Loadstar 206/206.d81/t.mredstar

Text File | 2001-01-01 | 9.4 KB | 362 lines

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         M R .   E D S T A R

           by Dave Moorman


    Edstar has always been a sweet
little text editor. No Microsoft WORD,
but exactly what you need if you are
writing for a C-64 screen. I use it
constantly for LOADSTAR, so I also
developed a list of things I wished
Edstar could do:

 Load and Save MS-DOS TXT files;
 Line Center, Left, Right;
 A u t o   D o u b l e - s p a c e;
 Auto Glue entire paragraph;
 Print 65 column hard copies.

    Secondly, I wanted a mouse-driven
program with all the comands available
as general hotkeys, menu hotkeys, menu
cursor, and (of course) menu mouse.
That way, you can learn the easiest
keystroke, yet have every function
available on menu as well.

    Lastly, I wanted the keystroke
commands to duplicate those of earlier
Edstars. I have become quite used to
<CTRL-I> and <CTRL-F><CTRL-G>. But I
figured we could have some easier ones
as well (<CTRL-F><CTRL-G> can now be
accomplished with <C=-G>.)

    I have followed the lead of the
Make-Shift Dopular Operating Systems
and put the semi-obligatory Menu Bar
across the top of the screen. Click it
with the Mouse, or press the
highlighted key combination to pull
down the menu:

  Green Highlight  -- <C=-key>
  Yellow Highlignt -- <CTRL-key>
  Reversed Char    -- <key>

 On the menu, the highlighted letter
within the command word is the Menu
Hotkey, good only when the menu is
open. The letter to the right of the
command is the General Hotkey, which
lets you avoid opening Menus all the
time. As you learn the General
Hotkeys, you won't need the menus as
much.

    The <INST/DEL> key works as you
might expect -- unshifted to Delete
and shifted to Insert spaces.
Characters pushed off the right edge
of the screen are lost.


 [EDSTAR PROTOCOL]
 [---------------]

    Mr. Edstar has a freely roaming
cursor, but is still a line-based text
editor. That means the text line under
the cursor is all Mr. Ed is working
on. When saved as a T. file, each line
has its own carriage return.

    And as per Imperial Command of Lee
Novak, Mr. Edstar saves T. files with
a Zero Byte at the end. This makes the
files perfect for Racking with Mr.
Mouse!

    For printing hard copies in 65
columns and saving TXT files, Mr.
Edstar removes the carriage returns
except at the end of a paragraph. The
end of a paragraph is defined as when
the [next] line is blank or has a
space in the first column.

    When preparing a TXT document for
Mr. Edstar, be sure that no line
without spaces is longer than 38
characters. If Mr. Edstar freezes
while loading a TXT file, this is most
likely the problem.

    Also, the first two bytes of the
TXT file will be lost during the load.
If the TXT document has a blank line
at the top, the two- byte carriage
return will provide these bytes. When
saved, two spurious bytes will be
added to the beginning of the TXT
document.


 [THE MENUS AND COMMANDS]
 [----------------------]

 [File] <C=-F>

    [New] <C=-F><N> or <C=-N>
        Clears the text.

    [Load] <C=-F><L> or <CTRL-L>
        Loads a file. If the filename
        begins with "T.", then it is
        presumed to be a C= 38 column
        PETASCII file. If the filename
        has a ".TXT" extension, it is
        presumed to be a MS-DOS ASCII
        file. If neither are present,
        you will be asked to choose:

           1. C= T.file
           2. PC file.TXT
           3. Cancel

    [Save] <C=-F><S> or <CTRL-S>
        Saves file with same presump-
        tions as LOAD. If the text is
        new, type in the filename.

    [Save As] <C=-F><A> or <CTRL-A>
        Lets you type in a new name
        for your file.

    [Disk/Dir] <C=-F><D> or <C=-D>
        Opens a menu to allow Disk
        Access.

        [1. On Device #] Shows current
            Drive number. Select to
            choose a different drive.

        [2. Send Disk Command] Select
            to do just that.

        [3. Directory] Lets you look.

        [4. Memory Check] Select to
            see how much space you
            have left.

        [5. Cancel Disk/Dir] just lets
            you out of the menu -- as
            does clicking anywhere
            else.

    [Print] <C=-F><P> or <CTRL-P>
        Choose between 1 - 65 col.
        column or 2 - 38 col. columns.

    [Exit] <C=-F><X> or <CTRL-X>
        Quit Mr. Edstar and return to
        LOADSTAR (if disk is in
        drive).

 [Edit] <CTRL-E>

    [Insert] <CTRL-E><I> or <CTRL-I>
        Insert a line at cursor,
        pushing other lines down.

    [Delete] <CTRL-E><D> or <CTRL-D>
        Deletes cursor line, pulling
        other lines up.

    [Indent] <CTRL-E><N> or <STOP>
        Moves Cursor over 4 spaces.
        No word wrap.

