There have been some habitual changes in computer usage in the past period, mainly as follows:
About the browser#
I have enabled vertical tab and hidden title bar in Edge browser. The result is a larger vertical workspace, with only a small section added horizontally (the vertical tab automatically hides the title, and it pops up when the mouse points to it). For me, it is a more comfortable browsing experience. At the beginning, I was not used to it and always looked for tabs in the title bar. But after getting used to it, I can quickly identify the desired tab by the icon on the left.
Speaking of tabs changing from full titles to just icons, it is also influenced by Windows 11. Windows 11 forces the merging of the taskbar. For more than twenty years, I have always kept it unmerged. As a result, I could quickly find the open programs. Until Windows 10, I manually set it to never merge. The forced merging in Windows 11 made me unhappy, and there is no easy way to modify it, so I can only adapt to it. I still haven't fully adapted to it, but displaying only icons does not affect my daily use much, so I have gotten used to it.
After setting up vertical tabs, there is another benefit that the URL is at the top of the page, without a title bar, reducing distractions to a minimum. Edge 111 even added a split-screen window, which can display the content of two tabs side by side.
About the text editor#
My default plain text editor has always been the Windows default Notepad, simple, stable, and minimalist design. Later, I installed "Notepad--" because of a paragraph in the developer's README:
Our goal is to develop a domestic alternative to text editing software, focusing on domestic Uos/Linux systems and Mac systems.
A text editor that supports Windows/Linux/Mac, the goal is to replace similar software domestically, from China.
Compared to other Notepad-like software, our advantage is that it can be cross-platform and supports Linux and Mac operating systems.
Given the inappropriate remarks made by some Notepad competitors, the significance of Notepad-- is to: reduce some erroneous remarks and reduce some self-righteousness.
It directly targets Notepad++'s political remarks and arrogant attitude. At first, I installed Notepad-- to support replacing the default Notepad, but during this period of use, I found that it is a more powerful text editor than I imagined.
- Supports multiple tabs. This feature is also supported by the Windows default Notepad (11.2302.16.0), but using tabs in Notepad-- always feels more comfortable.
- Supports caching content. Sometimes I don't manually save a tab or save it in the appropriate location, and there is no prompt when closing the software. Later, I found that reopening the software will reopen the previously unsaved or already opened tabs as they were. This point deserves praise, and I believe other text editors also have this feature.
- Line numbers and highlighting the current line are enabled by default. Before using this feature, I didn't think much of it, but after using it, I feel that the editor is not complete without these two things.
- Programming language syntax highlighting. I didn't need this feature before, but recently I have been learning programming, and I have more opportunities to view source code. This feature has become very important.
- Supports setting different fonts for different languages. This is also great. I like to use Consolas for English and Microsoft YaHei for Chinese, so the resulting plain text looks very nice. It would be even better if it could support line spacing and letter spacing settings in the future.
In addition to these, there are also some features that I don't currently need, such as file comparison highlighting, line editing, and column block mode. The latest version is now 2.0, and I hope Notepad-- will continue to improve!
About the input method#
I have added the RIME Squirrel input method on top of the Microsoft official input method. I used it briefly before, but when I installed it again, I spent some time configuring it. The current scheme is Squirrel Double Pinyin, vertical candidate words, and black and white color scheme.
Compared to the Microsoft input method, it has the following advantages:
- Extremely high freedom, you can configure it however you want, as you wish.
- Open source and free, with a relatively stable community, providing rich configuration schemes, skins, and dictionaries. The developers have a strong literary atmosphere. Even if you don't use this software, reading their writings is refreshing.
- It seems to be more stable than the Microsoft input method. When using the Microsoft input method, I occasionally encounter situations where the input method freezes or loses control (especially in WeChat, I suspect it is because WeChat is too rubbish), but since using Squirrel, I have hardly experienced any lag.
- The software itself brings a strong sense of typing pleasure due to its temperament and aesthetics. This belongs to the mystical part and only applies to me personally.
Of course, there are still some issues that I have not solved yet. For example, when I input a comma, candidate symbols appear, but I just want to directly input the symbol; in double pinyin mode, it seems that I cannot abbreviate words. For example, when I type "shenme" (meaning "what" in Chinese), in Squirrel, I need to input "shenme" in full double pinyin to get the word. I will solve these two problems in the future.
About note-taking#
I have been using TiddlyWiki for a longer and longer time, and I have come to appreciate the beauty of this software. Currently, it is my main note-taking software, used for daily notes, work logs, and personal wikis. The blog is still powered by WordPress. I have also considered using TiddlyWiki to build a blog, but it would be very inconvenient for leaving comments and communication.
I used to heavily use Obsidian, Trilium Notes, and the earlier version of Evernote but abandoned them. Notion is only used occasionally. The computer's records can be roughly divided into these usage scenarios: work, study, and life, all of which are completed by TiddlyWiki. Notepad-- mentioned above is used to record temporary drafts and notes, and I use it to write short articles or code.
There are more and more open-source systems on my computer, and I will gradually become an active supporter of the open-source movement. Currently, many software still rely on closed-source projects of large companies, such as Windows and the Office series and OneDrive that depend on it, as well as necessary software from several major Chinese companies, such as WeChat, QQ, and DingTalk. This problem cannot be solved in the short term, and I cannot make all software open-source. Some open-source communities and companies in China are already working on solving this problem, such as Deepin, UOS, or Ukylin (some domestic distributions have a lot of dark history, but from what I know, this phenomenon has greatly reduced) as well as Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, and other classic distributions are excellent options.