3. COMMANDS The following sections describe each of EDIT's commands in detail. These sections are organized as tables of related commands. The command key is given at the left of the table. On the right is the name of the command, followed by a description of the action performed by that command. Where a command requires the user to type a key to select from a variety of subcommands, the subcommands are indented, and the description of each subcommand is preceeded by the letter the user must type for that subcommand. 3.1. Basic Text Insertion and Deletion Command Key Command Description Ins Toggle Insert/Replace mode. If the current mode is Insert mode, this command switches EDIT to Replace mode, and vice versa. text character Insert character (Insert mode). All characters to the right of the cursor are moved to the right, and the character is inserted at the cursor position. Replace character (Replace mode). The character typed replaces the character at the current cursor location. Shift-Ins Insert special character. The following single keystroke is inserted into the buffer, even if it would normally be interpreted as a command. This is useful for inserting characters like Esc into a file, which many printers require in order to specify printer options, like line spacing. Enter Insert line. A carriage return is inserted at the cursor position, and the current line is broken into two pieces. The rest of the line to the right of the cursor is moved to the next line down, and the rest of the lines below the cursor are moved one position down to make room for this line. The new line is indented according to the following rule. In Word-Processing mode, the line is indented at the left margin setting plus the indentation specified (which may be a positive or negative number). The margins may be set via the Set command, explained below. Otherwise, the new line is indented at the same level as the preceeding line. This is particularly useful for editing text that has a hierarchical structure, like programs or outlines. Note that the carriage return inserted by Enter indicates the end of a paragraph. There are a variety of commands that operate on paragraphs, including both cursor movements, and re-adjusting lines so that they fit nicely between the left and right margins. Also note that the Enter key is sometimes called "Return". Tab Insert Tab. A tab character is inserted, the cursor is moved right to the next tab stop, and a temporary left margin is set at that tab stop. The temporary left margin is used to re-adjust the lines in a paragraph in Word-Processing mode when they are modified so that they extend beyond the right margin or do not reach to the right margin. Word-Processing mode is explained in greater detail below, under the "Set Word processing mode" command. Tabs may be set via the Set command, explained below. The default tab stops are in columns 0, 4, 8, ... Note that the Tab key is near the left side of the keyboard, just left of the "Q" key. Shift-Tab Insert spaces to tab stop. Insert spaces to next tab stop. Note that this allows tabbing without resetting the temporary left margin. Ctrl-L Insert form feed (new page). A form feed character is inserted. This character is displayed as a small circle with a plus sign underneath. When this character is printed, it causes the printer to skip to the next page before printing any subsequent pages. Del Delete right. Delete the character at the cursor. When the cursor is at the right end of a line, this character is the carriage return that separates the current line from the following line. Backspace Delete left. Delete the character to the left of the cursor. When the cursor is in column 0, the character left of the cursor is the carriage return that separates the current line from the previous line. Shift-Del Delete line. Delete the entire line containing the cursor, leaving the cursor at the same position in the following line. pad-minus Delete word left. Delete the word to the left of the cursor, including any intervening spaces, tabs, and line breaks. Note that a word is defined as a contigious sequence of letters and digits, or any other single non-blank character. Note that pad-minus refers to the darker colored "minus" ("-") key in the numeric pad area on the right side of the keyboard, just right of the key labeled PgUp. It should not be confused with the normal minus key, which is in the lighter colored central region of the keyboard. Similarly, pad-plus refers to the large, darker colored, large "plus" ("+") key in the numeric pad area. pad-plus Delete word right. Delete the word at the cursor, including any trailing spaces, tabs, and line breaks. Shift-pad-minus Delete to beginning of line. Delete all the characters between the cursor position and the beginning of the current line. Shift-pad-plus Delete to end of line. Delete all the characters between the cursor position and the end of the current line. 3.2. Basic Cursor Movements Command Key Command Description Left Move left. Move the cursor one character to the left. When the cursor is at the beginning of a line, it moves to the end of the previous line. Note that the Left key is located at the right side of the keyboard in the numeric pad and cursor-control key area (as are the keys Right, Up, and