═══ 1. Introduction ═══ WSedit - Write&Set Editor 0.95, Mai 2003 Freeware Editor for OS/2, eCS, Windows95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP and Linux (planned) which reads Wordstar (DOS) 4-7 and ASCII (ISO and IBM codepage) and writes Wordstar 4 and ASCII format (ISO and IBM codepage). User Interface CUA (Windows Standard) and Wordstar (with Ctrl shortkeys). Most Wordstar Ctrl commands are supported. The behaviour of WSedit depends on the text file extension. In the settings notebook, you can define different properties dependent on the file extension of the file. The idea of WSedit is to have a modern graphical 32-bit application with look-and-feel of old Wordstar for DOS and Windows editor behaviour simultaneously. You can also use WSedit without knowing Wordstars Ctrl commands ("Ctrl" is abbreviated ^) and without knowing about the Wordstar file format: if you don't use the Wordstar file format, WSedit is a powerful text editor for large ASCII files with/without word wrapping. In this case, it will be nevertheless useful for you to take a look at the dot commands for unformatted files and at the Ctrl commands. The WSedit Freeware program is a part of the full-featured Shareware wordprocessing suite Write&Set. Write&Set consists of two programs: one for writing (WSedit) and one for "setting" - means formatting, previewing and printing (WSformat). If you have installed both WSedit and WSformat, you get the look-and-feel of a single program. Write&Set is based on Wordstar dot commands (formatting commands in the text, beginning with a dot at the beginning of a line). You enter a raw text with dot commands and without fixed margin in WSedit (WS file). After you have finished writing, WSformat will compile the raw text to a formatted text (FMT file) with fixed margins which can be viewed again in WSedit. This formatted text can be previewed and printed to all printers which are installed on your operating system. Write&Set supports contents, index, footnotes, bitmaps, hyphenation. In opposite to Winword-like programs, Write&Set won't get problems if text documents gets large. For more information, visit http://www.WriteAndSet.com . To convert Write&Set files to hypertext formats, you are encouraged to download Hypermake http://www.hypermake.com . It is a hypertext compiler which compiles Write&Set files, Wordstar 4 files or ASCII files with Write&Set syntax to HTML, Winhelp, MS HTML-Help or IBM Help. Hypermake is Freeware for a text file length up to 20 kB, otherwise Shareware. To get a short impression how a Write&Set raw text file looks like, you will find the raw text of this documentation in the Write&Set archive file (docusrc\WSedit-e.WS). You can format and print this raw text by using WSformat. I have used Hypermake to generate a Help file from this raw text file. Important note for Wordstar 5-7 users: please note that WSedit always saves Wordstar files in Wordstar 4.0 Format. Additional Wordstar 5-7 features get lost or, e.g. footnotes, will be converted to Write&Set format. subchapters: Feature list (no) installation More about Write&Set Differences to Wordstar 4 next chapter: Essentials of WSedit ═══ 1.1. Feature list ═══ WSedit has got the following properties:  in opposite to Wordstar DOS native Windows or OS/2 program, later also Linux, of course supporting long filenames  reading and writing TXT files, reading WS4 and WS5-WS7, writing WS4  CUA key support (Windows key commands)  detail behaviour appropriate to WS4/5  holding different user settings dependent on the file extension of the text file  when working with an unformatted file, text is reformatted if the window width is changed (word wrap)  switching between different screen fonts (for the whole document)  no 80 column limit like Wordstar DOS  paragraph formatting with soft characters ("snow characters") like Wordstar  nearly no file size limit (there seems to be a limit at approximately 20 MB)  supports workgroups (one person has write access, the others can only read)  contents tree in a separate window like a directory tree to navigate in large documents  command highlightning (e.g. for HTML files)  marking lines with Hard Return and Soft Return in the rightmost column  multi undo, undo slider window  TXT Import and Export (IBM and ISO codepage)  highlightning spell-checking function where you can let analyse your own already spell-checked files to get a personal dictionary  translation functionality if you download separate translation files  Macro recorder for defining Function keys  last but not least, very fast and stable. ═══ 1.2. (no) installation ═══ The Write&Set archive file has got an installation program included which installs WSedit and WSformat together and creates file associations and entries in the start menu. Using WSedit as an stand-alone application does not need a real installation program. Unpack the files of the archive to a new directory of your choice. To "install", simply create a new program object (OS/2) or make a shortcut of the EXE file (Win) by dragging the WSedit.EXE file to your desktop; while dropping, press Shift and Ctrl simultaneously. This will create a shortcut pointing to the EXE file. Now you can drag and drop arbitrary text files to the WSedit icon on your desktop. (Win) Double clicking to a text file with unknown extension like ".WS" will show a dialog where you can choose the WSedit.EXE file as the default program to open with. For installing Write&Set (WSedit together with WSformat), run the INSTALL program after unpacking the archive file. ═══ 1.3. More about Write&Set ═══ WSedit has no formatting and printing ability. This does WSformat. WSedit and WSformat together are "Write&Set". This is a full-featured word-processing software supporting hyphenation, graphics, footnotes, contents and so on. Please visit http://www.WriteAndSet.com Word processing with Write&Set is very different from those Windows word processing programs such as Winword or StarOffice, and also differs in some respects from Wordstar for DOS. Word processing operations are closer to Latex than to Winword. With Write&Set, the task of 'text content editing' and that of 'typesetting' are