Update September 2015 (6 years later)
The last release of git-for-Windows (2.5.3) now includes:
By configuring git config core.editor notepad
, users can now use notepad.exe
as their default editor.
Configuring git config format.commitMessageColumns 72
will be picked up by the notepad wrapper and line-wrap the commit message after the user edits it.
See commit 69b301b by Johannes Schindelin (dscho
).
And Git 2.16 (Q1 2018) will show a message to tell the user that it is waiting for the user to finish editing when spawning an editor, in case the editor
opens to a hidden window or somewhere obscure and the user gets
lost.
See commit abfb04d (07 Dec 2017), and commit a64f213 (29 Nov 2017) by Lars Schneider (larsxschneider
).
Helped-by: Junio C Hamano (gitster
).
(Merged by Junio C Hamano -- gitster
-- in commit 0c69a13, 19 Dec 2017)
launch_editor()
: indicate that Git waits for user input
When a graphical GIT_EDITOR
is spawned by a Git command that opens
and waits for user input (e.g. "git rebase -i
"), then the editor window
might be obscured by other windows.
The user might be left staring at
the original Git terminal window without even realizing that s/he needs
to interact with another window before Git can proceed. To this user Git
appears hanging.
Print a message that Git is waiting for editor input in the original
terminal and get rid of it when the editor returns, if the terminal
supports erasing the last line
Original answer
I just tested it with git version 1.6.2.msysgit.0.186.gf7512 and Notepad++5.3.1
I prefer to not have to set an EDITOR variable, so I tried:
git config --global core.editor "\"c:\Program Files\Notepad++\notepad++.exe\""
# or
git config --global core.editor "\"c:\Program Files\Notepad++\notepad++.exe\" %*"
That always gives:
C:\prog\git>git config --global --edit
"c:\Program Files\Notepad++\notepad++.exe" %*: c:\Program Files\Notepad++\notepad++.exe: command not found
error: There was a problem with the editor '"c:\Program Files\Notepad++\notepad++.exe" %*'.
If I define a npp.bat including:
"c:\Program Files\Notepad++\notepad++.exe" %*
and I type:
C:\prog\git>git config --global core.editor C:\prog\git\npp.bat
It just works from the DOS session, but not from the git shell.
(not that with the core.editor configuration mechanism, a script with "start /WAIT...
" in it would not work, but only open a new DOS window)
Bennett's answer mentions the possibility to avoid adding a script, but to reference directly the program itself between simple quotes. Note the direction of the slashes! Use /
NOT \
to separate folders in the path name!
git config --global core.editor \
"'C:/Program Files/Notepad++/notepad++.exe' -multiInst -notabbar -nosession -noPlugin"
Or if you are in a 64 bit system:
git config --global core.editor \
"'C:/Program Files (x86)/Notepad++/notepad++.exe' -multiInst -notabbar -nosession -noPlugin"
But I prefer using a script (see below): that way I can play with different paths or different options without having to register again a git config
.
The actual solution (with a script) was to realize that:
what you refer to in the config file is actually a shell (/bin/sh
) script, not a DOS script.
So what does work is:
C:\prog\git>git config --global core.editor C:/prog/git/npp.bat
with C:/prog/git/npp.bat
:
#!/bin/sh
"c:/Program Files/Notepad++/notepad++.exe" -multiInst "$*"
or
#!/bin/sh
"c:/Program Files/Notepad++/notepad++.exe" -multiInst -notabbar -nosession -noPlugin "$*"
With that setting, I can do 'git config --global --edit
' from DOS or Git Shell, or I can do 'git rebase -i ...
' from DOS or Git Shell.
Bot commands will trigger a new instance of notepad++ (hence the -multiInst
' option), and wait for that instance to be closed before going on.
Note that I use only '/', not \
'. And I installed msysgit using option 2. (Add the git\bin
directory to the PATH
environment variable, but without overriding some built-in windows tools)
The fact that the notepad++ wrapper is called .bat is not important.
It would be better to name it 'npp.sh' and to put it in the [git]\cmd
directory though (or in any directory referenced by your PATH environment variable).
See also:
lightfire228 adds in the comments:
For anyone having an issue where N++ just opens a blank file, and git doesn't take your commit message, see "Aborting commit due to empty message": change your .bat
or .sh
file to say:
"<path-to-n++" .git/COMMIT_EDITMSG -<arguments>.
That will tell notepad++ to open the temp commit file, rather than a blank new one.
Enjoy:
forfiles -p "C:\what\ever" -s -m *.* -d <number of days> -c "cmd /c del @path"
See forfiles
documentation for more details.
For more goodies, refer to An A-Z Index of the Windows XP command line.
If you don't have forfiles
installed on your machine, copy it from any Windows Server 2003 to your Windows XP machine at %WinDir%\system32\
. This is possible since the EXE is fully compatible between Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP.
Later versions of Windows and Windows Server have it installed by default.
For Windows 7 and newer (including Windows 10):
The syntax has changed a little. Therefore the updated command is:
forfiles /p "C:\what\ever" /s /m *.* /D -<number of days> /C "cmd /c del @path"
Best Answer
I have a partial solution which allows the name to be set (but not the icon or company name).
It is possible to register an application in Windows. This is very similar to creating a ProgID, but it allows you to set the FriendlyAppName. For some reason, you can't set the FriendlyAppName on a ProgID. Unfortunately, FriendlyAppName is not a string, but a reference to a resource in a .DLL or .EXE file. Go figure.
So:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications\whatever.exe
(whatever should be a unique name specific to the virtual application -- it does not need to be the name of a real executable, but it does need to end in.exe
or another executable extension).Now the application will appear in the "Other Programs" dropdown of the "Choose default program" dialog, but not in the "Open With" menu. To properly associate it, you need to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts
(it can also be inHKEY_CURRENT_USER
, but I have found that theFileExts
version overrides, and Windows creates one there if the user manually creates a file association, so best to use that one).whatever.exe
you created above. This should be a value whose name is an arbitrary letter and whose value is the fake exe name.MRUList
value includes the letter you assigned to the fake executable in the previous step.Applications\whatever.exe
". This is optional, but there needs to be something set here (if UserChoice is missing, nothing will work).Lastly, hit it with a SHChangeNotify to refresh Windows' icon and shortcut cache. (I'm not sure if this is necessary after all; I just noticed that it helps to make Windows notice the changes you're making.)
Now on the "Open With" menu for the file type, you should see an entry for the custom string you put in the dummy .dll. It will still have the icon of the real binary mentioned in the shell command, but you can at least control the name. Why, why is this so hard?
I will leave this question open for awhile in case there are better answers.