Down). If a number is inserted when the user presses one of the cursor control keys, he should press Num Lock once, to switch to the cursor control meaning of these keys. Right Move right. Move the cursor one character to the right. Up Move up. Move the cursor one line up, scrolling the screen as needed to keep the cursor on the screen. Down Move down. Move the cursor one line down, scrolling the screen as needed to keep the cursor on the screen. Home Move to beginning of line. Move the cursor to the column 0 in the current line. End Move to end of line. Move the cursor to the right end of the current line (just past the last character in the line). PgUp Move page up. Move the cursor 23 lines up, redisplaying the screen with the cursor in the same position on the screen as it was before giving this command. PgDn Move page down. Move the cursor 23 lines down, redisplaying the screen with the cursor in the same position on the screen as it was before giving this command. Shift-Left Move word left. Move the cursor one "word" to the left. Note that a word is defined as a contigious sequence of letters and digits, or any other single non-blank character. Shift-Right Move word right. Move the cursor one "word" to the right. Shift-Up Move structure up. Move the cursor back one "structure". In general, this moves the cursor to the beginning of the previous line that is indented at the same level as the current line or the first line indented less than the current line. If the cursor is to the left of the first non-blank character in the line, then this command moves the cursor to the previous line that is indented at the same level as the current cursor position. Note that this command and the Move structure down command are useful for moving around structured text like source code written in a programming language like Pascal or "C", provided that the user is careful to use indentation to indicate the levels of structure in his program. Shift-Down Move structure down. Move the cursor forward one "structure". The meaning of "structure" is defined above, under the Shift-Up command. Shift-Home Move sentence left. Move the cursor one "sentence" to the left. The beginning a sentence is defined to be the first non-blank character following a period ("."). Shift-End Move sentence right. Move the cursor one "sentence" to the right. Shift-PgUp Move paragraph up. Move the cursor one "paragraph" up. The beginning of a paragraph is defined as the first non-blank character following a carriage return inserted by the user via the Enter key. Shift-PgDn Move paragraph down. Move the cursor one "paragraph" down. 3.3. Setting Display, Editing, and Formatting Options Command Key Command Description F3 Set. The Set command allows the user to change various settings that affect the operation of EDIT, such as tabs, margins, page size, and such. There are two groups of settings, settings that effect the file being edited (like changing tab stops), and settings that effect the editing environment (like changing the color of the screen). At the beginning of the Set command, EDIT displays the current values of each of these settings. The user selects which option to set by typing the first letter of the desired option (for example, "t" or "T" for setting tabs). EDIT then prompts the user to enter new values for the selected item as follows: Settings that affect the File being edited: W. Set Word processing mode. EDIT's word processing mode determines what happens when a line is modified so that it does not fit neatly between the left and right margins. The Word-Processing mode also determines how a new line will be indented when the user types Enter to insert a carriage return into the text, as explained in section 3.1, above. In response to the prompt for this command, the user should type a single character, as follows: N. No. In this mode, EDIT completely ignores the margins, and allows lines to extend arbitrarily long. However, this mode is useful for editing things like the source text for programs. Y. Yes. Whenever a line is edited (either extending or decreasing its length), that line and any following lines in the current paragraph are adjusted so that each line is as long as possible without extending past the right margin. T. Set Tab stops. The user is prompted to enter a list of tab stops. EDIT will automatically continue tab stops past the last one entered in the list, every n'th column, where "n" is the number of columns the last specified stops is past the previous stop (if any). For example, the following list of specified tab stops 10, 14, 24, 28 will effectively set tab stops in columns 10, 14, 24, 28, 32, 36, ... Giving a single tab stop value of "n" will simply set tab stops every "n" columns, starting with column "n". The maximum number of tab stops that may be set is 16. It is recommended that a tab stop be placed at the left margin column when EDIT is being used in word processing mode. M. Set Margins. The margin setting consists of three values, the left margin, indent value, and right margin. The user may enter enter new values for the margins by typing the values separated by commas, followed by return. The indent value specifies the indentation level for the first line of a paragraph. It may be negative (as it is in