BBS in a Box 11/AMUG BBS in a Box Volume XI (April 1994) (MacWizards).iso/Exclusives!/Directory Tools/text directory/Load ∑Edit DA/∑Edit Docs.txt

Text File | 1991-08-07 | 12.7 KB | 197 lines | [TEXT/KAHL]

                ∑Edit 1.1
            Written by Leonard Rosenthol
                 Copyright ©1987 by Halevai Software

Introduction and History
----------------------
    As a programmer and avid telecommunicator, the DA that I used most of all  was a
text editing DA.  I chose the editor that I did because of its very nice interface and many useful
features, however it was far from being the ultimate DA text editor.
    So I waited and waited, hoping that something new and wonderful would come along that would
answer all of my wishes.  Well, nothing came along that answered all of my wishes.  I'd find
one that handled tabs properly, but it wouldn't allow me to set the Font/Size I wanted to view the
text in, or maybe I'd find one that allowed unlimited length files, but didn't support Find/Replace.
    Then recently I was hired as a contract programmer to do some work for a professor
here on campus in converting an IBM program onto the Macintosh.  The only problem was that the
program was in C, and I hadn't worked with C for a few years and was not a big fan of using C on
the Macintosh.  Well, I said, he's paying me well, so I guess I better relearn my C.  ∑Edit is the
product of my adventures of relearning C, and using it on the Macintosh.
    The first version of ∑Edit was put together in the period of about a week (during which I got
little sleep) using LightSpeed C, and Think's (or is it Symantec's) CAPPS' package.  Therefore portions
of this DA are copyright ©1987 Think Technologies.
    I have tried to put into it every feature that I wanted in my ultimate text editing DA, and that other
people have asked for. If I forgot something that you would like to see in the next version of ∑Edit,
please drop me a note either electronically or by USnail.

    Leonard Rosenthol        GEnie: MACgician
    205 E. Healey #33        Bitnet: 3FLOSDQ@UIUCNOSA
    Champaign, Il 61820        Tele #: [phone]

Basic Features List
------------------
    • File I/O (New, Open, Save, Save As, Revert)
    • Printing to ANY printer
        NOT limited to just the ImageWriter and LaserWriter
    • Complete Cut/Copy/Paste support
        TEXT ONLY!
    • Ability to set the Font and Size to display the text in
    • A movable, resizable and zoomable window
    • Support for the arrow keys on the Mac+ and MacSE/Mac ][ keyboards for cursor movement

Additional Features
------------------
    • Support for unlimited length files
        Limited only by memory!!
    • True Tabs with a user-definable setting
    • Complete UNDO support for all functions that modify the text
    • Very fast Search and Replace routines incl:
        Replace
        Replace All
        Enter Selection into Find Dialog    (Command-E)
    • AutoIndenting
    • Ability to immediately jump to:
        Beginning of current line    (Option-LeftArrow)
        End of current line        (Option-RightArrow)
        Beginning of document        (Command-,  or Command-< or Option-UpArrow)
        End of document        (Command-.  or Command-> or Option-DownArrow)
        Any line by number        (Command-/  or Command-?)
    • Ability to shift paragraphs
        Left by tab stops        (Command-[  or Command-{)
        Right by tab stops        (Command-] or Command-})
    • Triple clicking on a line will select that whole line
    • Command or  Shift-ArrowKeys can be used to extend/shrink the selection range
        Extend one character to right    Command/Shift-RightArrow
        Extend one character to left    Command/Shift-LeftArrow
        Extend one line down        Command/Shift-DownArrow
        Extend one line up        Command/Shift-UpArrow
(Added in 1.1)
    • Information about your document can be obtained by doing a Command-I (for Information).  This
    will give you a character, word and line count.  The character count and line count are exact, the
    word count is obtained by dividing the character count by 5 (the average word size according to
    my high school typing teacher).  The reason that this is done is that I do not want to waste the users
    time calculating the word count, so I approximate.  The other values are stored as part of the edit
    record, so they are readily available.
    • Command or Shift-Arrow keys now work exactly as described in Inside Macintosh IV (pgs. 3 - 6).
    This is a change from the way they work in 1.0. You now have the ability to choose whether you
    want to use the Command or Shift key to signify selection!! (See Power User features for more information
    about this feature!)
    • Command-Option or Shift-Option-Arrows work exactly as described in Inside    Macintosh IV (pgs. 3 - 6).
        Extend Selection to beginning of line        Command/Shift-Option-LeftArrow
        Extend Selection to end of line            Command/Shift-Option-RightArrow
        Extend Selection to beginning of document    Command/Shift-Option-UpArrow
        Extend Selection to end of document        Command/Shift-Option-DownArrow
    • You can now enter any ASCII character by doing a Command-` or Command-~.  This will bring up a
    dialog with a list of all of the ASCII characters, in order, along with their hexadecimal and decimal values.
    Just select the character you want from the list, and it will be entered into the text at the current
    selection point.  Just in case you don't happen to catch this, the list is displayed in the current font
    and current size, and this may cause some problems (see Known Bugs below).
    • Printing can be cancelled at any time by doing a Command-.  The dialog that is displayed during printing
    informs you of this, but I thought I'd add it in here.

