JCSM Shareware Collection 1993 November

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╔══════════════════════════════════════╗ ║ ║ ║ pEDIT PLUS ║ ║ ──────────────────────── ║ ║ the personal EDITor PLUS ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ TUTORIAL ║ ║ ║ ║ Version 1.1 ║ ║ ║ ╚══════════════════════════════════════╝ pEDIT COPYRIGHT 1989 - 1992 _______ ____|__ | (R) --| | |------------------- | ____|__ | Association of | | |_| Shareware |__| o | Professionals -----| | |--------------------- |___|___| MEMBER T. G. Muench P.O. Box 11536 Prescott, AZ 86304-1536 (602) 445-2479 CIS 71171,2424 Welcome to the pEDIT PLUS tutorial. It is quite short and covers only the basic text editing functions. You must also read the manual, especially the Quick Start section. You must use the STD (Standard) configuration while in the tutorial. Later, you can, if you wish, change to one of the other supplied configurations or set up your own. The purpose of this tutorial is to familiarize you with the fundamentals of text editing. It is assumed that you have a basic knowledge of the IBM PC and can operate the keyboard and mouse. If you have problems, consult your computer and mouse manuals. The lessons primarily make use of the keyboard. However, the equivalent mouse and ButtonBar functions are given when approp- riate. Key names are enclosed in angle brackets; examples are <Home>, <Ctrl-End> and <Alt-F>. The function keys are named <F01> through <F12>; note that <F01> is the key marked F1. The arrow keys are named <Up>, <Down>, <Left> and <Right>. The ButtonBar buttons are referenced by their text mode abbreviations; examples are <CMD> and <HLP>. Two things need some explanation before you start the tutorial. Both seem to cause much consternation for people new to computing and text editing/word processing. First, the <Enter> and <Tab> keys and <Space> bar operate very differently than they do on a typewriter. On a typewriter, they move you around on the page - they don't put anything on the page. In pEDIT, <Enter> inserts a new line, <Tab> inserts a tab character and the space bar inserts a space (blank). Second, don't be afraid to try things! You will be working with copies of a practice file and can always get the original back. When you start working with real text, you can always go back to the point of the last save. You should pay heed to the First Law of Word Processing: "Save early, save often". If you get 'lost', press <Shift-F01> to get on-line help for every pEDIT command and/or <F01> for keyboard and ButtonBar help. If you get completely lost, quit the tutorial by clicking the <QUI> button or pressing <Alt-Q> (answer "Y") and restart at the point where you had a problem. To start the tutorial, type in the following at the DOS command line. If you installed pEDIT+ in a directory other than \PEDIT, substitute that directory's name: CD \PEDIT TUTORIAL The TUTORIAL.BAT batch file makes two copies of the sample file PRACTICE.TXT called PRACTICE.1 and PRACTICE.2; it then invokes the editor using the STD configuration and loads the file PRACTICE.1 into memory. You are now ready to start the lessons. ╔═════════════════════════════╗ ║ Lesson 1: Cursor Movement ║ ╚═════════════════════════════╝ Moving the cursor around in the text is among the most basic of all editing functions. Start by using the arrow keys to move up, down, left and right. The current line and column indicators on the Status Bar will change as you move. Press <Ctrl-Home> to return to the top of the buffer. Next, press the <End> key to move to the end of the first line; press it several more times to move to the end of subsequent lines. Now, use the <Home> key to move toward the top of the buffer. Notice how the cursor moves to the beginning of each line. Move back to the top of the buffer. Press <PgDn> to page down to the next screen; press it once more and the cursor will move to the end of the buffer. Pressing <PgUp> will return you to the top. Now, press <Ctrl-End> which moves you directly to the bottom. Now, move to the top of the buffer and press <Ctrl-Right> to move a word at a time to the right. Then, try <Ctrl-Left> to move by word backwards toward the top of the buffer. pEDIT uses a macro (more on this later) to move in Reverse; notice how the Direction on the Status Bar changes from Forward to Reverse to Forward. If you have a mouse, practice clicking on the UpArrow symbol at the top of the Scroll Bar to the right of the screen. Note how the screen scrolls up one line at a time. Next, click on the DownArrow at the bottom of the Scroll Bar; the screen will scroll down one line at a time. Then, click on the area between the DoubleArrow and the UpArrow or DownArrow to page up or down. Finally, move the mouse pointer anywhere in the window and press the left button to move the text cursor to that spot. ╔═══════════════════════════════╗ ║ Lesson 2: Text Manipulation ║ ╚═══════════════════════════════╝ The first Lesson showed you how to move around in a text buffer. Moving the cursor is said to be non-destructive; the buffer was not modified. In this lesson the buffer will be modified as you insert new text and alter existing text. First, let's insert some text. This is what happens when you press any