this paragraph). The margin values are given in columns. For example, a left margin of 10 means that the left margin is at the 10th character position on a line. The user may omit any of the three values of the margin setting to use the current value for that setting, while changing the other values. For example, if the current margin settings are 8, 0, 77 (left margin = 8, indentation = 0, right margin = 77), then entering 12 will change only the left margin to 12, leaving the other values unchanged. Entering ,4 will leave the left and right margins unchanged but change the indentation to 4. P. Set Page options. The page options consist of four values - the number of lines per page, and three values that control when EDIT will automatically skip to a new page near the bottom of a page, based on encountering the end of a paragraph, 1 blank line, or two blank lines. (These latter three values allow some control over "orphans", single lines from a paragraph or section occuring at the bottom of a page.) The user enters new values for the page options by typing the values separated by commas, followed by Enter, as in the Margin command. The meaning of the values in the pagination control is as follows: - lines: the maximum number of lines that will be printed on a page. - new page (para): the distance from the end of a page that will cause a new page to be automatically generated if the end of a paragraph is encountered. - new page (1 line): the distance from the end of a page that will cause a new page to be automatically generated if a single blank line is encountered. - new page (2 lines): the distance from the end of a page that will cause a new page to be automatically generated if two blank lines are encountered. H. Set Header. This option allows the user to specify a line of text to be printed at the top each printed page. It also him to specify the first page on which the header is to be printed. It also allows the user to optionally specify the position that the page a[BBecËg>buu>et1c\u$Q "މgG ΉO?Y wF;7uwwOËw F;7uww GÉOO GÉ&4PSQR?'>t(tO>PSQRsrkZY[Xˠrnd<ts<rll@PSQRVWPSQRVW&4PSQRVWtF>rt6 Cc urSQWVٴ ^_Y[C:rK8 sC:s83ۊ C()C$ €t̀ ط.. c utÀt:33t8 ŰF%) %SQw< u% %Y[uÊ 000u P%X%qR t$K s8[PZjPSQRVW>s3 ut |_^ZY[Xó?u >up81>t(t PSCߋwr[SQ%[*ˊ [X<:r0u< uQWV ´^_YPSQRVWbPSQRVWT&4PSQRVW' Ts&t u;s-s(Pu ss(t t:6 u0,u>rtKPt(u uȋ LM&trrs:tģ&t t u2uˉ&4PQRVW uF t@8tr:s5>3ts)ʊ>sQYt2_^ZYXSP u2:tt)&rPt(utt&rs X[a&4PQRVSw t<l t dĴȴ+! u [*S[^ZYXE&4PQRV SR*![--ldrdŊ&4PQRVSw thrjw2Ҵ-!w&4PQRVSR,!2rƀvuπ>MtϻkZ_WR;& rJS3P&otUûet Header command. S. Set Spacing. This option allows the user to specify whether the document should be printed with single spacing, or double spacing. In response to this prompt, the user should select one of the two options by typing a single character as follow: S. Single spacing. D. Double spacing. J. Set Justify. This option allows the user to specify whether EDIT should print the text with lines within paragraph right justified or not. Edit performs right justification by expanding the spaces following the last tab character or first non-blank character in a line. In response to this prompt, the user should type a single character to select whether or not EDIT should perform right justification, as follows: Y. Yes. EDIT should right justify lines within paragraphs. N. No. EDIT should print each line exactly as it appears on the screen. Settings that only affect the editing environment: I. Set Insert/Replace mode. This option allows the user to select whether EDIT should be in Insert mode or Replace mode. These two modes are explained above, under the Toggle Insert/Replace mode command in section 3.1. In response to the prompt for this option, the user should select the mode by typing a single character, as follows: I. Insert mode. R. Replace mode. C. Set Color. This option allows the user to specify the display color (or attribute on monochrome displays) for different sections of the CRT screen. It also allows the user to specify color for boldface or underlined text. The default colors (attributes) are different for systems using the IBM monochrome adaptor (or compatible), and the color/graphics adaptor. The user may want to experiment to determine what actual colors are displayed for different color values on a particular color monitor. In response to the prompt for the Set Color option, the user may enter up to six values separated by commas. Any of the three values may be optionally omitted. Each value determines the color EDIT uses for a different regions of the screen, or different kinds of text, as follows: - Normal text display. This is the color EDIT uses for normal text displayed on the top 23 lines of the screen. - Prompt area. This is the color EDIT uses for the bottom two lines on the screen contain EDIT's prompt and message lines. - Marker. This is the color EDIT uses to mark the character at the cursor position in the text display area when the screen cursor is moved down to the prompt area for the user to enter a character or line of text in response to a command prompt. - Bold text display. This is the color or attribute EDIT uses to display text which will be "boldface" when printed. - Underlined text display. This is the color or attribute EDIT uses to display text which will be underlined when