Tech Arsenal 1/Tech Arsenal (Arsenal Computer).ISO/tek-13/qeditq_a.zip/QEDITQ&A.TXT

Text File | 1991-11-04 | 15KB | 367 lines

            QEdit:        Common Questions and Answers
                          ----------------------------

 KEYBOARD
------------

QUESTION:   I try to use the "*","-", and "+" key on my numeric keypad and
it doesn't seem to work.

ANSWER:     By default QEdit has the Paste, Cut, and Copy commands assigned
to these keys. They are referred to as the "grey*", "grey-", and "grey+"
keys. If you want to use these keys at "Face-value", then unassign them in
your keyboard definition file.
See page B-2 in the printed manual for a listing of these keys.


QUESTION:   I have a NorthGate keyboard that has an additional "*" key, but
it doesn't seem to work.

ANSWER:     This extra "*" key is the same as the "grey*" key. Please see
the previous Question and Answer.  Reader's note:  The two grey colored "*"
keys on the Northgate OmniKey/Ultra keyboard both are the grey * key.


QUESTION:   I can't get the F11 and F12 keys to work.

ANSWER:     The F11 and F12 keys are present on "Enhanced Keyboards", also
known as the 101-key keyboards.
    By default, QEdit has enhanced keyboard testing turned off. Run
Qconfig.exe, select Advanced options, and answer Yes to "Test for presence
of enhanced keyboard (Y/N)? ". Be sure that you Save your changes when you
quit Qconfig.exe. As long as you have an "Enhanced Keyboard" and also a Rom
Bios that recognizes the Enhanced keyboard, you will be able to use these
additional keys.
    For a list of the "Enhanced Keyboard" keys, see page B-6 in the printed
manual.


QUESTION:   My TSR will not pop up over QEdit, why?

ANSWER:     Some TSR's will not pop-up when Enhanced keyboard calls are
being made. Run Qconfig.exe, select Advanced options, and answer NO to "Test
for presence of enhanced keyboard (Y/N)? ". Be sure that you Save your
changes when you quit Qconfig.exe. This should allow your TSR to pop-up.
If you have Enhanced Keyboard testing turned off, you will not be able to
access commands that you have assigned to the F11, F12, and other enhanced
keys. For a list of the Enhanced keyboard keys, see page B-6 in the printed
manual.


QUESTION:   My Tab key doesn't seem to work right. What is wrong?

ANSWER:     It's possible that you have ToggleSmartTabs ON. Make sure that
ToggleSmartTabs is OFF. Please see pages 1-41 and 3-23 in the printed manual
for a description of the ToggleSmartTabs command.


 TEXT ENTRY AND MANIPULATION:
------------------------------

QUESTION:   How can I enter _ANY_ ASCII character in QEdit?

ANSWER:     Any ASCII character having a decimal value of 0-255 can be
entered into a text file while in QEdit using one of the following methods:

                                ASCII 1-255:

    Press and hold the <ALT> key. Now, using the numeric keypad (this is the
keypad that is usually located on the right hand side of the keyboard), type
the decimal value of the Ascii character that you want. Now release the
<ALT> key and you should have the character placed in your text. (If you
have a problem entering an ASCII 240, see the discussion in this section.)

                                  ASCII 0:

    To enter the NULL character (Ascii 0) into your text, first use QEdit's
literal command (our default <CTRL P> ) and then press <CTRL @>. You will
get the NULL character placed in your text (it will look like a space).

    For more information on the Alt numeric keypad see the QEdit tip on page
1-26 of the printed manual. For more information on the Literal command see
pages 1-25 and 3-12 in the printed manual.


QUESTION:   How can I change a lower case character to an Upper case one or
Vice-versa?

ANSWER:     QEdit has 3 case changing commands. They are Upper, Lower, and
Flip. These commands can be used to force uppercase, lowercase, or
togglecase at the cursor position OR on all characters in a marked block (if
the cursor is within the marked block).


QUESTION:   How can I enter page breaks into my text?

ANSWER:     You can enter a Form-feed character into your text by using the
Literal command (our default <CTRL P> ) followed by <CTRL L>. You can also
use the Alt-numeric keypad method (described previously). Hold the <ALT> key
and type 12 on the numeric keypad, then release the <ALT> key.


QUESTION:   I am writing batch files and QEdit puts a carriage return/line
feed on the last line of a file. How can I keep from getting the double Dos
prompt when my batch file is done?

ANSWER:     QEdit writes a carriage return/line feed pair at the end of each
line whenever a file is saved. If you don't want the carriage return/line
feed on the last line of a batch file to be "SEEN" by Dos, then enter a Ctrl
Z as the last character on the last line. Dos will stop processing the batch
file when the ctrl Z is reached so you won't get the double prompt.


