File Viewer Help

You can click on any section title below to jump directly to that section. Introduction Basic Usage Shortcut Keys The Status Bar Word Wrapping and Display Width Printing Special Features Binary File Noise Suppression Detecting File Updates Backtracking Pommel Documents File Viewer Limitations

Introduction

This simple file viewer lets you quickly inspect text files, binary files (in filtered form) and specially formatted files known as Pommel documents. (The file you are looking at right now is an example of a Pommel document.)

Basic Usage

Shortcut Keys

In addition to standard shortcut conventions (such as pressing Alt-F to click the Find button) the file viewer also recognizes these keys: Home Move cursor to start of line End Move cursor to end of line Space Advance one screen (same as PgDn) Esc Close window Enter If view area has focus: repeat last find Otherwise: operates the control Ctrl-Home Jump to top of file Ctrl-End Jump to end of file Ctrl-C Copy selected text to clipboard F1 Display help (this file) F3 Repeat last find F5 Check file for updates Backspace Backtrack to previous spot F Pop up Find window R Repeat last find P Print B Turn on binary file noise suppression G Goto line number W Toggle word wrapping Note: You can click on any text highlighted in blue to jump directly to the appropriate section.

The Status Bar

The status bar appears at the bottom of the file viewer window and is divided into three sections. The first section of the status bar indicates the line number and character number of your cursor. For example, 34:3 means "line 34, column 3". If you select a range of characters for cutting and pasting, the length of the selection (including Carriage Return and Linefeed characters) is also indicated. For example, 10:5/15 means that you have selected 15 characters, starting at the 5th character of line 10. The second section of the status bar may contain letters, which indicate which features have been turned on, as follows: B Binary file noise suppression is on W Word wrapping is on The third section of the status bar lists the total number of lines available for display, followed by the date and time when the file was saved. If there was insufficient room to load all of the file, or if you interrupted loading by pressing the Esc (Escape) key, the word "incomplete" appears after the line count.

Word Wrapping and Display Width

Word wrapping can be turned on and off with the W key. If word-wrap is turned on (W appears in the status bar), words are wrapped according to the line length indicated by the "Display width" combo box. This does not affect the file being viewed. If word-wrap is turned off, any lines that are longer than the value of the "Display width" combo box are wrapped at that specific length. This does not affect the file being viewed.

Printing

This simple file viewer offers only very basic printing capability. You can print the file you are viewing, in its entirety, using the current settings of your default printer. This file viewer makes no provision for changing settings such as feeder drawer, paper type or orientation. Margins are set to 1 inch on the left and right, and three quarters of an inch top and bottom. Different printers behave in different ways if asked to print text wider than the width available; some truncate the text and some word-wrap it. You can accomodate this variation to some extent by adjusting the "Display Width" combo box. To print a copy of this document, press the P key.

Special Features

Binary File Noise Suppression

Binary file noise suppression can be turned on and off with the B key. When binary file noise suppression is turned on (B appears in the status bar), the file viewer attempts to display only data that looks like it might be text. Anything else is considered raw binary data and is represented by dot characters.

Detecting File Updates

If the file you are viewing has been changed in another window, you can reload it by pressing F5. (Some applications that use this file viewer detect such changes automatically under certain conditions.) When the file is reloaded, the file viewer attempts to reposition you at the same spot you were viewing previously. However, depending on how the file was changed, it may not be possible to reposition your view precisely.

Backtracking

When you do a "Find" (or click a link in Pommel documents), the file viewer remembers where you were before jumping to the new location. When you press Backspace you return to the previous spot. The file viewer remembers up to 50 previous locations.

Pommel Documents

The file viewer can process HTML-like files known as POMMEL™ documents. This feature must be explicitly turned on by the application that calls the file viewer, so it should not adversely affect the display of any files you inspect. This help file uses POMMEL markup.

File Viewer Limitations

In text files, long lines may be wrapped in the display area. This does not affect the file itself. You can use the "Display width" combo box to choose a line length which makes the file convenient to view. When binary files are viewed, any character with a hexadecimal value between $00 and $1F is replaced by a dot character. This does not affect the file itself. The file viewer has a limit on the size of the file it can load. If it should run out of room, it will truncate the file display and mark it as "incomplete" in the status bar. This does not affect the file itself.