---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Uedit.manual V1.2 | | (Copyright (C) 1986 Rick Stiles. All rights reserved.) | | Scientific/Business Systems, P.O. Box 566095, Atlanta, GA 30356-6002 | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- - About Uedit - Uedit is an Extremely Powerful Text Editor! Uedit is an Utility Editor. With Uedit, you can edit up to 20 text files at once! You can be cutting and pasting, typing and deleting, in a dozen places, and Uedit makes it Natural and Easy for you! All 50 buffers have their own colorful hilited and inverted regions, cursor, and other attributes, so that you can be working at separate places in each file or buffer, without getting lost or confused. Uedit has word processing features, such as word-wrap, auto-indent, right-justify, over-strike, auto-backup, and many more. Uedit has far more text-editing power and flexibility for customizing than word processors do. The Menus and the Help-key are all you really need in order to use Uedit. You can even customize Uedit while editing, using only the Menus and Help-key! **** Uedit's Features **** - Edit 20 files at once. - 8 megabytes per file. - Cut/paste/copy with separate hilited/inverted regions in 50 buffers. - Undo accidental deletes. - Forward and backward searching and replacing. - Wildcard and either/or in search-strings. - 3-keystroke sequence swaps function-keys anytime. - Every menu, item, gadget, key, mouse function customizable! - Up to 5 menus, up to 20 items each. - Save or recover configuration anytime. - Program to load files automatically at start-up. - Learn 100 inputs - keys, gadgets, mouse-clicks, menu selections. - Execute DOS commands. - Directory listings. - Does not disable multi-tasking as other products do. - Print hilited region. - Speak hilited region and error messages. - Invisible "gadgets" in message line. - Auto-indent, auto-backup, word-wrap, right-justify, over-strike etc. - Getting Started - Before doing anything else, make a BACKUP COPY of your Uedit disk! In your work volume, you will need: Uedit Uedit.info (the icon) Uedit.help Uedit.dat (or else Uedit.cfg) To start Uedit in the WorkBench, double-click the Uedit icon. To start Uedit in CLI, type "Uedit file1 file2 etc", naming up to 20 files to edit. The Tutorial Press the CTRL-key and click the name below with the left mouse button: Uedit.tutorial Follow the instructions given in the tutorial. This will familiarize you with some of what Uedit can do. Four Keys To Remember HELP key: Loads in "Uedit.help" the first time it is pressed, and makes it go away the second time it is pressed. Amiga-ESC: Will abort any process, except for "dangerous" things like being in the middle of loading or saving a file. ESC key: Terminates Primitive Mode inputs, like when you are typing in a filename or a search-string. keypad-5: Finds the cursor and centers it in the window. Primitive Mode Think of Primitive Mode as the world's dumbest editor. Primitive Mode is used for one-time things like entering filenames, search and replace strings, line numbers, and so on. Here is everything there is to know about Primitive Mode: - The Title-Bar always tells you when you are in Primitive Mode. - Function-keys, menus, and mouse buttons do not work in Primitive Mode. - To delete characters, use BACKSPACE and DEL. - To skip forward or backward, use shift-SPACE or shift-BACKSPACE. - When finished typing, press ESC. Cursor Movement and the Number-Keypad The cursor can be placed anywhere by putting the mouse-cursor on the desired spot and clicking the left mouse-button. The number-keypad also moves the cursor, as well as doing cut/paste/copy, scratch deleting, Undo, and "find cursor". The number-keypad keys are very logically laid out so that you can remember them easily: 7 8 9 4 5 6 1 2 3 0 . - Enter Keys 8 & 2: move the cursor up and down. Keys 4 & 6: move the cursor left and right. Key 5: "find" the cursor and center it in the screen. Keys 7 & 9: delete left and right. Key 0: "undo" scratch-deletes. Keys 1 & 3: set start and end of Hilite region, respectively. Keys "Dot": copy Hilited region. "Minus": cut Hilited region. (In other words, copy, then delete.) "Enter": paste Hilited region at the cursor. Using shft/alt/ctl keys with the keypad affects two things: 1) whether cursor movement and "scratch" deletes are at word, character, line or page level of "power"; and, 2) whether the Hilite or the Invert region is used in cut/paste/copy. The normal keypad operates at "word" level of "power". Shift-keypad operates at "character" level. (Some might prefer having "character" level at normal-keypad and "word" level at shifted keypad. This can be arranged using "Swap