BEAV presents information to the user in a number of areas. The first is the window. There will be at least one window displayed on the screen at all times. The window consists of two areas. The first is the display area. This is where the data that is in the buffer is displayed. Most of the time the cursor will be in this area, as this is where most editing is done. Each line in the display area will start with a number that indicates the offset into the buffer for this line of data. At the bottom of the display area for each window is the status line.
The status line presents the user with a number of specific pieces of information. The first is the program name which is ``BEAV''. Next there are some flags indicating the status of this particular buffer.
The first flag indicates if the buffer has been damaged by a memory allocation failure. If there is a `?' then the buffer is bad, otherwise there will be a space. Bad buffers are set to read only.
The next flag indicates if the buffer has been changed and will need to be written out if the changes are to be saved. This flag is a `*' if the buffer has been changed, otherwise there will be a space.
The next flag indicates insert/overstrike mode; `I' for insert, `O' for overstrike. This is only meaningful in ascii or ebcdic mode.
Then the buffer name followed by the file name. A window can be in read only, read/write, or read/write with size lock. These will be displayed as [RO], [RW], or [WL] respectively. If auto-update is enabled then [AU] will be displayed.
Next the cursor position in bytes and the character position within the unit. The next piece of information gives the format that the data is being displayed in; HEX, OCTAL, DECIMAL, BINARY, ASCII, EBCDIC. If a data mode is selected then the size in bytes (1, 2, 4) is displayed. If the data is being displayed in Intel mode then the swapped flag is displayed, `S'. Lastly the byte shift is displayed; 0 only for 8 bit data, 0 or 1 for 16 bit data, or 0, 1, 2 or 3 for 32 bit data.
There can be multiple windows on the screen at the same time but each window will have a status line at the bottom.
The very bottom line on the screen is the prompt line. This is where you enter data that BEAV requests. If you want to edit a new file you would type `Ctl-X Ctl-V', BEAV would respond with ``Visit file:'' on the prompt line. The cursor would be positioned after the prompt. You would then enter the name of the file that you wished to edit.
If you entered the command by mistake, you can abort the operation by typing a `Ctl-G'. `Control G' is a universal abort command and can be used anywhere. If you want to perform a search you will enter the search string on this line. When you have entered the information that BEAV has requested hit `Return' and the cursor will return to it's original position in the window display area. The prompt line is also where error messages are displayed.