View source in IE5 with other editor than Notepad

[Lupercus]

I have no idea how to do this. In IE5.5 when you click view-source, the document source opens with the standard Windows Notepad. I would like to change that to a more elaborate editor, NoteTab.
I do not see how I can do that, though.
Any suggestions ?

[islagiat]

I'm sure there is a registry setting for this too but I did the following in Win2Kpro to replace Notepad as the default system editor.

Copy your editor (I used EditPad) into both the WINNT and WINNT\System32 dirs.
In WINNT, rename notepad.exe to notepad.old (or something). Rename your editor to notepad.exe. Repeat the same in the WINNT\System32 dir.

Cavets:
1) This worked with Editpad because it has a single, stand alone exe. Might not work yours.
2) When Windows sees what you're upto, it will sometimes put a new copy of Notepad.exe in the dir you're working in. I think it is in the order of which dir you choose to do first - can't remember. Be persistant. It works.

After you're done, your new text editor will be the default system editor. Source view in IE will open in it.

Have fun.

[Lupercus]

Hi Islagiat !

Thanks for your reply. I am sure too there is a registry setting for this, but unfortunately I have not found it so far.

Further, I have Win98SE and with that OS and with NoteTab it is very easy to apply the workaround you mention: it is an option to have the program do all the renaming itself. Catch here though is that that disables Notepad completely - which is something I do not like since I do use it for specific tasks.

So - the quest for the registry setting goes on ... :)

Thanks again -
Lupercus

[reghakr]

Lupercus,

To add your preference to the View>Source option in Internet Explorer, go to Start>Run, type regedit. Navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer
Right-click on the Internet Explorer key, choose new>Key, name it View Source Editor, right-click on View Source Editor key, choose new>Key name it Editor Name, right-click on (Default) in the right pane and type the name of your editor (for example I use Textpad.)

As long as the application has an entry under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\App Paths, you need only provide the name.

If it doesn't have any entry you'll need to enter the full pathname (for example,) "C:\Program Files\TextPad 4\TextPad.exe"

You really otta try Textpad too!

reghakr

[Simon Clausen]

Good tip reghakr! I'll add it to the main site if you don't mind.

Update: The URL is http://www.regedit.com/detail/774.html

Simon Clausen
---
RegEdit.com - Windows Registry Guide
http://www.regedit.com/

[reghakr]

No problem, don't mind at all.

reghakr

[ROOT66]

Anybody know of a way to make Netscape 4.xx use Notepad to view source instead of its own crappy viewer??

[Lupercus]

Thank you, Reghakr ! That was a VERY nice tip. Works flawless.
Only ehhh if you don't mind I'll stick with NoteTab ... :)

Greettzzzzzzz and thanx again
Lupercus.

[DeathStalker]

I used this tweak at work to change my default source view on IE to wordpad. However, my html files are in a directory on a network drive (which I can't change the name of) which has a space in it. ie. G:\Work Directory\test1.html Wordpad can't find the html file to view the source because of this space. Any ideas?