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╔══════════════════════════════════════╗
║ ║
║ pEDIT PLUS ║
║ ─────────────────── ║
║ the personal EDITor ║
║ ║
║ ║
║ TUTORIAL ║
║ ║
║ Version 1.0 ║
║ ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════╝
pEDIT COPYRIGHT 1989, 1990, 1991
_______
____|__ | (R)
--| | |-------------------
| ____|__ | Association of
| | |_| Shareware
|__| o | Professionals
-----| | |---------------------
|___|___| MEMBER
T. G. Muench
P.O. Box 11536
Prescott, AZ 86304-1536
(602) 445-2479
CIS 71171,2424
Welcome to the pEDIT PLUS tutorial. It is quite short
and covers only the basic text editing functions. You must
also read the manual, especially the Quick Start section.
You must use the STD (Standard) configuration while in the
tutorial. Later, you can, if you wish, change to one of the
other supplied configurations - or, set up your own.
The purpose of this tutorial is to familiarize you with
the fundamentals of text editing. It is assumed that you
have a basic knowledge of the IBM PC and can operate the key-
board and mouse. If you have problems, consult your computer
and mouse manuals.
The lessons primarily make use of the keyboard. However,
equivalent functions using the mouse and ButtonBar are given
when appropriate.
Key names are enclosed in angle brackets; examples are
<Home>, <Ctrl-End> and <Alt-F>. The function keys are named
<F01> through <F12>; note that <F01> is the key marked F1.
The arrow keys are named <Up>, <Down>, <Left> and <Right>.
ButtonBar buttons are referenced by their text mode abbrev-
iations; examples are <CMD> and <FMT>.
Two things need some explanation before you start the
tutorial. Both seem to cause much consternation for people
who are new to computing and text editing/word processing.
First, the <Enter> and <Tab> keys and <Space> bar operate
very differently than they do on a typewriter. On a type-
writer, they move you around on the page - they don't put
anything on the page. In pEDIT, <Enter> inserts a new line,
<Tab> inserts a tab character and the space bar inserts a
space (blank).
Second, don't be afraid of hurting anything! You will be
working with copies of a practice file and can always get
the original back. When you start working with real text,
you can always go back to the point of the last save. Pay
heed to the First Law of Word Processing: "Save early, save
often".
If you get 'lost', press <F01> to get on-line help for
every pEDIT command and <Alt-H> for keyboard and ButtonBar
help. If you get completely lost, quit the tutorial by
clicking on the <QUI> button or pressing <Alt-Q> (answer
"Y") and restart at the point where you had a problem.
To start the tutorial, type in the following at the DOS
command line. If you installed pEDIT PLUS in a directory
other than \PEDIT, substitute that directory's name:
CD \PEDIT
TUTORIAL
The TUTORIAL batch file makes two copies of the file
PRACTICE.TXT called PRACTICE.1 and PRACTICE.2; it then
invokes the editor using the STD configuration and loads the
file PRACTICE.1 into memory. You are now ready to start the
lessons.
╔═════════════════════════════╗
║ Lesson 1: Cursor Movement ║
╚═════════════════════════════╝
Moving the cursor around in the text is among the most
basic of all editing functions. Start by using the arrow
keys to move up, down, left and right. The current line and
column indicators on the Status Bar will change as you move.
Press <Ctrl-Home> to return to the top of the buffer.
Next, press the <End> key to move to the end of the first
line; press it several more times to move to the end of
subsequent lines. Now, use the <Home> key to move toward the
top of the buffer. Notice how the cursor moves to the begin-
ning of each line.
Move back to the top of the buffer. Press <PgDn> to page
down to the next screen; press it once more and the cursor
will move to the end of the buffer. Pressing <PgUp> will
return you to the top. Now, press <Ctrl-End> which moves you
directly to the bottom.
Now, move to the top of the buffer and press <Ctrl-
Right> to move a word at a time to the right. Then, try
<Ctrl-Left> to move by word backwards toward the top of the
buffer. pEDIT uses a macro (more on this later) to move in
Reverse; notice how the Direction shown on the Status Bar
changes from Forward to Reverse to Forward.
If you have a mouse, practice clicking on the UpArrow
symbol at the top of the Scroll Bar to the right of the
screen. Note how the screen scrolls up one line at a time.
Next, click on the DownArrow at the bottom of the Scroll
Bar; the screen will scroll down one line at a time. Next,
click on the area between the DoubleArrow and the UpArrow or
DownArrow to page up or down. Finally, move the mouse
pointer anywhere in the window and press the left button to
move the text cursor to that spot.