printed. - Bold-Underlined text display. This is the color or attribute EDIT uses to display text which will be printed both "boldface" and underlined. D. Set Default repetition count. This option allows the user to specify the default value that will be used when the Esc key is pressed to repeat an EDIT command. EDIT commands that may be repeated include the cursor movement commands, the Find and Reverse Find commands, the Replace and Conditional Replace commands, and the Get command. Shift-F3 Get Settings from file. This command allows the user to retrieve setting values from a file. Note that setting values may be saved in a file via the Save Settings option of the Quit command, explained in section 3.4. In response to the prompt for this command, the user should enter the name of a file. EDIT will read the specified file and change its settings according to the commands in the file. Each setting command in the file should be a single line long. The first character of the line should be the first character of the setting to change (for example, 'h' to change the header). The remaining characters in the line specify the value for the setting, using the save format as if the setting value were changed interactively with the Set command described above. The following is an example of a setting file that contains commands that change the margins and header: m 10, 5, 75 h 2,,,Page # 3.4. File Selection and/or Exiting EDIT Command Key Command Description F1 Quit. The Quit command allows the user to stop editing the current file, save it, initialize editing of a different file, and/or exit EDIT and return to DOS. In response to the prompt for this command, the user should select the desired subcommand by pressing a single key, as follows: E. Quit-Exit. This subcommand writes the current contents of the editing buffer to the file being edited and then exits EDIT to DOS. This is the normal way to exit EDIT, saving the work done while editing a file. U. Quit-Update. This subcommand simply writes out the buffer contents to the file, but does not exit to DOS. This subcommand, together with the Initialize subcommand, is used when the user wants to edit several files, one after another, without leaving EDIT. W. Quit-Write. This subcommand prompts the user to enter the name of a file. The contents of the editing buffer will be saved in the file. This subcommand is used to save the work while in EDIT in a file other that the file currently being edited. A. Quit-Abort. This subcommand directs EDIT to simply exit to DOS. S. Quit-Save-Settings. This subcommand allows the user to save in a file the current values of the settings that affect editing and printing. The settings are saved in a form so that they can be read by the "Get Settings from file" command described above. This subcommand prompts the user to enter the name of a file in which the settings are to be saved. The default name for this file is the same name as the file currently being edited, except that the extension is changed to "SET". After the user has entered the file name, EDIT prompts the user to select which group of settings should be saved in the file. In response to this prompt, the user should enter a single key, as follows: F. The settings that affect the file being edited are saved in the file. E. The settings that only affect the editing environment are saved in the file. After the user has selected one group of settings to be saved, EDIT will continue to prompt the user to select the other groups that have not yet been saved. If the user types any other single key, EDIT will leave the Save Settings command. The Set command (described above) specifies which settings belong to each of these two groups of settings. Note that EDIT uses certain naming conventions for the files in which settings are saved. These conventions determine when EDIT will automatically retrieve the settings from a file. I. Quit-Initialize. This subcommand prompts the user to type the name of a file. This text in the file is then loaded into the editing buffer (replacing the previous buffer contents) and the cursor is placed at the beginning of the file. After EDIT reads the file, it will also look for a "setting file" that gives tab settings, margins, page length specifications, headers, and such. The Quit-Save-Settings subcommand, above, describes the format of "setting files", and how to create them. The following example illustrates the rules EDIT follows when it automatically retrieves a Setting file. Suppose the user specifies the following file to edit with the Quit-Initialize command: b:memo.txt After reading "memo.txt" from drive "b" EDIT will look to see if it can find the file b:memo.set If this file exists, EDIT will read the settings from this file. Otherwise, it will look for the file txt.set If this file exists, EDIT will read the settings from this file. Thus, the settings that apply to a particular file should be saved in a file with the same name as that file, but with the extension changed to ".set". This setting file should reside on the same drive as the file to which it applies. However, the user may use a single, "generic" setting file for all the files having the same extension. This "generic" setting file should reside on the current default drive. For