This is an attempt to provide language definitions for the Windows text editor Notepad++, somewhat corresponding to the ones I have previously posted for Gedit on Linux. (In reply to a request there, not meant to steal the thunder of FangoWolf.)

To install them

1. Download the zip file[www.dropbox.com] and unpack it. It contains language definitions, in the form of xml files, for CoE4 and CoE3 mods and maps (c4m, c3m and coem files).
   
   
2. Run Notepad++ and, from the menu, select Language → Define your language... → Import... Navigate to the extracted xml files and import them, one by one.

Done! Now whenever you load some CoE4 or CoE3 mod or map, it should be automatically displayed with appropriate syntax highlighting. I believe this should begin working immediately, although the new languages don’t appear in the menu until a restart of Notepad++.
________________________________________

Some notes:

• I couldn’t get Notepad++ text folding to work properly with my definitions. (It seems to me there is currently a bug that somehow makes the definition of delimiters – such as ASCII double quotes for strings – interfere with text folding in some weird way.) On the other hand, text folding is probably of rather limited use in CoE modding anyway; the only natural open and close commands I can think of are those that begin and end event definitions (squareevent/playerevent and endevent).
  
  You can always do your own experiments with text folding. For comments, there’s a checkbox: Allow folding of comments that you can try. You can also try entering squareevent and playerevent in the Open box for folding, and endevent in the Close box, and see if you can get folding of CoE4 events to work in Notepad++.
  
  
• I also ran into some minor problems. In particular, text strings in CoE are effectively terminated by an end-of-line, as well as by a second double quote, and in my definitions for GtkSourceView (Gedit) I was able to make the highlighting correspond to that. But I failed to find a way to do it in Notepad++. Then again, as long as you make sure to always properly end your strings with a second double quote, this isn’t a real problem.
  
  
• For colors and styles, I eventually decided that a conservative approach is probably the best. Meaning I have tried to go with what elsewhere seem to be the defaults in Notepad++. Comments, thus, are the same green as with other syntax highlighting in Notepad++, and string literals are shown in the same (dull) gray.
  
  These settings should be fairly easy for any end user to change to his or her liking. The style for string literals, for instance, can by found among Operators & Delimiters (Delimiter 1 style).
  
  For commands I went with bold blue text everywhere, since that seems to be what Notepad++ uses for commands, for instance in its highlighting of Unix shell scripts. I did, however, distribute the CoE commands across the different Notepad++ keywords lists, even if I used the same style for all of them. So it should be straightforward for an end user to change the color and style for just one group of commands – event commands, for instance.
  
  The ASCII circumflex (used for newlines in CoE text strings) I just arbitrarily made bright magenta though. (See style for operators 1.)

Obviously, I am not the most experienced Notepad++ user there is, given that I’m mostly on Linux. So I don’t know if I can promise to maintain these definitions, if and when there are additions and changes to the modding commands.

Therefore, if anybody else wants to post modified or updated versions of these xml files, you are most welcome to do so.
________________________________________

Edit 1: Download link now updated for v4.18. Only the c4m definition changed since last time (a few new monster mod commands added).

Edit 2: Changed link from MediaFire to Dropbox, since Steam now blocks MediaFire.