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I've been looking for a Linux version of Notepad++ for what feels like years.

I started learning vim but can't use it at work as I'm stuck on windows (which vim is rubbish on), and the way they (IT dept) installed it basically made it worse, so I never used it enough for it to be my go-to.

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I can find no compelling evidence that vim users are more efficient than non-vim users, and I have first-hand experience with the extra cognitive load of vim commands and and distracting config-fiddling... however, I learned vim and use vim-emulation in all the software I use which support it, just kind of a nasty habit which comes in handy for corner-cases like editing over SSH.

Anyway, I was going to say gVim is lovely on windows, with a little customization and doesn't require admin privileges (though it will likely be contrary to your companies IT policy to side-load it). Other alternatives are using vim emulation in VSCode or one of the Jetbrains editors (probably the strongest candidate for vim emulation: IdeaVim).

Notepad++ doesn't support vim emulation, at least when I last investigated. It's a solid editor, so it's a shame.

I recently started using Notepadqq (https://notepadqq.com) and so far it is quite okay. It is not as sophisticated as Notepad++ but it does the job.

wxMEdit (formerly MadEdit) filled that niche for me for years. It does seem that recent versions do have some bugs that occasionally rear their head, but it's still very usable.

At least it was for me, Using Notepad++ for editing config files, batch files, large sql stuff from time to time and the occasional binary. Including search and replace in a bunch of directories.

You could run Notepad++ with Wine.

I used to work with a greybeard that did exactly this, and it seemed to work very well for him!

I'm an old-school Linux user, and way back when I considered Wine to be sort of a joke. It's gotten better and better over the decades and it's been pretty impressive when I've used it recently.

Completely off-topic, but your comment reminded me of the "For Dummies" books; I spotted a copy of "Wine For Dummies" in the mid-90s and was briefly excited that the software was mainstream enough to warrant it.

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