example, the user could create the setting files rep.set mem.set The first file might contain settings specifying margins, page length, and such for reports, and the second file might contain settings for memos. Then the user would name all files that contain reports with the extension .rep and all files containing memos would be named with the extension .mem The following would be example names of files containing reports: a:yearend.rep january.rep Sample names of files containing memos might be: bill.mem b:staff.mem Note that EDIT will automatically retrieve settings from a setting file when Edit is first started from DOS, not just when a new file is specified for editing via the Quit-Initialize command. If the user selects the Initialize or Abort option and the contents of the buffer have been modified without saving them or the current file settings have been modified without saving them, EDIT will display one or both of the following two messages: File settings modified. Okay to lose changes? Select (Yes or No): Text is modified. Okay to lose changes? Select (Yes or No): If the user selects yes (by typing "Y" or "y"), then the Initialize or Abort operation will proceed. If the user types anything else, the operation will not proceed, and EDIT will go back to the Quit command. This gives the user another chance to save the work he has done before losing it. 3.5. Miscelleneous Word Processing and Printing Command Key Command Description Shift-PrtSc Print. The Print command is used to produce a printed version of the file currently being edited (the contents of the editing buffer). The current settings (explained in section 3.3) determine how EDIT will break the printed file into pages, whether it will right justify lines, and such. The print command allows the user to specify that the printed output should go to a file or device other than the standard printer device (PRN:). The user may want to print to a file for one of two reasons. First, the "printed" file will be divided into pages, with headers and footers, and possibly justified. Thus, the user can look at the file to see if it is formatted exactly the way he wants before actually printing it on the printer. Also, the user can use the DOS 2.0 PRINT command to print the file as a background task, and continue to use EDIT in the foreground. The Print command also allows the user to specify the starting page and maximum last page to print. The default starting page is generally page 1. The default last page is page 9999 (or the last page of the file, whichever comes first). This is useful when one or two minor changes have been made to a file after it has already been printed, since it allows the user to print only those pages that have changed. EDIT prompts the user for each of these options by displaying the current default for the option. To use the default, the user should just press Enter. To select a value other than the default, the user should type the new value and then press Enter. To cancel the Print command, the user may type Esc. After all three options have been selected, EDIT will display the message Printing to: file-or-device and begin printing. As each page is printed, EDIT will display the message Page: # to the right of the file-or-device name. The user may abort the Print command after it has started by typing Ctrl-Break. Note that under version 2.0 (or later) of DOS, it possible to use the System command to print files in the background while continuing to edit other files using EDIT. The following is the recommended way to this: - Before starting EDIT, enter the DOS PRINT command. This causes the background print program to be loaded into memory so that it is accessible to EDIT. A convenient way to this is to put the PRINT command in the AUTOEXEC.BAT so that it will be automatically executed when the computer is turned on. The following line in an AUTOEXEC.BAT file will accomplish this: print - Use EDIT's Print command to print to a file. For example, when editing the file memo.txt, the user may want to print to a file named memo.prn. - After EDIT has finished creating the print file, use EDIT's System command to start printing the print file in the background. The following command would print the file created in the last example: Command: print memo.prn - It is then possible to continue working with EDIT while the file prints in the background. Note that EDIT's System command is explained in section 3.8, below. Alt-W Toggle Word-processing mode. This command causes EDIT to change the Word-Processing mode without having to use the Set command. If the Word-Processing mode is currently "Yes", this command will switch the Word-Processing mode to "No", and vice versa. The effect of the Word-Processing mode is explained above, in section 3.3, under the Set command, and in section 3.1, under the Enter command. The current Word-processing mode setting is indicated on the staus line. Alt-P Paragraph. Reformat the current paragraph using the current left, indent, and right margin values. Note that the end of a paragraph is indicated by the carriage return which is inserted into the text by typing Enter. Alt-C Center. Reformat the current line so that it is centered between the current left and right margins. Alt-R Right-justify line. Expand or