keys", as described in a following section.) The Alt-keypad operates at "line" level. And the Ctl-keypad operates at "page" level. The normal-, shft- and alt-keypad all use the Hilite region in cut/paste/copy operations. And keys 1 & 3 set the beginning and end of the Hilite region (at the cursor, wherever it is.) The ctl-keypad lets you do cut/paste/copy on the Invert region. And on the ctl-keypad, keys 1 & 3 set the beginning and ending of the Invert region. On any keypad level, pressing keypad-5 will "find" the cursor. And on any keypad level, keys 2, 4, 5, 6, and 8 are always "safe" - because all they do is move the cursor around. Paging and Scrolling Paging and scrolling (which do not move the cursor) are controlled by the arrow keys. As with the number-keypad keys, the level of "power" is determined by which shift keys you use with them. The first two invisible "gadgets" also scroll forward and backward by page. To try these out, click the left mouse button in the first or second quarter of the message-line just under the Window Title bar. Loading, Saving and Closing Files These can all be done with the Files menu. When typing in a filename, you are in Primitive Mode and must terminate your input by pressing ESC. You can save the file in the window by pressing F2 also. And F3 will close the file in the window. Press the HELP-key to see what the function keys are that you might want to memorize. Or just rely on the Files menu. Files and Favorites To look at the next file of up to 20 being edited at once, you can select "Next file" in the "Files" menu. But function keys are handier for this. F1 will switch to the next file also. If a number of files are being edited, there may be "favorites". To mark files as "favorite", select "Favorite" in the "Settings" menu when that particular file is in the window. To see the "settings" for a particular file, select "Show flags" in the Settings menu. To switch among "favorites", select "Next favorite" in the "Files" menu. Pressing shift-F1 will also switch to the next "favorite" file. To make a file an "unfavorite", select "Favorite" in the Settings menu a second time. Hidden Gadgets There is a handier way to move among files and "favorites", if you enjoy using the mouse. The message-line, just beneath the Title Bar of the window, contains four invisible "gadgets" which are activated by clicking the mouse in them. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | Page Backward | Page Forward | Next Favorite | Next File | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The message line is divided into 4 equal horizontal sections. Clicking in the appropriate quarter of the message line will do one of: Page Backward, Page Forward, Next Favorite, and Next File. Of course, if the "Favorite" setting has not been selected for any file, nothing will happen when "Next Favorite" is clicked with the mouse. Learn Mode and Command Multiplier Uedit can "learn" a sequence of up to 100 keystrokes, mouse clicks and menu selections and execute them on demand. Amazingly powerful things can be done using Learn Mode. Be sure and read the Customer Mailing List Example in the Appendix to this manual. To use Learn Mode, do the following: 1) Press ctl-s. This starts Learn Mode. Press again to abort learning. 2) Type the desired sequence of letters and function keys etc. 3) Press ctl-r to terminate learning. Press as many times as desired to run. Once you've dropped out of Learn Mode by pressing ctl-r, you can press ctl-m, to set command-multiplier, and "multiply" the number of times the next key pressed will be executed. If the learn-buffer becomes full, learn-mode will terminate by itself. It will let you know. You may want to do the "learn" sequence over. Mouse-locations are also "learned" in Learn Mode. If you position the cursor with the mouse during Learn Mode, and if your learn-sequence may involve scrolling the text to another page, then your mouse locations will probably be meaningless on that new page of text. If your "learn" sequence will not involve scrolling the display, go ahead and position the cursor with the mouse during it. But if the "learn" sequence may involve scrolling, do your cursor-positioning with the keypad keys. That way the mouse's location won't be involved. Buffers and Files Uedit has 55 buffers, altogether. The first 20 are used for storing text files that you load into Uedit. These are buffers 0 through 19. Buffers 20 through 49 are used for storing such things as search/replace text, cut and paste text, and so on. Buffers 50 through 54 are used by individual Uedit commands. You do not need to worry about buffer numbers, unless you want to swap buffers around. To see what is in each buffer, select "Show bufs" in the Buffers menu. To edit a particular buffer, select "Edit buf" and type in the buffer number followed by ESC. Saving memory-space: It is good practice to select "Free bufs" in the menu now and then, when the buffers aren't holding anything vital. They will be holding your last copied Hilite or Invert, the last search and replace strings, and so on. Setting Uedit's Colors To set the colors Uedit uses, do this: 1.) Before bringing up Uedit, adjust the WorkBench colors using Preferences. 