SaintEdit is a robust, general purpose text editor; not a word processor, not a page layout program, not a draw program. Designed to read and edit enormous text files and to transparently handle multiple platform translations. Though it was intended to be a simple, trivial piece of software when I started on it a few years back, it soon became a very significant, major application.
SaintEdit has an intuitive, aesthetically pleasing user interface. It is extremely fast and does not bog down when the file sizes get large. Though it is commercial grade software, I have elected to distribute it as a shareware product, ridiculously priced at a paltry $10.00. I'll support you if you support me...
This is the usual About Box stuff; back-patting, name calling, etc.
Register SaintEdit
You will be asked to fill out a form and print it. If you do not have access to a printer, send your name, address and online account info (if available) to the address at the end of this document.
Opens a new document. You may only have ten (10) documents open at a time. You may also use Command-N from the keyboard.
Open
Opens an existing document. Any file with the type 'TEXT' can be opened. You are presented with the standard Mac 'what file do you want to open' interface. If you can't figure this part out, how did you get this far?
Close
Closes the current document's window (the active window is the front most window with close and zoom boxes visible in the title bar). If you have created a new document or edited an existing document, you will be asked if you wish to save your work. You may also use Command-W from the keyboard. You may also click the close box in the title bar. Holding Option and clicking the close box will close all document windows.
Revert File
Opens the last saved copy of the current document, throwing away all changes made since it was saved. This is a quick way to 'start over' your editing process, say if you did a 'Replace All' and screwed up... You will be asked to confirm this action as it is not undoable.
Save
Saves the current document. If you had created a new document, you will be asked what to name the document and on which disk device you would like to save it. If you were editing an existing document, it will be save with it's original name and location and format without notification.
Save as
This option allows you to save your document in one of five TEXT formats; Macintosh TEXT, DOS TEXT, Unix TEXT, TeachText TEXT or TeachText Read Only. Select the desired format from the pull-down menu, name your document, choose a location to save it and click the Save button, or press the Return key.
Page Setup
This will take you to the page set-up for the selected printer. Make sure you have chosen a printer using the Chooser under the Apple Menu first!
Print
This will take you to the print dialog for the selected printer. This will vary depending on the printer type.
Quit
This will quit SaintEdit. All windows will be closed, and those that have not been saved will ask if you wish to save of discard your work.
Will undo the LAST edit action you did; typing, deleting, etc. Once you have un-done it, you may redo it by choosing this item again. Pressing Command-Z on the keyboard will Undo/Redo as well. Note: This only works with the LAST thing you did, so don't expect it to fix the mistake you made three mistakes ago...
Cut
Will remove the text you have highlighted and place it on the clipboard. Pressing Command-X on the keyboard will Cut as well.
Copy
Will copy the text you have highlighted and place it on the clipboard. Pressing Command-C on the keyboard will Copy as well.
Paste
Pastes a copy of the text from the clipboard into your document, starting at the current location of the insert cursor (flashing vertical line). This does not alter or remove the text on the clipboard, so you can repeatedly paste into many documents. Pressing Command-V on the keyboard will Paste as well.
Clear
Removes the text you have highlighted. The text is not sent to the clipboard, it is gone. This command is undoable.
Select All
Highlights the entire document. Pressing Command-A on the keyboard will Select All as well.
Find and Replace╔
This command asks for 'Find' and 'Replace it with' strings, then allows you to find and/or replace the strings in your document. The search through the document begins at the location of insert cursor. Leaving the Replace string blank will allow replacement of something with nothing! Think of it! Pressing Command-F on the keyboard will get you to the Find and Replace dialog as well.
Replace All - Replaces all occurrences of the 'Find' string with
'Replace it with' string. See Replace All╔ below for
full details.
Replace - Replaces one occurrence of the 'Find' string with 'Replace
it with' string.
Cancel - Cancels the Find operation without further modifying your
document.
Find - Will find and highlight the text in the Find string.
Case Sensitive - When this option is checked, the 'Find' string must
appear exactly as it is shown before it will be
found.
Match Words - When this option is checked, the 'Find' string must
appear as a whole word-with a space before and after
it-before it will be found.
Wrap Around - Allows the Find function to continue at the top of the
document once it reaches the bottom. With this option
off, the Find will stop at the bottom of the document.
Find Again
Finds the next occurrence on the text from the 'Find' string in the Find dialog. Pressing Command-G on the keyboard will Find Again as well.
Replace Found Selection
Will replace the selected text from the 'Replace it with' string in the Find dialog. Pressing Command-R on the keyboard will Replace Found Selection as well. This makes repeated replaces easy to do by just pressing Command-R over and over.
Replace All╔
Uses the Find and Replace strings and does a 'global' replace throughout the entire document. The total number of items replaces will be displayed. This action is not undoable.
Preferences
The Preferences dialog allows you to customize the standard operating environment of SaintEdit to your tastes. To restore the default values (including text colors-in case you change them to colors that are unreadable) trash the SaintEdit Preferences file in the System Folder.
Day & Night Colors
I chose the default colors because they work quite well on color, gray
scale, and monochrome monitors. Simply click and hold on each of the six
color selection boxes, then move the pointer over the new color you want.
The example text will show you the results of the current selections.
Fastscroll
Enabling FastScroll (checking the box) will make scrolling much more
efficient, and therefore faster. What happens is that the thumb (the
little square in the scroll bar that indicates the relative position of
the viewable portion of your document) normally is updated and redrawn
after every line that scrolls up or down. FastScroll only redraws the
thumb when you are done scrolling (when you release the mouse button).