╔═══════════════════════════════╗
║ Lesson 2: Text Manipulation ║
╚═══════════════════════════════╝
The first Lesson showed you how to move around in a text
buffer. Moving the cursor is non-destructive; the buffer was
not modified. In this lesson the buffer will be modified as
you insert and alter text.
First, let's insert some text. This is what happens when
you press any one of the typing keys such as <A>, <Enter> or
<Tab>. Use the keys you learned about in the previous Lesson
to position the cursor on the comma after "March 30" on the
first line of the first paragraph. Making sure <Caps Lock>
is off, press the <T> and <H> keys to change "30" to "30th".
Notice how the text to the right of the cursor is shifted
over; the mode is Insert as shown on the Status Bar.
Press the <Ins> key to toggle the mode to Overstrike.
Move the cursor to the "M" of "March" and type in "April".
Notice how "March" was changed to "April"; text was over-
written, not inserted. Press <Ins> again to return to Insert
mode.
Now you will set the text margins and try reformatting a
paragraph. Make sure the Status Bar shows Insert mode and
press the <Esc> key to enter command mode. Type in "SET
MARGINS 10 70" (the case doesn't matter) and press <Enter>.
Now, position the text cursor anywhere on the line contain-
ing "April 30th" and press <Alt-F> to "fill" or reformat the
paragraph. Notice how the word "States" was moved down to
the next line; it no longer fit between the margins after
"th" was added.
You can change a word (or part of a word) to lowercase,
UPPERCASE or Capitalized by using the <Alt-L>, <Alt-U> and
<Alt-C> keys, respectively. Try it.
It is not possible to cover every pEDIT PLUS command in
the tutorial. Refer to the manual on your own and try the
CENTER LINE, OPEN LINE, INDENT, AUTO INDENT, QUOTE CHAR and
TRANS CHAR functions. You will also want to see what happens
when you insert tabs into the text.
╔═══════════════════════════╗
║ Lesson 3: Text Deletion ║
╚═══════════════════════════╝
In this Lesson you will practice deleting text. You can
delete by character, word or line. Note that the last word
or line erased is saved in a special text buffer so it can
be restored if you so desire. This is called 'undo' by some
programs.
First, let's put things back as they were; move to the
"t" of "30th" and press the <Del> key twice; the "th" will
be erased and the screen will again show "30". You can also
erase backwards by using the <BackSpace> key. Position the
cursor after the word "being" in the 2nd paragraph. Press
<BackSpace> 5 times to erase the word; now type "being" to
restore it.
Next, move the cursor to the "b" of the word "being" and
press <Ctrl-D> to delete the word. Press <F05> to restore
it. Next, move to the beginning of the first line of that
paragraph starting with "Sportsmen". Press <Ctrl-K> to
"kill" the line; note that the entire line is deleted. Press
<F05> to restore it.
Finally, move to the word "others" on that same line;
press <Ctrl-K> to erase all text from the cursor to the end
of the line. Pressing <F05> will restore the text.
╔═══════════════════════╗
║ Lesson 4: Searching ║
╚═══════════════════════╝
These commands are used to search for text and replace
one text string by another. Move to the top of the buffer
and click the <FND> button or press <Ctrl-F>. Enter "forest"
in response to the prompt "String to find: " and press the
<Enter> key. The cursor will move to the first occurrence of
"forest" and highlight it. Now, press the <F03> (FINDNEXT)
key several times until the message "Could not find text" is
displayed.
This search was case-insensitive, that is it matched
every occurrence of "forest" no matter what the case. Return
to the top of the buffer and press <Ctrl-F> again; this time
press <Up> to restore "forest". Use the <Home> key to move
to the beginning of "forest" and press <Del> followed by an
uppercase F to change "forest" to "Forest". Press <Enter>
to initiate the search; this time, note that only the exact
text "Forest" is matched. Now click the <NXT> button or
press <F03> as above until the "Could not find text" message
appears.
You're now ready to try replacing some text. Return to
the top of the buffer and click the <RPL> button or press
<Alt-R>. In response to the "Old string" prompt type in
"April" and press <Enter>; at the "New string" prompt type
"March" followed by <Enter>. The cursor will move to "April"
and the prompt "Replace (Y)es (N)o (A)ll (L)ast (Q)uit: "
will appear. Press the "Y" key to accept the replacement.
Please try the other responses on your own; "N" means do
not replace; "A" means replace all occurrences from this
point to the end; "L" means make this the last replacement
and quit; "Q" means quit now. Be careful of "A"; you won't
have a chance to pick and choose!
pEDIT also supports wildcard searches; you can match the
beginning and end of line by using the special symbols \\<
and \\>, respectively. Lets try one; move back to the top by
pressing <Ctrl-Home>; press <Ctrl-F> and type in ".\\>"
followed by <Enter>. Notice how a match is made only if the
period is at the end of a line.
