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MacWorld 1996 July
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BBEdit Lite 3.5.1
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BBEdit Lite Quickstart
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This QuickStart document provides a brief overview of some of the
commands available in BBEdit Lite. For more general information about
BBEdit Lite, consult the "About BBEdit Lite" document.
The topics covered in this document are:
* Installation
* Creating and Saving Documents
* Editing Documents
- Key Equivalents
* More on Wrapping
* Printing
* Searching
* Multi-File Searching
* Preferences Dialog
* Parting Shots
---
Installation
BBEdit Lite consists of the following major components:
* The BBEdit Lite application itself
* The "BBEdit Extensions" folder, which contains plug-in code
modules that can provide specialized text processing or
utility functions
Only the BBEdit Lite application file is required in order to run and
use BBEdit Lite; you do not need to have any BBEdit extensions.
If you are planning to install the whole set of BBEdit Lite files,
create a "BBEdit Lite Folder". Copy the application and the "BBEdit
Extensions" folder into your BBEdit Lite Folder.
---
Creating and Saving Documents
To create a new document within BBEdit Lite, choose "New" from the File
menu. An empty editing window will be opened on the screen. You can type
in this window, paste text from another document or application, or do
anything else which causes text to be placed in this window.
If you are using System 6 or System 7, you can use the Finder to open
files created by BBEdit Lite by double-clicking on them.
Once you have opened a new window and done some basic editing, you can
save your new document. To do this, choose the "Save As..." command from
the File menu. Type in the name of your new file and click on "Save".
---
Editing Documents
In terms of its basic editing functionality, BBEdit Lite behaves like any
other word processor or text editor on the Macintosh: any typed
characters are inserted at the insertion point; if there is a selection
present, the selection is replaced by the first typed character, and the
insertion point is placed after the first typed character.
The insertion point is indicated by a blinking vertical bar.
If there is any text selected in the active (or front) window, it is
highlighted using your Mac's default highlight color. If there is text
selected in a window that is inactive (not the front window), it is
framed in the highlight color.
As you type, BBEdit Lite scrolls the window's contents so that the insertion
point is visible. Unless you have the "Soft Wrap Text" option selected,
the window may scroll horizontally as you type.
To move text from one place to another, select the text you wish to
move, and choose the "Cut" command from the Edit menu. The selected text
will be deleted, and placed in a special area called the "Clipboard".
(The Clipboard always contains the last text that you cut or copied.)
You can then use the "Paste" command on the Edit menu to place the text
elsewhere in the document you are editing, or even in another window
altogether. Also, any text that you cut or copy can be pasted into
another application. You can place text in the Clipboard without
deleting it by choosing "Copy" from the Edit menu.
When you Paste, the text that's in the Clipboard will replace the
current selection (if there is one), or be inserted at the insertion
point. Paste doesn't remove text from the Clipboard, so you can Paste as
many times as you wish.
To delete selected text, hit the "Delete" key on your keyboard, or
choose "Clear" from the Edit menu. If you have a keyboard with a numeric
keypad on it, you can hit the "Clear" key on the keypad to delete the
selected text.
To select all the text in the front editing window, choose "Select All"
from the Edit menu. You can then cut, copy, or perform any other action
that affects selected text.
BBEdit Lite provides an assortment of facilities for transforming text in
various ways. The commands to transform text are all found under the
Text menu:
* Balance locates the pair of parentheses, braces, or brackets which
encloses the current selection range or insertion point. If there are
unmatched parentheses, braces, or brackets, BBEdit Lite will beep.
* Twiddle transposes the two characters on either side of the
insertion point, or at either end of the selected text.
* Change Case... allows you to automatically switch between upper and
lower case characters for entire words, first letters of words, or first
letters of lines.
* Shift Left and Shift Right indent the selected text by one tab stop
(in the case of Shift Left), or outdent by one tab stop (for Shift
Right). If you hold down the Shift key while choosing one of these
commands, the selected text will be indented or outdented by one space
instead of one tab stop.
* The Hard Wrap... command is used for wrapping long lines of text and
filling paragraphs. Essentially, it uses carriage returns to break lines
of text, to keep them from running off to the right of your screen.
* Unwrap... removes carriage returns and spaces between groups of text.
