===========================================                                                   ===========---- Version 2.2 ----=========== THE SHAREWARE TEXT EDITOR MARTIN REDDY, 1998 WHAT IS EDWORD? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ EdWord V2.2 was written by Martin Reddy, 1989-92. It was designed as a programmer's text editor but it also offers many numerous and powerful functions that could be of use to absolutely anyone. It is moulded around an extremely user-friendly and aesthetically pleasing environment in order to make it easier to use for the general novice as well as the hardened professional. EdWord has taken over two and a half years to develop. My initial aims were to design an editor which could be used to create a powerful yet simple aid to a programmer by giving him the power of an integrated editor/compiler environment which could be used for any language (or even as a substitute for a poorer environment). Although, as time wore on, I added so many extra functions and options that it has grown into a formidable general purpose text editor as well. WHAT CAN EDWORD DO? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ EdWord supports all the necessary functions that would be expected of any decent text editor these include :-" · File Operations (including Load,Save,Save As,Delete & Rename) · Block Operations (including Cut,Copy,Insert,Erase,Load,Save & Print) · Search Operations (with options for specifying the direction, case dependency and replace text) · Jump to Line function to go directly to a specified line number · Line operations such as Delete Line, Undelete Line, Delete to EOLn · An Undo function to abort any changes made to a line in case you modify something by mistake WHAT FACILITIES DOES IT OFFER A PROGRAMMER? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ EdWord also supports a number of specialised functions which would be of use to almost every programmer. Some of these are :-" · An auto indenting facility · Casing of language keywords (e.g. keywords are forced into uppercase) · Access to AmigaDOS to allow the user the ability to run any DOS command (This could be used to run a compiler or assembler through the editor) · An ASCII table of all printable character codes with the ability to insert any such character into the current text · A number base converter to convert numbers into and from either binary octal,decimal or hexadecimal · The ability to specify a filename pattern for the file requester so that only certain files are shown e.g. show only ".C" or ".GFA" files SO WHAT'S SO SPECIAL ABOUT EDWORD? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In addition to these operations, EdWord has several other functions which are more unique and would normally only be found on quite highly priced commercial programs. · The ability to modify the protection bits (HSPARWED) on any file or directory · A statistical display of the systems current state including free chip, fast,total memory; the disk label; physical disk size; disk free space; disk protection etc. · A constant display on the status bar of the ASCII value of the current character - useful for working out the ASCII value of non-printable characters. · A preferences module which allows the user to set the screen colours & various other options, and to save these in a configuration file · The ability to define the F-Keys to insert a piece of text at the cursor position · The ability to sort a block alphabetically. Could be used for arranging a list of names, games etc. · A word count and an occurence count facility · Various screen resolutions including PAL and NTSC standards, custom or WorkBench screen and the ability to work in interlace mode. · You may also use any standard Amiga 8x8 font instead of the default Topaz80 if you desire. · A "point-and-click" status line which allows you to access some of the editor facilities directly. · The ability to enter any character into the text from ASCII value 0-255 by depressing the Left-Amiga key and entering the decimal code. · Finally, EdWord will also check RAM for any viruses when it first starts up and warn the user of any suspicious looking programs! SO WHAT DOES EDWORD -NOT- DO? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ EdWord is NOT a word processor - It is a text editor. This means is that it does not format your text in such ways as setting margins, typestyles (bold, italic ...), page numbers or sizes etc. If these are functions that you desire, then this is not the program for you. EdWord does NOT use any special embedded commands for its display - every byte in a file is displayed ( except for the tab character which is expanded into spaces). This means that it can be used to view or edit non-ASCII files as well as plain vanilla texts. EdWord will NOT make any annoying little beeps or try to ruin your eyesight by flashing the screen whenever you press the wrong key - I'm sorry, but you'll have to learn to live without such luxuries !