2.) Start Uedit, load in a text file, and create overlapping Hilite and Invert regions. 3.) Press alt-Help until you see a color combination that looks good to you. 4.) Select "Save config" in the Commands menu. Uedit has 24 color combinations, using the 4 WorkBench colors. Printer Control and Control Characters Escape sequences for printer control can be imbedded directly in the text by pressing CTRL-c and then typing a control character. The ESC key works as a control character the same as CTRL-[. Inputting control characters does not require pressing the CTRL-key. Just typing the letter is all that's required. For example CTRL-c followed by the letter "l" puts in a formfeed. To identify the numerical value of a "spook" character, put the cursor on the box character and press CTRL-/. The Settings menu (or pressing CTRL-v) lets you make "spook" characters visible or invisible in each file or buffer. Creating Hilite and Invert Regions A region can be Hilited using three methods: 1. Keypad-1 sets the beginning of Hilite at the cursor location. Move the cursor and press keypad-3 to set the end of Hilite. 2. Move the mouse to where you want beginning of Hilite to be. Hold down the shift-key, and click the left mouse button. Move the mouse to where you want end of Hilite to be. Hold down the alt-key, and click the left button again. 3. Hold down the shift, alt, and ctl keys. Move the mouse to where you want Hilite to begin. Hold down the left mouse button. Move the mouse to where you want Hilite to end, and release the mouse button. Creating an Invert region is much the same: 1. Ctl-keypad-1 sets the beginning of Invert at the cursor location. Move the cursor lower in the text and press ctl-keypad-3 to set the end of Invert. 2. Press ctrl-shift and click the mouse where you want the beginning of Invert to be. Press ctrl-alt and click the mouse where you want the end of the Invert region to be. Cut, Paste, Copy and Clear The Edits menu has separate cut/paste/copy/clear selections for Hilite and Invert regions. The first set are for the Hilite region. Also there are selections for unhiliting and uninverting colored regions. Cut/paste/copy/clear can also be done with the number-keypad, and in fact it is much less bother than using the Edits menu for these. Keypad-Dot makes a Copy. Keypad-Minus makes a Cut, which is a Copy followed by a Clear. Keypad-Enter does a Paste of what was Copied earlier. Only ctl-keypad works on the Invert region. All the rest work on the Hilite region. Ctl-h Clears the Hilite region. It does not keep a copy of it! Ctl-i Clears the Invert region. Again, no copy is made! Alt-h unhilites the Hilite region. Alt-i uninverts the Invert region. Each file or buffer has its own Hilite and Invert regions! Search and Replace These are listed in the "Buffers" menu. However, it is easier to do them using function keys. F7: Input a search string. F8: Input a replace string. F9: Search Forward. Shift-F9: Search Backward. F10: Replace Forward. Shift-F10: Replace Backward. When "search" finds what it is looking for, it does three things: 1) It puts the cursor at the beginning of the "matched" region. 2) It Inverts the "matched" region, to emphasize it. 3) It scrolls the display so that the cursor location is center-screen. Either/or and Wildcards: Search-strings can have an either/or delimiter and wildcards. The either/or character is the dollar sign "$". The wildcard is the question mark "?". Thus, to search for "Nancy" OR "Albert", your search string would be "Nancy$Albert". To search for "Smith" under various spellings, such as "Smythe", the search string would be "Sm?th". Multiple wildcards "?" are allowed. But only one either/or "$" is allowed. You can change the either/or and wildcard characters to something else by editing Uedit.cfg and causing it to be recompiled. How to do this is described in the section on Customizing Uedit. Note: Search and replace strings can contain carriage returns. Be sure that when you enter a carriage return, you really mean it to be there. Search strings can be up to 63 characters in length. If you use an either/or, then each side of the either/or can be up to 63 characters. Replace