Featherpad alternative with auto-save (like Notepad++)

[bdutta]

Hi,

Is there a Featherpad alternative (or a configuration of Featherpad that I haven’t uncovered so far) on Linux, that can auto-save text documents (periodically) being edited, s.t. a sudden reboot, power-cycle or VM shutdown (when running Lubuntu in a VM based sandbox) doesn’t lead to loss of document that was being edited, but not yet explicitly saved to disk ?

thanks,
B

[bdutta]

Checked SciTE, but while it has last-session-save, it does not do periodic autosave.

[guiverc]

You do realize Lubuntu can use any editor that runs on Ubuntu, or most likely GNU/Linux (as long as libraries/software-stack required is present). One reason featherpad is used is it uses libraries already present in your system & likely in memory (as it uses libs used by your LXQt desktop).

You could search for “editor” in Discover, or look in “Editors” in Muon Package Manager for example; if your box as 4gb or more of RAM I don’t think you need to worry about saving memory by sticking to lib already in RAM (though the 4gb is subjective & over-simplified).

vim is also present, and it autosaves (to a ‘swap’ file) though it may not be what you want anyway as it’s not for everyone.

[apt-ghetto]

Didn’t you read the manual?

I use normally Emacs and vim (the most powerful text editors, but not easy). But you might be interested in using notepadqq (I don’t use it and I have never tried it).

[bjlockie]

What does the featherpad preference “Save changes to opened files every X minutes” do?
It sounds like what you want.

lubuntu-19.04

[bdutta]

Had completely missed the configuration. Yes, that option does 95% of what I was looking for. The 5% it misses out (and I can live with) is the fact that until you save the buffer being edited, at least one using a unique filename, it doesn’t start the auto-save. Notepad++ auto-assigns names, which saves the trouble of having to assign a good meaningful name upfront. That makes it a serious code editor, and a scratchpad.

[teward]

Totally going to get me yelled at by certain Lubuntu team members, but you could install snap from the repositories and then install Notepad++ as a snap, it runs on Linux that way (but it’s ugly). If you really want the Notepad++ features/style, that is; it graphically looks ugly I think but you might be able to make it work for your needs with all the features you are looking to get.

[wxl]

Seems like one of those last two responses should be marked as your solution. Your choice, @bdutta.

[bdutta]

Thanks for the reminder, done.