The text editor for large text files is a disk based editor. The concept of it is quite different from conventional text editors. Each file is displayed in the standard scrolling window - normal or auto wrap, but there is only a fragment of file (I will call it 'page') in it. The size of the page can be set by the user and can vary from 4-30KB. You can very easily change pages in this window for easy access to the desired part of the file. Because of 'paging' concept you can display different pages of the same file in different windows and make the simultaneous changes in several parts of the single file at the same time. If you open a text file, the application loads to the RAM memory only one page of that file. Of course, you can open several files at once. Each time you make a change to the text on certain page the whole page remains in memory until you save changes to a disk. So, if you are doing a lot of changes in several pages of the very long file remember to save it from time to time.
I will explain the features of the editor during the explanation of the menu items.
1. File menu.
New
You can create a new file here as usual. Since it is a disk based editor you are asked to open an empty file on a disk at once. You cannot create just a window. You can then type or paste a text to that file. The amount of text in the window cannot exceed 32KB. If you try to type more than this 32KB limit you are asked to save the file. When the file is saved, it is automatically reformatted and you can continue to type your text - it will create a second page. The same idea is with pasting - if the text is big enough the file will be reformatted and saved. If you would like to keep the old copy of the file then use the save as ... option in the dialog box that will appear.
Open ...
You can open the file in a normal mode here. Another way to open the text file is dragging it into the application icon or if it has a correct creator (green icon) just double clicking it. You will see the text file window and the Paging window that looks like that:
 
You do not have to select the Paging window to perform the chosen operation. The only exception is moving the paging window and typing in the desired page number. To select the paging window just click the title bar. To change pages, except typing in the number, you can slide the small green box in the yellow bar or click the green arrows. The simplest method to go one page up and down is the usage of the left and right arrow keys on your keyboard.
Icons of Paging window .
Eye - Pencil
The eye means that you are in the hypertext mode. It can be enabled only if you have the appended PD dictionary in the correct location i.e. in the same folder as the application. If you are in the hypertext mode you can just click somewhere inside the chosen word to automatically open the Explanation window and see the explanation of that word.
Notebook
It works only in the hypertext mode. It appends the contents of the Explanation window to the special Copy window. You can save or print the contents of Copy window. To save or print the Copy window just close it and respond to the dialog box which then will appear.
Face
Click the face to hear the text of the active window starting from the insertion bar. To interrupt the speech please type cmd-. (apple key and period key together). You have to keep pressing the cmd-. for a while, until the yellow bar will reappear.
Speaker
If the speaker is not crossed out you will hear the selected word in the hypertext mode from the speaker. You can select more then one word in the hypertext mode using normal selection procedure. You will hear all selection (up to 255 char.) from the speaker. The explanation will appear after the word is spoken, so if you do not like waiting for the explanations switch it off.
US - German flag.
Click the flag to toggle beetwen English->German and German->English dictionaries. If you have the German text it should be a German flag and for the English text the US flag.
Open copy
You can open this way an identical window with the same text file that was in the active window. The names of copy windows are filename.1, filename.2 ..... filename.9. You cannot open more then 9 copy windows of a single file. The reason of using copy windows is making changes in different parts (pages) of a long file. If you want to make changes in the file make sure that you are in the edit mode (pencil icon). Imagine that you have the file of 30MB and you want to change something at the beginning and somewhere in the middle of the file. You can open the first page in one window and the page number 123 for example in another and simply make changes in both. All changes from both windows will be written to the original file (when you save them). Avoid editing the same page of single file in several windows to make changes since this will confuse the program - in fact the window with the highest number will be default in this case. If by mistake you edit the same page in two windows and make different changes in both, and want to save changes from the lower number window you have to close the higher number window first. Window without the number extension is a main window in this respect that closing it will force to close all copies of this window.
Open wrap...
It works like Open item but it will open the file in auto wrap mode (like in Teach Text) that is useful for badly formatted files. Wrap windows have local controls, but you can use Paging window as well. Eye-Pencil works locally for each wrap window, so be careful to check it on the window itself and not on Paging window. If you want to open wrap window in 'pencil' mode just select the pencil on Paging window and to change mode to 'eye' - click pencil on the wrap window itself. Resizing the auto wrap window is slower then the normal one.
 
Open copy w...
The same as Open copy but for the wrap windows.
Browse
You can use this window to search through the dictionary file. Type few letters and press the return key to see the scrolling list of words which begin with these letters. If you type less letters the waiting time is longer since the number of words that have to be displayed in the scrolling list is bigger.
 
Select a word from the scrolling list to see the explanation of it. The icons work similarly to the Paging window. The German words are written in "pure ASCII".
Idioms
 
Make wordlist
This makes the sorted list of words of marked fragment of the text. Mark the chosen fragment and select Make wordlist menu item to create a new window with sorted words. You can exclude from the list words included in an arbitrary text file. You should open this file from the dialog window that appears after the question about excluding words.
Save, Save as...
These are the ordinary items.
Print
There is no page setup in the program. It uses the default finder setup and you can change it in the finder. This will be corrected in the next version of this application.
When you choose the Print item you will get an extra window that allows you to set normal or auto wrap print mode and set the range of pages to print (pages are not the real 'paper' pages but our virtual pages).
2. Edit menu.
Copy, Cut, Paste, Select page, Clear
They are standard items. If you try to paste a large amount of text you are asked to save the file. Use Save as... if you want to preserve the old copy.
Copy large
This item allows you to copy to the clipboard text that is longer than one page (it also works for the shorter texts). Usage is the following.
ΓÇó Position the insertion bar at point you want to start with and select Copy large menu item - it will be checked then.
ΓÇó Position the insertion bar at the point you want to end with - it can be on another window, but it has to be the same file - and select the Copy large menu item again.
Whole text between start and end points will be copied to the standard clipboard.
Copy to disk
This you should use for a larger text fragments that you want to paste somewhere. The text length can be as long as you wish provided you have enough space on your hard disk. This is incompatible with the standard clipboard, so you cannot use this method to copy text between different applications, but it should work fine inside Leger. Copy procedure is the same as copy large.
ΓÇó Choose the start point (with the insertion bar) and select Copy to disk .
ΓÇó Choose the end point and select Copy to disk again.
That is all.
Paste from disk
If you have copied something to disk then you can paste it as usual using this item. Again, you do not have to worry about the RAM memory (which is the case in Copy and Copy large that use the standard clipboard).
Clear Cl & Ctd
Selecting this will remove the starting points of Copy large and Copy to disk from the memory if you decide to select a starting point again before concluding with the ending point.
3. Find menu.
It works as usual - you have also the find selection option that is sometimes very convenient.
The only exception is a Replace all operation, which is a disk based operation. It can be performed on files of unlimited sizes, provided you have enough room on your HD. The unchanged file is backed up with the extension .bak, in case you change your mind.
4. Pref. menu item.
These are the preferences. They are mostly self explanatory.
The "Page" size in the General menu window lets you set the default 'page' window length from 4 to 30KB. "Save win. pos." menu item lets you set the default positions of document, paging, explanation and copy windows. Arrange windows as you like then select document window so it is in front and choose "Save win. pos." menu item. Next time you open window it will be automatically moved to the saved position.
5. Font and Size menus.
They let you set the font and font size in an active window. Windows are opened with font that is set in the Pref. -Font menu, but you can change it independently for each window via this menu.