strings can be as large as maximum file-size (8 megabytes). Flags and Settings In the Settings menu are flags and settings affecting either the editor as a whole or the file currently in the window. To see the flag settings, select "Show flags" in the menu. Example: When you press HELP, Uedit.help is loaded in with its "readOnly" flag set to True. If you try to type into it, you'll get a message saying that it's a read-only file. If you select "Read-only", the switch will be changed to the "off" position for read-only status. You can verify this by selecting "Show flags" again. The flag "Busies" refers to the "working ..." messages which flicker on and off as you edit. These messages tell which buffer is being examined and possibly packed by Uedit. It is okay to continue typing when a "working ..." message is visible. To get rid of the messages, select "Busies" again. If the "Favorite" flag is turned on, the file in the window can be returned to quickly, jumping over the rest, by selecting "Next fav't" in the Files menu, or by pressing shift-F1, or by clicking the 3rd invisible "gadget". Each file or buffer has its own settings for these flags. When a file is loaded, it receives the default settings which are in the config-file, Uedit.cfg. "Speak msgs" and "Speak alerts" are global flags. They do not apply to files. NOTE: If the AmigaDOS "Say" program is not on your disk, then "speaking" will not work. If you have the "Speak msgs" and/or "Speak alerts" flag(s) set, there will be an annoying pause each time the editor tries to "speak" a message or an alert. In this event, reset the flags by reselecting them again in the menu. End-of-line Character Text files use different end-of-line characters, depending upon where they were originally created. Uedit's config-file is preset with the end-of-line character equal to a linefeed, same as newline. The ASCII value is 10. If you load a file whose end-of-line character is not the same one Uedit is currently using, the file will display ALL ON ONE LINE! There will be strange looking box characters where the invalid end-of-line characters are. In this event, do the following: 1.) Put the cursor on a box character. 2.) Press ctl-/. This will give you the ASCII value of the box character. 3.) Press ctl-e: a) Type in the number from (2) above, followed by ESC. b) Type in the current end-of-line value, usually 10. To change the end-of-line character Uedit uses, press alt-e. Advanced Features You can customize Uedit an amazing amount without reading or knowing a whole lot. The following sections tell you: 1.) how to change Uedit's start-up default settings for right-justify, auto- indent etc; 2.) how to swap and kill keys; 3.) how to make your own menus and items; 4.) how to make Uedit load your files automatically at start-up; 5.) how to create simple commands to auto-insert headers and footers. For advanced users, the following files are on Uedit's disk: Uedit.doc (technical information) Uedit.funcs (functions to use in making commands) Uedit.examples (examples of commands) You do not have to read these files in order to use the features described below, however. Config-File and Dat-File Uedit looks for Uedit.dat, the dat-file, when you start up. If it cannot find Uedit.dat, it automatically loads and reads Uedit.cfg, the config-file. Reading and compiling the config-file takes about twenty seconds. Then Uedit asks if you want to make a new dat-file. If you select Yes, then the next time Uedit comes up it will be able to find Uedit.dat and won't need the config-file. If Uedit finds a mistake in the config-file while compiling it, it will stop and show you where the error is. You will be in Primitive Mode and can fix the error. Pressing ESC restarts the compile of the config-file. Pressing shift-ESC lets you drop out of Uedit without continuing. If you look at Uedit.cfg, the config-file, you will see that every command Uedit uses is defined there. Even the menus and menu items and gadgets and what the mouse buttons do - everything Uedit can do is defined in Uedit.cfg. At the front of Uedit.cfg are default settings which Uedit uses. For instance, there is the word-wrap flag setting. Uedit automatically loads files with word-wrap turned ON, because that is what the config-file says to do. By changing the "<1>" to a "<0>", you can make word-wrap no longer automatic for files you load into the editor. Changing Uedit's Defaults If you want to change the default settings used by Uedit, do the following: 1.) Load Uedit.cfg into the editor. 2.) Change the default settings in the front of Uedit.cfg as desired. 