EditPad User's Guide

The software (EditPad) is provided "as is". In no event shall I, the author, be liable for any consequential, special, incidental or indirect damages of any kind arising out of the delivery, performance or use of this software. This software has been written with great care but I do not warrant that the software is error free. You may not attempt to reverse compile, modify, translate or disassemble the software in whole or in part.

You may freely give copies of EditPad to others, as long as the software is unmodified. You may not change a single bit, you may not exclude any files or add any to the package and you may not make EditPad part of another package.
You may not charge any money for the copying and/or distribution of EditPad, also not for EditPad itself.
This means that you cannot charge money for a CD-ROM that contains EditPad. However, if you write me at jg@ping.be, I will gladly give you the permission to do so.

EditPad is postcardware. You are allowed to install EditPad and to try it out for a short while (a week or two), but if you want to continue using it you must "pay" by sending the author a nice postcard to the address shown below.
The postcard should be from your home town so I can see how far EditPad spreads. If your town is too small to have postcards, send one form your province, state or country.
Electronic postcards and the like are not accepted. You have to send a real one through snail-mail. I collect them.
Postcards also have pretty pictures on them. An oversized business-card is not a postcard.

After your postcard has arrived, you are allowed to use EditPad for as long and as much as you want, without any other cost. You also have the right then to update your copy of EditPad when new versions come out.
If you write your email address very clearly on the postcard, I will send you a message when I receive your postcard.

Please note that this "payment" is strictly personal. Everyone who uses EditPad has to register, even if someone else installed it on your computer or if you found it on some CD-ROM you bought. (You paid for the CD, not for EditPad.) Even if you use EditPad (but you'd rather not) because your boss wants you to, you have to send a postcard.

Even if EditPad seems to be a simple application, writing it was not a very easy task. So if you like it, send me a nice postcard. If everyone would say "thank you" when someone else did or said something nice, this world would be a much better place.

If you feel that EditPad is definitively worth some money, feel free to put your postcard in an envelope and include a few dollars (or your local currency).

Send your postcards to this address:

   Jan Goyvaerts
   Lerrekensstraat 5
   2220 Heist-op-den-Berg
      Belgium

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Installing EditPad

Simply put a copy of EditPad.exe on your hard disk somewhere (e.g.: c:\Program Files) and run it.

A dialog box displaying the license agreement will pop up. Read the entire text carefully.
If you agree with it, check the little box below and click on the button below.
If you do not agree with it, click on the button below to terminate EditPad.

If you agreed, you will see the EditPad window with an empty text opened, named "Untitled".
Don't bother about it, just pick Options|Configure from the menu.

A small dialog box will pop up. Check the options you like and click on OK.

That's all there is to it.

If you change your mind later about which options you like, simply repeat the above procedure. More preferences can be set using the Options|Preferences command.

If you wish to replace the version of EditPad you have currently installed with a newer one, simply replace the old EditPad.exe on your hard disk with the new one. No other actions are necessary.

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Uninstalling EditPad

There should never be any reason to do so. If you wish to update EditPad to the latest version, simply replace the old EditPad.exe on your hard disk with the new one.
However, uninstalling EditPad is an easy thing to do.

Run EditPad and pick Options|Configure from the menu.

Click on the Uninstall button in the dialog box that pops up. This will remove all shortcuts that EditPad installed and will also clean any information stored in the registry by EditPad.

Close EditPad and delete EditPad.exe from your hard disk.

RIP.

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File Menu

New
Start with a new, empty text.
Open
Load a text from disk.
This command will display a standard open dialog. You can open several files at once by selecting all of them in the open dialog.
Reopen
Selecting this item will display a submenu displaying the last 16 files you have opened in EditPad. Select a file to open it.
Pick Remove Obsolete from the submenu to remove all texts that no longer exist from the Reopen menu. Pick Remove All to completely clear the Reopen menu.
Refresh From Disk
Reload the currect text from disk.
Use this command when you have opened a text in EditPad that is being updated by another program. Use this command to make sure that what you are seeing in EditPad is up-to-date.
Save
Save the current text to disk.
Prompts for a filename if the file does not yet exist.
Save As
Save the current text under a different name.
The original version of the text will still exist under its original name too.
Save All
Save all the open texts to disk.
Rename / Move
Change the filename of the current text and/or put it in another folder.
This command works just like the Save As command, with the difference that Rename/Move will delete the original file so you will have only one copy of the text.
Insert File
Insert the contents of another file into the current text.
Mail
Send the text to someone via email.
Warning: On some systems, this command will lock up your computer if you do not have a valid MAPI server installed. MAPI servers are MS Exchange (which comes with Windows 95) and Eudora PRO. Note that the latter needs to be configured to be a MAPI server. This option is off by default. (See Eudora's online help for more information.)
Export
Save the text so it can be read by a different operating system.
Close
Close the current text.
Close All
Close all the open texts.
Exit
Tell EditPad to get lost.

