HTML Tag Selection in NotePad++

I’m moving or deleting sections of HTML or XML code, several times a day. NotePad++ has the ability for you to press a single keystroke to select the entire block of code. Big time saver.

You simply install a NotePad++ Plugin from http://docs.notepad-plus-plus.org/index.php/Plugin_Central

The plugin you want for selecting and copying or moving HTML tags is the “HTMLTag (Unicode)” plugin, which “provides two core functions to Notepad++”:

• HTML and XML tag matching, like the built-in brace matching (Ctrl+B / Shift+Ctrl+B)
• HTML entity encoding/decoding (example: é to é and vice versa)

Unfortunately, the HTMLTag plugin is a 32-bit plugin. That means if you are using the 64-bit version of NotePad++, you will get a message about the plugin “is not compatible with the current version of NotePad++”. The Compare plugin is also 32-bit, though there is mention of a 64-bit version on GitHub.

The Compare plugin is one I use very often, to quickly compare two text files. It does much of what the Linux diff command does, showing the difference between files. It is smart enough to detect lines that have been moved or deleted. It can highlight the differences within lines of the two files. You can easily navigate among the differences. Even if you are using GIT to track version changes, you will likely find you want to compare files that are not in your version management system, and this is a good plugin for that.

CSSlist is a very useful plugin, lists all the CSS classes and colors for easier inserting the names into your code. Even “adds the ability to list the different colors that are in the document and export the list as an SVG file for Inkscape or Gimp palette.”

NppSnippets is another plugin that looks interesting. “A easy to use snippet / template plug-in: NppSnippets. Similarity with the TextPad Clip Library is no accident. To insert a snippet simply double click on the item in the list and the snippet is inserted at the current cursor position. To edit right-click on that item. ”

Take a look at the TakeNotes plugin, too.