3.) Save and close Uedit.cfg. 4.) Get out of Uedit and return to CLI. 5.) Rename or delete Uedit.dat. 6.) Restart Uedit. Uedit will compile the config-file automatically. If it finds a mistake, it will put you into Primitive Mode so that you can edit out the mistake and make any other changes you want to make. Press ESC to resume compiling the config-file. Press shift-ESC to quit and get out of Uedit, if you want to rename the old dat-file back to Uedit.dat again so that you can use Uedit like before. 7.) When finished compiling, Uedit will let you save Uedit.dat and any changes you may have made to Uedit.cfg. Customizing Uedit Looking at Uedit.cfg, you'll see how easy it would be to make all sorts of simple changes in Uedit, even without reading about Uedit's Advanced Features. For instance, to get rid of a menu item, just delete the appropriate line in Uedit.cfg. Then recompile Uedit.cfg according to the simple instructions given above. To make a new menu item, just type a line that looks similar to the lines you will see in Uedit.cfg. To change a menu item's title or a menu header title is even simpler. The number inside the menu("title....",number,key) function is simply the menu number. The very first entry with a new number is the Menu Title. How could it be simpler? But we'll describe it in more detail later on. Swapping and Killing Keys Use these with care! Swapping and killing keys takes two seconds or less. It would be the easiest thing about Uedit except for two things: 1.) Key commands sometimes "borrow" other key commands. Thus, if the "other" one is swapped or killed, then the one "borrowing" it won't be able to find it anymore and it won't work properly. 2.) ALL menu items execute key commands. If you swap those, the menu item won't be able to find its key to execute. If you mess things up while swapping and killing keys, select "Load config" in the menu to recover the old configuration. If you messed things up and selected "Save config" and overwrote the Uedit.dat on disk, then you will have to recover Uedit's configuration using the Uedit.cfg file or get a copy of Uedit.dat from another disk. If you are going to be swapping a lot of keys around, it's easier to use altCtl-f6 than to select "Swap keys" in the menu. This key can be swapped to a more convenient key, of course, such as the ESC key. Anytime you use a key a lot, it's convenient to swap it to a favored key so that Uedit makes life easy for you like it is supposed to! (For example, in writing this manual, ctl-j, the merge-lines key, was swapped to the ESC key.) When about to swap keys, there are things to be mindful of, as we said: 1.) Key-commands are executed when menu items are selected. If you pull Uedit.cfg into the editor and search on "menu", you'll see that this is so. If a menu-item's key is swapped, then the next time the menu item is selected, it will execute the function of the key it was swapped with. Uedit will WARN you and let you back out, if you try to swap a menu item's key by mistake. Example: You can swap the "Swap keys" function key altCtl-f6 with keypad-kp5 (the unshifted "5" on the number-keypad). Then next time you select "Swap keys" in the menu, instead of letting you swap keys it will "find" the cursor and center it in the window. So you probably won't want to swap keys which are used by menu selections. They can always be swapped back, if you can remember what was swapped with what. Or if you really mess things up, select "Load config" in the menu and revert back to the configuration in the dat-file. 2.) If "Swap keys" or "Kill key" is selected by mistake, either press Amiga-ESC (the Abort key) or type a couple of "safe" keys, such as the letter "a". Do not press the left mouse button, unless you know what you are swapping! (See Uedit.doc for an explanation of this.) 3.) Key-commands may "borrow" the commands of other keys. This sharing allows Uedit's definition to be more compact. Also it makes the config-file less cluttered and confusing. You can see many examples of code sharing by loading Uedit.cfg into the editor and searching on "runKey". In the HELP file, keys which are executed by other keys, and hence shouldn't be swapped, are marked with a (*). You can go ahead and swap them anyway, but you should be aware of what key calls what key, as you are doing it! To swap keys which are borrowed by other keys, you should really swap them by editing Uedit.cfg and recompiling it. Search for every runKey() function which borrows the key being swapped, and change the key inside the runKey() function to the new key you are swapping to. And change the key argument which is in the key's command definition in Uedit.cfg. This is far simpler than it sounds: Suppose the key you are swapping is the search-forward key, normal-f9. This