shrink the line containing the cursor so that it is flush with the right margin. The expansion or contraction is made by expanding only the character left of the cursor. All other characters in the line will remain unchanged. Note that for most uses of this command (a table of contents, for example) the character expanded or contracted will be either a space or a period ("."). Alt-B Toggle boldface on/off. This command allows the user to indicate whether text should be boldface or not. Initially all text entered is "normal text", neither boldface nor underlined. When the Alt-B command is given, all text entered will be boldface until a subsequent Alt-B command is given. When the user turns the boldface option on, EDIT actually inserts two special characters into the text, a Control-B, which turns boldface on, and a Control-A, which turns boldface off. The user may also insert or delete either of these two characters directly to change change whether existing text is to be boldface or not. Boldface is also turned off automatically at the end of a paragraph. Whenever the cursor is a region of boldface text, EDIT indicates this by displaying the letter "B" on the status line, just left of the Word-Processing mode indicator. Alt-U Toggle underline on/off. This command functions similar to the the Alt-B command, except that it turns underlining on or off. The special characters EDIT stores in the text for underlining are: Control-D (for underline) to turn underlining on, and Control-C to turn underlining off. Like boldface, underlining is automatically turned off at the end of a paragraph. When the cursor is in a region of underlined text, EDIT indicates this by displaying the letter "U" on the status line, adjacent to where the boldface status is displayed. 3.6. Block Commands: Save, Delete, Get, and Move Text Command Key Command Description F7 Mark block. Mark the character at the cursor position as one end of a block of text. This "marked" character is used to indicate one end of a block of text for the Delete and Save commands described below. The block is defined to always consist of the characters between the last character marked and the current cursor position. For convenience in describing the commands below, this region of text is refered to as "the marked text". F9 Delete and save block. If less than 2000 characters are in the marked text, delete all those characters and save them in a special buffer (the block buffer). If there are more than 2000 characters print a message indicating that there is not room to save the deleted characters and do not delete them. Shift-F9 Delete block without saving. Delete all characters in the marked text (regardless of how many there are). The characters will not be saved. F10 Save block. If there are less than 2000 characters in the marked text, copy them into the "block buffer". Otherwise, print a message indicating that there is not room to save the characters. Shift-F10 Save block in file. Enter the name of a file into which the marked text is to be saved. A copy of the marked text is then saved in the file. F8 Get block. Insert the current contents of the block buffer at the cursor position, leaving the cursor at the beginning of the inserted text. Shift-F8 Get block from file. Enter the name of a file. The contents of that file are inserted into the buffer at the current cursor position, leaving the cursor at the beginning of the inserted text. Note that a "block move" may be accomplished for small blocks by the Delete and Save command, then moving the cursor to the new location and using the Get command. For blocks larger than 2000 characters, a block move is done by Save in File, Delete without saving, moving the cursor to the new position, and then Get from file. 3.7. GoTo, Find, and Replace Command Key Command Description Shift-num-pad-5 GoTo. The GoTo command allows the user to move the cursor directly to a position in the file. EDIT prompts the user to select from one of the following options: B. Goto beginning of file. The cursor will be move to the beginning of the file. E. Goto end of file. The cursor will be moved to the end of the file. L. Goto line. The user may enter an positive integer value. The cursor will be moved to that line in the file. The column position of the cursor is not changed. Specifying a line beyond the end of the file will move the cursor to the end of the file. C. Goto column. The user may enter a positive integer value. The cursor will be moved to that column in the current line. Specifying a column beyond the end of the line will move the cursor to the end of the line. Note that the GoTo command is located in the center of the cursor control keys (right between the left and right keys). Thus, althougth this key is not labeled, it should be easy to remember, since it allows the user to "center in" on a particular position in the file. F6 Find. Enter a target string. Type Enter at the end of the string to enter it and execute the Find command. EDIT will search for the first instance of the target string following the cursor and move the cursor to the first character after that string. During string entry, typing Esc will abort the Find command. Shift-F6 Reverse Find. This command is exactly the same as the "find" command, execpt that EDIT