All this comes in a DA that is ONLY 38K large!! and can be had for the small
price of $0.00!   I am not asking  any money for this DA, since I did not intend to sell it when I
first staring writing it.  All that I ask is that you enjoy using ∑Edit, that you pass it on to as many
people as you can, and that if you have a couple of bucks to spare that you might consider sending
them to me.  ∑Edit may not be distributed with a product that is being sold for profit, however if
you wish to do so, please contact me and we can arrange something.

PowerUser Feature Notes
------------------------
    •  All of the  default settings for ∑Edit  are stored in the DA's resource file under type DDAT.
    There is a TMPL resource in the DA as well.  If you copy this TMPL into your copy of ResEdit, you will
    find editing the default resource infinitly easier.
    •  When doing a Find or Find/Replace you can enter some non-typeable keys into the Find/Replace
    dialog by using the CommandKey in conjuction with the key.  In the present version, the following key
    are supported:
        Tab                Command-Tab
        Carriage Return (CR)        Command-Return
        NewLine/LineFeed (LF)        Command-Enter
    • If you wish to search for a particular piece of text very quickly.  Select the text, do a
    Command-E (which enters the selection as the search text), and then do a Command-G
    (Find Again).  The next occurance of the previously selected text, will now be selected.
(Added in 1.1)
    • Some of you may have discovered this, but it really is undocumented.  If you do a Command-Q,
    it will have the    same effect as clicking in the close box (ie. Command-Q = Quit)
    • If you are writing code, for example, and you have finished an indented section, and now wish to
    go back a tab space, you previously had to type return and then hit backspace, you can now do an
    Option-Return to have this done automatically.  You can also temporarily overide autoindenting
    (ie. bring the cursor back to the beginning of the next line) by doing a Shift-Option Return.
    • Another user definable option has been added to the DDAT resource.  You can now set a Boolean
    value that lets ∑Edit know whether you want to start up with an empty document, or with the
    standard file dialog (SFGetFile).
    • Another new option in the DDAT allows you to tell ∑Edit whether you wish to use Command-Arrows
    or Shift-Arrows for selecting text.  This was added to satisfy both  parties in the previous debate.
    There is, however, a  problem.  Mac Plus owners (or those using a Mac Plus keyboard), CAN NOT use the
    Shift-Arrow keys (even if the bit is set), just yet.  I will have this fixed in version 1.2, or in an intermediate version.
    • The other option that was added into the DDAT is a field that allows you to tell ∑Edit what creator
    type you want any files saved by ∑Edit to use.  This way you can have ∑Edit create text files which can
    later be opened with MacWrite, or QUED, etc. just by double clicking.
    • You can now enter replacement text, using Command-W (or Command-w), in addition to being able to
    enter the search text.  This was added as a solution to the existing bug concerning pasting into the Find/Replace
    Dialog.
    • I remembered to include the TMPL in the DA so that you can make these changes!!

