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The CICA Windows Explosion!
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FAQ.TXT
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1994-03-18
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Frequently Asked Questions
on
Programmer's File Editor
--------------------------
[Answers in this file refer to facilities available in PFE 0.05.007]
----
Q. How can I arrange that edit windows are created to use the maximum area
available in the MDI client area?
A. You can do this by setting a value for the 'open-maximized' key in the
[options] section of the initialisation file pfe.ini or pfe32.ini. If you
include a line like this:
open-maximized=1
then whenever you open a file or perform a File New command, the window will be
created in a maximized state. Other values are also supported to allow you more
exact control; see the help file for complete details
----
Q. Why don't all the TrueType fonts I have installed on my system appear in the
printer and screen fonts dialogs?
A. Because PFE is a programming-oriented text editor, rather than a word
processor, it supports only fixed pitch fonts (ones in which all characters
occupy the same width on screen or paper). There are, sadly, very few fixed
pitch fonts available. There are no plans to add variable fixed pitch support
in a future release.
----
Q. How can I ensure that if I associate PFE with a file type in File Manager,
double clicking on a file of that type will bring up a new PFE window rather
than opening the file in an already-running instance?
A. Normally, whenever you start PFE, it will look to see if an instance is
already running. If it is, this instance is activated, and the names of any
files you give on the command line will be passed to it across a DDE link. If
you want to force a new instance of PFE to start instead of activating an
existing one, use the '/m' command line flag.
----
Q. I want PFE to remember the names of more than the last 5 files I've edited,
so I can pick them quickly from the File menu. How can I do this?
A. The initialisation file pfe.ini or pfe32.ini has two settings in the
[options] section of relevance here. Setting
mru-list-size=x
will change the number of files recorded to 'x', which can be in the range
0..64. Setting
mru-files-shown=y
will show 'y' filenames on the end of the File menu ('y' can lie in the range
0..8; if you set it to be > 5 the File menu will look very clumsy on 640 x 480
screens).
When PFE has more files remembered than will fit on the File menu, it adds an
extra "More Files..." item, which gives you a dialog showing a full list of all
the names.
----
Q. I don't like the standard Windows File Manager, and prefer to use a third
party one. How can I get the File Manager item on the Execute menu to start
this instead of the standard one?
A. All the "manager" items on the Execute menu can be tailored to run any
command line you choose. In the initialisation file pfe.ini/pfe32.ini you
should set up a [managers] section containing lines like this
[managers]
file-manager=c:\tools\newfm.exe /q
task-manager=c:\tools\newtm.exe
... etc ...
There are full details on this in the help file
----
Q. I use 4DOS-for-NT as my Windows/NT command processor instead of Microsoft's
cmd.exe - how can I get the Execute DOS Prompt and associated tool bar button to
start this?
A. You can define the command processor you want to start in the [options]
section of the initialisation file pfe.ini/pfe32.ini like this:
comspec=c:\4nt\4nt.exe
Under Windows 3.1, you'll probably have set the DOS environment variable
COMSPEC to identify your command processor, and PFE will use this
----
Q. What's the difference between the Execute Launch Application command and the
Execute Launch Windows Tool command?
A. In terms of what they accomplish - to start a Windows or a DOS application
running independently of PFE - there's none. Execute Launch Application starts
a dialog that prompts you for a command line; it remembers the last command
line you used, but that's all.
The Execute Launch Windows Tool command, by contrast, lets you define a whole
set of command lines, and label each one with a meaningful name. For example,
you could name a tool entry as "Edit Help File", and associate a command line
that runs Word for Windows to edit a file. Or you could have one called "Build
data file" that runs a DOS application with a set of files on its command line.
You just pick the function you want from your mnemonic list, without needing to
bother about what the command line has to be
----
Q. I use Windows NT on MIPS and DEC Alpha platforms - is there an executable
of PFE32 for these?
A. PFE32 exists only for Intel hardware. There are no plans for MIPS or DEC
Alpha versions
----
Q. How can I record my keyboard macros for use in other sessions?
A. This ability is not a part of the current PFE release. A future version will
include savable keyboard macros, implemented as editable macro libraries
----
Q. How does PFE manage to allow more than 32K of text to be edited in an edit
control?
