How to setup Go IDE in Notepad++

I am using Windows 10. I am having very unexpected difficulties setting up my environment for Go.

When I try setting up the extensions for VSCode my computer’s antivirus freaks out about everything it does because apparently the VSCode’s extensions have been corrupted with malware. It’s also the only IDE I’ve managed to execute any Go code so far, albeit every time with several warnings popping up, arbitrarily refusing or permitting the same file to execute, etc etc. Extensive Googling has been unhelpful on this front.

I have had similar difficulties with IntelliJ. GoLand looks like the only IDE that actually works out of the box. But you have to pay for it after 30 days, and that’s bullshit. I could not find any alternative sources of download for that either.

LiteIDE I can’t compile because I don’t want to start a trial version of QT’s product just for the LiteIDE to no longer work when the QT trial ends. I also hate having to download one thing then another thing just to run some other thing that shouldn’t have been released in a form requiring all these extra steps. Inevitably one thing in the chain of a half dozen contingencies and external libraries is broken and I invested 2 hours into getting nowhere. Which is how I’m here now.

At this point I’d really love to just use Notepad++. Can anyone provide literally step-by-step instructions, of precisely every click and command that has to be typed to allow me to write and run Go code in Notepad++? I don’t care about fancy debuggers or anything else I just want my code to execute and see if it works.

Hi @reallyfitguy,

Welcome to the forum.

Any plain-text editor is fine. Edit the code there, save it, and compile or run it from a PowerShell or Command prompt. (Cd into the project directory and run the go commans there, like go run main.go, go build, etc.)

Of course, things like syntax highlighting and auto formatting, linting, and vetting upon save would be fine but are optional if all you need is to run the code.

Thanks for sharing this info this is useful.

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