The image is from Microsoft.
Microsoft is testing a redesign of its venerable Notepad app, adding some welcomed modern features like a dark mode, a better search / find and replace interface, better undoing, and more.
The visual updates are nice, but the functional updates will be the biggest upgrade to anyone who actually writes in Notepad. The text search tool and the find and replace tool are two different pop-up windows, accessed by two different keyboard shortcuts, in the current version of the app that ships with Windows 11. The redesign combines them into one floating bar instead of something that looks like it came from the XP era.
Find and Replace still has some quirks in the preview, but it is definitely a more modern experience.
The old version of the undo system only allowed you to go back one step. It doesn't work like a modern app would, but it does have more memory than the old version of Notepad, and it's not like you have to hit "Ctrl-Z" to remove one word at a time.
It would be hard to call the new Notepad undo system modern.
Word Wrap is off by default in the preview. The old Notepad's "Format" menu is no more, as it has been moved to the View menu.
It seems like Microsoft is focused on smaller updates to make Notepad feel less like a relic, rather than stuffing it full of new features and turning it into an entirely different app. It seems like the right move to me, given the existence of WordPad, which is closer to Microsoft Word than a plaintext editor. WordPad lets you view and edit.docx files, unlike the new version of NotePad.
The Notepad should be available for Windows 11 Insiders. If you don't see the test version of the OS, you may want to check for an update in the Microsoft Store. It is nice to see Microsoft continue to update its built-in apps like Notepad, Photos, and Paint alongside its bigger products like Office and, of course, Windows.