one of the typing keys such as <A>, <Enter> or <Tab>. Use the keys you learned about in the previous Lesson to position the cursor on the comma after "March 30" on the first line of the first paragraph. Making sure <Caps Lock> is off, press the <T> and <H> keys to change "30" to "30th". Note that text to the right of the cursor is shifted over; the current mode is Insert as shown on the Status Bar. Press the <Ins> key once to toggle the mode to Overstrike. Move the cursor to the "M" of "March" and type in "April". Notice how "March" was changed to "April"; this time, text was overwritten and not inserted. Press <Ins> again to return to Insert mode. Now you will set margins and try reformatting a paragraph. Make sure the Status Bar shows Insert mode and press the <F10> key to enter Command Mode. Type in "SET MARGINS 10 68" (the case doesn't matter) and press <Enter>. Now, position the text cursor anywhere on the line containing "April 30th" and press <Alt-F> to "fill" or reformat the paragraph. Notice how the word "States" was moved down to the next line; it no longer fit between the margins after "th" was added. This release of pEDIT PLUS 1.1 can also fully justify a para- graph, resulting in a smooth right margin. Move the cursor to the first line of the paragraph and press <Alt-J> or click on the <JST> button to see the difference. You can change a word (or part of a word) to lowercase, UPPER- CASE or Capitalized by using the <Alt-L>, <Alt-U> and <Alt-C> keys, respectively. Try it. It is simply not possible to cover every pEDIT PLUS command in the tutorial. Refer to the manual on your own and try the CENTER LINE, LEFT LINE, RIGHT LINE, OPEN LINE, INDENT, AUTO INDENT, QUOTE CHAR and TRANS CHAR functions. You will also want to see what happens when you insert tabs into the text. ╔═══════════════════════════╗ ║ Lesson 3: Text Deletion ║ ╚═══════════════════════════╝ In this Lesson you will practice deleting text. You can delete by character, word or line. Note that the last word or line erased is saved in a special text buffer so it can be restored if you so desire. This is called 'undo' by some programs. First, let's put things back as they were. Move the cursor directly over the "t" of "30th" and press <Del> twice; the "th" will be erased and the screen will again show "30". You can also erase backwards by using the <BackSpace> key. Position the cursor after the word "being" in the second paragraph. Press <BackSpace> 5 times to erase the word; now type "being" to restore it. Next, move the cursor to the "b" of the word "being" and press <Ctrl-BackSpace> to delete the word. Press <Alt-BackSpace> to restore it. Next, move to the beginning of the first line of that paragraph starting with "Sportsmen". Press <Ctrl-Y> to erase the line; note that the entire line is deleted. Press <Alt-BackSpace> to restore it. Finally, move to the word "others" on that same line; press <Shift-Ctrl-Y> to erase all text from the cursor to the end of the line. Pressing <Alt-BackSpace> will restore the text. ╔═══════════════════════╗ ║ Lesson 4: Searching ║ ╚═══════════════════════╝ These commands are used to search for text and replace one text string by another. Move to the top of the buffer and click the <FND> button or press <Shift-F03>. In lowercase, type in "forest" in response to the prompt "String to find: " and press the <Enter> key. The cursor will move to the first occurrence of "forest" and highlight it. Now, press the <F03> (FINDNEXT) key several times until the message "Could not find text" is displayed. This search was case-insensitive, that is it matched every occurrence of "forest" no matter what the case. Return to the top of the buffer and press <Shift-F03> again; this time press <Up> to restore "forest". Use the <Home> key to move to the beginning of "forest" and press <Del> followed by an uppercase F to change "forest" to "Forest". Press <Enter> to initiate the search; this time, note that only the exact text "Forest" is matched. Now press <F03> or click the <NXT> button as above until the "Could not find text" message appears. Now you're ready to try replacing some text. Return to the top of the buffer and click the <RPL> button or press the <Alt-F03> key. In response to the "Old string" prompt type in "April" and press <Enter>; at the "New string" prompt type "March" followed by <Enter>. The cursor will move to "April" and the prompt "Replace (Y)es (N)o (A)ll (L)ast (Q)uit: " will appear. Press the "Y" key to accept the replacement. Please try the other responses on your own; "N" means do not replace; "A" means replace all occurrences from this point to the end; "L" means make this the last replacement and quit; "Q" means quit now. Be careful with "A"; you won't have a chance to pick and choose! pEDIT also supports "wildcard" searches; you can match the beginning and end of line by using the special symbols \\< and \\>, respectively. Lets try one; move back to the top by pressing <Ctrl-Home>; press <Shift-F03> and type in ".