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2022-08-26
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u
M R . E D S T A R
by Dave Moorman
Edstar has always been a sweet
little text editor. No Microsoft WORD,
but exactly what you need if you are
writing for a C-64 screen. I use it
constantly for LOADSTAR, so I also
developed a list of things I wished
Edstar could do:
Load and Save MS-DOS TXT files;
Line Center, Left, Right;
A u t o D o u b l e - s p a c e;
Auto Glue entire paragraph;
Print 65 column hard copies.
Secondly, I wanted a mouse-driven
program with all the comands available
as general hotkeys, menu hotkeys, menu
cursor, and (of course) menu mouse.
That way, you can learn the easiest
keystroke, yet have every function
available on menu as well.
Lastly, I wanted the keystroke
commands to duplicate those of earlier
Edstars. I have become quite used to
<CTRL-I> and <CTRL-F><CTRL-G>. But I
figured we could have some easier ones
as well (<CTRL-F><CTRL-G> can now be
accomplished with <C=-G>.)
I have followed the lead of the
Make-Shift Dopular Operating Systems
and put the semi-obligatory Menu Bar
across the top of the screen. Click it
with the Mouse, or press the
highlighted key combination to pull
down the menu:
Green Highlight -- <C=-key>
Yellow Highlignt -- <CTRL-key>
Reversed Char -- <key>
On the menu, the highlighted letter
within the command word is the Menu
Hotkey, good only when the menu is
open. The letter to the right of the
command is the General Hotkey, which
lets you avoid opening Menus all the
time. As you learn the General
Hotkeys, you won't need the menus as
much.
The <INST/DEL> key works as you
might expect -- unshifted to Delete
and shifted to Insert spaces.
Characters pushed off the right edge
of the screen are lost.
[EDSTAR PROTOCOL]
[---------------]
Mr. Edstar has a freely roaming
cursor, but is still a line-based text
editor. That means the text line under
the cursor is all Mr. Ed is working
on. When saved as a T. file, each line
has its own carriage return.
And as per Imperial Command of Lee
Novak, Mr. Edstar saves T. files with
a Zero Byte at the end. This makes the
files perfect for Racking with Mr.
Mouse!
For printing hard copies in 65
columns and saving TXT files, Mr.
Edstar removes the carriage returns
except at the end of a paragraph. The
end of a paragraph is defined as when
the [next] line is blank or has a
space in the first column.
When preparing a TXT document for
Mr. Edstar, be sure that no line
without spaces is longer than 38
characters. If Mr. Edstar freezes
while loading a TXT file, this is most
likely the problem.
Also, the first two bytes of the
TXT file will be lost during the load.
If the TXT document has a blank line
at the top, the two- byte carriage
return will provide these bytes. When
saved, two spurious bytes will be
added to the beginning of the TXT
document.
[THE MENUS AND COMMANDS]
[----------------------]
[File] <C=-F>
[New] <C=-F><N> or <C=-N>
Clears the text.
[Load] <C=-F><L> or <CTRL-L>
Loads a file. If the filename
begins with "T.", then it is
presumed to be a C= 38 column
PETASCII file. If the filename
has a ".TXT" extension, it is
presumed to be a MS-DOS ASCII
file. If neither are present,
you will be asked to choose:
1. C= T.file
2. PC file.TXT
3. Cancel
[Save] <C=-F><S> or <CTRL-S>
Saves file with same presump-
tions as LOAD. If the text is
new, type in the filename.
[Save As] <C=-F><A> or <CTRL-A>
Lets you type in a new name
for your file.
[Disk/Dir] <C=-F><D> or <C=-D>
Opens a menu to allow Disk
Access.
[1. On Device #] Shows current
Drive number. Select to
choose a different drive.
[2. Send Disk Command] Select
to do just that.
[3. Directory] Lets you look.
[4. Memory Check] Select to
see how much space you
have left.
[5. Cancel Disk/Dir] just lets
you out of the menu -- as
does clicking anywhere
else.
