Eagle PCB ULP Tutorial: Using NotePad++ to Write ULP and highlight Code

Research Link

• Using NotePad++ with User Language Programs  –  Local version of the NotePad++ with ULP xml file â€‹

From the ReadMe.txt file

Notepad++ has a User Defined Language facility that is documented in its help files and at the NpWiki++: http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/notepad-plus/index.php?title=User_Defined_Languages

The file "Notepad++ UserDefineLang for Cadsoft ULP v0.1.xml" contains a beta release of a Notepad++ user defined language corresponding to ULP for Cadsoft Eagle v5.  
This language defintion may not always correctly display ULP keywords, for example, owing to white space or your variable names. 

To use this langauge definition in Notepad++ click View | User-Defined Dialog | Import and select the XML file.  Now when editing a file with extension .ULP the Eagle 
ULP keywords should be formatted according to the styles in the User-Defined dialog.

In order to have Notepad++ automatically open the ULP file and position the cursor on the line of an error in a ULP, you need Eagle V5.5 or later.  
Set the Eagle Options | User Interface | External Text Editor field to (include the quotation marks and edit the Notepad++.exe location to suit your installation):
"C:\Program Files\Notepad++\Notepad++.exe" -n%L "%F" 

Please refer to "Help | Editor Windows | Text Editor" in the Eagle help files for more information.  

Implementation Notes

• I am not sure but I think that Windows 7 prevents writes to the NotePad++ files that save the setup.  I ended up taking ownership of the directory that holds the NotePad++ installation.
• When I tried to use I could not get the text to highlight in color.  The italics and bold fonting worked but not the color.  Fix this by going into the "style configurator" of NotePad++ and unchecking "Enable global foreground color"

Running ULP from within NotePad++

Next I want to be able to execute the ULP from within NotePad++.  To do this I need to be able to 

• run eagle and the ULP from the windows command line.  Example: eagle -C "run bom_ew bla; quit" qm07_blm.sch  … this particular line also terminates eagle which I probably will not use.
• See the output of the script from within NotePad++

Execution from within NotePad++:  You can run eagle from a dead start using Windows 7 command line.  See Running Eagle ULP from windows command line and terminating eagle when done .