Editor’s take: Again within the DOS days, actual PC customers wrote their textual tomes within the official MS-DOS Editor – I actually did. Nowadays, builders provide a complicated array of textual content editors, so Microsoft constructed its personal to simplify command-line modifying. Though it is barely completely different than the OG model, I discover it refreshing!
Microsoft is reviving the traditional MS-DOS Edit utility with a brand new open-source textual content editor constructed for Home windows 11. Microsoft builders designed it to offer a local command-line interface (CLI) choice. Whereas 32-bit variations of Home windows included the legacy 16-bit MS-DOS model, 64-bit editions lacked any built-in CLI instrument.
Edit is a compact, modeless editor with a text-based consumer interface. Its minimal footprint of lower than 250kB makes it straightforward for Microsoft to incorporate in Home windows 11 ISO pictures. Though nonetheless in early improvement, Edit affords a number of trendy options to create a extra comfy modifying expertise, together with mouse assist, key binding, simultaneous a number of file modifying, find-and-replace (with match case and common expression choices), and phrase wrap – one thing MS-DOS customers might solely dream of again within the 90s.
The open-source model of Edit is already obtainable on GitHub. The mission’s official web page states its major objective is to supply an accessible textual content editor that even customers unfamiliar with the command line can use simply. That mentioned, when put next side-by-side, Edit’s interface feels nothing like the unique MS-DOS Editor. We checked.
Additionally see: A Compilation of Command Immediate Ideas, Tips & Cool Issues You Can Do
Microsoft plans to roll out the brand new CLI textual content editor to unpaid Home windows Insider beta testers quickly. Microsoft expects the instrument to mature sufficient to launch alongside a secure Home windows 11 construct.
The brand new editor might attraction to PC customers bored with relentless AI fluff, Copilot adverts, and undesirable options flooding their programs. Microsoft continues to make use of each trick within the e book to make Home windows an AI-first-user-last expertise – to the purpose that even the “traditional” Notepad cannot survive with out some undesirable AI gimmick that no one requested.
Picture credit score: Home windows Newest
