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1989-03-10
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┌───────────────────────────┐
│E! SHORT INSTALLATION GUIDE│
└───────────────────────────┘
To install E!:
1/ Unpak the files E!40DSK1.ARC, E!40DSK2.ARC and E!40DSK3.ARC using ARC-E
in a directory called C:\E! (or whatever name you prefer). Do not delete
these files. They may be useful to you if E! files are lost. Please
distribute E!40DSK1.ARC, E!40DSK2.ARC and E!40DSK3.ARC instead of E!
individual files.
If you have a two diskette drives system be aware that all E! files will
not fit on a single diskette. E!40DSK1 contains all files really needed
to execute E!. E!40DSK2 contains E! documentation, utilities and font
files. E!40DISK3 contains the H! and P! utilities and the API
documentation.
2/ At the DOS prompt enter SET E!=C:\E! (drive and directory where you
copied E! files). If you have a RAM drive copy all files to it and use it
as E! environment variable.
3/ At the DOS prompt enter E! E!.PRO and "uncomment" all options you want
to activate. E!.PRO is a self-explanatory file. Save it using F4. This step
is not mandatory and you may leave the main profile unchanged (that is, you
will have no profile at all since it is a dummy profile).
4/ Eventually enter SET E!PATH=path;path;..... at the DOS prompt. If E!
don't find the specified files in the current directory, it will search
in all paths specified in E!PATH or in the APPEND command of DOS.
5/ Include the directory where you installed E! in your PATH command.
So far, you're done.
To edit one or more files enter
E! filespec1 filespec2 ....
at the DOS prompt.
/L or /l anywhere on the command line will reload all files edited in the
last session of E! in the current directory ( if you have activated the
LOG switch in your active profile).
To print the documentation, just enter "type e!.doc > prn" at the DOS
prompt. E!.DOC is pre-paginated.
I really hope E! will be very useful to you and pleasant to use. Have fun!
┌──────────┐
│E! HISTORY│
└──────────┘
I'm a System Engineer working at IBM in France and I used many text
editors in my programmer's life. The best tools I've seen (until I wrote
E!) are BRIEF and E3, an IBM internal use only editor. They are very
powerful programs but they both have the same drawback : they have not
many basic functions and they have to be programmed to offer more
sophisticated functionalities. Well, I think many people don't want to
spend time programming the tool they use to write programs... Hmm, you
see the idea?
So I wrote E!. Many functions, quick, efficient, macros capabilities but
no programming (at least in the first versions). I'm personnaly very
pleased with the result but it's up to you to say if you are too.
Many users told me it was necessary to do something more than the simple
macros implementation. So the E! API was written, allowing the programmer
to use his usual programming language to write new E! functions and add-in.
It took many of my time from the past two years to write this program but
it was really exciting. It was first written using Turbo Pascal 3.0 but I
quickly got problems with the program size and I used Turbo Power's Turbo
Extender to produce a 150 kb monster. Versions 2.x and 3.x where
rewritten using Turbo Pascal 4.0 and Assembly language (Microsoft MASM)
for some video routines. Version 4.0 has been compiled with Turbo Pascal
5.0. Beta testers were professional programmers. They have been very
cruel to me but this helped a lot... and now they're using E!.
Planned enhancements are :
("planned enhancement" has here the same meaning as in the IBM dialect; I
sincerely plan to do this but I can't tell when I'll achieve it)
- Swapping to disk when calling DOS (but it's not very easy because of the
E! API specifications).
- Regular search expressions (although I never used them with other
editors but many people do)
- EMS support (it will be very difficult due to the E! structure)
- OS/2 version
All this will depend on the success E! will gain among text editors
users.