    [Indent Number] <CTRL-E><N><#> or
                    <C=-number key>
        A character [must] be in the
        first column. Pushes line up
        to 8 spaces in, and performs
        word wrap.

 [Function] <CTRL-F>

    [Split] <CTRL-F><CTRL-S> or <C=-S>
        Splits line at space under or
        right of cursor. Cursor to
        next line.

    [Kut] <CTRL-F><CTRL-K> or <C=-K>
        Character under cursor and all
        that follows goes to next
        line. Cursor stays on current
        line.

    [Break] <CTRL-F><CTRL-B> or
            <Shift-RETURN>
        Splits line at space under or
        left of cursor. Cursor stays
        on current line.

    [Glue] <CTRL-F><CTRL-G> or <C=-G>
        Connects next line to current
        line with single word wrap if
        needed. Glue always puts a
        space between the end of the
        current line and the beginning
        of the glued line.

    [Unite] <CTRL-F><CTRL-U> or <C=-U>
        Glues from current line to end
        of paragraph.

 [Format] <CTRL-O>

    [Align Center] <CTRL-O><C> or
                   <C=-E>
        Centers current line.

    [Align Left] <CTRL-O><L> or <C=-L>
        Moves current line to left
        edge.

    [Align Right] <CTRL-O><R> or
                  <C=-R>
        Moves current line to right
        edge.

    [Up/low Case] <CTRL-O><U> or
                  <CTRL-U>
        Toggles current line between
        all Lower Case and all Upper
        Case. That is, to get all
        Upper Case, press <C=-U>
        <C=-U>.

    [Wide] <CTRL-O><W> or <C=-W>
        Current line must begin at
        left edge and be no longer
        than 19 characters. Letters
        are [S P A C E D] like this.

    [Left Cursor] <CTRL-O><L> or <F1>

    [Right Cursor] <CTRL-O><R> or <F7>

    [Top Cursor] <CTRL-O><T> or <F2>

    [Bottom Curs] <CTRL-O><B> or <F8>

 [Info] <C=-I>
    Presents Memory available (Mr.
    Edstar begins with 19199 bytes for
    text.), the number of disk blocks
    used, and the line number the
    cursor is on.


 [Techno-Notes]
 [------------]

    Inside, where you would never know
it, Mr. Edstar works exclusively with
Screen Code for the Characters. This
enables much faster response times and
eliminates the whole Double-Quote Mode
problem.

    The other advantage of using
Screen Code is that a byte with bit 7
set could then be the End of Line
marker. The other 7 bits of the marker
hold the length of the previous line.

    Memory is arranged with two Stacks
-- one for everything above the cursor
line and one for everything below the
cursor line. The line under the cursor
is held in a Buffer, where all typing
and manipulation occurs.

    The Front Stack Pointer points to
the last End of Line marker. When a
line is added to the Front Stack, the
Pointer is incremented and the data is
transfered from front to back. When a
line in the Front Stack is moved to
the Buffer, the line length (in the
End of Line marker) is subtracted from
the Front Pointer. Then the data is
moved to the Buffer from front to
back.

    All functions (except those in the
File Menu) are controled by the
General Hotkeys in ML. When the Mouse
is clicked (or one of the Menu Keys is
pressed), control returns to Basic.
Mr. Mouse and Basic then can handle
all the menus and dialog boxes.
Loading, Saving, and Printing are all
handled by Basic code, with a little
help from Mr. Mouse and some custom
ML. For the rest of the functions, the
General Hotkey is POKEd into the
dynamic keyboard, and control returns
to the main ML loop.

    One particularly frustrating
puzzle was converting from TXT format
to Screen Code, and vice versa. Bill
Gates early experience with teletype
time-share computing is evident with
MS-DOS text files. Paragraphs end with
[both] a CHR$(13) and a CHR$(10). My
problem was what to do with that
danged extra character, without having
to move a bunch of data. Putting a
Space in place of the CHR$(10) seemed
reasonable, but this added an indent
to the next line.

    Almost by accident, I figured it
out. I put the space where the
CHR$(13) was, and the End of Line
marker on the CHR$(10). This way, the
extra space was absorbed at the end of
the line -- soon to disappear all
together when the line went through
the Buffer.

    For going from Screen Code to TXT
format, I move each line through the
Buffer and add CHR$(13)CHR$(10) as
needed (by the rules of Edstar
Protocol). This takes a bit longer,
but -- really! How often are you going
to be saving TXT files from Mr.
Edstar?

    During beta testing, I have found
an occasional glitch that mucks up the
characters on the screen. Should this
happen, press <CTRL-A> and save your
work to a safe filename. Reset your
computer, reboot, reload -- and all
should be well.

    As always, I am happy to hear your
comments. Any recalcitrant bugs will
be fixed as we go to further versions.

 DMM