Simtel MSDOS 1992 June/SIMTEL_0692.cdr/msdos/keyboard/cedwars2.arc/PCED.ART

Text File | 1987-11-15 | 11.5 KB | 302 lines

Living with DOS:  PCED Command Editor
by Barry Simon

Copyright (c) 1986, Capital PC User Group Inc.
This material may be republished only for internal use
by other not-for-profit user groups.

Additional material copyright (c) 1986, Barry Simon

Posted on Compuserve with permission of CPCUG.  May not be
reproduced without including the above copyright notice.

Published in the February 1986 issue of the Capital PC Monitor.


INTRODUCTION

This is the third article in a series on how to better cope
with DOS by fully exploiting its capabilities and those of
several software tools.  In this month's article, I discuss
PCED, the commercial version of CED, the Command EDitor authored
by Chris Dunford.  As you may recall from my review in the
January Monitor, CED is a program which I find the most useful of
all my utilities.  Both the public domain version of CED and PCED
provide four basic services:

  o  A command line editor which is much closer to that provided
     by a good word processor than the strange editing modes
     provided by DOS.

  o  A command stack which allows you to recall and reissue, with
     or without editing, DOS commands which you previously made.

  o  A parameter recall feature that allows you to execute a
     program without having to reenter the required parameters.

  o  A macro facility called synonyms that allows you to issue
     series of commands by issuing a shorthand name.

As indicated in my earlier review, both CED and PCED are loaded
into memory where they permanently sit between the user and DOS.

While the original CED program remains in the public domain,
numerous enhancements have been made and incorporated into the
commercial version, PCED.  In fact, all of the facilities
originally provided by CED have been improved upon and enhanced
in the commercial version.

For the past few months, I have been using a beta test version of
PCED and this article will discuss its features.  I must
emphasize that what I am reviewing is a beta test version and not
the final released product.


FEATURES

Command Line Editor

A new feature has been added to the command line editor:  in CED,
<Ctrl-End> erases to the end of the line; in PCED, <Ctrl-Home>,
which erases from the start of the line to the cursor, is now
available.  The only editing feature which I miss is a key to
transpose two letters which would be useful for poor typists like
me.

Because the DOS editing keys are not needed for DOS commands,
they are disabled in CED.  However, this causes a problem when
using EDLIN because the F3 key is used to partially retype a
line.  In PCED, you get the F3 key back.  Of course, EDLIN is
such a poor editor that you might view it as a virtue of CED that
it makes it more difficult to use.


Improved Stacking

The command stack has been improved in several ways.  Since you
wouldn't want to have to run through a long list to find the
command you want to reissue, it is important that the stack not
be filled up with commands you don't need.  In PCED, the
individual commands in a multiple command synonym are issued to
DOS and appear on the screen, but only the original synonym is
added to the stack.

The nicest new feature of the stack is "prestacking".  As in
CED, hitting <Esc> blanks the command line but in PCED, hitting
<Ctrl-K> blanks the command line and places it in the stack.
That way, if you remember most of a long command but then realize
you forgot the file name, you can prestack the command, call up a
directory, and then recall the unfinished command.


Better Synonym Processing

The first command in a multiple command synonym can itself be a
synonym; in CED only the later ones can't be synonyms.  You can
define several synonyms in a single line; with CED, I had two
different synonyms, namely "gtbat" and "gtbatfiles" to mean
"C:&cd\bin\batfiles".  Now putting "syn gtbat*file ..." in my
CED configuration file defines five synonyms including the two
that I used to have.  The letters after the "*" are optional when
issuing the synonym.

With PCED, you can call up a synonym, say "foo", by typing "ced
edit syn foo" on the command line, edit it and make the edited
line the new meaning of foo by just pressing <Enter>.  I use this
so often that I've made "edit" a synonym for "ced edit syn".
PCED has a PACK command to remove redundant definitions from the
synonym stack and a SAVE command to save all the current synonyms
in a configuration file for loading with PCED in future sessions.

You can now issue internal commands to CED from a BATch file.  While
you can't directly issue synonyms from a BATch file, a utility,
XCED, is provided in the PCED package.  The XCED utility allows
you to call synonyms from a BATch file by installing a temporary
new shell of DOS.


User Installed Commands

In CED, it is possible to install various user defined commands
as part of CED which would act like DOS internal commands.
Unless you have considerable programming experience, it is
doubtful whether you would ever take advantage of this feature.
To make this process easier, PCED includes several supplemental
programs to install additional commands, including one that
changes file attributes, one that allows you to call up SIDEKICK,
and an enhanced directory command.


