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Commodore 64 Scene Diskmags Assortment
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Commodore_CEE_Vol._1_Issue_05_1995_Jack_Vander_White_Disk_1_of_3_Side_A.d64
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TEXT EDITOR VERSION 2.9
Creating a document
To start the text editor, just LOAD and RUN as you would any basic pogram.
Although this editor is written in machine language, it starts up with the
aid of a basic starting shell for ease of operation and copying.
Text memory will be cleared automatically, and your margins will be preset to
5 left, 75 right and 55 lines per page.
You can also manually clear the text buffer by selecting 1 (from the editor's
menu) and pressing RETURN. You will be asked to confirm the command (just a
safety precaution for those like myself who sometimes forget to save things
before erasing them).
If you wish to set up the margins and page length, use selection 2. Default
values are: left margin 5, right 75, lines per page, 55. The current value
will be displayed under the cursor, giving you a chance to either modify the
value or leave it intact (just pressing RETURN will use the current value).
Now enter the edit mode with selection 3 (default menu selection). If you
ever get a ?FORMAT ERROR message, it will probably be because the text buffer
needs to be initialized or the margins were set to illegal values (left > 77
or too close to right or right > 80).
NOTE: You can return to the menu at any time by pressing the STOP key. Also,
pressing CTRL H (while in edit mode) will return a help screen to assist
those who don't like to memorize control and function keys.
The screen will clear and (if you used the default margin values) you will
see bars at the left and right sides of your screen. These are the margin
markers, and at the bottom of the screen will be a status line. You will not
be able to type into the margin markers, as they are there to help you format
your text and let you know where your lines start and end. All screen lines
will be combined in pairs as 80 column lines, which will leave you with 12
lines on the screen at a time. You can identify which page, line and column
the cursor is on by reading the status line at the bottom of the screen. The
status line also tells you which mode you are in (40 or 80 column). Default
mode is 80 column. 40 column mode can be invoked with CTRL X, for those who
prefer to work with 40 column text (best for creating source code files or
creating messages in 40 column format (non-standard text files).
Type a line of text. At the end of the line, press RETURN to get to the next
line, or just keep on typing. Words will not be broken at the right margin
marker, because of the editor's automatic PARSING feature. If the last letter
on a line is not a space, the editor will move the entire word to the next
line for you. There are some safety features built into this routine, too. If
there is text on the next line, parsing will not take place. This allows you
to edit a previous line without accidentally dumping text on the next one.
Also, parsing will not operate on words longer than 10 characters. That was
done to allow the use of long strings of dashes for borders, etc. Parsing is
there to allow you to type without having to watch the screen. Be wary of
shifted spaces...the editor treats them as characters (not spaces), and they
can cause unexpected results, especially if they are on the next line...the
editor will not parse, thinking there is text there. This can be used to
FORCE a word to stay on the previous line, should you want it to.
CURSOR KEYS
Cursor right and left work as you would expect them to. Cursor up and down
are a bit different. They move the cursor 2 screen lines at a time (which is
really ONE 80 column line). The insert and delete keys will work as expected,
but only on the current line. When holding the delete key down, the cursor
will make it's way only as far as the left margin. If you want to delete part
of the previous line, move the cursor there with a cursor left, and then
continue deleting. The insert key will push all text from the cursor position
on towards the right margin. Text pushed into the right margin cannot be
recovered. The home key works normally, but screen clear is not supported.
SCROLLING THE SCREEN AND THE TEXT BUFFER
Attempting to move the cursor past the bottom of the screen will cause the
screen to scroll forward. Reverse scrolling will happen at the top of the
screen. When you move the cursor to the end of available memory, forward
movement will stop. The same is true for reverse movement at the screen's
top.
THE CTRL KEYS
CTRL D will delete the current line and draw all forward lines in to close
the gap. CTRL I will open up a blank line, pushing all lines forward from the
current line on. Holding CTRL d or CTRL i will allow you to quickly delete or
insert large portions of text. Even faster inserts and deletes are possible
with the next set of keys (BLOCK CTRL KEYS).
