MacWorld 1998 March

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Alpha Quick Start =============================================================================== = Contents =============================================================================== [ Any underlined text is a hypertext link; clicking on it takes you to another part of the documentation. Typing "control-." (Pop Position from the Search menu) returns you to the starting point. ] Installation Creating and Saving Documents Editing Documents Drag and Drop Searching Quick Finds Multi-file Searching Marks The Window Text Manipulations Wrapping Editing "TeX" documents Credits and Registration =============================================================================== = Installation =============================================================================== If you are reading this document, installation must be finished. Alpha relies on the files in the Tcl and Help subdirectories being in the same director as Alpha itself. The Alpha folder can be anywhere on your disks, the only caveat is that the names of any containing folders or disks must not contain names brackets, curly braces, or quotes of any kind. Alpha creates a subdirectory within the system preferences folder, but you should never have to worry about this. =============================================================================== = Creating and Saving Documents =============================================================================== Documents can be created in Alpha via the "New…" menu item under the file menu. Existing files can be opened via the "Open…" item, by double-clicking on Alpha documents in the finder, or via the FileSets submenu underneath the File menu (more on this later). Once a document has been opened, you can modify it by typing in it, cutting and pasting, or using drag-and-drop editing. Files can then be saved and/or closed, also via the File menu. =============================================================================== = Editing Documents =============================================================================== At its most basic, editing in Alpha is very similar to editing within any other mac environment. The current insertion point is shown by the blinking insertion point (or the block cursor, depending on your settings. The cursor keys can be used to move the insertion point, as in any other application. However, Alpha can also move via larger increments of text: option-left - one word left option-right - one word right command-left - beginning of line command-right - end of line Holding down the shift key tells alpha to extend the selection the designated distance. [Tip: most of the standard emacs editing commands are also available, see the "Edit:Emacs" submenu.] Text can be cut, copied, or pasted by selecting a region of text and using the items in the Edit menu. Additionally, Alpha supports all the latest Drag and Drop technology. Any selected piece of text can be dragged to another part of the same window, or to another application merely by dragging it. To try this out, i) select a piece of text (double-click on a word), ii) move the cursor over the selected text (the cursor should now be an open hand), and iii) mouse down on the selected text and drag it elsewhere. An outline of the selected text will accompany the cursor until you release it, and a caret will mark the current insertion point while you move the cursor. Note that you must have either system 7.5 or the Drag and Drop init installed for this to work. =============================================================================== = Searching =============================================================================== Alpha allows searching for character strings in either the current window, or within multiple files, whether or not they are currently open. Searching is usually accomplished via the "Search" menu. "Find" brings up a dialog box that allows a search string, a string optionally used to replace found text, and several options. These options are: • 'Forword' - Search backwards or forwards. • 'Ignore Case' - The search routine can ignore the case of both the search string and the text to which it matches. • 'Word Match' - The search only matches complete words. • 'Grep' - Regular expression matching. Regular expressions allow searching for specific character patterns, rather than just a single character sequence. See here for more information. • 'Mult Files' - see below. • 'Patterns' - This is a popup menu that allows search strings to be saved and later re-used. Once a string has been found, the "Search" menu allows the text to be replaced with the 'Replace With' string from the "Find" dialog. [Tip: As with all dialogs in Alpha, buttons may be selected from the keyboard by pressing command-c, where 'c' is the first character of the button's text.] [Tip: Pull down the "Search" menu and press the option key. There are several new items. "Search Start" returns the insertion point to where the last search started. "Replace All" uses the search and replace strings to make substitutions through the rest of the file.] Quick Find Alpha allows the Find dialog to be bypassed by "Quick Find" and "Reverse Quick Find" from the "Search" menu. The function search for character strings as you type. Use Escape or any function to terminate a search. Quick finds always ignore case, but do not match words or allow regular expressions. Multi-File Searches Multi-file searches are accomplished by using file-sets, or lists of files. File-sets are usually a list of files in a single directory. They can be created either through the file-set menu (under the File menu for AlphaLite, a stand-alone menu for the full version of Alpha), or through the Find dialog (select multiple files and then use the popup menu to select ``New Fileset''). To create a fileset, you supply a name, the folder that contains the files, and a pattern to select which files from the folder are to be contained in the fileset. To select all, the pattern should be `*'. To select just the files that end in `.tex', the pattern would be `*.tex'. To select all files that end in either `.c' or `.h', the pattern would be `*.