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MacWorld 1998 May
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Macworld (1998-05).dmg
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Shareware World
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Utilities
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Text Processing
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BBEdit Lite 4.1
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What's New in BBEdit Lite 4.1
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What's New in BBEdit Lite 4.1
------ --- -- ------ ---- ---
This document provides a quick overview of what's new in BBEdit Lite
4.1, relative to previous versions. In general, many improvements and
refinements have been made to the user interface, and a number of
performance enhancements and bug fixes are also included.
Overall Construction
------- ------------
From an engineering perspective, BBEdit Lite 4.1 has more in common with
commercial releases of BBEdit than with previous releases of BBEdit
Lite. It is built from the same code and resource bases. This has
yielded many "under the hood" improvements to performance,
functionality, and reliability.
Balloon Help
------- ----
BBEdit Lite now includes Balloon Help for most interface elements.
Choose "Show Balloons" from the "?" menu (under System 7.x) or the
"Help" menu (system 8.x) to see the help balloons.
Longer Search Strings
------ ------ -------
BBEdit Lite can now search for and replace with character strings up to
512 characters long (the old limit was about 240).
Grep Improvements
---- ------------
BBEdit Lite now stores its Grep patterns (as set in the "Grep Patterns"
section of the Preferences dialog, or added from within the "Find"
dialog) in a separate file, named "BBEdit Grep Patterns". This provides
for portability of patterns across versions of BBEdit, as well as for
storage of longer patterns.
A bug which prevented Replace All from working correctly when both
"Grep" and "Wrap Around" are turned on has been fixed.
Reorganized "New" Commands
----------- ----- --------
The various "New" commands (which were previously hidden on the File
menu) have been gathered into a single "New" submenu. (Note that your
reflexes will still work: Command-N still creates a new editing window,
and you can still choose the first command from the File menu to create
a new editing window.)
Plug-In Improvements
------- ------------
In previous versions of BBEdit Lite, the "BBEdit Extensions" folder
contained plug-ins that add to BBEdit's functionality. This folder has
been renamed to "BBEdit Plug-Ins", and BBEdit extensions are now
generally referred to as "BBEdit tools" to avoid confusion with system
extensions.
The "Extensions" menu has been renamed to "Tools", and the first item on
that menu will bring up the "BBEdit Tools" window. This floating window
provides quick access to BBEdit plug-ins. This window presents a
hierarchical list of installed BBEdit tools. You can use the "Set
Key..." button to assign a keyboard equivalent to a selected tool, or
the "Run" button to run that tool.
The performance of the "Cut Lines Containing" and "Copy Lines
Containing" plug-ins has been substantially improved with respect to
earlier versions.
A bug in the "Educate Quotes" plug-in has been corrected; this bug would
cause the modified text to be erroneously inserted when performing an
Undo in some circumstances.
Startup Items
------- -----
When it starts up, BBEdit will look for a folder named "BBEdit Startup
Items" in the same folder as the BBEdit application file. If it finds
such a folder, BBEdit will open any documents it finds in that folder.
If you place a text file or picture file in this folder, BBEdit will
open a document window appropriate to that document.
If you place any other type of document in this folder, BBEdit will ask
the Finder to open the document.
If you wish, you may place the actual BBEdit Startup Items folder in any
convenient location, create an alias to it, and place the resulting
alias in the same folder as the BBEdit application file. Having done so,
be sure to change the name of the alias to "BBEdit Startup Items" so
that BBEdit can properly locate it.
What was New In BBEdit Lite 4.0
==== === === == ====== ==== ===
PowerPC Performance
------- -----------
BBEdit 4.0 is constructed as a "fat binary": an application which is
fully native on both 680x0 and PowerPC Macintosh models. This yields
maximum performance on Power Macs, and also derives benefits from using
Virtual Memory on Power Macintosh models.
Drag and Drop Text Editing
---- --- ---- ---- -------
BBEdit Lite 4.0 features "drag and drop" text editing; having made a
selection, you simply drag it to wherever it needs to go: another
location in the same document, another open window, or another
application. If you drop your text selection in the Finder, and the
"Clipping Extension" is installed, the system will create a clipping
file, which may be re-used at any time.