key is used in a menu item, and it is "borrowed" by the replace-forward key also, normal-f10. Suppose you want to swap it with normal-esc, the ESC key. Then in Uedit.cfg, do a simple search and replace operation. Search for "normal-f9" and replace with "normal-esc". That's all there is to it. The search replace will change it in all of the runKey(normal-f9)'s and in the menu("Search fwd",2,normal-f9) function as well. Then recompile Uedit.cfg, to get the new arrangement. Another example of key "sharing": Keypad-Dot is the copy-Hilite key. The menu item "Copy" also uses keypad-Dot. Keypad-Minus, the "Cut" item in the menu, borrows keypad-Dot to "Copy" the Hilite region, before it "Clears" it. That's how keypad-Minus does the "Cut", which is a Cut followed by a Clear. What happens if you "kill" a key which a menu item uses or swap it with a "no function" key so that the menu item's key has no function? The menu item won't work anymore. And if you select "Save config", then the next time you run Uedit you'll get a menu warning message and the menu item will no longer appear! ***** CRASH WARNINGS ***** Menu problems should be fixed immediately! A menu without any items may crash the Amiga, if you try to use the menu! See the following section. There is only one other known way you can crash the Amiga with Uedit. That one is described in Uedit.readme. If there is a severe shortage of memory, or if the memory becomes badly fragmented, like it does during long search and replace operations, then if you do something which would bring up a dialog/alert box or would ask the Amiga to draw one of the menus, then the Amiga may crash due to insufficient RAM for the graphics! The Amiga should check for available RAM and handle this situation gracefully somehow, and no doubt it will be fixed by Amiga in the future. ********** Making Your Own Menus It's very easy to make your own menus. Pull Uedit.cfg into the editor. Search for "menu". You will then be looking at the "startup" command. It has a long list of "menu(...)" functions. Each menu() function is either a menu header or a menu item. Menu functions have three arguments: menu("description",menu-number,function-key) To get rid of a menu item, simply delete the item in Uedit.cfg. You will then need to make Uedit read and compile the modified config-file. This was described earlier. To add new menu items, type them in just like the ones already in the config-file. The function-key must be a valid one which has a command defined for it in the config-file. You can use the Help-file to tell you what each function key does. Rules to follow when making your own menus and items: 1) Menu #s must go in increasing order. (1-2-3..., not 1-3-2 or 1-3-4.) 2) Up to 5 menus are allowed, with up to 20 items each. 3) The first item in each NEW menu# is used as the MENU HEADER. Its key- argument is not used. But it must be a valid key-name, just the same. (See Appendix B for Valid Key Arguments.) 4) Items following the header, having the same menu # as the header, are items which will appear in that menu. 5) Each key-argument used in a menu item must have a command defined for it in Uedit.cfg. Otherwise, Uedit will reject the item when it creates the menus. 6) Each menu header that you define must have at least one valid item under it! (See the Crash Warnings above.) Once you've written your menu definitions and saved the new version of Uedit.cfg to disk, exit from Uedit and do the following: - Delete or rename the old Uedit.dat file. - Start Uedit again and let it compile the new config file. WARNING: If a Menu Error Message pops up when the new menus are loaded, you should fix the problem immediately! Do not select from that menu until you have fixed the config-file and caused it to be recompiled using the procedure described above. In order to be able to edit the config-file and fix the menu problem, you can rename the old dat-file back to Uedit.dat temporarily. Menu Error Messages only occur if there is: - a gap in the menu numbers. (For example, 1-3-4 instead of 1-2-3-4.) - menu items whose commands do not exist, so Uedit must reject those items. There are 3 reasons a menu item's command might not exist: 1. It was not defined in Uedit.cfg to begin with. 2. It was "killed" using "Kill key". 