Known Bugs or Problems
----------------------
    I must admit that I have not throughly tested this DA in all possible combinations of hardware and
software, but there is no reason why it should not work in just about any setting.  If you do find a situation
where ∑Edit does not work, please let me know so I can correct it.
    Although not a bug, the text WILL NOT WRAP when you reach the right side of the window.  You
must either explicity enter a return (which I did for this document) or have your text go beyond the window.
This is result of the CAPPS' package, not my coding.  But I will see if anything can be done about this for
the next version.
(Fixed in 1.1)
    The About box bug reported in version 1.0 has been fixed and you can now choose About ∑Edit till
the cows come home without your machine doing funny things to you.
    A bug that no one else found, but that did exist, is that if you happend to have document that was
created in a size that ∑Edit's Typestyle DLOG did not recognize, then you would end up in bombville.  I have
corrected this problem by changing any non-standard font size to 9pt during the OpenFile process.  I know
that this is a bad idea, but until I have some time to redo the Typestyle dialog, this is it!
    I have fixed a bug in the printing routines which would cause it to bomb on a Mac ][, but not, for
some interesting reason, on any other type of Mac.  Anyway, the bug has been fixed and (as listed above)
you can do a Command-. to cancel printing.
    The Enter Ascii function is only preliminary and has some known quirks to it.  I am working on
improving it for version 1.2.  Right now I am planning on adding the ability to autoselect by keystroke (i.e.
you hit a key and it becomes selected in the list) and finding a better way of drawing the list (LDEF time).
If you any other suggestions for improvements,  please let me know.
    You can not (for some unknown reason) paste the text on the clipboard into the Find/Replace Dialog.
You can cut/copy/paste within the dialog, but there is no data exchange with the clipboard.  The present
solution to this is to use the Command-E and Command-W functions to set the Find/Replace text.
    There was a bug in the Replace All command that would cause it to go VERY SLOWLY by scrolling
each occurance into view before making the change.  If you tell it that you do not want to verify (clicking
the NO button in the verify dialog), then it will make all of the changes quietly and will leave you at the end
of the document when it has completed its job.
    As noted above in the Power User Features, users with the Mac Plus keyboard (I have one too, so believe
me that I am working on it) can not use Shift-Arrow keys, even if the Shift-Arrow bit is set.

Possible Additions in 1.2
----------------------
    • The next version may allow the user to set the default text settings from within the DA, rather
than having to rely on ResEdit.  This may facilitate the presence of an additional settings file that will be
in your System Folder.  I would like to hear comments on whether have the additional file would be
preferable to using ResEdit to modify the defaults.
(Right now the consensus seems to be that most people don't mind using ResEdit to modify the settings and
they also don't want anything else in their system folder.  Therefore, unless I hear otherwise from users,
this feature may never see the light of day!!)
    • A Tabs to Spaces and a Spaces to Tabs command.
    • Case Conversion (All Upper, All Lower, Capitalize, Change Case)
    • Show Invisibles
    • Turbo Scrolling

Possible Additions by 2.0
-----------------------
    • The ability to have a line automatically wrapped at a certain length.
    • Multiple windows so that you can view and edit more than one file simultaneously.
    • I'm not promising anything, but I might try to read in MacWrite and/or Word files without formatting
    • Open any file as a text file
    • Grep or True Regular Expression search/replace

    • Anything else you think would be useful in a TextEditing DA!!

    I am very open to suggestions and comments on ∑Edit.  If you have comments, questions, problems,
suggestions, flames, or whatever please feel free to contact me using ANY of the above methods.
    I hope that you enjoy ∑Edit as much as I enjoyed writing it and relearning C.

                    Leonard Rosenthol
                    Halevai Software