[Print] <C=-F><P> or <CTRL-P>
Choose between 1 - 65 col.
column or 2 - 38 col. columns.
[Exit] <C=-F><X> or <CTRL-X>
Quit Mr. Edstar and return to
LOADSTAR (if disk is in
drive).
[Edit] <CTRL-E>
[Insert] <CTRL-E><I> or <CTRL-I>
Insert a line at cursor,
pushing other lines down.
[Delete] <CTRL-E><D> or <CTRL-D>
Deletes cursor line, pulling
other lines up.
[Indent] <CTRL-E><N> or <STOP>
Moves Cursor over 4 spaces.
No word wrap.
[Indent Number] <CTRL-E><N><#> or
<C=-number key>
A character [must] be in the
first column. Pushes line up
to 8 spaces in, and performs
word wrap.
[Function] <CTRL-F>
[Split] <CTRL-F><CTRL-S> or <C=-S>
Splits line at space under or
right of cursor. Cursor to
next line.
[Kut] <CTRL-F><CTRL-K> or <C=-K>
Character under cursor and all
that follows goes to next
line. Cursor stays on current
line.
[Break] <CTRL-F><CTRL-B> or
<Shift-RETURN>
Splits line at space under or
left of cursor. Cursor stays
on current line.
[Glue] <CTRL-F><CTRL-G> or <C=-G>
Connects next line to current
line with single word wrap if
needed. Glue always puts a
space between the end of the
current line and the beginning
of the glued line.
[Unite] <CTRL-F><CTRL-U> or <C=-U>
Glues from current line to end
of paragraph.
[Format] <CTRL-O>
[Align Center] <CTRL-O><C> or
<C=-E>
Centers current line.
[Align Left] <CTRL-O><L> or <C=-L>
Moves current line to left
edge.
[Align Right] <CTRL-O><R> or
<C=-R>
Moves current line to right
edge.
[Up/low Case] <CTRL-O><U> or
<CTRL-U>
Toggles current line between
all Lower Case and all Upper
Case. That is, to get all
Upper Case, press <C=-U>
<C=-U>.
[Wide] <CTRL-O><W> or <C=-W>
Current line must begin at
left edge and be no longer
than 19 characters. Letters
are [S P A C E D] like this.
[Left Cursor] <CTRL-O><L> or <F1>
[Right Cursor] <CTRL-O><R> or <F7>
[Top Cursor] <CTRL-O><T> or <F2>
[Bottom Curs] <CTRL-O><B> or <F8>
[Info] <C=-I>
Presents Memory available (Mr.
Edstar begins with 19199 bytes for
text.), the number of disk blocks
used, and the line number the
cursor is on.
[Techno-Notes]
[------------]
Inside, where you would never know
it, Mr. Edstar works exclusively with
Screen Code for the Characters. This
enables much faster response times and
eliminates the whole Double-Quote Mode
problem.
The other advantage of using
Screen Code is that a byte with bit 7
set could then be the End of Line
marker. The other 7 bits of the marker
hold the length of the previous line.
Memory is arranged with two Stacks
-- one for everything above the cursor
line and one for everything below the
cursor line. The line under the cursor
is held in a Buffer, where all typing
and manipulation occurs.
The Front Stack Pointer points to
the last End of Line marker. When a
line is added to the Front Stack, the
Pointer is incremented and the data is
transfered from front to back. When a
line in the Front Stack is moved to
the Buffer, the line length (in the
End of Line marker) is subtracted from
the Front Pointer. Then the data is
moved to the Buffer from front to
back.
All functions (except those in the
File Menu) are controled by the
General Hotkeys in ML. When the Mouse
is clicked (or one of the Menu Keys is
pressed), control returns to Basic.
Mr. Mouse and Basic then can handle
all the menus and dialog boxes.
Loading, Saving, and Printing are all
handled by Basic code, with a little
help from Mr. Mouse and some custom
ML. For the rest of t