We couldn't help it. We were fixing a couple of minor bugs in BBEdit 4.0, and we got carried away. We ended up adding new features. We know it breaks all the rules about maintenance releases, but we just couldn't help it.
Since version 4.0.1 is a "maintenance release" version of BBEdit 4.0, and not a full upgrade, we didn't plan on creating an entirely new set of manuals. However, we've added several new features that we figured you'd like to know about. So, we've prepared this mini-manual to describe how to use the new features.
Many of our loyal customers have asked us to make our manual available in HTML format, so we decided to use this manual addendum as a test case. Please let us know how you like it and what you would like to see improved, so that we can make future versions of the documentation for BBEdit that much easier for you to use. Feel free to drop us a line at support@barebones.com.
And, now, let's get on with the show....
With version 4.0, BBEdit began offering syntax-directed coloring of text. This means that keywords, comments, and tags can be displayed in colors other than black, to make source files easier to read. For example, if you're creating a web page using HTML or writing a program in C++, you can have your HTML tags or your C++ commands displayed in the color of your choice (see the "Text Colors" section of the Preferences... command).
However, a few folks have pointed out that the original manual is not as clear as it could be on how, exactly, to activate the syntax coloring. The short answer is: to activate syntax coloring, save your file with an extension, or suffix, that indicates what programming or markup language the file is using. For example, if you save your file with a ".html" at the end of the file name, BBEdit will then automatically color your HTML tags and anchors.
The longer (but not too long) answer: BBEdit automatically colors the text, but first it has to know which programming/markup language you're using. It looks at the suffix at the end of your file name to figure this out. So, for example, if you save your HTML files with a ".html" at the end of the file name, BBEdit will automatically color HTML tags and anchors. Similarly, a ".c" at the end of the file name tells BBEdit to color C comments and commands.
To see the list of languages and the suffixes BBEdit recognizes, check out the "Function Popup" section of the Preferences... command. You can also add, remove, and change the suffixes listed here, as you desire.
New in version 4.0.1, BBEdit provides "Open from FTP Server" and "Save to FTP Server" commands, which allows users to work with files residing on remote FTP servers as though they were stored on a mounted hard disk.
To open a file from a remote site, select "Open from FTP Server..." from the File menu. BBEdit will display the following dialog:
Type in the name of the server (or, select from previous servers you've used by choosing one from the popup by the "Server:" field), your user name, and your password in the appropriate fields, and then click the Connect button to initiate FTP contact. Note that you can also single-click on the "Directory..." pop-up to bring up a dialog where you can type in the exact pathname of the file you'd like to open.
Also, note that if you select the "Save Password" checkbox, you will not have to retype your password the next time you bring up the "Open from FTP Server..." dialog. Selecting "Auto-Connect" instructs BBEdit to automatically connect to that server, using your saved password, the next time you select the "Open from FTP Server...." command.
The "Show Files Starting with '.'" checkbox tells BBEdit whether to display admin files in the chosen directory, such as .login, .forward, .sig, etc.
Once the connection is made, you can use the Open and New Folder buttons and the directory popup to navigate through the directories, just as you would navigate through the folders on a Mac. You can use the Get Info button to reveal the size and creation date of the file you have selected, and the Delete button can be used to remove the selected file.
Once you have selected a file and Opened it, BBEdit will display the file in a text editing window. Notice that the file pathname in the status bar displays the URL address of the ftp file, not the literal pathname the way it does for local files.
When you open a file from an FTP server, BBEdit downloads it 'raw', and then performs its intrinsic linefeed conversion on the downloaded file. That way, when you save the file back, it'll be stored on the server with the line breaks that it had.
The "Save to FTP Server..." command brings up a dialog similar to the "Open from FTP Server..." dialog box:
This dialog box works exactly the same way as the "Open from FTP Server..." dialog box, except that it includes a field for you to type in the name of the file before you save it.
When you "Save to FTP Server", BBEdit uploads the file in 'text' mode (that is, with intrinsic FTP conversion) if the file has "Mac" (CR-only) line endings. If the file is saved with non-Mac (Unix or DOS) line endings, BBEdit will upload the file 'raw', so that it gets stored on the server with the line endings you specify.
BBEdit now supports TeX (pronounced "Tek"), a typesetting language used widely in science and mathematics. This means that PopupFuncs and syntax coloring will work for TeX just as it does for Java, C, C++, Object Pascal, Rez, 68K assembler, Fortran, Tcl, Perl, HTML, ScriptX, and GuideScript.
BBEdit 4.0.1 introduces a new option for multi-file Find Differences....
Normally, when you compare folders using the Find Differences... command, BBEdit presents you with three lists: one list of the items that are in the first folder but not in the second folder, another list of the items that are in the second folder but not in the first one, and another list of the items that appear in both folders.
The list of items that appear in both folders generally displays a bullet next to items that are not identical. For example, if you have an archived mail folder that you are comparing against a current mail folder, mailbox files that appear in both the old and new file will all be listed together; however, if there have been any changes to the contents of particular mailbox files, the changed mailbox files will be listed with bullets next to them.
If you are comparing very large folders, however, the list of common items can be extremely long, making the flagged items hard to find. Therefore, we've added a checkbox to the Find Differences... command that tells BBEdit not to list identical files. When you select the "Don't List Identical Files" checkbox, BBEdit will only list the flagged items (the ones that have been changed) in the list of items that appear in both folders.
With version 4.0.1, BBEdit now provides the ability to undo multiple edits, one action at a time. The number of edits that may be undone is limited only by available memory. The practical limitation is determined by the extent of the edits and the amount of free memory.
The Undo command essentially reverses any change you may have made to the content of your file. Each action, which is generally punctuated by a mouse click, is one undo-able incident. So, for example, if you type the sentence "This is a Test.", and then click to highlight the second capital 'T' and replace it with a lowercase 't', and then highlight the word "is" and click on the HTML tools to change the style of the word to bold, that's three distinct actions.
In this example, you can select the Undo command once to reverse your action of inserting the bold tags. Selecting Undo again would change the lowercase 't' back to an uppercase "T". A third Undo would eliminate the sentence altogether -- untype it, as it were.
BBEdit also supports multiple Redos. If you haven't made any changes after performing an Undo, you can redo each action, in order, by selecting that command from the Edit menu, or typing Cmd-Shift-Z.
In other words, you can Undo and Redo to your heart's content. However, once you start a new Undo-able action, you lose the ability to Redo any actions that you Undid before you made the latest change. (Play with it; you'll see what we mean.)