When to use word wrap in Jotter by Zaweba
Word wrap in Jotter by Zaweba folds long lines to the window, or lets them run on with a scroll bar for logs and tables. The choice is remembered.
Long lines are where plain text editing either feels easy or turns into a fight. A paragraph typed as one long line wants to fold neatly to the window so you can read it. A log file or a table of columns wants every line kept whole so things stay lined up. Jotter by Zaweba lets you choose with one menu item: View > Word wrap.
With word wrap on, long lines fold at the edge of the window. With it off, they run on past the edge and a horizontal scroll bar appears so you can scroll across. Whichever you choose is remembered in Jotter's settings between runs.
What wrapping does and doesn't change
Wrapping is a way of showing text, not a change to it. When a line folds on screen, no line break is added to the file. Save the file and each line is still exactly as long as it was. That matters for the files people often edit in a notepad: configuration files, scripts and data exports, where an extra line break in the wrong place would cause trouble.
So you can turn wrapping on to read a long line comfortably, then turn it off again, without any risk to the file.
When to turn it on
Prose is the main case. Notes, drafts of emails, a paragraph you are tidying before pasting it elsewhere: all of these are written as long lines that are really paragraphs. With wrap on, you see them as paragraphs and never have to scroll sideways.
Text pasted from a web page or document usually arrives the same way. Jotter pastes everything as plain text, stripping formatting, and the long lines that result are much easier to read with wrapping on.
When to turn it off
Logs are the classic case for wrapping off. Each line of a log is one event, and when lines fold, a single event spreads over two or three screen lines and it becomes hard to see where one entry ends and the next begins. With wrap off, one event is one line, and you scroll sideways only when you need the end of a long one.
Tables made with spaces or tabs, and anything where columns must line up, behave the same way. So do settings files with long values, where a folded line can look like two settings. Turn wrapping off and the structure of the file is plain to see.
Using the status bar alongside it
The status bar at the bottom of Jotter shows the line and column of the cursor. With wrapping on, it still reports the real line in the file, so it is a quick way to check whether two lines on screen are actually one. If the line number doesn't change as you move down across a fold, you are on a single wrapped line.
With wrapping off, the column number tells you how far along a long line you are, which helps when a tool reports an error at a given column.
Combining it with zoom
Zoom changes how much fits across the window. At a larger zoom, wrapped text folds sooner and unwrapped text reaches the edge sooner. If you are reading a wide log with wrap off, zooming out with Ctrl+Minus can bring more of each line into view; if you are reading prose with wrap on, zooming in makes it more comfortable without any sideways scrolling. Ctrl+0 brings the text back to 100%.
A few habits
Because the setting is remembered, the mode you used last is the one you get next time. If you switch between notes and logs a lot, it is worth glancing at the View menu when something looks odd. A log that seems jumbled is often just wrapped, and a note that runs off the screen is just unwrapped.
Jotter by Zaweba keeps this, like everything else, deliberately simple: one switch, no settings dialog, and nothing written into your files.