Essentially, it performs the reverse function of the "Hard Wrap..."
command.
* Zap Gremlins... is useful for finding and altering non-printing
characters in your text files.
* Entab converts runs of spaces into tabs, according to the current
setting in the "Font and Tabs..." dialog. This transformation is useful
when downloading text from a mainframe computer or on-line service which
uses spaces to line up columns of text; when displaying the text in a
monospaced font, columns will still usually not line up unless you Entab
the text.
* Detab converts tabs into runs of spaces, according to the current
setting in the "Font and Tabs..." dialog. This is useful when uploading
text to a mainframe or on-line service which has no concept of tabs as
column separators.
Additional Menu Items
Here is a listing of some of the additional functions (or changes to the
behavior of existing functions) which can be invoked by using various
modifier keys. Please remember that BBEdit Lite displays the modified
names of these commands in its menus, so to see the commands in context,
just pull down the menu and press one or more modifier keys.
Menu Item Modifier New Name Action
---- ---- -------- --- ---- ------
File Open Option Open Several Open several
documents in
one dialog
Close Option Close All Closes all
open documents
Save Option Save All Saves all unsaved
documents
Save As.. Option Save As Selection.. Uses selection
as default name
for Save As
Print.. Option Print All.. Prints all open
documents
Quit.. Option Transfer.. Run another
application
Edit Cut Shift Cut & Append Cut & Add to
Clipboard
Copy Shift Copy & Append Add to Clipboard
Select Line Option Select Paragraph Selects paragraph
containing current
line
Text Twiddle Option Twiddle Words Exchange words
Change Case.. Option Change Case Use current
settings
Shift Left Shift Shift Left One Space
Shift Right Shift Shift Right One Space
Wrap.. Option Wrap Wrap with
current settings
Unwrap.. Option Unwrap Unwrap with
current settings
Zap "Gremlins"..Option Zap "Gremlins" Zap with
current settings
Entab.. Option Entab Use current
settings
Detab.. Option Detab Use current
settings
Search Enter Option Enter
Search String Replace String
Find in Option Open All Matches Find in Next File
Next File until no more found
Cursor Key Equivalents
Sometimes, you may find prefer to do word selection or deletion
directly from the keyboard. Here are some available shortcuts:
Key Modifier Action
--- -------- ------
(left/right) Arrow (none) Move 1 character left/right
(left/right) Arrow Option Move 1 word left/right
(left/right) Arrow Command Move to beginning/end of line
(up/down) Arrow (none) Move up/down 1 line in file
(up/down) Arrow Option Move to top/bottom of file
(up/down) Arrow Command Move to previous/next screen page
[any of the above] Shift Make or extend a selection range
Delete (none) Deletes characters backward
(toward beginning of line)
There is an option to "Exchange Command & Option" key effects in the
Editor section of the Preferences, for those who may be used to some
older environments which behaved this way. If this option is activated,
the above key equivalents will change accordingly.
Special Keys
The Apple Extended Keyboard has additional function keys on it, which are
usable within BBEdit Lite:
Key Action
--- ------
F1 Undo
F2 Cut
F3 Copy
F4 Paste
"del" Forward Delete
Home/End Scroll to start/end of document
Cmd-Home/End Move insertion point to start/end of document
Page Up/Down Scroll up/down a page
---
More on Wrapping
BBEdit Lite offers the capability to wrap text in a variety of ways. One
method of wrapping is the "soft" or "live" word wrapping that
word-processors provide; it is useful when importing text files from
word processors or other programs that do not use carriage returns to
break lines on the screen. When opened, such files appear to have only a
few lines in them, which run far past the right-hand edge of the window.
Soft text wrapping is also useful when you are writing text that will
be exported to a word processor or page-layout program, as well as in
other situations in which paragraphs are separated by carriage returns.
For composing text in situations where carriage returns are a line
separator (rather than a paragraph separator), "hard" text wrapping is
useful for formatting your text.
To hard-wrap text in the current document window, choose "Wrap..." from
the Text menu.
The controls on the left half of the "Wrap..." dialog box control how much
of the text is wrapped, and the maximum length of the lines after
wrapping.
The group of radio buttons controls the length of lines after they have
been wrapped:
* The "Philip Bar" button will break lines of text at the philip bar.