3. It was "swapped" with a no-function key using "Swap key". It may seem like customizing Uedit's menus is tricky and difficult. But it is such a logical, simple thing that you should be able to do it right the first time, simply by looking at how it is done in Uedit.cfg! Creating Commands Here are a couple of very simple examples of making your own new commands for Uedit. Example 1 is: How to make Uedit auto-load your files upon start-up. Example 2 is: How to deal with end-of-line characters. Example 3 is: How to auto-insert headers and footers at the press of a key. Most users don't write big commands for Uedit. There is no need to, when Uedit has so many features already provided for you. Another reason why you shouldn't need to write new commands for Uedit is the power available with Learn Mode. See the example in Appendix A. If you want to get serious about creating new, powerful commands and features, you can ctrl-click-load these files for Advanced Users: Uedit.doc Uedit.funcs Uedit.examples Now, on to the Command Examples: Example 1: Auto-Loading Files Suppose you would like for Uedit to load your files automatically when it comes up. Do this: 1) Select "Make Command" in the menu. Type in a command like the one shown below, using up to 20 file names: Be sure to include the left and right angle-brackets to enclose the command. These show Uedit where it begins and ends. 2) Now, select "Compile" in the menu, or press F6. If you get an error, the cursor will be sitting just past the error point, so you can edit in the correction. Then press F6 again. 3) Once it's compiled, select "Save config" in the menu. That's it! You can press shftAltCtl-z anytime and make them load automatically. And Uedit will load them at start-up automatically. If you don't want the files loaded next time: 1.) Select "Kill Key" in the menu. 2.) Very carefully!, press shftAltCtl-z. 3.) Select "Save config" in the menu. If you kill a key by mistake, select "Load config" to recover the original Uedit configuration. Example 2: Carriage Returns and Line Feeds To change the end-of-line character, use ctl-e and alt-e. But for certain printers, you might need to have both a carriage return and a line feed after each line. If so, the following command is assigned to the carriage return key and inserts both a carriage return and a line feed: Example 3: Auto-Insertion of Headers and Footers You can also do these with Learn Mode. Just press ctl-s, insert the header or footer one time to show Uedit how, and then pressing ctl-r will repeat it anytime and in any document you are editing. (See Learn Mode.) This being the case, there are only two reasons for writing commands such as these. The first is if you need more than one of them available at a time. Learn Mode can only remember one learned sequence at a time. The second reason is if you need to save the commands to be make them available permanently. If documents frequently need a certain heading or a certain ending, it can be inserted automatically by pressing a key: First, edit and save to disk the files which have your standard header or footer or whatever text you wish to insert automatically. Pick one or more of these examples to use. In the examples, "sFile" means start-of-file, "eFile" means end-of-file, "atCursor" means what it says. These tell the function where to insert your header or footer or whatever. "curFile" means insert it into the current file in Uedit's window: 1.) This one loads your header file and inserts it at the Start of your text file: Press F6 to compile it, just as in the above example. Select "Save config", if you want it to be available the next time you use Uedit. 2.) This one loads your footer text and inserts it at the End of your text file: 3.) This one loads your "middle" text and inserts it at the cursor, wherever it may be: 4.) There's another way to do these. If the header is just a few lines long, you can store it inside the command itself: If you use "eFile" instead of "sFile", it could insert a letter ending at the end of your document. And if "atCursor" is used, it could insert a piece of text at the cursor location, wherever it is. Compile these examples as described previously. To make Uedit be able to use them next time, select "Save config" in the menu. You could also type these examples into Uedit.cfg and make menu selections for them very easily. Then follow the simple 2-step procedure for bringing up the customized config-file as described earlier. If you plan to write simple commands like these, you should look at Appendix B which describes Valid Key Arguments. That way you'll know how to attach them to any key on the Amiga's keyboard. But you'll get the gist of what valid key arguments look like, if you just take a look at Uedit.cfg, which defines all of Uedit's commands. APPENDIX A. A Learn Mode Example Automatic Insertion of Customer Names from a Mailing List Suppose that you have a form letter you wish to send to each customer on a mailing list. You need to merge the names into the form letter one by one and print the form letter. This example actually arose when an Amiga dealer asked if Uedit could do something like this. For Uedit, it's a piece of cake! If this example looks complicated, you would not think so at all, if you were doing it yourself, familiar with Uedit's keys and menus. The Learn Mode simply "learns" what you do. Show Uedit how to do a process just one time, and it can repeat it over and over. Learn Mode is ideal for this example. Getting ready: 1.) Load the customer list and form letter into Uedit. If other files are also in Uedit, make the customer list and form letter "favorite" files. 