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Edit Menu

Undo
Undo the last action. Repeat the command to redo the action.
Note that you can undo only the last action. If you are not sure that you will like the changes you are about to make, save the text first.
Cut
Delete the selected part of the current text and put it on the Windows clipboard.
If the clipboard already contained a piece of text (or any other data), it will be cleared first.
Copy
Put the selected part of the current text on the clipboard. If the clipboard already contained a piece of text (or any other data), it will be cleared first.
You can then paste the text into EditPad or any other Windows application.
Paste
Insert the text on the clipboard into the current text. This command has no effect when the clipboard does not contain any text. Pasting a text does not remove it from the clipboard.
If you select a part of the text before you issue the Paste command, that part will be replaced by the text on the clipboard.
Select All
Select the entire text.
Find and Replace
Search for a word or phrase and optionally replace it with another.
See Find and Replace for more information.
Search Again
Repeat the last Find and Replace command.
Go to Line
Go to a certain line in your text.
If you use EditPad to edit source code for programs, etc., you can use this command to quickly locate the error location reported by the compiler, etc.
Insert Date and Time
Insert the current date and/or time into the text.

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Print Menu

Print
Waste some more trees by sending your text to the printer.

Print Selected Text
Only print the selected part of the current text.

Printer Setup
Change printer settings.

Page Setup
Change margin settings. To set page headers and footers, use the Preferences command in the Options menu.

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Block Menu

Write
Save the selected part of the current text to a new file.
Append
Add the selected part of the current text to the end of an existing file.

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Convert Menu

OEM -> ANSI
Convert a text from the OEM character set (DOS ASCII) to the ANSI character set (Windows).
This command command has no effect if your text does not use any characters with diacritics. Note that EditPad cannot guess if the text is written using the OEM character set or not, so it will try to convert it anyway when you issue this command.
ANSI -> OEM
Convert a text from the ANSI character set (Windows) to the OEM character set (DOS ASCII).
This command command has no effect if your text does not use any characters with diacritics. Note that EditPad cannot guess if the text is written using the ANSI character set or not, so it will try to convert it anyway when you issue this command.
Tabs -> Spaces
Convert all tab chacters in the text to spaces, without affecting the text's layout if you are using a monospaced font.
Spaces -> Tabs
EditPad will prompt for a tab size (in spaces) and then convert as many spaces to tabs as possible without affecting the text's layout (for best results, use a monospaced font).
To Uppercase
Make all the characters in the selected part of the current text (or the entire text if no text is selected), uppercase (capital) characters.
To Lowercase
Make all the characters in the selected part of the current text (or the entire text if no text is selected), lowercase (small) characters.
To Title
Make all the words in the selected part of the current text (or the entire text if no text is selected) start with a capital letter.
ROT-13
If you post a message to the Usenet that might offend some people, you should "encrypt" it using ROT-13. People cannot read the text accidentically, as they have to explicitly "decrypt" it using ROT-13. (ROT-13 rotates the letters of the alphabet 13 positions forward, so repeating the command undoes it. This is said to be the first cryptographic algorithm and was used by Julius Caesar to send secret, military messages.)
When you use the command in EditPad, only the selected part of the current text is affected. If no text has been selected, EditPad encrypts/decrypts the entire text.

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Options Menu

Current Font
- Fixed Width
  Use a fixed width (monospaced) font for the current text. The default fixed width font is Courier.
- Variable Width
  Use a variable width (proportionally spaced) font for the current text. The default variable width font is Arial.
- Bigger Font
  Increase the font size.
- Smaller Font
  Decrease the font size.
You can select the fonts using the Preferences command in the Options menu.
Stay On Top
When this menu item is checked, the EditPad window will remain visible (i.e. stay on top of all other windows), even when you switch to another application.
Break Lines
When selected, lines that are too long to fit in the EditPad window, are automatically broken into multiple lines. This prevents you from having to scroll horizontally.
This option is also known as Word Wrap.
Preferences
Set preferences like color, font, print headers and footers, etc.
Configure
Configure EditPad and its environment. Allows you to automatically create (or remove) shortcuts to EditPad in the Start Menu, assign EditPad to be the default editor for text files, etc.
Filters
Edit the file filters used in the various open and save dialog boxes.