(To see the location of the philip bar, turn on "Show Philip Bar" in the
Windows section of the Preferences dialog.) The philip bar indicates the
maximum usable width of adocument window when the window is zoomed to
full size on a nine-inch "classic" Macintosh screen. For this reason,
you are guaranteed that text wrapped to the philip bar will be readable
without horizontal scrolling by anyone on any Macintosh.
* If "Window Width" is selected, no wrapped line will be longer than
the current width of the window. This option is useful if you'd like the
lines to be alittle longer or a little shorter than is provided for by
the philip bar; just size the window appropriately and wrap.
* If "Character Width" is selected, the number in the text field
designates the maximum number of characters allowed on any line; a line
that exceeds this number of characters in length will be wrapped. The
"Character Width" setting is useful for preparing postings to on-line
services, which can break lines in an unattractive fashion if they're
longer than a fixed number of characters (usually 80).
The controls on the right half of the dialog control paragraph wrapping.
If the "Paragraph Fill" check box is turned off, long lines will be
wrapped. Short lines will be left untouched.
---
Printing
BBEdit Lite offers a variety of options for varying your printed output.
These options are available from the dialog that appears when you choose
"Print" from the File menu:
The portion of the dialog above the gray line is the normal set of
controls that is provided by whichever printer driver you use. Below the
gray line are controls provided specifically by BBEdit Lite.
* The "Printing Font:" button will bring up a dialog that allows you
to set the font, size, style, and tab attributes for the text when it's
printed (as opposed to when it's displayed). For a description of the
controls in this dialog, see the "Editing" section of this document.
* The "Options..." button will present a dialog box for setting various
formatting options, most of which should be self-explanatory.
Most of the options in "Options..." dialog only affect the appearance of
the pages that are printed out, and can therefore be set according to
your individual taste.
---
Searching
BBEdit Lite gives you the ability to search for strings of characters
within the current document, or within multiple files, whether they're
currently open in BBEdit Lite or not. When you choose "Find..." from the
Search menu, BBEdit Lite will present a dialog box with several options.
The edit field to the right of "Search For:" contains the string of
characters that you wish to search for. If the "Grep" check box is
checked, the string in this edit field is a regular expression. See
below for more information on grep searching.
The edit field to the right of "Replace With:" contains the string of
characters that will replace the current selection whenever you choose
"Replace", "Replace and Find Again", or "Replace All" from the Search
menu.
Note: To search for an explicit carriage return, line feed, or tab, you
can type the literal character by holding down the Command key and
hitting the Return or Tab key, or typing "\n" for a line feed, "\r" for
a carriage return, or "\t" for a tab. You can also type Control-J,
Control-M, and Control-I, respectively. To search for a -literal-
occurrence of an escape (for example, in C or Rez program source), use
two backslashes: "\\n", "\\r", and "\\t". Also, a "\\" will be
interepreted to mean a single backslash, just as it does in C.
The "Match Case" check box determines whether the search is
case-sensitive or not. If "Match Case" is checked, only text which has
the same combination of upper and lower case letters as the Search For
string will be found.
The "Entire Word" check box determines whether the text being searched
must be bounded by word breaks (spaces, dashes, and other punctuation).
The "Start at Top" check box will cause the entire document to be
searched, starting at the beginning of the document and proceeding
forward to the end of the document.
The "Wrap Around" check box will cause the entire document to be
searched, regardless of where the current insertion point or selection
range lies. Ordinarily, only the text from the start of the selection
range to the end of the document is searched. If "Wrap Around" is turned
on, and the search string isn't found between the start of the selection
range and the end of the document, the search will automatically restart
from the beginning of the document. If the search string is found in the
document after wrapping around, BBEdit Lite will blink the menu bar to alert
you.
If the "Search Backwards" check box is checked, BBEdit Lite will search
backwards from the start of the insertion point to the start of the
document, rather than forward to the end of the document. If "Wrap
Around" is checked, and the search string is not found between the start
of the document and the start of the selection range, the backwards
search will resume from the end of the document.
If the "Selection Only" check box is checked, BBEdit Lite will search only the
selected range of text.
