Preditor/2

In this release of PREDITOR/2, we've concentrated on emphasizing source code awareness. Take a look at what we've done . . . COLOR HIGHLIGHTING The Colors page in the Settings notebook enables you to move beyond uniform foreground and background text colors with color highlighting of source code expressions and keywords. Built-in support is provided for many languages including C and C++, COBOL, REXX and PASCAL. You can easily modify these languages and even add entire new languages through the Colors page. The Colors page is part of the new Types section of the Settings notebook. Other pages allow you to define compilers and enable language templates. DETACHED WINDOW MODE Beyond the single and multiple document interface modes, you can now detach your windows from the main editor window. In detached mode, you can move your toolbar and windows anywhere on the display. A control panel acts as your main editor window, providing quick access to all open files. The One buffer per window option enables you to specify that each new buffer will have its own window. The next and previous buffer commands then switch between windows, and closing a window closes the associated buffer. These options are enabled in the Window section of the Settings notebook or in the new Quick Settings dialog. C AND C++ SOURCE BROWSING We've improved Hypertext browsing of C and C++ programs with a new CTags Make dialog box and the addition of incremental compilation for the source database. To use this feature, select CTags make... on the Tools menu and specify the source directories and file extensions for your C and C++ source files. Once the database is built, you can select the Tags locate... item on the Tools menu to jump to the file containing the definition of a symbol. See the function local_keys() in the file LOCAL.PEL for sample key assignments for the tags and tags_auto commands. Subsequent invocations of the CTags Make dialog will only compile files that have changed. HEX EDITING For help in editing files containing non-text characters, you can enable hex mode with the Toggle hex mode item on the Window menu. When PREDITOR/2 is in hex mode, the screen contains two columns: the hex characters on the left, and the matching ASCII characters on the right. Now there's no need to use different tools for text and data file editing. Use the [Tab] key to move between the hex side (on the left) and the character side (on the right). Both sides reflect any changes, regardless of where they were made. To leave hex editing mode, press the [Esc] key (in all emulations except VI and EMACS) or select Toggle hex mode again. SMART TEMPLATES AND MATCHING This release of PREDITOR/2 significantly improves the source code awareness of many editor operations. For example, language templates will not expand if they are typed within comments or strings. Also, the goto_matching command (Find matching item on the Edit menu) will ignore matching pairs in comments and strings. The definition of comments and string literals is language-specific and shared with the Colors notebook page. Template expansion is enabled on the Quick Settings dialog or the Template page in the Types section of the Settings notebook. The matching pairs for each language can be single or multiple character strings and are defined on the Extensions page, also in the Types section. LINE DRAWING A new function, linedraw(), lets you diagram source code simply and effectively. This function causes the arrow keys on your keyboard's number pad to be redefined to draw lines in one of four different styles: 1 2 ┌───┬───┐ █▀▀▀█▀▀▀█ │ │ │ █ █ █ ├───┼───┤ █▀▀▀█▀▀▀█ │ │ │ █ █ █ └───┴───┘ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ 3 4 +---+---+ ╔═══╦═══╗ | | | ║ ║ ║ +---+---+ ╠═══╬═══╣ | | | ║ ║ ║ +---+---+ ╚═══╩═══╝ In addition, using the [Ctrl] key with any of these arrow keys draws an arrow in the appropriate direction. QUICK SETTINGS Use the Quick Settings item on the Options menu to change some of the editor's most commonly used settings. A subset of the Settings notebook, your Quick Settings are applied to all buffers, windows, and types, and are made defaults as appropriate. For more detail on a Quick Settings option, open the corresponding section in the Settings notebook. PERFORMANCE AND USABILITY This release contains many performance and usability improvements. Most significantly, startup time is reduced up to 50 percent and scrolling speed is improved - even with the addition of color highlighting. For workgroup support, files can be locked individually or by type (LAN, local or floppy) and optionally copied to virtual memory when opened or modified. The PREDITOR/2 User's Guide and online help have been rewritten and reorganized to allow quicker and more accurate access to needed information. The Settings notebook, while more extensive, has been made easier to use with the addition of OK and Cancel buttons and better organization of options. ADDITIONAL IMPROVEMENTS · Recursive option for file search and replace · Support for DOS compilers and compilers that require input · Formatted source code printing with optional headers and footers · Customizable cursor