{c,h}'. Once you have a fileset, you search through the entire thing just be selecting ``Mult Files'' and the fileset from the popup menu. The `Batch' option allows all matches to be listed (not available in AlphaLite). =============================================================================== = Marks =============================================================================== Alpha maintains allows manipulation of marks through a popup menu over the 'M' icon above the vertical scrollbar. Marks are pointers to particular positions in the file. This file, for instance, has marks pointing to each of the major sections of the document (use the Marks menu to go to a different section, and then to come back to the 'Marks' section). The marks popup menu (the icon w/ '{}' above the vertical scrollbar) allows marks to be automatically established for a file. For instance, 'Mark File' will automatically create a mark for each section and subsection of a latex document. =============================================================================== = The Window =============================================================================== Alpha's windows have several non-standard features. They are the following: • Command-clicking on the title-bar anywhere but right on the title pulls down a menu showing the window's current mark, and allows marks to be automatically created for all supported modes (C, LaTeX, etc.). A mark is merely a placeholder for a specific position in a file, much like a bookmark. • Command-clicking on the title pulls down a popup showing the complete pathname of the window's file. • Option-clicking on the titlebar brings down a menu of include files, if working w/ Symantec. • Above the vertical scrollbar is a black "split-pane" bar. Double-clicking or dragging the split-pane bar splits the frontmost window into two separately scrollable panes. Either pane can be edited, any changes appear in both panes if they show the same text. Move from one pane to the other by typing control-x, then 'o'. Go back to a single pane by either double-clicking again or dragging the bar back to the top of the window. • Above the split-pane bar (the '{}' icon) is another way to access the current marks for the front window. • Above the Marks menu is either nothing, a red disk icon (showing that the window is dirty and needs to be saved), or a lock icon (meaning that the file is read-only). • The status window at the bottom of the primary display has three popup menus: • "File Attributes" menu. Shows various attributes of the current window that can be changed. "MPW", "Think" and "None" refer to how much state is saved in files' resource forks, Usually, you should leave it at "MPW", which tells Alpha to save the current insertion and window positions. "Mac", "Unix", or "IBM" refers to the way carriage returns are formatted. • "Mode" menu, which shows the current mode and allows it to be changed. Bindings, keyword colorings, and many other features differ from mode to mode (AlphaLite has only two modes, 'TeX' and 'Brws' which is used to view search results). • Line menu. Displays current line and column. Clicking calls a dialog that allows a specific line to be found. =============================================================================== = "Text Manipulations" =============================================================================== Automatic Wrapping Wrapping refers to Alpha automatically inserting line breaks as you type. The 'Config:Mode' (the 'Mode' menu is under the Windows menu for AlphaLite) lets you modify several mode-specific flags. One of these is 'wordWrap'. When 'wordWrap' is checked, Alpha automatically insert a carriage return when a line becomes too long. If 'Soft Wrap' is on as well (toggle from the windows menu), Alpha will ``re-flow'' the entire paragraph whenever the current line gets too long or too short. Other Text Manipulations From the 'Text' menu: • 'Fill Paragraph' - reflows the current paragraph so that lines are approximately the same length. • 'Fill region' - does the same to text that is currently selected. • 'Downcase Region' - converts all selected characters to lower case. • 'Upcase Region' (hold down option key) - converts all selected characters to upper case. • 'Text to Alpha' - This menu item prompts the user to select a directory, and then recursively changes the creator of all text files in that directory to Alpha. This is useful if you receive text files created by another editor (Note: this item is under "Utils:File Utils" in the full version of Alpha). =============================================================================== = "TeX" Editing =============================================================================== Click here for details. =============================================================================== = Credits and Registration =============================================================================== Alpha and AlphaLite are both shareware, $30. One registration pays for both versions, and all future upgrades of either. You may pay either by sending a check to: Peter Keleher 8006 Barron Street Takoma Park, MD 20912 or by using the "Register…" app that comes w/ installation. Click here to launch the register app. Send bug reports to me at keleher@cs.umd.edu. Alpha's home page is "http://www.cs.umd.edu/~keleher/alpha.html"