Note: If "Start at Top" is checked, the "Search Backwards", "Selection
Only", and "Wrap Around" options are automatically disabled.
After you have entered the search and replace strings and set the search
options appropriately, you can click any of the buttons arrayed along
the right-hand edge of the dialog:
- If you click "Find", BBEdit Lite will search for the current search
string, using the current search options.
- If you click "Find All", BBEdit Lite will locate all occurrences of the
search string, using the current search options, and display those
occurrences in a "Search Results" window.
- If you click "Replace", BBEdit Lite will search for the next occurrence
of the search string, using the current search options, and replace
it with the specified replace string.
- If you click "Replace All", BBEdit Lite will locate all occurrences of
the search string, and replace them with the specified replace
string.
- If you click "Don't Find", BBEdit Lite will accept the current search
strings and options, but will not perform the search; you can then
choose "Find Again" from the Search menu to start the search.
Note that if the "Multi-File Search" box is checked, the "Find All" and
"Replace All" buttons will operate across all files that BBEdit Lite locates
using the indicated search method and starting point.
---
Multi-File Searching
BBEdit Lite also provides a variety of means for searching through multiple
text files at one time in order to locate the search string. To perform
a multi-file search, check the "Multi-File Search" check box in the
Find... dialog.
The popup menu next to "What:" determines how BBEdit Lite will locate the
files to be searched.
There are three ways to locate files:
* Directory Search. When this search method is chosen, BBEdit Lite scans
through the folders starting at the one you choose, and each file that
it encounters will be searched for the search string.
* Open Windows. When you choose this search method, BBEdit Lite searches
for the search string only in document windows that are currently open.
This sort of search is very fast, and may be most convenient if you wish
to limit the scope of your search to a few files.
* Search Results. This search method is only available when the
"Search Results" window is open and contains the results of a previous
Batch Find (see below).
The check boxes can be used to tailor the search to your needs:
* Batch Find accumulates the results of the search in progress and
displays them all at once in a Search Results window. If this check box
is not checked, then the multi-file search will stop each time it
encounters a match, and open the file that contains the match.
Once the Search Results window is opened, you can single-click on an
entry in the window to display any given match, or double-click on an
entry to open the file containing that match.
* Search Nested Folders causes the Directory Scan search to search
folders which are enclosed in the search's starting directory. If this
check box is turned off, only the files in the starting directory will
be searched.
* Skip (...) Folders causes the Directory Scan to skip folders whose
names are enclosed in parentheses. This is useful if you have folders
containing text files that you do not want to search for one reason or
another; just enclose the folders' names in parentheses, and they will
be skipped.
The "File Type" and "File Name" pop-up menus give you control over the
types of files that BBEdit Lite will search. Choose "Any File" from the menu
to search files of all kinds, regardless of whether they contain actual
text or not. Choose "Text Files" to limit the search to known text
files.
When BBEdit Lite performs a multi-file search, it does so in two steps.
First, it constructs a list of the files to be searched, using the
search method specified in the Multi-File Search Options dialog. Second,
it searches each file in the list for the search string. If "Batch Find"
is selected, all occurrences in each file will be displayed in the
Search Results window. Otherwise, each file will be opened to display
the first occurrence of the search string; you can find subsequent
occurrences of the search string in the same file by choosing "Find
Again" from the Search menu. If you are not using Batch Find, you can
locate the next file that contains the search string by choosing "Find
In Next File" from the Search menu.
You can combine the capabilities of BBEdit Lite's multi-file search with
the Replace All command to perform multi-file replace operations. To do
this, set up a multi-file search as desired, and click the "Replace All"
button in the Find dialog.
Once BBEdit Lite has constructed the list of files to search, it will
present a dialog containing options for the replace operation:
There are three levels of safety that are available:
* Safest. Click on the "Leave Open" radio button. For each file that
contains the search string, BBEdit Lite will perform a "Replace All" on that
file, and leave the file open so that you can inspect the changes.
* Less Safe. Click on the "Save To Disk" radio button, and make sure
that the "Confirm Saves" check box is checked. BBEdit Lite will perform a
Replace All on each file that contains the search string, and then ask
you what to do.