╔═══════════════════╗
║ Lesson 5: Files ║
╚═══════════════════╝
You are now ready for some more advanced functions. In
this Lesson you will learn how to load in a file for edit-
ing, and save a modified buffer to disk.
First, "get" a file by clicking on the <GET> button or
pressing <Alt-G>, typing in PRACTICE.2 and pressing <Enter>.
This file, a duplicate of PRACTICE.1, will be loaded into
memory and will become the current buffer. Its name will
appear on the Status Bar. pEDIT PLUS will let you edit up to
16 files at one time.
Now, lets save the current buffer to disk. Click the
<WRT> button or press <F10>, which is the WRITE FILE key.
Nothing happened because, as the message tells you, the
buffer has not been modified. pEDIT will not save a buffer
that hasn't changed. You should still be positioned at the
top of the buffer; press <Del> to delete the first (empty)
line. Now press <F10>; this time the modified buffer is
saved to disk and pEDIT will tell you how many lines were
written.
There are two other file commands which you can try on
your own. The first is INCLUDE FILE which inserts the text
from a file on disk into the buffer starting at the current
cursor position. This command should be used only to 'merge'
in relatively small files. RENAME FILE is used to change the
name of the disk file associated with the buffer; use this
command when you want to save a file under a different name
and preserve the original.
╔═════════════════════╗
║ Lesson 6: Buffers ║
╚═════════════════════╝
These functions let you choose a buffer to edit, display
information about the current buffer and change the mode and
direction for a buffer.
Click the info button <INF> or press <Esc> and type in
"SHOW BUFFER". A SHOW window will appear which displays
information about the current buffer: its name, associated
file name, whether or not it has been modified, the current
direction and mode, etc. Press any key or click a mouse
button to return to the buffer you were editing.
You have two active buffers (PRACTICE.1 and PRACTICE.2)
loaded. To switch back to the first buffer, click the <BUF>
button or press <F02> and highlight PRACTICE.1 by using the
arrow keys or, if you have a mouse, clicking on the buffer
name. Then, press <Enter> or click the right mouse button to
move to the selected buffer.
pEDIT supports marks, sometimes called bookmarks. You
can set one mark per buffer and use the GOTO MARK command to
immediately move to that spot from anywhere in the buffer.
Let's try it. Move to the top of the buffer and use <Ctrl-F>
to locate the word "Organic". Press <Esc> and type in "MARK"
to mark this location. Use <PgUp> to move to the top of the
buffer and then issue the command "GOTO MARK".
Please try these remaining commands on your own. The
LINE command moves the cursor to a particular line in a buf-
fer. TRIM BUFFER deletes all trailing blanks from each line
in the current buffer. CHANGE MODE toggles the mode between
Insert and Overstrike, and CHANGE DIR toggles the direction.
╔═════════════════════╗
║ Lesson 7: Windows ║
╚═════════════════════╝
In this Lesson you will learn how to split and unsplit
the screen, move from window to window when the screen is
split, and shift a window horizontally.
There is now a single window on screen; click on the
<TWO> button or press <Alt-2> to split the screen into 2
windows. The cursor will move to the second window. Notice
that both windows are into the same buffer (PRACTICE.1) and
show the same portion of text. Now, using what you learned
in the previous Lesson, switch to the buffer PRACTICE.2 in
the bottom window.
You should now have PRACTICE.1 displayed in the top
window, and PRACTICE.2 in the bottom window. You move to the
other window by - you guessed it - the OTHER WINDOW command.
Press <F04> to move back and forth between the two windows.
If you have a mouse, simply click the left button anywhere
in the other window.
The <PgUp> and <PgDn> keys were discussed in the first
lesson; they move you around VERTICALLY in the buffer and
always show the same 78 columns of text. You can also move
horizontally using the SHIFT commands. This is called horiz-
ontal scrolling; it lets you see text beyond the right edge
of the screen.
Move to the PRACTICE.2 buffer and click the <ONE> button
or press <Alt-1> to unsplit the screen. Press <Alt-M> and
set the margins to 1 and 128. Then, position the cursor any-
where on the first line of the first paragraph and click the
<FMT> button or press <Alt-F> to "fill" or reformat the
paragraph. Note that the paragraph has become 2 long lines,
each longer than 78 columns. The cursor is positioned at the
right edge of the window to indicate that text extends past
this point. The current location on the Status Bar indicates
the 'real' position of the cursor.
Click on the rightmost button or Press <Esc> to enter
command mode and type in "SHIFT RIGHT". You can now see past
column 78, but not to the end of the first line. Issue the
command again - by pressing <Esc> followed by <Up> - to view
columns 80->. Finally, click the leftmost button twice or
issue the command "SHIFT LEFT 80" and press <Home> to return
to the left edge of the buffer.