THE BLOCK CTRL KEYS
These keys call routines which operate on a BLOCK of text (a block being one
or more full lines of text). The first time a BLOCK CTRL key is pressed, the
start of the block is defined and stored (it will be the line the cursor is
on), and the cursor fast-flashes to let you know you have invoked a BLOCK
function. The second time you press the BLOCK CTRL key, you should have
already moved the cursor to the line you wish to designate as the last line
in the block. That line will be defined as the end of the block, and the
function will then be executed.
NOTE: If you accidentally invoke a block function (the cursor will fast-flash
when one is started), you can cancel it by pressing the STOP key. This will
take you to the menu (where all editing functions are cancelled), and from
there you can return to edit mode by pressing RETURN (selection 3 will be
under the cursor).
CTRL A (align a block)
This command will "repack" a block of text between the margin markers. I
frequently use it to convert 40-column text captured by my terminal's buffer
to 80 columns for printing. Blank lines are preserved, but all extra spaces
between words are eliminated (repacks with one space between words). If extra
spaces between words are desired, use shifted spaces (they're treated like a
character by the alignment routine). Here's an alignment demo:
This is the first line.
This is the second line.
This is the third line.
Now here are the same 3 lines repacked with CTRL A:
This is the first line. This is the second line. This is the third line.
Here's the set of lines repacked to be an indented block of text:
This is the first line.
This is the second line.
This is the third line.
The first repack was done by pressing CTRL A with the cursor on the first
line. Then, CTRL A on the last line. The block gets copied and repacked in a
buffer, the original block removed, and the new "repacked" block inserted in
it's place. The block buffer retains a copy of the last block buffered.
The second repack was done with the margins reset to 15 left and 40 right. If
you try this last one yourself, you will notice that the margin markers will
cover up some of the text when you reenter edit mode (normal). Just go ahead
and define the block with CTRL A's. Then reset the margins after the repack.
CTRL C (copy a block)
This function copies a block of text into the block buffer.
CTRL M (merge or insert a block)
Inserts the text from the block buffer into the document at the cursor line.
Text from the cursor line on is moved forward in the document to make room
for the merger.
CTRL R (remove a block)
Removes a block of text from the document and closes up the gap. The removed
block is copied into the block buffer. This function can be used to delete
huge portions of text, or to "pick up" a piece of the document, relocate and
merge it elsewhere with a subsequent CTRL M.
CTRL R can also be used to buffer a chunk of your document so that you can
load another one and merge the buffered text into it. Here's how:
Gobble up the portion of your document you DON'T want with CTRL R. Last,
gobble the text you WANT. This will leave you with a blank workspace, and
the desired text in the block buffer. Now, load the file you want to merge
the text into, and insert the buffered text with CTRL M.
Sounds like the long way around, but if you clear your workspace from the
menu, you also clear the block buffer. So, CTRL R will give you a way to do
it. You can also merge text with the load routine (see that section).
CTRL J (justify lines in block)
Allows you to right-justify the lines in a block of text. Extra spaces are
inserted between words until the last character in the line rests one space
to the left of the right margin. The printing routine will also right-justify
text, but it operates on the entire document. CTRL J allows you to justify
smaller parts of it only, if that is what you wish to do. An example is this
paragraph, and the next one:
This is an indented block of text
aligned on the screen with a right
margin of 40...then it was right
justified, and the original margins
restored. Note the "blocked" effect
when you print these paragraphs.
CTRL S (set block underlining)
You can define any text to be underlined by typing it in reverse video (more
on this later). CTRL S will convert an entire block to a reverse video block.
When the editor's printing routine comes across this text, it will be sent to
the printer as underlined text (as long as the printer has that capability).
This function, and CTRL K, will allow you to define less than a full line of
text as part of the block. The text does not get copied into the buffer.
Also, CTRL S will not underline spaces at the end of a line, and will ignore
blank lines.
CTRL K (kill block underlining)
Kills any reverse video in a block of text. Sometimes you may load a file and
find it full of reverse video text (nulls added to a file by a BBS can cause
this to happen. More on this later). When that happens, this function will
allow you to correct it very quickly.
CTRL V (view the block buffer)
Allows you to see what's in the block buffer. Will not function if the buffer
is empty.
CTRL Z (zero block buffer)
Allows you to zero the block buffer. You may want to do this if you run out
of memory (and you have text in the block buffer) and you need to free up
some extra room for the rest of your document. As you may have guessed, the
block buffer is allocated from part of the "free" text buffer.