If you click "Save", BBEdit Lite will save the changed file. If you click
"Don't Save", BBEdit Lite will throw away the changes that were just
performed. If you click "Leave Open", BBEdit Lite will leave the file open;
this is the same behavior as the "Safest" case, above. If you click
"Cancel Search", BBEdit Lite will stop the multi-file replace operation.
* Living on the Edge. Click on the "Save to Disk" radio button, and
un-check the "Confirm Saves" check box. If you do this, BBEdit Lite will
perform a Replace All on each file that contains the search string, and
then save the changed file to disk without asking. You should only use
these settings if you are absolutely certain of what you are doing, since
the changes are irreversible.
---
Grep Searching
Grep is a method of pattern matching that derives from the Unix(TM)
operating system. You are probably familiar with simple pattern
matching from using word processors; when you ask a word processor to
find all instances of the word "black", it is performing a simple
pattern match, where each letter has to match literally. Matching
strings in this manner is not very hard.
The ability to match strings in a more general manner is both more
powerful and more complicated. It allows for sophisticated pattern
matching operations, such as matching all words that begin with the
letter "P" and end with the letters "er", or deleting the first word of
every line. Grep provides a powerful means of doing this.
To use Grep for searching documents, just check the "Grep" check box in
the Find... dialog.
The popup menu next to the "Patterns:" in the dialog contains a list of
your most commonly-used Grep patterns. You can change this list in the
"Grep Patterns" section of the Preferences... dialog.
How Grep Works
The "grep" mode of searching and replacing is a powerful tool. Although
somewhat slower than normal text searching, grep allows the user to
search for one of a set of many strings instead of a particular string.
As a simple example, you can search for any occurrence of an identifier
beginning with the letter P, or all lines that begin with a left brace.
A pattern is a string of characters that, in turn, describes a set of
strings of characters. An example of a set of strings is the set of all
strings that begin with the letter P and end with the letter r; the
strings "Ptr" and "ProcPtr" are members of this set. We say that a
string is matched by a pattern if it is amember of the set described by
the pattern. Patterns are composed of sub-patterns which are patterns
in themselves; this is how complicated patterns may be formed.
The following section goes through the grep pattern matching and
replacement rules step by step, so that by the end of it you should be
able to understand how each of these grep patterns works and be able to
make your own.
In some cases, the state of case sensitivity affects the results of a
pattern match. We have noted below when this is the case.
1. Any character, with certain exceptions described below, is a pattern
that matches itself.
2. A pattern x followed by a pattern y forms a pattern xy that matches
any string Bu where B can be matched by x and u can be matched by y. We
can, of course, take the compound pattern xy and concatenate yet another
pattern z onto it, forming the pattern xyz.
3. The character . is a pattern that will match any character.
4. The character \ followed by any character except one of the digits
1-9 is a pattern that matches that character. (You would use this to
find special characters, such as the . character. To search for a
period, you would use \.).
5. A string of characters s surrounded by square brackets ([ and a ])
forms a pattern [s] that matches a single instance of one of the
characters in the string s. Note that the case sensitivity flag does
not apply to characters between square brackets: letters must match
exactly.
5a. The pattern [^B] matches any character that is not in the string
B. Special characters will be taken literally in this context. Again,
case sensitivity doesn't apply to characters between square brackets.
5b. If a string of three characters in the form [a-b] occurs in the
pattern p, this represents all of the characters from a to b inclusive.
All special characters are taken literally; i.e., [!-.] denotes the
characters from ! to .. Notice that the only way to include the
character ] in p is to make it the very first character. Likewise, the
only way to include the character - in p is to have it either at the
very beginning or the very end of p. Single characters and ranges may
both be used between brackets.
6a. Any pattern p formed by any combination of rules 1 or 3-5b
followed by a * forms the pattern p* that matches zero or more
consecutive occurrences of characters matched by p.
6c. Any pattern p formed by any combination of rules 1 or 3-5b
followed by a ? forms the pattern p? that matches zero or one
consecutive occurrences of characters matched by p.
We now have the ability to form patterns that are composed of
sub-patterns, and will find it useful to "remember" sub-strings matched
by sub-patterns and to be able to match against those substrings.
7. A pattern surrounded by ( and ) is a pattern that matches whatever
the sub-pattern matches. This is useful for matching two or more
instances of the same string and when doing replacements.