will search backwards for the first instance of the target string preceeding the cursor. F5 Replace. Enter a target string, then a replacement string. EDIT will execute the Replace command as soon as the second string is entered, by searching for the first instance of the target string following the cursor and replacing it with the replacement string. Shift-F5 Conditional Replace. Enter a target string, then a replacement string, as in the Replace command. After the second string has been entered, EDIT will search for the first instance of the target string following the cursor, and move the cursor to the first character after that string. EDIT will then prompt the user to select from the following set of options: Y. Yes. The target string should be replaced by the replacement string. N. No. The target string should not be replaced by the replacement string. S. Stop. The target string should be replaced by the replacement string. Then EDIT will exit the conditional replacement command. A. Abort. The target string is not replaced and EDIT will exit the conditional replacement command. Note that the Stop and Abort options are designed for use with a repeat count applied to the conditional replacement command. 3.8. Miscelleneous Commands: Help, Macros, and DOS Commands Command Key Command Description F2 Help. This command allows the user to view a a file of "help" information. This information lists each EDIT command, together with a brief description of what it does. Subcommands and options are listed indented under each command. The information also describes briefly any values that the commands may require the user to enter, and what those values mean. The information in the Help file is displayed one page at a time. To view the next page of the help list, the user may press the space bar. To abort the Help command and return to EDIT's normal operation, the user may type any other key. As the first screen of the Help text, EDIT displays a message regarding EDIT's status as free software. The actual Help text follows this first screen. Note that EDIT obtains the information it displays in the Help command from a file called "EDIT.HLP". For the Help command to operate properly, this file must be on the current "default" disk while EDIT is running. For an explanation of default disks, the user should refer to the documentation provided by IBM. Alt-H Help menu. Turn on/off the function key prompts printed on EDIT's prompt line. Shift-F4 Macro define. Start or end a macro definition. When a macro definition is started, "Macro" is displayed near the right side of the bottom line on the screen. All subsequent commands up to the next Macro Shift-F4 command are saved in a macro buffer in addition to being executed. Typing Shift-F4 again ends the macro definition, and erases "Macro" from the bottom line of the screen. The sequence of commands may then be re-executed by typing F4. F4 Macro Execute. Execute the macro most recently defined via the Macro command. Prior to defining a macro, the current macro is null. Alt-V View. Redisplay the contents of the screen with the line containing the cursor centered on the screen, and the current version number of EDIT displayed on the message line. If the cursor is in the first 12 lines of the file or it is already centered on the screen, then the contents of the screen will not change. Shift-F1 System Command. This command allows the user to execute any DOS command from EDIT. EDIT prompts the the user to enter a command. The user should enter the command exactly as it would be entered in response to the DOS prompt. After the command is entered, EDIT clears the screen and executes the DOS command. When the command has completed, EDIT prompts the user to press any key to return to EDIT. Then EDIT restores the screen as it was before executing the DOS command and the user can continue editing. The following examples illustrate the use of EDIT's System command: Command: dir *.txt Command: print chap1.prn Command: cd \memos Command: rename memo1.txt memo1.bak Note that EDIT only supports the System command with DOS version 2.0 or later. In order for the System command to work, there should be about 128K bytes of free memory before running EDIT. Some additional memory may be required to execute non-resident DOS commands from EDIT. It is necessary to have a copy of COMMAND.COM in the root directory of the current default device in order for the System command to work. Caution: Certain DOS commands stay resident in memory when they are first executed after DOS has been started. The DOS PRINT and GRAPHICS commands are in this category. It is not good to execute such commands for the first time from EDIT. This is because they reserve not only the memory they use themselves, but also the memory of any other program that is currently executing (like EDIT), even if that program normally releases the memory it uses when it exits. Before using such commands from EDIT, they should be executed before EDIT is started. Putting them in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file is one way to do this. For a further explanation of DOS commands, the user should consult the DOS reference manual. ing (File being edited, Editor only): w t m p h nf nn s j i c d Get settings from file: setbat.set