QUESTION:   How do I enter a NULL character into my text?

ANSWER:     Use QEdit's Literal command (our default <CTRL P>) immediatly
followed by <CTRL @>. This will place a NULL (ASCII 0) character in your
text. Please see the discussion of the Literal command in this section.


QUESTION:   How can I draw boxes in QEdit?

ANSWER:     Use the ToggleBoxDraw command (our default <SHIFT F1>). When box
drawing mode is on, a "B" will be present in the Status line. You can now
use the cursor keys to draw boxes in your text. To turn box drawing off,
issue the ToggleBoxDraw command again. The "B" will be gone from the status
line.
    You can also select several Box Styles, plus an eraser mode, by using
the ToggleBoxType command (our default <ALT F1>).
See pages 3-22 and E-7 in the printed manual.


QUESTION:   How can I use a spellchecker with QEdit?

ANSWER:     If you want to spell check a file you have loaded in QEdit, you
can save your file and then use the Dos command to run your SpellChecker
program. The easiest way to do this is to create a macro.

E.G.  macrobegin EditFile currentfilename return SaveFile Dos
      "c:\somedir\speller " currentfilename return return
      NewFile Return


QUESTION:   I try to enter an ASCII 240 using the Alt numeric keypad and my
system seems to hang. What can I do?

ANSWER:     There is a "Known" problem with some versions of the Phoenix
Bios that occurs when an ASCII 240 is being generated from the numeric
keypad and "Enhanced Keyboard" calls are being made.
    Internally, the bios code enters an infinte loop. To break out of this
loop, Press <CTRL BREAK> and you will again have control of your keyboard.
*NOTE: <CTRL C> will NOT get you out of the loop, you must use <CTRL BREAK>.
If you have enhanced keyboard testing turned off in QEdit, you will not have
this problem.
    As a side note, DOS 4.0 and above also make enhanced keyboard calls and
the above disussion applies there as well.


QUESTION:   How can I change all the Tab characters in a file to spaces?

ANSWER:     Before running QEdit, run Qconfig.exe and select the Tabs
Settings option. The first two questions are as follows:

Do you want the editor to start in Physical Tab Expansion Mode (Y/N)?
Make sure you answer Yes to this one.

Do you want the editor to start in Tabs Out mode (Y/N)?
Make sure that you answer No to this one.

    If you had to make changes, be sure to save your changes before leaving
Qconfig.exe.

Now run QEdit with the file that you want to remove the Tab characters in.
Go to the top of the file and issue the Markline command (our default key
assignment is <ALT L>). Now go to the end of the file and issue markline
again. Now issue the Flip command (our default key assignment is <ALT 3>) 2
times. Save your file and quit. This method assumes that your file contains
at least 1 alpha character on each line of the file.


 FINDING TEXT
--------------

QUESTION:   How can I limit a "FIND" or "SEARCH and REPLACE" operation to a
specified area?

ANSWER:     The "L" option was added as a way for the user to limit a search
operation to within a marked block area. When prompted for options, just
include "L" with the other options.


QUESTION:   How can I do a Find and place the found item on the center of
the screen.

ANSWER:     Try the following macro:

Macrobegin Find Pause Return Pause Return JFalse ENDMACRO: MakeCtrOfScreen
ENDMACRO:

 CURSOR MOVEMENT
-----------------

QUESTION:   When I use the cursor key in QEdit to move to the right or left,
the cursor stays on the same line when I come to the beginning or end of the
line. How can I have the cursor move to the start of the next line when I
reach the end of the current line OR move to the end of the previous line when
I reach the beginning of the current line?

ANSWER:     Assign the following macro in your Qconfig.dat file: (put the
macro on 1 line)

cursorleft  MacroBegin CursorLeft JTrue end: CursorUp JFalse end: EndLine
end:

cursorright MacroBegin IsEndLine JTrue down: CursorRight Jump
end: down: CursorDown JFalse end: BegLine end:

                           **PLEASE NOTE**

    You must have QEdit 2.15 or later to use these macros.  Otherwise you
may experience odd side-effects in the menus and other special contexts where
the arrow keys have meaning. The cursorright macro uses the QEdit 2.15
command "IsEndLine".


QUESTION:   When I am inserting text on a line, wordwrap does not seem to
work.

ANSWER:     In order for wordwrap to operate, the cursor has to exceed the
right margin that has been set. Once the right margin has been exceeded and
you type a non-wordset character, the line will wrap.


 PRINTER
---------

QUESTION:   How can I enter Printer control codes in QEdit?

ANSWER:     Please see the TEXT ENTRY AND MANIPULATION section. You will
need to know the ASCII values of the control characters. These values will
be mentioned in your printer manual.