Sometimes it is useful to be able to "constrain" patterns to match only if
certain conditions in the context outside the string matched are met.
8. A pattern p that is preceded by a ^ forms a pattern ^p. If the
pattern ^p is not preceded by any other pattern, it matches whatever p
matches as long as the first character matched by p occurs at the
beginning of a line. If the pattern ^p is preceded by another pattern,
then the ^ is taken literally.
9. A pattern p that is followed by a $ forms a pattern p$. If the
pattern p$ is not followed by any other pattern, it matches whatever p
matches as long as the last character matched by p occurs at the end of
a line. If the pattern p$ is followed by another pattern, then the $ is
taken literally.
Note that the characters ^ and $ constrain pattern matches to begin or
end at line boundaries, and so can be combined to constrain a pattern to
match an entire line only (as in the above example).
Grep provides not only a more sophisticated method of searching, but a
sophisticated method of replacing as well. In a replacement string, the
following substitutions are made before any text replacement occurs:
1. Each occurrence of the character & is replaced with whatever was
last matched by the entire pattern.
2. Each occurrence of a string of the form \n, where n is one of the
digits 1-9, is replaced by whatever was last matched by the sub-pattern
beginning with the nth occurrence of (.
3. Each occurrence of a string of the form \p, where p is other than
one of the digits 1-9, is replaced by p.
This allows you to not only be able to search for a string satisfying a
complex set of conditions, but also to be able to do a subsequent
replacement that varies depending on the string that is matched. Note
that this does not take into account escape sequences, such as \t, \r,
\n, \\, etc. Suppose that you have written a program that is to become a
Macintosh application (i.e., it uses the Macintosh ToolBox instead of
stdio for the user interface). Suppose also that you have discovered
that you have forgotten to put a \p at the beginning of your string
constants, so that your program is trying to pass C strings instead of
Pascal strings to the Toolbox (which only knows how to deal with Pascal
strings). You can easily change all your C strings to Pascal strings by
specifying "(.*)" as the search pattern and "\\p\1" as the replacement
string.
Suppose you decided to reverse the two arguments of the function "foo".
You might try the pattern foo\(([^,]*),([^)]*)\) as the search pattern
and foo(\2, \1) as the replacement pattern. How does the search pattern
work?
Let's assume we're trying to match some text that looks like foo(1,*bar)
foo\(([^,]*),([^)]*)\) matches foo(1,*bar)
Since ([^,]*) matched 1 and ([^)]*) matched *bar, the two arguments to
foo, the replacement pattern foo(\2, \1) will result in foo(*bar, 1)
This, unfortunately, won't work in the case of foo(1,(*bar)+2), since
([^)]*) will match only up to the first right parenthesis, leaving +2)
unmatched. If we're sure that all calls to foo end with a semicolon,
however, we can change our pattern to foo\(([^,]*),([^;]*)\);. In this
pattern, instead of trying to match the second argument by matching
everything up to the first right parenthesis, we match everything up to
the ); which terminates the invocation of foo.
In this example we showed how to analyze a grep pattern by examining
sub-patterns. This is a good way of figuring out how to build a pattern
as well. Grep can be thought of as a small and rather cryptic
programming language, with each pattern a program and sub-pattern a
statement in this language. If you try to create a grep pattern by
testing a small sub-pattern, then adding and testing additional
sub-patterns until the complete pattern is built, you may find building
complex grep patterns not nearly as daunting as you first thought.
---
Preferences Dialog
To bring up the Preferences dialog, choose "Preferences..." from the Edit
menu, or double-click on your BBEdit Lite Prefs file. (This may not be
convenient, since the BBEdit Lite Prefs file usually resides somewhere within
the System Folder.)
The list on the left-hand side of the dialog determines which section of
the preferences you are looking at. If you click on "Save", all of the
preferences settings will be saved to the "BBEdit Lite Prefs" file. If you
click on "Cancel", the existing preferences will be left alone, and any
changes you've made in the Preferences settings will be discarded.
--> The "Editor" preferences control BBEdit Lite's editing and keyboard
behavior. These settings establish the defaults for newly-created
documents, as well as for text files that don't already contain BBEdit Lite
state information.
