Change Your IE View Source Editor
October 28th, 2006Firefox’s “View Page Source” functionality has always been much better than IE’s “View Source” (which opens in Notepad) and sadly IE7 hasn’t changed that. There are so many much nicer text editors like Notepad++ (a portable app favorite) and Crimson Editor! More surprisingly, IE7 doesn’t even give users the option to change it. I thought that it should be an easy thing to change and it is, but I was surprised to see how many sites had misleading instructions or hack-like downloads. Most sites suggest that all you need to do is edit the default application path in your Registry, but in fact, there isn’t a default entry in the Registry unless you are running Windows XP and have Tweak UI installed.
Technically all you need to do is add a few Registry keys, but most people hate to do that so here’s what I’d suggest:
For Windows XP:
Download and install TweakUI, a Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP application. Then from the Control Panel, start Tweak UI and update your view source editor under Internet Explorer | View Source.
For Windows 2000:
First you have to ask yourself why you are still on Win2K?! (oh, right, thanks to the corporate build I am too). Unfortunately the Tweak UI for Win2K isn’t as good and, besides, it’s really hard to find (but if you’re curious it’s here). To change your default view source editor in Windows 2000 you do need to create the needed Registry entries. What you need to do is to create a file called whatever.reg and then to copy the following text into that file:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\View Source Editor]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\View Source Editor\Editor Name]
@=”D:\\Portable\\NotePad++\\notepad++.exe”
Note: Edit the last line to point to the editor of your choice (notice that you need double backslashes in the path)
Then double-click on the whatever.reg file and accept the “Are you sure” warning.
Alternatively you can manually create the above registry keys. Or upgrade to XP.
November 5th, 2006 at 9:04 pm
UPDATE: Crimson Editor is probably my favorite text editor (I just wish it was portable), but I just found out it has an option to make it the default Internet Explorer View Source editor. Under Tools | Preferences |Tools, there’s a checbox to enable Crimson Editor to be the default IE view source editor.
December 25th, 2006 at 10:18 pm
About IE7 + view source editor. You say that there are a few registried to be added and because people hate that, you suggest the Tweak UI. I used to edit the registry for IE6 and I noticed that now, the change in the registry has no effect. I run a small application that solved this problem for me (it setup the preffered editor in View Source). I performed a chech using Regedit and I noticed there was no sign of the registry keys in the registry. If it happen that you know what are the changes, it would be very nice to post them in here, together with the option Tweak UI.
Regards,
Nick
December 18th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Do you want a fresh joke from net? What is the difference between a fisherman and a lazy schoolboy? One baits his hook, while the other hates his book.
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vigera