╔═══════════════════════════╗
║ Lesson 8: Cut and Paste ║
╚═══════════════════════════╝
This lesson will cover electronic "cut" and "paste". You
can delete (cut) a portion of text and store it in a special
buffer for later use. The contents of this buffer (called
the paste buffer or clipboard) can then be "pasted" into the
current buffer wherever it is needed.
Text must be selected before it can be cut or copied to
the clipboard. The SELECT TEXT command is a toggle which
turns the select state on and off. In this exercise, you
will select the first paragraph, 'cut' it to the clipboard,
and then paste it in after the second paragraph.
First, put the first paragraph back as it was. Set the
text margins to 10 and 70 and reformat the paragraph using
<Alt-F>. Next, position the cursor back to the first line of
the paragraph at the far left edge of the window. Press <Alt-
S> to turn select on and use the <Down> key to highlight
each line of the paragraph. Be sure and include the blank
line in between the paragraphs; you should end up with the
cursor at the beginning of the first line of the second para-
graph.
Now, click the <CUT> button or press <Alt-D> to 'cut'
the paragraph. Move the text cursor to the start of the
paragraph that begins "With the Creation Act". Click on
<PST> or press <Alt-P> to 'paste' in the stored text; the
first and second paragraphs have been swapped.
There are two other commands which use select; please
try them on your own. The first is WIPE TEXT, which deletes
text without saving it on the clipboard. Use this command
when you want to delete a large amount of text and don't
need it back. STORE TEXT copies the highlighted text to the
clipboard but does not delete it from the buffer.
╔════════════════════════╗
║ Lesson 9: Key Macros ║
╚════════════════════════╝
This is an advanced topic and won't be covered in any
detail here. Please read the appropriate sections in the
manual for instructions on how to set up both key and disk
macros. There are commands to start/end a learn sequence,
and execute a macro.
A key macro is one that is used infrequently, i.e. a
'one shot' deal. If you have a macro that you use all of the
time, it should be saved to disk and given a name.
You saw a disk macro in operation in Lesson 1. The <Ctrl-
Left> key is bound to the command EXECUTE STDWREV. When you
press <Ctrl-Left>, pEDIT loads in the macro file STDWREV.PMC
from disk and 'plays back' the keystrokes it contains.
╔════════════════════════════╗
║ Lesson 10: Miscellaneous ║
╚════════════════════════════╝
Many commands fall into the miscellaneous category. We
can't cover all of them here; please refer to the manual for
more information. As you read this, you may want to try some
of them.
One command you need to know about is ABORT. It *must*
be bound to a key because you won't be able to get to the
command line when you need to use it. You can ABORT out of
any FIND, FINDNEXT, REPLACE or REPEAT operation.
ABORT can also be used to cancel a selection in any
BUFFER, FILES or HELP window. You can try this by clicking
the <HLP> button or pressing <F01>; instead of selecting a
help topic, press <Ctrl-C>. Note that you are returned to
the current buffer.
REPEAT is a very handy function that lets you repeat any
keypress up to 32767 times. As a quick test, press <F08> and
enter a repeat count of 44; DO NOT press <Enter> after the
count or 44 blank lines will be entered! Press the <Right>
key and watch the cursor move 44 characters to the right.
There are many SET commands you can use to customize the
editing environment. You can automatically save your work to
disk, choose foreground and background colors, set the
number of lines on-screen in text mode, set the paragraph
indent, and set the scope for search and replace operations.
The DOS command lets you shell out to DOS or pass a com-
mand to DOS for execution. The output from a shelled DOS
command goes into the DOS buffer where it can be viewed and
manipulated like any other text.
Now, click the <CMD> button or press the <Esc> key to
enter Command Mode and type in "LIST KEYS" followed by
<Enter>. You will see a list of all defined keys and the
command bound to each in a LIST window.
The <F01> (HELP) key brings up an indexed list of all
pEDIT+ commands; there is also a <HLP> button. <Alt-H>
(ALTHELP) displays special help screens for the keyboard and
ButtonBar. Try both of these keys now if you haven't already
done so.
Finally, there are two ways to end an editing session.
The first is QUIT; use it when you want to abort without
saving any modified buffers. EXIT, on the other hand, auto-
matically saves the current buffer to disk if it has been
modified and asks you, one at a time, if you want to save
any other modified buffers.
---------------------------------------
This concludes the tutorial. QUIT by pressing the <Alt-
Q> key. Enter "Y" in response to the "Buffer (s) modified -
quit (Y/N)?" prompt.