A. PFE doesn't, in fact, use standard edit controls to show text. The windows
you see are ordinary MDI child windows, and the text is drawn explicitly by PFE
as required. Internally, a complicated memory management system keeps track of
where each line of each file is stored.
----
Q. Why, if I have word wrap switched on for a window, will PFE wrap text only
when I'm typing at the end of the line and not when I insert in the middle of
it?
A. The current design of PFE is set to do things that way for efficiency
reasons. A forthcoming release will feature a command to reflow the text of a
paragraph so that it fits within the wrap margin.
----
Q. Why do I get "Help file not found" when I ask for help?
A. Make sure that you have the help file pfe.hlp in the same directory as the
pfe.exe or pfe32.exe executable program
----
Q. Why is the default of 32 undoable actions so small? Surely, when I'm typing
text, I'll fill that up in 32 keypresses?
A. Actually, no - the undo system doesn't work in quite that way. It records
specific _actions_ in its stack, such as a drag-drop move of text, or a cut of
the highlighted text. When you're typing, each keypress is considered as part
of a _single_ action, which is terminated only when you do something different,
like moving the caret with the arrow keys, or switching to another window.
Then, when you use the Undo Typing command, PFE will remove all the typing
you've performed in that action (a future release of PFE will probably let you
undo typing actions character-by-character too)
----
Q. If I select some text and start to drag it to a new location, how can I
change my mind without having to drop the text somewhere and then undo the
action?
A. You can cancel a drag-and-drop in one of two ways. If the highlighted text
is visible in the window, move the mouse cursor somewhere inside it and release
the left button. Alternatively, press the Escape key before you release the
left mouse button.
----
Q. How can I use drag-and-drop to move text from one window to another?
A. In the current design, PFE supports drag-and-drop only _within_ a window.
Inter-window operation may be added in a future release.
----
Q. How can I configure PFE so that the File Save command and its associated
tool bar button are always available? At the moment, I can only use the command
when I've changed the file in some way.
A. By default, PFE enables the File Save command only when the file showing in
a window has altered. This gives you some feedback (complementing the 'file
changed' marker in the status bar) that helps you avoid un-necessary saves.
Putting the line
allow-save-always=1
in the [options] section of the initialisation file pfe.ini/pfe32.ini has the
effect of making File Save and its tool bar button available all the time. The
status bar flag, though, is now the only indicator you have to identify that a
file has been altered
----
Q. I like the window that runs DOS commands with output capture to start full
screen, and to have specific tuning details set. How can I do this?
A. DOS commands with output capture are run by either the $pfedos.exe (for
Windows 3) or $pfeds32.exe (for Windows/NT) helper modules. To change how the
windows are created, set up suitable PIF files $pfedos.pif and/or $pfeds32.pif
in the same directory, and use the Windows PIF editor to set the details as you
require
----
Q. How do I insert a Form Feed into a file, or specify it in the Find and
Replace dialogs?
A. To insert a Form Feed (or any other non-typable character) use the
EditTextInsertASCIICode command, which is by default mapped to Ctrl+Q. This
starts up a dialog that lets you select Esc and Ctrl+A - Ctrl+Z easily by name,
or specify any ASCII code you like as a number.
To specify Form Feed in the Find or Replace dialogs, write it as the two-
character sequence "\f". You can also specify end-of-line by "\n" and tab by
"\t"; and you can specify an arbitrary code as "\xhh", where "hh" represents
two hex digits. Remember that if you actually want a "\" character, you need to
write it as "\\".
----
Q. Why do I see lots of files with type .&&& (PFE version 0.05.006) or .$$$
(PFE version 0.05.007 and later) in my directories?
A. These are the backup files that PFE produces whenever you save a file. If a
file of the same name exists already, PFE renames it with a type of .$$$ before
writing the new data to disk. You can disable backups with the Options Default
File/Window Modes or Options Current File/Window Modes commands.
You can also choose to have PFE keep backup files in a subdirectory of the one
containing a file, rather than using the .$$$ file type. To do this, put a line
backup-mode=1
in the [options] section of the ini file