Notepad++: Run command

Posted 2020-12-20

How to add custom commands to the Run menu.

First, some caveats: After saving a new entry under a nice name (e.g. “My Command To Do This Or That”), the exact value of the command cannot be viewed or edited from the GUI.

To see what is currently behind that command, you need look into the shortcuts.xml file, which is here: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Notepad++\shortcuts.xml (respectively %APPDATA%\Notepad++\shortcuts.xml).

And if you want to modify it, don’t do that while Notepad++ is running, because this XML file will be overwritten when Notepad++ exits and your changes will be lost! So, use another text editor…

Variables

Use them as $(VARIABLE_NAME) in the command (source):

Variable	Example Value
FULL_CURRENT_PATH	C:\folder\file.ext
CURRENT_DIRECTORY	D:\current\working\directory
FILE_NAME	file.ext
NAME_PART	file
EXT_PART	ext
SYS.<var>	SYS.PATH, which is %PATH%
CURRENT_WORD	the selection or word under cursor
CURRENT_LINE	the line number
CURRENT_COLUMN	the column number
NPP_DIRECTORY	e.g. C:\Program Files\Notepad++
NPP_FULL_FILE_PATH	e.g. C:\Program Files\Notepad++\Notepad++.exe

Example

Here’s a handy shortcut I made for my workflow: “Powershell: Run file and open shell in that directory”:

Powershell.exe -NoProfile -NoLogo -NoExit -Command "& { Set-Location $(CURRENT_DIRECTORY); $(FULL_CURRENT_PATH) }"

Send comments via e-mail · Categories: How To · Tags: EN, Notepad++, Powershell

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