README

TinyRetroPad

A ~200 KB Notepad-style editor for Windows, written in Free Pascal on the pure Win32 API. No LCL, no VCL, no external units, no DLLs of its own.

It began as a Pascal port of Dave Plummer's tiny assembly editor trpad.asm. Then it grew. Now it reads text aloud, runs lines as shell commands and scripts, pipes text through commands, schedules reminders in Windows Task Scheduler, adds up your lists, ticks off your tasks and keeps a history of every save. It still fits in a single source file.

⬇ Download trpad.exe (Releases) · Windows 10/11 x64, no installer, just run it.

Българска версия – по-долу.

Highlights

Ctrl+Enter: the editor is the terminal

ping 8.8.8.8 -n 3              ??? cursor anywhere on this line, Ctrl+Enter

Pinging 8.8.8.8 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=117
...

• Runs through cmd.exe /c, so built-in commands (dir, echo, set, type) work.
• Output arrives live. A reader thread and a shared buffer keep the UI responsive, even with a flood of output.
• Esc kills the whole process tree (a Windows job object). The editor is read-only while a command runs.
• The working directory is the folder of the open file. cd folder, cd .. and D: persist between commands.
• Cyrillic and other non-ASCII text works both ways. cmd /u makes built-ins emit UTF-16, and chcp 65001 makes most tools emit UTF-8. The decoder tells them apart per chunk.
• Interactive full-screen programs (vim, edit) are out of scope. This is a line runner, not a terminal emulator.

@ lines: a text-file task planner

@ 18:30 Call Ivan                  today (tomorrow if 18:30 has passed)
@ tomorrow 09:00 backup.bat
@ 15.10 10:00 Dentist              also 15.10.2026 or 2026-10-15
@ fri 17:00 Pay the bill           the next Friday, once
@ every day 08:00 > git pull
@ every mon,wed 10:00 Meeting
@ in 20 min Take out the pizza     also "in 2 h"

The same in Bulgarian: днес, утре, вдругиден, пн..нд, всеки ден, всеки пн,ср, след 20 мин, след 2 ч.

• Plain text creates a reminder: a topmost message box at that time, read aloud if Speak Reminders is on.
• A program, script or command found in PATH (.bat, .exe, .ps1, …) is run at that time. Start with > to force a command.
• Tasks are registered under \TinyRetroPad\ in Task Scheduler as XML (locale-independent dates). One-time tasks delete themselves after they run. Start when available catches up on reminders missed while the PC was off.
• Tools → Scheduled Tasks lists them. Tools → Delete Task on This Line removes one.

Reminders call trpad.exe /remind "…" from the location where the task was created. If you move the exe, re-create the tasks.

Live sums

???????? 2,50
?????????? 3,20 ????
???????????? 12,90
???????? = 18,60          ??? fills in and updates by itself
???????????? = 6,20

• Keywords: общо сума всичко total sum · средно avg average · макс max · мин min · брой count.
• A group runs from the previous blank line (or the previous group of results) down to the result line. Several result lines in a row share the same group.
• From each line the last number counts. Times (10:30), dates (05.10.2026) and header lines ending with : are ignored. 1 250,50 (space thousands), 3,20 and 3.20 all work, and the result follows your format. A line calculated with F9 (2*1,25 = 2,5) contributes its result.
• If you type text after =, the line is left alone. Tools → Live Sums turns the feature off.

Task lists

[ ] 18:30 Call Ivan          ??? Ctrl+Enter = reminder at 18:30
[x] buy bread ??? 05.10 17:56  ??? Ctrl+Space ticked it
[ ] pay the electricity

• Ctrl+Space adds [ ], ticks it as [x] with the time, or reopens it. It works on all selected lines, keeps indentation and - / * bullets, and on an empty line starts a new task.
• Enter at the end of a task starts the next [ ]. Enter on an empty task ends the list.
• With a time or date at the start (any @ syntax: утре 9:00, пт 17:00, след 20 мин), Ctrl+Enter turns the task into a reminder.

Scripts and filters

Several lines → one script. Select them and press Ctrl+Enter. Variables, cd and loops work across the lines because it is one temporary .cmd file. If the first line is #ps the lines run as PowerShell, if it is #py they run as Python. A single line works too: #ps Get-Date, #py print(2**100).

Filter (Ctrl+Shift+Enter). The selected text, or the current line, goes to the command's stdin (UTF-8) and is replaced by its output. Examples:

sort
findstr /i error
powershell -c "$input | sort -Unique"
powershell -c "$input | % { $_.ToUpper() }"

If the command returns nothing, your text is not touched. Ctrl+Z brings the original back.