* The "Default Font" button sets the font which will be used to
display the text in newly created windows, and for documents which have
no saved state information.
* If "Auto-Indent" is turned on, BBEdit Lite will indent to the start of
the preceding line whenever you type the "Return" key on the keyboard.
This is useful for programmers and for reverse-indenting text. It may be
less convenient if you are using BBEdit Lite for composing prose.
* Soft Wrap Text: generally, BBEdit Lite does not automatically wrap text
as you type it in, which means the text may scroll horizontally.
Selecting this option tells BBEdit Lite to wrap the text to the width of the
window as you insert and delete text, and whenever you are-size the
document's window.
* If Balance While Typing is turned on, BBEdit Lite will flash matching
parentheses, curly braces, and brackets as you type them.
* Smart Quotes is used to determine the default value of the Smart
Quotes setting for newly created windows and for documents saved with
state information other than "BBEdit Lite".
* Ordinarily, actions such as Entab, Detab, Zap Gremlins, and Replace
All are not undoable, and BBEdit Lite will alert you if you are about to
perform a non-undoable action. If you are not concerned about being able
to undo these actions, and do not want BBEdit Lite to alert you, turn on
the 'No "Can't Undo" Alerts' check box, and BBEdit Lite will not alert
you of these actions.
* Exchange Command and Option reverses the meaning of the Command and
Option keys when used with the left and right arrow keys. See "Editing
Text with BBEdit Lite" for more details.
* If Use Keypad for Cursor Control is checked, the keys on the numeric
keypad (on keyboards that have them) will move the cursor. See "Editing
Text With BBEdit Lite" for more details.
--> The "File Search" section of the Preferences controls BBEdit Lite's
behavior when searching for files via the "Open Selection" command. If
"Skip (...) Folders" is checked, BBEdit Lite will ignore folders whose
names are enclosed in parentheses. The "Default <...> Directory" setting
determines where BBEdit Lite will start its search of the file's name is
enclosed in <angle brackets>. If "Follow Aliases" is checked, BBEdit
Lite will resolve any folder aliases it encounters during its search.
--> The "File Types" section of the Preferences allows you to modify the
list of file creators that appears in the "File Creator" popup menu of
the "Save As..., Options..." dialog box.
To add a new application's file creator to the list, click the "Add..."
button, and choose the application. To change an application's creator
signature, click on an application name in the list, enter a new
four-letter code in the text field next to "Creator...", and click the
"Change" button. You can use the "Set button to pick an application and
enter its creator code in the text field for you. To remove an
application creator from the list, click on an application name, and
click the "Delete" button.
The creators for "BBEdit Lite" and "Generic Text File" are built into
BBEdit Lite and cannot be changed or deleted.
--> The "Filing" settings control the default settings for the Open... and
Open Several... dialogs. If "Wrap TeachText Files" is checked, then BBEdit Lite
Lite will always soft-wrap files which have been created by TeachText
(or its successor SimpleText). If "Auto-Backup" is checked, a backup
will automatically be made of afile every time it is saved.
--> The "Grep Patterns" of the Preferences dialog allows you to modify
the list of regular expressions which appears in the popup menu next to
the "Grep" check box in the "Find..." dialog. The scrolling list box shows
the names of the installed patterns. When you click on one, the text
fields below the list will be filled in with its name, search pattern,
and replace pattern. You can change any of these text fields, and click
"Change" to replace the selected pattern with the changed one. You can
also enter new information in the text fields and click "Add" to add a
new pattern, or select a pattern and click "Delete" to remove it from
the list.
Note: You can install a pattern with an empty replace pattern, which is
useful just for locating text which matches a particular regular
expression.
--> The "Printing" settings provide the default print settings for new
windows and for documents which have saved state information other than
BBEdit Lite's.
These settings correspond to the same settings on the "Options..." dialog
which can be brought up from the Print... dialog.
--> The "Search Folders" section presents a list of folders which will
appear in the "Folder:" pop-up menu in the "Find" dialog.
--> The "Startup" settings determine BBEdit Lite's behavior when it's
launched without any documents.
The "At Startup:" radio buttons control what BBEdit Lite does when it's
launched by some means other than double-clicking on a BBEdit Lite document,
or by dragging and dropping some item onto BBEdit Lite itself (under System
7).