\\>" (don't include the double quotes) followed by <Enter>. Notice how a match is made only if the period is at the end of a line. ╔═══════════════════╗ ║ Lesson 5: Files ║ ╚═══════════════════╝ You are now ready for some more advanced functions. In this Lesson you will learn how to load in a file for editing and save a modified buffer to disk. First, "get" a file by clicking on the <GET> button or pressing <Alt-G>, typing in PRACTICE.2 at the prompt and pressing <Enter>. This file, a duplicate of PRACTICE.1, will be loaded into memory and will become the current buffer. Its name will appear on the Status Bar. pEDIT+ will let you edit up to 16 files at one time. Now, let's save the current buffer to disk. Press <Alt-W>, the WRITE FILE key, or click on the <WRT> button. Nothing happened because, as the message tells you, the buffer hasn't been modif- ied. pEDIT will not save a buffer that hasn't changed. You should still be positioned at the top of the buffer; press <Del> or <Ctrl- Y> to delete the first (empty) line. Now press <Alt-W>; this time the modified buffer is saved to disk and pEDIT will tell you how many lines were written. There are two other file commands which you can try on your own. The first is INCLUDE FILE which inserts the text from a file on disk into the buffer starting at the current cursor position. This command should be used only to 'merge' in relatively small files. RENAME FILE is used to change the name of the disk file associated with the buffer; use this command when you want to save a file under a different name and preserve the original. The buffer name is also changed if no buffer of that name already exists. ╔═════════════════════╗ ║ Lesson 6: Buffers ║ ╚═════════════════════╝ These functions let you choose a buffer to edit, display infor- mation about the current buffer and change the mode and direction for a buffer. Click the info button <INF> or press <F10> and type in "SHOW BUFFER". A SHOW window will appear which displays information about the current buffer: its name, associated file name, whether or not it has been modified, the current direction and mode, etc. Press any key or click a mouse button to return to the buffer you were editing. Receall that two active buffers (PRACTICE.1 and PRACTICE.2) are loaded. To switch back to the first buffer, click the <BUF> button or press <F02>. In the BUFFERS window which appears, highlight the first user buffer PRACTICE.1 by using the arrow keys or, if you have a mouse, clicking on the buffer name. Then, press <Enter> or double-click to move to the selected buffer. pEDIT supports marks, sometimes called bookmarks. You can set one mark per buffer and use the GOTO MARK command to immediately move to that spot from anywhere in the buffer. Let's try it. Move to the top of the buffer and use <Shift-F03> to locate the word "Organic". Press <Shift-Ctrl-0> to mark this location. Use <PgUp> to move to the top of the buffer and then press <Ctrl-0> to move to the mark. Please try the rest of the buffer commands on your own. LINE moves the cursor to a particular line in a buffer. TRIM BUFFER deletes all trailing blanks from each line in the current buffer. CHANGE MODE toggles the mode between Insert and Overstrike, and CHANGE DIR toggles the direction. ╔═════════════════════╗ ║ Lesson 7: Windows ║ ╚═════════════════════╝ In this Lesson you will learn how to split and unsplit the screen, move from window to window when the screen is split, and shift a window horizontally. There is now a single window on screen; press <Alt-2> to split the screen into 2 windows. The cursor will move to the second window. Notice that both windows are showing the same portion of text in the same (PRACTICE.1) buffer. Now, using what you learned in the previous Lesson, switch to the buffer PRACTICE.2 in the bottom window. You should now have PRACTICE.1 displayed in the top window, and PRACTICE.2 in the bottom window. You move to the other window by - you guessed it - the OTHER WINDOW command. Press <Ctrl-F06> to move back and forth between the two windows. If you have a mouse, simply click the left button anywhere in the other window. The <PgUp> and <PgDn> keys were discussed in the first lesson; they move you around VERTICALLY in the buffer and always show the same 78 columns of text. You can also move HORIZONTALLY using the SHIFT commands. This is called horizontal scrolling; it lets you see text beyond the right edge of the screen. Move to the PRACTICE.2 buffer and press <Alt-1> to unsplit the screen. Press <Alt-M> and set the margins to 1 and 128. Then, position the cursor anywhere on the first line of the first para- graph and click the <FMT> button or press <Alt-F> to "fill" or reformat the paragraph. Note that the paragraph has become 2 long lines, each longer than 78 columns. The cursor is positioned at the right edge of the window to indicate that text extends past this point. The current location on the Status Bar indicates the 'real' position of the cursor. Click on the rightmost button, press <Shift-Ctrl-Right> or press <F10> to enter Command Mode and type in "SHIFT RIGHT". You can now see past column 78, but not to the end of the first line. Repeat the above action to view columns 80->. Finally, click the leftmost button twice or issue the command "SHIFT LEFT 80" and press <Home> to return to the left edge of the buffer. ╔═══════════════════════════╗ ║ Lesson 8: Cut and Paste ║ ╚═══════════════════════════╝ This lesson will cover electronic "cut" and "paste". You can delete (cut) a portion of text and store it in a special buffer for later use. The contents of this buffer (called the paste buffer or clipboard) can then be "pasted" into the buffer wher- ever it is needed. Text must be selected before it can be cut or copied to the clipboard. The SELECT TEXT command is a toggle which turns the select state on and off. In other words, if select is on it will be turned off and vice versa. In this exercise, you will select the first paragraph, 'cut' it to the clipboard, and then paste it in after the second paragraph. First, put the first paragraph back as it was. Set the text margins to 10 and 68 and reformat the paragraph using <Alt-F>. Next, position the cursor back to the first line of the paragraph at the far left edge of the window. Press <Alt-S> to turn select on and use the <Down> key to highlight each line of the paragraph. Be sure and include the blank line between the paragraphs; you should end up with the cursor at the beginning of the first line of the second paragraph. Now, click the <CUT> button or press <Shift-Del> to 'cut' the paragraph. Move the text cursor to the start of the paragraph that begins "With the Creation Act". Click <PST> or press <Shift-Ins> to 'paste' in the stored text. The first and second paragraphs have been swapped. If you have a mouse, you can select by using "click-and-drag". Move the mouse pointer to the start of the desired block and hold the left button down for at least 1/2 second. Then, continue to hold the left button while you drag the mouse in any direction to select. This takes practice! There are two other commands which use select; please try them on your own. The first is WIPE TEXT <Ctrl-Del> which deletes text without saving it on the clipboard. Use this command when you want to delete a large amount of text and don't need it back. STORE TEXT <Ctrl-Ins> copies the highlighted text to the clipboard but does not delete it from the buffer. ╔════════════════════════╗ ║ Lesson 9: Key Macros ║ ╚════════════════════════╝ This is an advanced topic and won't be covered in any detail here. Please read the appropriate sections in the manual for instructions on how to define both key and disk macros. There are commands to start/end a learn sequence, and execute a macro. A key macro is one that is used infrequently, i.e. a 'one shot' deal. If you have a macro that you use all of the time, it should be saved to disk and given a name. You saw a disk macro in operation in Lesson 1. The <Ctrl-Left> key is bound to the command EXECUTE STDWREV. When you press <Ctrl- Left>, pEDIT loads in the macro file STDWREV.PM1 from disk and 'plays back' the keystrokes it contains. ╔════════════════════════════╗ ║ Lesson 10: Miscellaneous ║ ╚════════════════════════════╝ Many commands fall into the miscellaneous category. We can't cover all of them here; please refer to the manual for more information. As you read this, you may want to try some of them. One command you need to know about is ABORT. It *must* be bound to a key because you won't be able to get to Command Mode when you need to use it. You can use ABORT to cancel a REPEAT, FIND, FIND- NEXT or REPLACE operation. ABORT can also be used to cancel out of any BUFFER, FILES or HELP window. You can try this by clicking the <HLP> button or pressing <Shift-F01>; instead of selecting a help topic, press <Esc>. Note that you are returned to the current buffer. REPEAT is a very handy function that lets you repeat any key- press up to 32767 times. As a quick test, press <F08> and enter a repeat count of 44; DO NOT press <Enter> after the count or 44 blank lines will be entered! Press the <Right> key and watch the cursor move 44 characters to the right. There are many SET commands you can use to customize the editing environment. You can automatically save your work to disk, choose screen colors, set the number of lines on-screen, select a block or underline cursor, set the paragraph indent, and set the scope for search and replace operations. The DOS command lets you shell out to DOS or pass a command to DOS for execution. The output from a shelled DOS command goes into the DOS buffer where it can be viewed and manipulated like any other text. Click the <CMD> button or press the <F10> key to enter Command Mode and type in "LIST KEYS" followed by <Enter>. You will see a list of all defined keys and the command bound to each in a LIST window. Press <Alt-A> to see a list of all 256 Ascii characters supported by the IBM PC. The <Shift-F01> (HELP) key brings up an indexed list of all pEDIT PLUS commands; there is also a <HLP> button. <F01> (ALTHELP) displays special help screens for the keyboard and ButtonBar. Try both of these keys now if you haven't already done so. Finally, there are two ways to end an editing session. The first is QUIT; use it when you want to abort without saving any modified buffers; all changes you have made since the last save will be lost. EXIT automatically saves the current buffer to disk if it has been modified and asks you, one at a time, if you want to save any other modified buffers. --------------------------------------- This concludes the tutorial. QUIT by pressing the <Alt-Q> key. Enter "Y" in response to the "Buffer (s) modified - quit (Y/N)?" prompt.