How to set "UTF-8 WITH BOM" as default Encoding even for old but changed textfiles?

Claudia Svenson

As I found out I can change the default encoding for new text documents in

Preferences—New Document—Encoding

by enabling “UTF-8 with BOM”

Unfortunately this works only for new, really new documents.

When I load an existing old file (with UTF-8 only), then change something and save it, the old encoding remains.

How can I tell NP++ to apply the new default encoding to changed old files too?

If possible an additional option for this should be added to the next release.

Thank you

Alan Kilborn

@Claudia-Svenson said:

How can I tell NP++ to apply the new default encoding to changed old files too?

I don’t believe this is possible.

If possible an additional option for this should be added to the next release.

This is IMO a dubious need.

For your use, perhaps a script that does an encoding conversion upon save would be beneficial?

Coises

@Claudia-Svenson said in How to set "UTF-8 WITH BOM" as default Encoding even for old but changed textfiles?:

When I load an existing old file (with UTF-8 only), then change something and save it, the old encoding remains.

How can I tell NP++ to apply the new default encoding to changed old files too?

I think you mean you want this to be automatic; but just in case you missed it, you can change the encoding of the file while you are editing it using Encoding | Convert to UTF-8-BOM. You just have to think to do it for every file you want to change.

Claudia Svenson

The problem is that it is highly recommended to store

Powershell scripts with .ps1 extension

and (sometimes)

pure textfiles (ith .txt eextension

as UTF-8 with BOM.

In contrast it is urgently required to store

DOS batch scripts with .bat extension

and

Python scripts with .py extension

as UTF-8 WITHOUT BOM.

I cannot count how many times I hat the wrong encoding and experienced some weird execution problems.
Since I oftentimes use Notepad++ as initial script editor it would be the best place to auto-adjust Encoding here.

Can I somehow let NP++ me warn when it detects a bad Encoding (depending on the current file extension) and suggest a switch? Even when I rename or edit an existing file?

This would be a great convenient enhancement feature.