More and more users work within programming, an area that has been growing rapidly in recent years. If we use Windows to program, a basic text editor such as the well-known Notepad incorporates us, although it is very limited in terms of features. Therefore, as an alternative, we can use a program like BowPad , open source and free.
BowPad is an open source text editor that is capable of opening and reading a wide variety of files such as HMTL, Perl or C ++ , providing syntax highlighting and comment insertion. It is fast, light and easy to use. It has a user interface, as well as graphics, tapes and syntax highlighting. It also has a practical method that allows us to select one or more code words and carry out a web search for that term. We can even search Wikipedia directly to find the information we need quickly.
Main features
- Syntax highlighting for over 100 file types and languages.
- Handling of several different types of encodings, such as UTF-8, UTF-16 or UTF-32.
- Includes dark mode, even on the scroll bar.
- Navigation tips on the vertical scroll bar.
- It allows the placement of open tabs according to their trajectory.
- Tooltip that allows us to display colors or numbers on different bases.
- Expandable by plugins written in JScript or VBScript.
- Allows custom color styles.
BowPad,
Once we run BowPad we find its main menu with a toolbar located at the top. This bar has a tape interface, similar to that found in other text editing programs, so it will be familiar to us, as well as three main tabs: File, Main (Main Menu) and Other.
On the left side it has a sidebar , a tree of files that we can use to search for folders. If this folder has documents, we can open it by double clicking on each file. On the right side there is another sidebar that we will use for text editing . It has a line / paragraph indicator that will be very useful for working with long documents.
If we want to access its context menu it will be as simple as right-clicking on the editor. It has different built-in tools such as a spell checker, perform web searches (Bing or Wikipedia), use the undo / redo options in case we are wrong or change the characters from lowercase to uppercase of the title.
Archive
In the quick access toolbar we can find default options that are enabled within the File tab, such as Open, Add or Close tabs, Save, Search / Replace or Print. It also allows the Quick Access Bar to be configured to display below the ribbon. In addition, it allows saving text files in document format (TXT, LOG, LST, DOC, DIZ, NFO), as well as showing some useful statistics such as the number of words, the number of lines, the lines that are empty and the paragraphs.
Menu
Within the Main tab, we will have at our disposal all kinds of basic tools such as undo, redo, find and replace. One of the most interesting tools can be found in the “Goto” section , located between the “Find” and “Booksmarks” options, which we can use to switch between tabs or navigate to a specific area of the document. Through the “CMD” option we can perform online searches, open the location of a folder or a command console, as well as run browsers such as Edge, Firefox, Chrome, Safari or Internet Explorer.
From the “Code” section , we will have a set of easy to program options, including functions, opening the corresponding file, adding or removing comments, using the Lexer or going to the symbol. Right next to it we will have the Other operations tab, where we will find the option to change the box, finish the line, cut white spaces or duplicate, move, join and divide lines.
Download BowPad
BowPad is a free and open source application so we can download it for free from the GitHub website , being compatible with the Windows operating system. It has a portable edition so it does not require any type of installation and we can run it directly from any external storage medium, such as a hard disk, a USB stick or a memory card. It is a very light program, since it only occupies 1.74 MB . Its latest available version is 2.6.1 for June 2020, which accounts for the good support it has from the developer and the user community.
Main alternatives to BowPad
If you need a text editor to program in Windows, we present you with a couple of alternatives that you can use instead of BowPad, in case you don’t like this one.
Visual Studio Code
It is an editor written in Electron in the form of a desktop application, with which we can program in a simple, powerful and flexible way. It has a large number of code debugging options designed to help you find errors in your code. We can download Visual Studio Code for free from its website .
Cuda Text
This free, cross-platform text editor is ideal for all those users who are entering the world of programming or advanced users who are looking for a simple design, but at the same time it contains very useful functionalities, such as syntax highlighting for more than 180 languages. Cuda Text can be downloaded for free from the sourceforge website.