2.) Hilite the entire form letter. Make sure that it is the right length for the printer's paper or press ctl-c and then ctl-l to put in a formfeed character at the top or bottom of the form letter. 3.) Put the cursor where the customer's name goes into the form letter. Type the word "Dear ,", including the space and the comma. Put the cursor right on top of the comma! 4.) Select "Next file" or "Next fav't" to switch to the customer list file. The cursor should be sitting at the start of the customer list. If there are blank lines at the top of the list, put the cursor at the beginning of the line which has the first customer name. Suppose the customer list looks like this: John Doe cust#### address1 address2 blank line Mary Smith cust### etc. And you want to put "Dear John,", "Dear Mary,", etc into the form letters. The cursor starts out at the beginning of the John Doe line. Now the Learn Mode sequence: 1.) Press ctl-s to start Learn Mode. (Press ctl-s again to abort, if you need to start over.) 2.) Press normal-kp6, the 6 on the number-keypad. This moves the cursor to the right of the word "John". 3.) Press normal-kp7, which deletes the word "John". 4.) Press normal-kp0, the 0 on the keypad, which is the Undo key. This step isn't necessary, if you don't care whether "John" is put back or not. 5.) Select "Next file" or "Next fav't" in the menu to switch to form letter. 6.) Press normal-kp0, the Undo key, putting "John" into the letter. 7.) Press ctl-p, which sends the hilite region to the printer. 8.) Press normal-kp7, deleting the word "John" from the form letter. 9.) Select "Next file" or "Next fav't" to switch to the customer list. 10.) Press normal-kp2 FOUR times, which moves the cursor down to the line of the next customer name. End of Learn Mode sequence: 1.) Press ctl-r to stop learning. Press again to run, if you wish. 2.) Press ctl-m to set the command multiplier for the number of customers on the list. Then press ctl-r and watch them print. To abort anytime, press Amiga-esc. To restart, it's not necessary to do the learn sequence over, unless you made a mistake in it. Obviously, if you want to "cut and paste" the entire name and address blocks, it is even easier than this example. ctl-d will delete the lines and Undo will drop them into the letter. APPENDIX B. Valid Key Arguments Every key on the keyboard can be used for function keys, except the Amiga keys. They were left out only because it seemed like about 800 possible key combinations were plenty. Even the letter "a" and the space-bar can be used as function keys. Also included here are the invisible gadgets in the message line. Thus, you can have approximately 800 commands defined for Uedit all at the same time. Key prefixes (or modifiers) are: normal- shft- alt- ctl- shftAlt- shftCtl- altCtl- and shftAltCtl- Only the "startup:" command does not use a prefix. Every other key requires a prefix. The prefix is followed by any printable key, such as "z" or ".", or by any non-printable key such as a function key. (Use only lower case printable keys. See examples below.) The non-printable keys are: esc tab f1 f2 f3 f4 f5 f6 f7 f8 f9 f10 del bs (for backspace) help return space upArrow downArrow leftArrow rightArrow kpMinus kpEnter kpDot ("kp" is for "keypad") kp1 kp2 kp3 kp4 kp5 kp6 kp7 kp8 kp9 kp0 buttonDown buttonUp (Left mouse-button.) gadget1 gadget2 gadget3 gadget4 (The hidden gadgets are in the line just below the Title Bar.) Examples of key arguments are: shftAlt-f1: altCtl-upArrow: ctl-/: alt-kpDot: ("kp" refers to keypad) normal-buttonDown: (Left mouse-button. Right button is for menus.) ctl-gadget3: (Each "gadget" is 1/4 of the message line.) shft-7: (The "7" is not the one on the keypad. That one would be "kp7".) startup: ("startup:" isn't allowed a prefix.) altCtl-esc: shftAlt-help: normal-del: normal-z: (Who'd want to use a printable key like "z" for a function key?) Examples of Incorrect key arguments are: normal-$: (correctly, it would be shft-4:) normal-P: (correctly, it would be shft-p:) ALT-ESC: (correctly, it would be alt-esc:) shft-startup: ("startup" can't have a prefix) Amiga-f4 (the Amiga keys aren't used as prefixes)