You can also insert a file's contents into a text document by simply
dragging and dropping it from another location. To insert a folder
listing, drag and drop a folder (or an alias to a folder), or even an
entire disk.
Recent Files
------ -----
In the File menu, the "Open Recent" command gives quick access to the
twelve most-recently-opened files.
Improved Search and Replace
-------- ------ --- -------
BBEdit Lite 4.0 features improved performance in Grep searches and
"Replace All" operations. For optimal Replace All performance, we
recommend that you turn on the "Start at Top" check box in the Find
dialog, or, if you do not wish to operate on the entire file, turn off
the "Wrap Around" and "Backwards" check boxes.
What was New In BBEdit Lite 3.5
==== === === == ====== ==== ===
This section summarizes the changes that were introduced in BBEdit
Lite 3.5.
"Soft" Text Wrapping
------ ---- --------
BBEdit Lite 3.5 features "soft" text wrapping, in which long lines of
text are automatically wrapped to the width of the editing window,
without using carriage returns. As you insert and delete text, BBEdit
Lite will automatically re-flow the text as necessary. The "Soft
Wrap Text" option replaces the old "Wrap While Typing" option.
New "Find" Dialog
--- ------ ------
The Find dialog (which comes up when you choose "Find..." from the
Search menu) has been expanded and revised for more functionality and
greater ease of use. All of the options from BBEdit Lite 3.0 are
present, but you no longer have to flip pages in the dialog in order to
access the multi-file search options. In addition, you can now hide the
multi-file search options by clicking the small triangle to the left of
the "Multi-File Search" check box.
A "Start at Top" option has been added. When this option is selected,
BBEdit Lite will always search forward from the beginning of the file,
regardless of where the current selection range may be.
Updated Menus
------- -----
BBEdit Lite now uses Ramon Felciano's "Mercutio" menu definition. In
addition to being more compatible than the previous approach, Mercutio
also makes "alternative" keyboard equivalents visible while menus are
pulled down. (To see this in action, pull down the File menu, and slowly
press and release the Option key.)
Improved "Get Info" dialog
-------- ---- ----- ------
The Get Info dialog has been expanded to provide character, word, and
line counts for both the selection range and the entire documents. To
compute the page count for the selection range and entire document,
click the "Paginate" button. The "Copy Path" button will place the full
path of the front document onto the Clipboard, ready for pasting into an
edit window or into another application.
Simplified Preferences
---------- -----------
The "Zap Gremlins" and "Hard Wrap" commands now remember their settings
after you quit BBEdit. As a result, the "Wrapping" and "Zapping"
sections of the Preferences dialog are no longer required, and have been
removed.
In addition, the "Preferences" dialog has been revised for greater ease
of use. All available preferences are listed on the left-hand side of
the Preferences dialog; you can click on any one of the items to make
that page of the dialog available.
Simplified State
---------- -----
The "Remember File State" option controls whether or not BBEdit Lite
remembers a document's state information (window position and size, font
settings, display and printing options, and more). Version 3.5 no longer
differentiates between the different state resource formats, but instead
saves the state information in a format that is compatible with all
modern text editors and development environments. (The Remember File
State option for each document can be found on the file options popup in
each window's status area, and can be set for all new documents in the
"State" section of the Preferences dialog.)
Technical Support
========= =======
Should you have questions about BBEdit Lite, please send us e-mail:
<support@barebones.com>
Please note that we cannot provide support for BBEdit Lite or our other
freeware products via phone or fax.
From time to time, we will release updates to correct problems in the
software, and/or add minor functionality. Updates to our freeware may be
found on the Freeware page on our Web site, as well as in the Freeware
directory on our public FTP area:
<ftp://ftp.barebones.com/pub/freeware/>
We will also provide technical support bulletins, as warranted by
circumstances, to address some commonly encountered problems. You can
also find a list of frequently asked questions about BBEdit on our Web
page.
If you do have a problem with the software, please let us know. All too
often, users do not report problems for one reason or another. Remember
that if we do not hear about a problem, we can't fix it.
=============================================================================
All products mentioned are trademarks or registered trademarks of their
respective holders.
This document is written by and copyright (c)1997-1998 by Bare Bones
Software, Inc.
Information presented here is accurate as of the time of writing, but is
subject to change without notice.
=end=