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View Menu

Next File
Switch to the next file you have opened in EditPad. (The next tab in the row.)

Previous File
Switch to the previous file you have opened in EditPad. (The previous tab in the row.)

Toolbar
View or hide the EditPad toolbar. All the buttons on the toolbar are simply shortcuts to menu commands, so you can hide them to save screen space without losing any functionality.

New Editor
By default, there will be at most only one EditPad window visible. If you try to run EditPad again, it will simply make the existing window pop up.
If you absolutely need more than one window, use the New Editor command to force a second instance to pop up. (See also: command line parameters)

Help Menu

Use the items in this menu when things are getting desparate. :-)

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EditPad Main Window

The status bar at the bottom of the main window displays the following information, from left to right:

Cursor Position
Displays the current cursor position in the format line:column. So 35:10 means you are 35 lines down from the top and you are about to type the 10th character on that line.
Modified Indicator
If the file you are viewing has been modified (after you saved the file the last time), the word "Modified" is displayed. Otherwise, this part of the status bar is empty.
Insert/Overwrite Indicator
When you hit the Insert (Ins) key on the keyboard, you can toggle between insert and overwrite mode. In insert mode, typing a character in the middle of the text makes all following characters move on. In overwrite mode, the next character is replaced by the new character you type.
The current mode is indicated in the third position of the status bar.
File Size and Number of Files Open
The first number indicates the size of the current text in characters, the second number indicates the total number of files you have currently open in EditPad.

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Preferences Window

This window shows up when you pick the Preferences command from the Options menu.

Colors
Change the colors of the text and the text background.
Fonts
Click on one of the buttons to select the screen and printer fonts. Since some fonts look good on the screen, but not on the printer and vice versa, you can select different fonts for screen and printer.
Whether the fixed or variable width font is used, depends on which one you select in the Options|Current font menu.
The Default Font setting determines which font is used when you open a text.
Tab Size sets the size of a tab in spaces. Note that when mixing tabs with spaces, you should use a fixed width font for best results. When using a variable width font, use tabs only to indent your texts.
Saving Files
Closing Unsaved Files determines what EditPad should do when you tell it to close a file that has not yet been saved to disk. (If you close an unsaved file, the changes you made will be lost permanently.)
You can choose to make EditPad display a warning message, allowing you to save the file. You can also make EditPad save the file automatically or to do nothing, abandoning the changes you made.
When Save Backup Files is activated, EditPad will create a backup copy of the original file when you overwrite a file. This backup has the same name as the original, but with the .bak extension. This option should be on when you have selected to automatically save files, in case you want to revert the changes you made.
Printing
Line Spacing allows you to add additional space between each line when printing a text.
You can also enter a header and a footer that will be added to each printed page. If you include the following special codes in your header or footer text, they will be replaced when printing the text by what follows:
- %D -> the current date (when you issue the print command)
- %T -> the current time (when you issue the print command)
- %P -> page number that increases with every page
- %N -> total number of pages that are being printed
- %FD -> file date (when you last saved the file)
- %FT -> file time (when you last saved the file)
- %FN -> file name

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Configuration Window

This window shows up when you pick Configure from the Options menu.

Default program for text files
Associate EditPad with text files. This will make sure that when you double-click on a text file in the Windows Explorer, EditPad will be used to view and edit the file.
In Send To menu
Put a link to EditPad in the Send To menu. This way you can easily open any file from within the Windows Explorer with EditPad. Right-click on the file, go to the Send To menu and select EditPad.
Icon on Desktop
Put a shortcut to EditPad on the desktop.
Icon in Start Menu
Put a shortcut to EditPad in the Start menu.
Icon in Programs Menu
Put a shortcut to EditPad in the Programs submenu of the Start menu.
Enable TaskBar icon
Make EditPad put an icon in the Windows system tray (next to the clock in the TaskBar). This icon will allow you to access EditPad quickly. Click on it to open EditPad. Right-click on it to show the context menu and quickly access the most important menu items.
Icon to Use
If green is not your favorite color, you can select another icon to be used for the shortcuts.
Note that the icon in the taskbar and in the caption of EditPad's window will still be the green one.

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Find and Replace Window

This window shows up when you pick Edit|Find and Replace from the menu. You do not have to close it to switch back to EditPad's main window.