History

Every Save stores a copy in %LOCALAPPDATA%\TinyRetroPad\history\<file>-<id>\, named by date and time. The first save also keeps what was on disk before. Saving the same content twice adds nothing, and the last 100 versions are kept. File → History lists the latest 30. Click one to put it in the editor as a single Undo step, then Save it if you want to keep it. Open History Folder shows all versions in Explorer.

Keyboard shortcuts

More screenshots

Dark mode + line numbers	Voice selection

(These two were captured under Wine, so the fonts look different from Windows.)

Building

You need Free Pascal 3.2+ (comes with Lazarus) and Windows 10/11 x64.

Lazarus: open trpad.lpi, pick the Release build mode and press F9.

Command line:

fpc -Twin64 -WG -O2 -Xs trpad.pas

trpad_res.res must sit next to trpad.pas. It holds the manifest that turns on visual styles and DPI awareness. It is generated from trpad_res.rc + trpad.manifest:

windres trpad_res.rc -O res -o trpad_res.res

Optional features can be switched off at the top of trpad.pas:

{$DEFINE FEAT_LINENUMBERS}
{$DEFINE FEAT_DARKMODE}

Testing hooks

• -dTESTFAST makes the autosave interval 1.5 s instead of 30 s (for crash-recovery tests).
• With the environment variable TRPAD_SCHED_DRYRUN=1, @ lines print the generated Task Scheduler XML instead of registering it.

Requirements and notes

• Windows 10/11. Spell checking needs Windows 8+. Dark title bar and scrollbars need Windows 10 1809+.
• Reading aloud uses any installed SAPI or OneCore voice. For a Bulgarian voice: Settings → Time & language → Speech → Add voices → Bulgarian.
• Settings live in HKCU\Software\TinyRetroPad. Crash-recovery snapshots live in %LOCALAPPDATA%\TinyRetroPad.
• The wrong-layout fix uses the keyboard layouts actually installed (VkKeyScanEx / ToUnicodeEx), so it works with Bulgarian Phonetic, BDS, Russian and others. It has no hard-coded tables.

Credits and license

• Original idea and assembly version: Dave Plummer, trpad.asm (Dave's Tiny Editor / Tiny App lineage), github.com/davepl.
• Pascal port and extensions: Victor Levunliev, 2026.

Licensed under the Apache License 2.0, the same as the original. See LICENSE and NOTICE.

На български

TinyRetroPad е бележник за Windows от ~200 KB. Написан е на Free Pascal директно върху Win32 API, без LCL и без външни компоненти. Започна като порт на trpad.asm на Dave Plummer.

Какво го прави различен:

• Ctrl+Enter на ред го изпълнява като команда, а изходът се появява под него като обикновен текст. Esc спира командата.
• Ред като @ утре 09:00 Обади се на Иван + Ctrl+Enter създава задача в Windows Task Scheduler. В уречения час излиза напомняне и гласът го прочита. Ако вместо текст има програма или скрипт, те се изпълняват.
• Ctrl+R чете на глас с всеки инсталиран глас, включително българския. Изговорената дума се маркира, а позицията се помни за всеки файл.
• Живи сметки: ред общо = (или средно =, макс =, мин =, брой =) под списък сам смята числата над себе си и се обновява, докато пишеш.
• Задачи: Ctrl+Space превключва [ ] ↔ [x] ✓ 05.10 17:56, Enter продължава списъка, а Ctrl+Enter на [ ] 18:30 Обади се на Иван създава напомняне.
• Скриптове и филтри: маркираш няколко реда и натискаш Ctrl+Enter, за да се изпълнят като един скрипт (cmd, #ps PowerShell, #py Python). Ctrl+Shift+Enter прекарва маркирания текст през команда (sort, findstr, PowerShell) и го заменя с резултата.
• История: всеки Save пази версия. File → History връща коя да е от тях с едно щракване.
• Пълна поддръжка на UTF-8/UTF-16/ANSI (cp1251), проверка на правописа, брояч на думи, транслитерация кирилица ↔ латиница (по закона от 2009 г.), калкулатор в текста (F9), поправка на грешна подредба на клавиатурата (Ctrl+Shift+K: „ghbdtn“ → „привет“), autosave и възстановяване след срив, тъмен режим.

Компилиране: отваряш trpad.lpi в Lazarus и натискаш F9, или от командния ред пускаш fpc -Twin64 -WG -O2 -Xs trpad.pas.

Лиценз: Apache 2.0.