tabbed-notes

Despite the popularity of Microsoft’s flagship Office Suite, there is no denying that many users sometimes prefer the simplicity and distraction-free experience provided by Notepad, which is why a part of the open-source community wants to improve that design and implement a few functions that contribute to a better level of usability. One example is tabbed-notes, a multitasking-focused text editor that you can add to your portable setup.

Double-clicking on the program’s executable spawns an interface styled in fashion similar to Google’s Material Design language used in its native suite of Android applications, in contrast to other built-in Windows programs. The title bar doubles as a command ribbon, where one can access its main functions, such as opening, saving and deleting files with ease.

For a better nighttime usage experience, users can instantly toggle between the dark and light themes via a dedicated switch next to the usual window control buttons. Underneath sits the app’s flagship feature, the tab bar, where one can swiftly move between multiple opened documents for a neater multitasking experience and compare similar-looking text files. Moreover, a hidden accessibility feature allows you to increase or decrease the scale of the interface by holding the Control key and scrolling up or down.

However, when it comes to the overall usability aspect of the program, there are certain areas that require improvement, ranging from the inability to resize or maximize its window and the tabs not showing the names of the documents they currently display to the documents being saved as JSON files whose formatting is not interpreted properly by other text editors.

Whether you are looking for a text editor whose scale can be changed independently of other apps, or you are a long-time Android smartphone user, and you want to add a utility to your personal collection of apps resembling the Google’s Material Design language for a better experience on the Windows platform, then tabbed-notes may be useful for you, as long as its shortcomings do not hinder your workflow.