First, you can specify the search options:

Text to Find
The word or phrase you wish to locate.
You can also search for special characters like tabs and line breaks. For a tab, include \t in the find text; \n for a newline. If you wish to search for a backslash (\), type in a double backslash (\\).
E.g.: searching for \nhello will find all words "hello" that are placed at the beginning of a line.
Replace with
If you wish to replace the word or phrase you are searching for with something else, type it here.
The same special characters as in the text to find can be used.
E.g.: if you wish to make sure that there is only one sentence on each line, you can search for "." (without the quotes) and replace it with ".\n"
Options
Case sensitive: Take into account the capitalization of the text to find. When this option is checked, searching for "Dog" will find "Dog", but not "DOG" or "dog". If the option is not selected, all three will be found.
Whole words only: When checked, only words that match the text to find completely will be found. So searching for "dog", will not find "doggie" if the option is selected. In the other case, "doggie"
Prompt on replace: When checked, EditPad will ask for your confirmation to replace a word.
Scope
All open documents: Search through all the texts currently open.
Current document: Search through the current text only.
Current selected: Search through the selected part of the current text only.
Origin
Start of document: Start searching at the beginning of the current text.
Start of selection: Start searching at the beginning of the selected part of the current text.
Current cursor position: Start searching at the current position of the text cursor (the I-beam that indicates where the next character will be placed).

Then you can hit one of the buttons to start searching (and replacing).

Find
Look for the text to find, starting from the specified origin.
Find Next
Look for the text to find, starting from the last position where the text to find was found, even if you have changed the text to find since the last search.
Replace Current
Replace the currently highlighted occurrence of the text to find with the replace text.
Replace Next
Find the next occurrence and replace it.
Replace All
Replace all occurrences of the text to find that appear in the specified scope, starting at the specified origin.

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Command Line Parameters

The EditPad command line syntax is as follows:

EditPad [filename1.txt [filename2.txt [...]]] [/p] [/newinstance]

You can put several filenames on the command line and long filenames are supported. However, you cannot use any wildcards like * and ?.

The /p command line parameter will instruct EditPad to print the files instead of opening them. This parameter is used by the Print action associated with text files after you have used the Configure command in the Options menu and have selected to associate EditPad with text files.

When you try to run EditPad while another copy is already running, the new copy will simply make the existing window pop up. If you want a second window, you need to specify the /newinstance parameter. (This is what the New Editor command from the View menu does.)

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Frequently Asked Questions

Q: I downloaded another version of EditPad (newer version, different language), but when I try to run it, I keep getting the old version.

A: You did not overwrite the old EditPad.exe with the new one. Pick Find|Files or Folders from the Windows Start Menu and search for EditPad.exe. Select all but one items found and hit the Delete button on the keyboard.
Then double-click on the one EditPad.exe left to run it. Select Options|Configuration from the menu and click on OK to update all the shortcuts to point to the correct EditPad.exe

Q: When I try to run EditPad, it shows up all right but I cannot enter any text or open files.

A: First make sure that you are running either Windows 95, Windows NT 4 or Windows NT 3.51 Service Release #5 with the new shell installed.
Then, make sure that your Windows installation is still intact. Some applications seem to remove riched32.dll and richtx32.ocx from the Windows\System directory.
If you are not sure, run the WordPad applet that comes with Windows.

Q: EditPad does not seem to remember any settings I made.

A: EditPad requires either Windows 95, Windows NT 4 or Windows NT 3.51 Service Release #5 with the new shell installed. Windows 3.1 will not work.

Q: Some applications still use NotePad instead of EditPad.
Why? Can I change this?

A: These applications execute NotePad directly, instead of running the program associated to text files.
You can fix this by renaming EditPad.exe to NotePad.exe and putting it in your Windows directory, overwriting the old NotePad.exe
Then run the new NotePad.exe (EditPad), pick Options|Configure from the menu and click on OK to update the EditPad links to the new exe.

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EditPad User's Guide

Your Guide to the Best Postcardware Text Editor on Earth ================================================

Contents

EditPad's Features

License Agreement

Installing EditPad

Uninstalling EditPad

File Menu

Edit Menu

Print Menu

Block Menu

Convert Menu

Options Menu

View Menu

Help Menu

EditPad Main Window

Preferences Window

Configuration Window

Find and Replace Window

Command Line Parameters

Frequently Asked Questions

Your Guide to the Best Postcardware Text Editor on Earth
================================================