'+---------------+---------------------------------------------------+
'| ###### ###### | .--. . .-. |
'| ## ## ## # | | )| ( ) o |
'| ## ## ## | |--' |--. .-. `-. . .-...--.--. .-. |
'| ###### ## | | \ | |( )( ) | ( || | |( ) |
'| ## ## | ' `' `-`-' `-'-' `-`-`|' ' `-`-'`- |
'| ## ## # | ._.' |
'| ## ###### | Sources & Documents placed in the Public Domain. |
'+---------------+---------------------------------------------------+
'| |
'| === Ide-Shortcuts.html === |
'| |
'| == How to implement the QB64 IDE/Compiler into N++'s "Run" menu. |
'| |
'+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
'| Done by RhoSigma, R.Heyder, provided AS IS, use at your own risk. |
'| Find me in the QB64 Forum or mail to support@rhosigma-cw.net for |
'| any questions or suggestions. Thanx for your interest in my work. |
'+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
Even after installing this stuff you must always save your source prior selecting one of the new QB64 commands in the "Run" menu (except for Wiki search), as these commands call the file on disk. Unlike the QB64 IDE, these commands cannot operate on the current contents of Notepad++ its editing buffer.
WARNING! - These procedures may require admin access here and there!
Go into the QB64Starter.bat file and have a look at line #6. Set the actual path to your QB64 folder here (you can enter the absolute path directly or use system environment variables such as %programfiles%, %userprofile% etc. to designate a location). Make sure there is no trailing backslash at the end of the path, then save changes.
Now copy/move QB64Starter.bat into your Notepad++ program folder, ie. the folder where notepad++.exe is located in.
WARNING for step 3!
As you're going to modify the active Notepad++ configuration in the next step, it should be obvious that no Notepad++ instance should be running at this moment, hence you can't use Notepad++ for the required copy & paste operations, use the regular Windows Editor or any other editing tool you've at hand to perform the copy & paste.
Copy and paste the five QB64 entries from the end of my provided shortcuts.xml into the active shortcuts.xml of your Notepad++ installation. In alternative simply replace the entire file, if you're fine with the contents of my file (it's the standard shortcuts.xml as of Notepad++ release 8.1.1 with the additional QB64 entries, see also Online Manual > Shortcuts).
NOTE: Depending on how you did install Notepad++, it will store the active config XML files in different locations. You should look for it in the following folders and find the file config.xml with the most recent change date:
HINT: You can simply type %appdata% into Windows Explorer's path field to quickly go there, as this folder is usually hidden.
If you're using QB64-GL, then you probably know about the IDE Option Run-Menu > Output EXE to source folder. The QB64Starter.bat will check for the current state of this option (in internal\config.txt), hence the new "Compile" and "Compile + Run" shortcuts in N++'s Run-Menu will treat the EXEs the same way as the QB64 IDE will do, depending on this setting.
For the wiki search you usually don't need to select the keyword in advance, as N++ does automatically select the word under cursor for the wiki call. However, this way the wiki search may fail or give multiple results on keywords ending with a $ sign (such as LEFT$, MID$, RIGHT$ etc.). This is as the automatic selection does not catch the keyword inclusive its $ sign, hence it will pass the keyword to the browser search without the $, which produces the wrong/multiple search results for those keywords. In such cases you may either manually append the $ sign to the page URL in the browser or pre-select the keyword inclusive its $ sign before calling the wiki command. To change this ugly behavior in Notepad++, use the menu to open the Settings > Preferences dialog, then select "Delimiter" from the list on the left side. On that page you can switch to "Add your character as part of word" and enter the $ sign in the text field right below. From now on the $ sign will be included by the automatic keyword selection and also be passed to the wiki search correctly. If you generally use type suffixes for your variables, then it's maybe a good idea to add all type suffix chars, not only the $ sign. This way a double click on any variable in your code will select the entire variable name inclusive its type suffix, instead of the name only as by default behavior.