The other great feature is that normally if you click and hold below the
thumb in the scroll bar, the scrolling stops when the thumb reaches your
pointer. With FastScroll, you can scroll all the way to the top or bottom
of a document without "tripping" on the thumb. I can already see all the
bug reports on this one...
Enable Audible Feedback
This option is different from having MacinTalk speak text to you. With
this box checked, certain functions will 'speak' the result to you. Try
a find for something that isn't in your document (like 'Oyster', for
example) and listen to what SaintEdit says.
Print Date and Page Number Header
Checking this box will instruct SaintEdit to add a two-line header to the
top of each printed page containing the Name of the document, the day,
date, year and page number.
Wrap Text
The default window size 80 columns by 80 characters, the standard format
of text in terminal programs. Choose one of the three text wrap options to
match the style of document you choose to work with.
Tabs
The value in the Tabs field is the number of spaces that equal one tab.
If the value is 4, a tab will be 4 spaces wide.
Default Font
This is the font that will be used for new documents. The Marciniaco fonts
are mono-spaced, the Merkle fonts are proportional. The DOS fonts have the ANSI graphics characters so all the pretty borders and boxes look nice.
Like the menu item, this option capitalizes the first letter of each word it encounters. This option only works with text you have selected (highlighted).
Convert to UPPERCASE
This command will capitalize all letters selected. Pressing command-U will also perform this function.
Convert to lowercase
This command will turn all selected text to lowercase. Pressing command-L will also perform this function.
Insert Date
Inserts the current date (at the insertion point) in the form (Thursday, July 28, 1994)
Insert Time
Inserts the current time (at the insertion point) in the form (12:16:26 AM)
When you get tired of reading, let SaintEdit read for you! All you need is either MacinTalk II or MacinTalk Pro in your Extensions folder, a couple of voice files right in there with 'em, and the volume turned up!
Speak All
Will speak the entire document.
Speak Highlighted Text
Highlight the text you want read, and it will do it!
Shut Your A-Trap
Stops any speech in progress. Switching between documents also stops the speech.
Available Voices
This hierarchal menu let's you pick from the available voice definition files in your Extensions folder.
At the bottom of each window is a tool bar containing special functions for editing and viewing your document. When you are over these tools, a 'hand with pointed finger' pointer will appear.
Magnifying Glass Button
This button is identical to choosing Find and Replace from the Edit Menu.
Shamrock Button
The shamrock button toggles show/hide for invisible characters. The characters you will see are: '» for Carriage Return (CR), '┬' for Tab and 'α' for End Of File (EOF). Since SaintEdit is fixed to a monospaced font, I did not use dots to denote spaces: it's hard to distinguish a dot from a period, and spaces are obvious.
Sun/Moon Button
This button toggles between the text/document colors from the Day/Night settings in the preferences. This helps when your nice bright work environment turns into a dark dungeon of hate and despair...and it has better contrast in the night setting.
Top Of Document Button
Clicking this button will scroll to the top of the document without changing the location of the insert cursor. Pressing the 'home' key on an extended keyboard yields the same result.
Page Up
Clicking this button will scroll up one page without changing the location of the insert cursor, the same as clicking above the thumb in the scroll bar. Pressing the 'page up' key on an extended keyboard yields the same result.
Page Down
Clicking this button will scroll up down page without changing the location of the insert cursor, the same as clicking below the thumb in the scroll bar. Pressing the 'page down' key on an extended keyboard yields the same result.
Bottom Of Document
Clicking this button will scroll to the bottom of the document without changing the location of the insert cursor. Pressing the 'end' key on an extended keyboard yields the same result.
Help
Clicking the Question Mark button displays a scrollable dialog of the basic SaintEdit commands. Click inside the help text area to close this dialog and return to editing. Holding down the Option key and clicking the Question Mark displays how many characters are in the current document. Pressing the 'help' key on an extended keyboard also shows the Help dialog.
Fonts Pop-up
SaintEdit uses a customized version of the Monaco and Geneva 9 and 12 point fonts with the following changes:
1. I added a slash to the zero '0' to differentiate it from capital 'O'
2. I modified capital 'I' to differentiate it from lower case 'l' (as in lime)
3. The invisible characters used by the Shamrock button will not print.
SaintEdit also has DOS font which contain the ANSI graphics characters so you can view a...
I wanted speed, since RAM is abundant and cheap, there are no scratch files or spooling techniques, SaintEdit will be distributed with the RAM partition set to 1MB, this works rather well with a 512K text file load. Although the undo support is memory dynamic, there are scenarios that can use up a lot of memory. As an extremely loose and general rule (subject to change) use the following formula -> (The sum of average working files) x 2. For example: I want to edit between four 128K text files -> [(4 x 128) x 2] = 1024, and so on.
SaintEdit uses System 7 specific file routines that are not implemented on some Novell servers. If you try to save directly to this volume the save will gracefully fail and warn you - simply save your document to a local Macintosh volume and copy it to the server later. Hey, it's Novell's fault.
Documents with lots of Tabs scroll more slowly when showing invisible characters.
You can not have blocks of text larger than 32K without at least one carriage return.
The special characters in the custom SaintEdit font will not print - In order to ensure print quality, SaintEdit uses the Monaco True type font for output.