QUESTION:   I print a file that I have in QEdit, but the Box drawing
characters do not print on my printout.

ANSWER:     Check your printer manual and make sure that you have the
printer set up to utilize the Character Graphics Set.


QUESTION:   How can I have QEdit print to LPT2 or Com1?

ANSWER:     QEdit prints to PRN. If you can redirect PRN to LPT2 before you
get into QEdit, then you can use QEdit's print to go to LPT2. If you can't
do this then use the WriteBlock command and specify LPT2 as the filename to
write. WriteBlock uses the marked block, if you have one, otherwise the
whole file is written out. If you use the WriteBlock command to send output
to a printer, you will have to put your own form-feeds in the file if you
want them.


QUESTION:   How can I get double spaced lines on my printout?

ANSWER:     You can use the "print left margin" setting to obtain double and
triple spaced text in most cases. If you have your printer set up so that it
prints 80 characters on a line, then set the "print left margin" in QEdit to
80. This will cause QEdit to send 80 spaces before printing each line, so
effectively get double spaced lines. If you want triple spacing, then make
the setting 160.


QUESTION:   I have QEdit sending formfeeds to the printer, but am getting
parts of a page AND some blank pages on my printout.

ANSWER:     Make sure that your text does not have some long lines that are
being wrapped by the printer. If your printer wraps at 80 characters on a
line, make sure that your file does not have lines longer than 80
characters.


 CONFIGURATION
---------------

QUESTION:   I make some changes to QEdit using Qconfig.exe and they do not
take effect.

ANSWER:     Make sure that you are using the copy of QEdit that you just
configured. If you are not in the current directory where your newly
configured copy of QEdit is, then check your path to see if you are getting
a different copy of QEdit. Be sure to look for batch files as well as EXE's
and COM's that share the same primary name. I.E. Look for Q.exe, Q.com,
Q.bat along your path.


 QEDIT COMMANDS
----------------

QUESTION:   When I use the CenterLine command, my text is not centered on the
screen.

ANSWER:     The centerline command uses column 1 and the right margin that
you have set as the basis for centering text. If you want the text centered
on the screen, assuming that your screen is 80 columns wide, you can set
your right margin to 80 and then issue the centerline command. If you don't
want to change your right margin, you can use column block marking to mark
your left and right hand margins, then issue the centerline command.


QUESTION:   How do I get the Sort command to work?

ANSWER:     In order to use the Sort command, you must be in a single,
nonzoomed window. You must use the MarkColumn command to mark the range of
lines to sort, and the width of the field to sort on as the key. If you use
any other type of blocking, the sort command will not work.


 QEDIT COMMAND LINE OPTIONS
----------------------------

QUESTION:   How can I have QEdit run a macro on start-up?

ANSWER:     The "-Emacroname" or "/Emacroname" command line switch, will
execute the first macro in macroname. Be sure to specify a path to macroname
if it is not in the current directory. E.G.  Q ABC -Ec:\path\mymacro.mac
will load file ABC and execute the first macro in c:\path\mymacro.mac.
Please note that this switch does not load macroname. If you also want to
load macroname, then use the -L or /L option described in this section.


QUESTION:   How can I have QEdit pre-load a macro set?

ANSWER:     The "-Lmacroname" or "/Lmacroname" command line switch, will
load macroname. Be sure to specify a path to macroname if it is not in the
current directory. E.G.  Q ABC -Lc:\path\mymacro.mac will load file ABC and
load the macrofile c:\path\mymacro.mac.


QUESTION:   I used to be able to have QEdit load a file and then go to a
certain line number, but now it does not work.

ANSWER:     In versions of QEdit prior to version 2.1, going to a specified
line on startup was a configuration program option. This has been replaced
with a command line switch of the format -nLINE# or /nLINE#. I.E. To load
file ABC and immediately go to line# 35 type:  Q ABC -n35


QUESTION:   How can I have QEdit come up in 43/50 line mode?

ANSWER:     Use the "-Emacroname" or "/Emacroname" command line switch to
execute the first macro in macroname. Make sure that the first macro in
macroname uses the SetEGA43 command.

Example:  If the first macro in Start.mac is:    MacroBegin SetEGA43

Then,  Q ABC -EStart.mac , will load file ABC and then set the screen to
43/50 line mode.


QUESTION:   How do I use a QEdit command that is not tied to a key?

ANSWER:     If you would like to have the command available at all times,
just assign the command to a key in your keyboard definition file. Once you
have modified your keyboard file, be sure to run the Qconfig.exe program.
Select the Keys option, supply the name of your Keyboard file, then save
your changes and quit the program.

You may use all the QEdit commands when creating macros.