@?*! EdWord will NOT force you to use a particular keymap - It will use the current keymap ( as set by the SetMap command ) This is because most editors have been written in America and they force you to use the American keymap which can be kind of annoying if you've not got an American keyboard! THE "TOTALLY EXCELLENT" BIT, DUDE! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sounds good so far eh? All that for the price of a disk. Wow not bad, matey! However, EdWord is a shareware program. This means that if you use it and enjoy it ( or even if you use and don't enjoy it, I suppose ) then I'd be awfully grateful if you would send me some dosh so that I can afford my next bottle of Irn Bru. It doesn't have to be much - a fiver is all that I ask of you. So that's only a few pints that you have to sacrifice. Sounds a hell of a lot better than slamming out just under £100.00 for a decent commercial text editor if you ask me! "So where do I send this money to?" I hear you crying out in an uncontroll- able fit of enthusiasm. Well, the address is as follows. Even if you don't want to register, you can still write to me to offer suggestions for future versions of the software or to report any bugs in the program (none known at this time) ... ____________________________ | | | F1 SOFTWARE, | | 1 Lower Mill Close, | | Goldthorpe, | | Rotherham, | | South Yorkshire, | | England, | | S63 9BY. | |____________________________|  SO WHY SHOULD I PART WITH MY NICE LITTLE £15.00? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Okay, lets not be naive - why should you bother to send me a fiver when you already have the best text editor under the sun for the price of a disk? Right, here comes the sales pitch ... There are 3 damn good reasons why you should send me some money ( by the way a fiver was merely a suggestion - If you have any surplus thousand pound notes floating around which are getting in your way then I'll gladly take them! - In the words of Frankie Howard ... "Money is a burden, my brother. Let me relieve you of that burden"). Anyway, back to the three reasons ... a) You will make me a very happy chappy and as a result, your life will take on new meaning and depth. b) You will instantly be marked up to go to heaven when you die and spend the rest of eternity with Michelle Pfeiffer as your personal slave at your constant beck and call. c) (Getting a bit more serious now) I will send you the latest copy of EdWord along with an on-line help program which provides full documentation for the program. I will also send you the complete source code listing for the program (written in GFA-BASIC V3.0) so that you can doodle around with it and customise it yourself. I will also send you all the support files for EdWord and one or two other little goodies which I have been working on recently. HEY, WHAT'S ALL THIS ABOUT "LATEST VERSION" OF EDWORD? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The version of EdWord which has been released as Shareware (Version 2.2) is fully operational and has NO silly constraints like you can't save or print things. However, since completing the shareware version, I have dramatically improved EdWord. The whole program is now much more elegant and robust and many new features have been added to it with the prospect of more to come! If you register with me, then the copy of EdWord which I will send you will have all of the latest improvements which I have incorporated. At present, these include ... · The Shareware notice in the About menu has been removed. · Workbench 2.0 gadgets are now used (even on 1.2/1.3 machines) · The Preference window has been split into two new windows (preferences & colours) which offer more powerful facilities over config files (you can now load/save config files and specify where to put them) and you can control which pen colours are used for the windows and which direction the shadows on gadgets and boxes fall. · The Word Count facility is more accurate and approx. 6000% faster !!! · Uppercase/Lowercase word now automatically moves onto next word after the operation has been performed · Added a "Match Brackets" option to the Search menu · Vertical Block more friendly :- Cut/Erase No longer trash display on big blocks and Insert will now insert past the End Of File. · Added a "Show Line Feeds" switch to the preferences window. · Text Casing routines speed up by around 40-50% · The Proportional Slider Gadget now displays the document as it is moved · Added a "Centre Line" option to the Edit menu · Added a "Tabs to Space" option to the Tools menu to convert all tabs in a document into the equivalent space characters. Also added a Tab->Space switch to the preferences window to force spaces to be directly entered whenever a tab key is pressed. · Included the ability to specify device name for the printer (i.e PRT:) · String Gadget operation has been improved and now acts a lot more like the intuition one. · The printing options have been drastically improved - it is now possible to specify left and right margins; the page length; page numbers; manual feed etc. (checks are also made to ensure that the printer is on-line. Well, their you have it - The final decision rests with you, but you would not regret registering for this latest version - it is vastly superior to the shareware release in all respects. A BRIEF HELPING HAND ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Most of the facilities which EdWord offers are fairly intuitive and need little or no explaining (I won't insult your intelligence by telling you how to load and save a file!). However, one or two areas require a little bit explanation so that you can utilise their full potential. ( If you register with me then you will also get the "EdWordHelp" program which explains every aspect of using EdWord in full detail) 1) Text Casing : This facility lets you force certain words into a certain case. This is useful for programmers who, for example, may want all the keywords in a language to be forced into uppercase and all variables to be forced into Capitalised form. This is done be reading in a file (called a "Keyword Definition File" which lists all the keywords of a language). I have supplied on or two of these files with the shareware release (you get more of them if you register - only £5.00, did I say?) Try loading one of these into the Text Casing module ( in the Utilities menu) and put the keyword casing on. Keyword Configuration files can be recognised by the ".KEY" filename extension. The following three such files have been included with the shareware release :- · AmigaDOS.key = List of AmigaDOS keywords (e.g. Dir,List,Copy etc.) · Pascal.key = List of ISO Pascal keywords (e.g. WriteLn,Begin,End ) · C.key = List of C keywords (e.g. If,While,Int,Struct etc.) Try entering ":EdWord/Pascal" as the configuration filename and select the LOAD KEYWORDS gadget. (N.B Delimiters are symbols which inhibit the casing operations within a certain range i.e. comments) 2) User Commands : EdWord will let you define 3 user commands. These are just commands which you could type in at the CLI prompt but EdWord will let you run them without having to quit the editor. The "Delay switch" can be used to force a wait for a keypress after completing the command The "AutoSave" switch can be used to force EdWord to save the current file before executing the command. The actual command string which you enter will be executed exactly as you enter it with three exceptions :- · any occurence of an "*" character will be replaced with the current filename when the command is run. · any occurence of an "@" character will be replaced with the current filename with no file extensions. e.g. If the filename is "hello.c" then the "@" character will be converted to "Hello" · any occurence of a "|" character will be converted into a line feed so that you can specify multiple commands with the one string. e.g. The following Command String will display the name of the current file being edited and perform an AmigaDOS List command to find out the size/date etc. of the file. ECHO "The current filename is *' | List * Using these two facilities you can create custom environments for just about any language. I have used it successfully to make integrated editor/compiler environments for AmigaBASIC, DevPac, Lattice C, North C & DICE with amazing ease, effortlessness and speed. N.B. In order to run User Commands, you must have the AmigaDOS command RUN in your C: directory. Finally, I'll give you a quick list of all the command line options which EdWord recognises :- Usage : EdWord {filename} {-C configfilename} {-NTSC} {-WB} {-REQ} {-NODIR} {-MEM size} {-T title} {-F fontname} {-D} {-GADGET} {-COLS number} {?} Where, -C loads an EdWord configuration file (e.g EdWord.config) -NTSC forces EdWord into an NTSC screen mode on start up. -WB forces EdWord to use the WorkBench screen. -REQ forces a file requester on start up. -NODIR file requester will initially wait for new dir selection. -GADGET makes EdWord use the standard Amiga system gadgets. -COLS set the number of colours for the custom screen (2 or 4) -MEM specifies the memory buffer size in bytes (default = 60000). -T changes the program title (default = EdWord V2.2). -F uses the specified 8 point font (default = topaz 80). -D disables checks for viruses in RAM - best left on ! ? displays this help text and does not enter the editor. LAST CALL / REFLECTIONS / A FINAL THOUGHT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Just before I go, I thought I would share this pearl of logical reasoning with you, which is offered by "The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy" in reference to the question, `What is the population of the Universe?'. "It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this, it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination." Douglas Adams. ____________________________ | | | SHARE AND BE EXCELLENT ! | |____________________________|