Accessing the Environment

For me, the two most powerful new features of PCED allow you to
access the environment and various predefined variables.  The
environment is an area of memory set aside by DOS for storing
information that it or other programs need.  You can place
information into the environment with the SET command so that
typing

  set a=abcd

at the DOS command line will add the variable a to the
environment with a value of "abcd".  PCED lets you access such
variables in synonyms by placing the variable within %-signs.
Thus, if you have the string %a% inside a synonym and you execute
the above command, the string would get replaced by the value
abcd.  You would probably use this feature primarily with two of
the three variables that DOS saves in the environment:  your
prompt, and your path.  Here is a pair of synonyms which
illustrate this feature:

  syn saveprmt set pr=%prompt%
  syn recallprmt prompt=%pr%&set pr=

The first saves the current value of your prompt in a dummy
environmental variable and the second recalls it.  Thus,
since one program UTIL that I use tends to crash if it is loaded
with my fancy prompt installed, I call it up with the synonym

  syn u saveprmt&prompt= &util&recallprmt


Predefined Variables

Even more useful are several predefined variables whose default
names are &m, &n, &p, and &c.  However, since I already use the &
as my chain character in CED, I changed the & to # and I'll use
that in my illustrations.  [Remember if you elect to follow my
conventions, you must include the lines

  vc #
  cc &

in your configuration file.  The first one changes the predefined
variable character from & to #; the second one changes the chain
character from # to &.]

Some of these predefined variables return the following:

  #m = the month in MM form
  #d = the day in DD form
  #n = the current drive without a :, e.g. A or B or C
  #p = the current directory in the form C:\bin\batfiles
  #c = the current directory in the form C:\bin\batfiles\

The difference between "#p\" and "#c" is that for the root
directory, the first returns "\\" and the second only "\".

Here is a typical example of how to use these variables.  I
download my electronic mail with a BATch file that, in
particular, puts it into a file called temp.imp.  I like to keep
the mail on disk in a file with the date of receipt.  Thus I
include the line

  xced ren temp.imp mail#m#d

The xced is there to allow me to invoke ced from the BATch file.
Mail that I capture on December 25, winds up in a file called
mail1225.


Examples of Synonyms Using #n, #p and #c

While all predefined variables are useful, #n, #p and #c are
especially so since the replacements take place before any
commands are processed.  Thus the synonym:

  syn t cd NEWDIR&MY PROG&cd #p

when processed will change to the new directory, run MY PROG and
then return to the directory where the original command "t" was
issued.

Here are some other examples of synonyms which make use of these
powerful features of PCED.  DOS 3.1 includes a program called
SUBST that lets you assign a drive name to a directory.  This is
useful if you have software which does not support path names but
supports multiple drives.  The syntax is

  subst G: C:\bin\batfiles

After issuing this command, any request to G: will call on the
batfiles directory.  It is important that you type in the full
name of the directory you wish to assign to G, even if it is the
current directory.  Thus, I have two synonyms

  syn csub subst %1: #p
  syn rsub subst %1:/d

so that "csub G" sets G to the current directory and "rsub G"
removes that assignment.

An example of a program that does not support path names is my
preferred spelling checker WORDPROOF.  Thus, I use the synonym

  syn wp subst G: #p>wp& wp G:%1&#n:&cd #p&subst G:/d

which, when I enter wp filename, does the following:

  subst G: #p  -  makes the current directory G:
  gtwp         -  changes directory to the one that has the
                  WORDPROOF program and the various
                  dictionaries, etc. it will look for
  wp G:%1      -  applies WORDPROOF to the file "filename" in the
                  original directory that the command was
                  issued; the space between & and wp is
                  critical; without it, wp would be treated as a
                  synonym and an infinite repeating loop would
                  result!
  #n:&cd #p    -  returns to the original directory even if it is
                  on a different drive from the WORDPROOF
                  directory.  Note that #n does not return a :
                  so you must add it.
  subst G:/d   -  tidies up by removing the substitution.  If you
                  didn't, when you later tried using the wp
                  synonym in some other directory, you would get
                  into trouble.

By the way, if you don't have DOS 3.1, here is a synonym which
is almost as good (as long as you don't use it from the wp
directory!):

  syn wp gtwp© #c%1& wp %1© %1 #p&erase %1&#n:&cd #p

If you analyze what happens to a synonym like this when you are
in the root directory, as opposed to any other directory, you
will understand why you need both #c and #p.


SUMMARY

In summary, the enhanced features of PCED make a very useful
product even more useful.  It is a program which the serious PC
user should definitely consider.

PCED is available directly from the distributor:

  Cove Software Group
  P.O. Box 1072
  Columbia, MD  21044
  [phone]

The suggested introductory retail price is $35, plus $2.50 for
shipping and handling.


ADDITIONAL MATERIAL

Since the introduction of PCED, Dunford has added a number of
additional user installed commands all available on the IBMNET of
Compuserve.  These include:

   o  HS (Hindsight), a program that gives screen scroll recall of
   screens produced at the DOS level.

   o  ALARM, a simple, small but useful alarm program.  Alarms
   must be set at the DOS level but will go off in any program.

   o  RAW, a program to turn RAW mode on

as well as the KICK, CDIR, SEND and ATTR programs supplied with
the original program.