There are many techniques used to design a text editor. Linked list method
(Borland Editor toolbox) is very easy to implement but has very poor
performances. Moreover, block manipulation is very difficult with such a
structure. The "contiguous block" design and the "contiguous block with
moving hole" design are very efficient for string search but too slow for
lines or strings insertion when the block becomes bigger. I used a
technique that could be called "dynamic pointers arrays allocation". A text
in E! is represented by an array of pointers to text strings. This array is
an element of a larger structure describing the current text. These
structures are linked together in a circular list. A new text structure can
easily be created and inserted in the circular list. The big difficulty is
to manage the pointers arrays size when the text is loaded and when lines
are inserted.
This method cumulate advantages of other methods and has few drawbacks
(except EMS cannot easily be implemented). It is easier to manage blocks
with an array of strings. But since this array is actually not an array
of fixed length strings but an array of pointers to strings, memory
resources can be managed efficiently and no space is wasted. In E! there
is never ONE extra byte allocated for a string that shouldn't need it.
Inserting and deleting lines in such a structure is very easy since we
have only to move pointers and not whole strings.
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│MODIFICATIONS SINCE LAST DOCUMENTATION UPDATE │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────┘
<< NO MODIFICATION >>
┌──────────────────────────┐
│E! TIPS, CAVEATS and HINTS│
└──────────────────────────┘
If you use E! as "every day's" editor you may want to copy E!.EXE and all
files related to E! on your RAM disk (if you ever installed any one on
your system) each time you initialize your computer (autoexec.bat). This
way, E! will edit your files very quickly and your macros will execute
quicker (although they perform very good even if you run them from a hard
disk). Don't forget to set the E! environment variable to the right
value. Likewise, il will be a good idea to install H!.EXE and P!.EXE on
your RAM disk.
**************
Personally, I have programming profiles and text editing profiles. I use
different color settings for each profile type. So, I always know by
simply looking at the screen which profile is active.
**************
Macros are generally used to avoid repetitive tasks but you can also use
macros to implement new E! functions. Here is a little example:
Generate the following macros using MACGEN and name them:
GOLEFT.MAC GORIGHT.MAC
[EDITMODE] [EDITMODE]
[BLOCK_MARK] [BLOCK_MARK]
[LEFT] [RIGHT]
[MOVE_BLOCK] [RIGHT]
[UNMARK] [MOVE_BLOCK]
[LEFT]
[UNMARK]
I have assigned these macros to my Alt F11 and Alt F12 keys. Now, if I
hit one of these keys, the current character is moved smoothly to the
left or to the right. This is very useful, for example, when you type
characters in reverse order.
**************
Don't set the DELAY value too low. It could then be possible that you never
see the E! messages.
**************
Deleting a very big block or group of lines may take a few seconds. This is
because E! is trying to keep your memory space as clean as possible. So, it
will be possible to run bigger programs when you make a DOS "shell".
**************
If you receive a "source and destination conflict" message when you are
trying to move a block with Alt M, use the Alt A (adjust) function instead.
**************
The E! HELP file can not be as accurate as the E! documentation. If you
get inconsistent information between the HELP file and E!.DOC, always
believe E!.DOC. H! is a more complete and independent HELP program.
**************
I'm aware that my english is poor. I'm sorry if this makes some parts of
the E! documentation unreadable (I don't really think so but I can't be the
judge in that matter).
**************
The file compression process does not preserve file attributes. So the
following files should be set to "read-only":
E!.HLP E!KEY.HLP E!.MSG
To do so, use the DOS "ATTRIB" command.
**************
Don't set the TYPEMATIC autorepeat rate too high. You could find you
deleting more lines than you really wish to (I told you E! is quick).
**************
This will be repeated in the E! documentation but it is VERY important.
DO NOT SET the "IBM101T" profile command to YES unless your computer is
equipped with an enhanced keyboard BIOS. That is, a BIOS processing
services #10h and #11h of the BIOS 16H interrupt handler. Doing so will
cause your machine to hang.
**************
If the current text path is very long ( over 47 characters), it will
appear truncated on the command line. Don't worry. This is only done at
display time.
**************
Patrick PHILIPPOT. 1/5/89
******************************************************************************