* If Nothing is selected, BBEdit Lite will take no action at startup. This
is handy if BBEdit Lite regularly gets launched into the background, or is
launched by some scripting utility which will then start feeding
commands to BBEdit Lite directly.
* New Window causes BBEdit Lite to bring up a new untitled window, as if
the "New command on the File menu had been chosen.
* Open causes BBEdit Lite to bring up an "Open..." dialog, as if the "Open..."
command on the File menu had been chosen.
* Open Several causes BBEdit Lite to bring up the "Open Several..." dialog,
as if that command had been chosen.
--> The "State" settings control what parts of a file's saved state are
honored whenever a file with saved state information is opened. In some
cases, it may be desirable to ignore one of these aspects of the saved
state.
The "Remember File State" setting establishes whether BBEdit Lite will
remember information about the document's state (window position, font
and size settings, and other options). This default is applied to newly
created documents. If "Always Add State" is checked, BBEdit Lite will
remember state information for documents that you open which don't
already have saved state information.
--> The "Text Search" settings provide the defaults for text searching and
multi-file searching. The options in this dialog correspond to their
counterparts in the Find... and the Multi-File Search Options dialog.
The "Start From..." button sets the default starting directory for
Directory Scan multi-file searches.
--> The "Windows" settings affect the appearance and behavior of
BBEdit Lite's document windows.
* Delay When Scrolling makes BBEdit Lite wait a tenth of a second when
you click in the arrows of a scrollbar before scrolling the text in a
document window. This is most useful under System 6 on faster machines;
often several lines will go by before your reflexes allow you to let go
of the mouse button. System 7 offers a "scrolling throttle", so this
setting may be turned off.
* Show Status Bar causes the status bar to be visible within all
editing windows. (See "Editing Text With BBEdit Lite" for a description
of the status bar.) This option is on by default; you can turn it off if
you have a small screen and screen "real estate" is at a premium.
* Show Philip Bar draws a vertical gray line in the status bar at the
point where the visible editing area ends on a 9-inch "classic" screen.
See above for more details.
* Show Tab Stops places tick marks in the status bar to indicate the
position of tab stops in each editing window. This option is dimmed if
"Show Status Bar" is turned off.
* Show Line Numbers places line numbers along the left edge of each
editing window.
* Show Cursor Position places the cursor-position display at the
lower left corner of each editing window; this display shows the
position of the insertion point, or the last-changed end of the
selection range.
The settings under "Window Zooming" control the maximum width to which
BBEdit Lite will open documents, either by default or when using the
zoom-box control in the upper right-hand corner of the window; the "Zoom
Windows To" setting determines where BBEdit Lite will place windows that
are zoomed on multiple-screen systems.
If either of the check boxes under the "Leave Room for Finder" is
checked, BBEdit Lite will make certain that there's enough space below
and/or to the right of any window so that icons on the desktop can be
seen when you are running under MultiFinder or System 7.
Note - if you are running on a Macintosh with a 9-inch screen, the window
sizes when either of these options is checked are usually too small to
be useful. Therefore, you may want to turn these options off if you have
a small screen.
---
Parting Shots
Be sure to read the "About BBEdit Lite" document which comes with the
BBEdit Lite software package for complete information on the license
requirements and other details. If you wish to get in touch with us for
any reason, here's how:
Postal: Bare Bones Software, Inc.
P.O. Box 1048
Bedford, MA 01730-1048
Web page: http://www.tiac.net/biz/bbsw/
Email: bbsw@netcom.com
Phone: +1 508 651 3561
Fax: +1 508 651 7584
Please note that we cannot provide technical support for BBEdit Lite or
our other freeware products via phone or fax; however, if you contact us
via email, we will be happy to assist you.
=============================================================================
All products mentioned are trademarks or registered trademarks of their
respective holders.
This document is written by and copyright (c)1995-1996 by Bare Bones Software,
Inc. It may be redistributed freely as long as it is not modified in any
way. Information presented here is accurate as of the time of writing, but
is subject to change without notice.
BBEdit Lite is copyright (c)1992-1996 Bare Bones Software, Inc., all
rights reserved. Please see the enclosed informational material for
license requirements.
=end=