Trying to setup a new editor in git

Question

I'm trying to find a good alternative to the VI editor that comes with my git version 1.8.0.msysgit.0 installed on my windows XP box. I've looked through the forums here and tried some of their suggestions. I must be missing something because they aren't working for me. I've tried this from the git command line:

git config --global core.editor "'C:/Program Files/Notepad++/notepad++.exe' -multiInst"

I also tried another way that used a shell. There I created a folder named shell on the root of C: I then created a sh file named npp.sh with this content:

#!/bin/sh
"c:/Program Files/Notepad++/notepad++.exe" -multiInst "$*"

after that I entered this command:

git config --global core.editor C:/shell/npp.sh

In both cases if I enter notepad++ on the git command line I get the message sh.exe": notepad++: command not found.

Answer 1

This turns out to be surprisingly difficult. /c/Program\ Files/Notepad++/notepad++.exe executes fine from Git bash, but doesn't seem to work with git config core.editor.

However, you can create a Bash alias for Notepad++ and use that as your core.editor. See this answer for details.

Answer 2

I encountered this issue and the git documentation enlightened me.

https://docs.github.com/en/get-started/getting-started-with-git/associating-text-editors-with-git

The section under "Using Notepad++ as your editor" provided the answer.

Run the following in Git Bash and you're away.

$ git config --global core.editor "'C:/Program Files (x86)/Notepad++/notepad++.exe' -multiInst -notabbar -nosession -noPlugin"

If you want to open up the global git config file after setting up notepad++ use this:

$ git config --global -e