so install them from the repository first: pkg install $(pkg query -F <file> %dn), then pkg add <file>

CI builds all of these as artifacts for every PR and for source-affecting pushes to master (see .github/workflows/build.yml and installer/{windows,linux,macos,freebsd}/); pushing a version tag (v*) runs .github/workflows/release.yml, which rebuilds everything and attaches it to a new GitHub Release. See CHANGELOG.md for release history.

Command line

wxnote [options] [files...]

-g, --goto <line[,col]>   go to this line (and column) in the last file opened
-e, --encoding <name>     force encoding: ansi|utf8|utf8bom|utf16le|utf16be
-n, --new-instance        always open a new window
-r, --reuse-instance      reuse an already-running window
-w, --wait                do not return until the file is closed
    --safe                start without loading any plugins
-v, --version             print the version and exit
-h, --help                show the usage message

Files given on the command line are opened in tabs. By default every launch opens its own window; turning on Preferences > General > "Reuse an existing window" makes a second launch hand its files to the already-running window instead (over a local IPC connection) and exit — -n/-r override that setting for a single launch either way.

-w/--wait makes wxnote usable as $EDITOR / git config core.editor "wxnote --wait". It deliberately implies -n: the IPC handoff path exits immediately, so without forcing a new instance the caller would unblock before the tab even opened. On Windows, note that a bare cmd.exe prompt does not wait on GUI-subsystem processes at all (use start /wait wxnote -w <file>), whereas git, sh and make wait on the process handle and block correctly.

Full reference: the manual's Command Line page.

Contributing

Bug reports, code, translations, and themes are all welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md for how to build, the PR workflow, and the project's code/licensing ground rules.

License

Apache License 2.0, with three exceptions in what ships: the optional packages/npp-bridge/ plugin (which lets real compiled Notepad++ plugins load), the optional packages/udl-compat/ plugin (which imports legacy Notepad++ userDefineLang.xml files by translating them to Scintillua lexers) and the optional packages/npp-compat/ plugin (which imports a Notepad++ setup — settings, shortcuts, themes, context menu, sessions, workspaces) all stay GPL-3.0-or-later — npp-bridge because it reproduces Notepad++'s plugin ABI, udl-compat and npp-compat because they know Notepad++'s file formats — kept isolated from the otherwise Apache-2.0 core; the never-shipped, Windows-only test fixture packages/test_plugin/ tracks the same GPL license for the same reason. wxNote is an independent project — it copies no Notepad++ source code; Notepad++ was used only as a behavioral reference and a test target, and wxNote is not affiliated with or endorsed by it (see NOTICE). The project started on GPL v3 and relicensed once every Notepad++-derived file had been replaced or clean-room-reimplemented and the plugin-ABI reproduction fully isolated into that one optional module — purely to give users and downstream developers more freedom, with no commercial agenda. See LICENSING.md for the per-component record.

Credits

The full record of everything used or consulted during development — including the editors studied as design references — is in docs/CREDITS.md. The headliners:

• Notepad++ — Don Ho (GPL v3): the editor whose behavior served as the original reference and test target. Its plugin ABI is reimplemented clean-room and cross-platform in our own include/npp-compat/, consumed only by the optional GPL packages (packages/npp-bridge, packages/npp-compat) — no Notepad++ source is used (see LICENSING.md).
• Scintilla & Lexilla — Neil Hodgson (permissive): the editing / syntax-highlighting engine.
• Lua 5.4.7 (MIT), LPeg 1.1.0 (MIT), and Scintillua — © Mitchell (MIT): embedded to power wxNote's native custom-language engine.
• libvterm — © 2008 Paul Evans (MIT): the VT/xterm terminal-emulation core behind the integrated terminal, fetched at build (Neovim's now-archived mirror, pinned to tag v0.3.3 by SHA256); two generated DEC charset tables it needs are vendored in third_party/libvterm-tables/.
• wxWidgets: the cross-platform UI toolkit.
• rapidyaml — © 2018 Joao Paulo Magalhaes (MIT): reads and writes wxNote's own YAML files (settings, key bindings, themes, sessions) and the plugin catalog's JSON, fetched at build (the single-header v0.16.0 release, pinned by SHA256).
• Toolbar icon sets (Settings > Preferences > General > Toolbar icon style — see each set's own CREDITS.md for exact modifications):
  • Tabler Icons (MIT) + Open Color (MIT) — the default line-icon set ().