MacFormat 1999 April/macformat-075.iso/Shareware Plus/Applications/Alpha/Help/Quick Start

Text File | 1998-08-04 | 14.7 KB | 352 lines | [TEXT/ALFA]

        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
    Modes, Menus, and Features
        Modes
        Menus and Features
    Searching
        Quick Finds
        Multi-file Searching
    Marks
    The Window
    Dynamic Menus
    Text Manipulations
        Wrapping
    Credits and Registration


===============================================================================
= Installation
===============================================================================

If you are reading this document, installation must be finished. Alpha
relies on the files in the Tcl and Help subfolders being in the same
folder as Alpha itself. These two folders must not be renamed. 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 subfolder 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
menu.

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: you can also use most of the standard Emacs editing commands if you
activate the Emacs feature. Then an "Emacs" submenu is inserted in the
"Edit" menu.]

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.


===============================================================================
= Modes, Menus, and Features
===============================================================================

Modes

Alpha is multi-modal, which means it switches between different modes
depending on which type of document you are editing. Everybody who has used
Emacs knows about this concept. The idea with different modes is to change
Alpha's behavior depending on which kind of text you're editing. For
example if you're programming in C++ or editing a LaTeX document you need
different features. Alpha determines which mode to switch to from
the suffix of the file name. Files ending by '.tex' makes Alpha switch to
LaTeX mode, file ending by '.html' makes Alpha switch to HTML mode etc.

Menus and Features

You can customize Alpha by activating various menus and features. This is
done by using the menu item "Config:Global:Menus And Features…" A "menu"
is a stand-alone menu which is attached to the menu bar, while a "feature"
is some functionality which doesn't have a menu connected to it. However,
some features add a submenu or menu items to a submenu.

Many modes also have their own menus. You can choose which menus and
features to use for a particular mode by using the menu item
"Config:Current Mode:Menus And Features…" Note that it's normally little
need to change which menu(s) to use in a particular mode. The mode menus
are normally not very useful in other modes or as global menus.

===============================================================================
= 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:
    • 'Forward' - 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 to terminate a search. Quick finds always
ignore case, but do not match words.

There is also a Quick Find Regexp which lets you use regular expressions.
Look in the "Search" menu while holding down the option key.

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 folder.
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 by
selecting ``Mult Files'' and the fileset from the popup menu. The `Batch'
option allows all matches to be listed in a new window (not available in
AlphaLite).

Read more about filesets here.

===============================================================================
= Marks
===============================================================================

Alpha 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 allows marks to be automatically established for a
file. How the file is marked depends on which mode you are using. For
example, '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.
• 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. The content of this
  menu is mode dependent, but is the current mode doesn't support this
  feature, the menu will contain a list of all files in the open window's
  folder. Selecting a file in the menu will open it.
• 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 'M' icon) is another way to access the current
  marks for the front window.
• Above the Marks menu is another icon '{}'. This is the Funcs menu. The
  content of this menu is mode dependent but will typically contain a list
  of all functions in the file. This menu is built when you press the icon
  and is therefore always up-to-date.
• Above the Funcs menu is either nothing, a red disk icon (showing that the
  window is dirty and needs to be saved; clicking the icon saves the window),
  or a lock icon (meaning that the file is read-only; command-clicking
  toggles the lock icon).
• The status window at the bottom of the primary display has three popup
  menus:

  • "Wrap" menu. Shows how if the lines in the current window are wrapped
    automatically and if the wrapping is soft or not.

  • "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 much fewer modes than the full version of Alpha).

  • Line display. Displays current line and column. Clicking opens a dialog
    that allows a specific line to be found.


===============================================================================
= Dynamic Menus
===============================================================================

Alpha uses dynamic menus. This means that some menu items are changed if
you hold down any of the modifier keys. Usually the option key is the one
which reveals the hidden menu items, but there are also a few items which are
revealed by holding down the control or shift keys. Try this out by pulling
down the File menu and holding down one of the option, control, or shift keys.


===============================================================================
= 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.
• 'Upcase Region' - converts all selected   characters to upper case.
• 'Downcase Region' (hold down option key) - converts all selected
   characters to lower case.
• 'Text to Alpha' - This menu item prompts the user to select a folder,
   and then recursively changes the creator of all text files in that
   folder 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).


===============================================================================
= 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 with the installation. Click here to
launch the register app.

Alpha's home page is <http://www.bcity.com/alphatext>

PLEASE use the Alpha-D mailing list to discuss problems, suggestions
etc with this release.  To subscribe, email <[e-mail]>
and, in the text of your message (not the subject line), write:
'SUBSCRIBE ALPHA-D'.  There are a number of known bugs which will hopefully
be corrected in a future release.  PLEASE read the 'Bug Reports and Debugging'
file for a list of known bugs, and for how to give an informative bug
report, without which it is unlikely any bug you found can be fixed.