sequention operations, rather than simultaneously. This concept simplifies word processing and enables you compiling a single document with hundreds of pages without any problems. The way to get a complex document involved some or all of the following steps: Step 1: Editing Text is prepared as an (unformatted) 'raw' text file (a WS file) using WSedit. Such a text file will not include fixed margins. If you use WSedit, the margin of the displayed text depends only on the settings of the editing window and the screen font. Step 2: Starting WSformat, formatting the unformatted raw-text WS file to produce a formatted FMT file: The WSformat 'format' function reads the raw-text WS file and writes an FMT file. It does not modify the WS file in any way. In the FMT file, which can be also viewed using WSedit or Wordstar (DOS), the right margin is now fixed, the page breaks are apparent, and words at the end of the line which require hyphenation are displayed accordingly. Step 3: Minor changes by hand on the formatted FMT file If you are not satisfied with some formatting details, you can make small changes to the FMT file. These include such things as incorrect hyphenations, and more importantly, page breaks which can be improved. However, avoid making bigger changes to the FMT file; if these are considered necessary, it is more expedient to make the changes to the WS file and run WSformat again. Because WSformat formatting is extremely fast (about 100 pages per second, depending on your processor and the nature of the text), this does not represent a significant delay in production. The WSformat preview feature helps in locating sections of the text where the printout can be improved. The printout in the Preview window mirrors exactly page printout. Step 4: Printing the final version of the document After making the final changes to the FMT file, select in WSformat the physical or virtual printer installed on your computer and print your document. This is done the same way as it would be for other current word processors. Besides physical printers (laser or inkjet printers), it is possible to use 'virtual' printers (FAX and PDF creation programs). ═══ 1.4. Differences to Wordstar 4 ═══ I tried to get the same look-and-feel like Wordstar 4. If you find differences, please let me know. But there are some essential differences caused by the different internal structure of WSedit. The WSedit editor is based on a non-wordwrap line-orientated editor written for programmers which already supports some Wordstar Ctrl commands. It's an object-orientated program, so I had to add or to overwrite some parts like word-wrapping, spell-checking, paragraph indention and so on. But I can't change some essentials of the editor. These essential properties - different to Wordstar DOS - are:  The editor holds all characters in lines which are limited to 255 characters.  The characters you will see are the same which are stored in the memory of the computer. In consequence, some Wordstar behaviour of showing text is not possible: - It won't be possible to draw a line behind ".PA", instead WSedit shows the page break by background-highlightning - ^OD "do not show toggles" is available since 0.92, but pressing any key will show the toggles again: You can't type while toggles are not shown. - Snow characters (soft spaces) are directly stored in the memory by the ASCII character you will see in WSedit (ALT-176); you can directly enter this character by ALT-176 or ^I. The TAB key is identical to ^OG. - If you enter ^OB to omit the snow characters, all snow characters of the file are changed from ALT-176 to ALT-255 which is a second SPACE character; after retyping ^OB, ALT-255 is re-changed to ALT-176. So don't use these two characters in your text for other purpose. - For hyphenation characters at the end of the line, ALT-240 is used. After saving a WSedit WS file, the file is accurately identical to Wordstar 4. ═══ 2. Essentials of WSedit ═══ subchapters: Rightmost Column Marking Text Titlebar Menu Bar, Popup Menu Ctrl Menu Drag and drop Undo next chapter: Dot commands ═══ 2.1. Rightmost Column ═══ The background of the rightmost column of the editor shows different colors if this property is enabled (Ctrl-OO settings notebook - highlt):  Lines beginning with two dots (comment lines)  Lines beginning with a single dot (dot commands)  Lines with a Hard Return at the end  Lines with a Soft Return at the end. A Hardreturn is the end of a line where you have entered RETURN manually. In any formatting, this Return will exist. A Softreturn disappears if the formatting gets different. If you change the window size of WSedit and you edit an unformatted file, the editor let appear and disappear Soft Returns. In the "special functions" menubar item, you will find commands where you can transform text with Softreturns into text with Hardreturns and reverse. ═══ 2.2. Marking Text ═══ WSedit blocks exists independent from the cursor. In classic graphical text editors and wordprocessing applications, a block is a "big cursor" and the cursor is no more existing while a block is marked. The WSedit block will only disappear if you click with the mouse again into the window, but not with Cursor movements by using Cursor keys. Blocks created by Wordstar Ctrl commands have got different properties, they do not disappear even you click with the mouse into the window again, see Chapter Ctrl Commands - Block commands. ═══ 2.3. Titlebar ═══ The titlebar of the WSedit window shows a lot of information. (4,226*) in parenthesis means Column 4 and Line 226, the * star shows you that the file was modified since the last Save. The "Par" (german "Abs") number counts the Hard Returns up to the cursor position, dot commands are also counted. In unformatted files, the line number in parenthesis is dependent on the current formatting, so the "Par" number is the only useful orientation you will have in unformatted files! In Write&Set formatted files (FMT files), an additional "P" and "L" number (Page, Line) is shown like Wordstar does (german "S" and "Z"). These values depends on the page formatting dot commands. Then, the filename is shown. If the column block mode (^KN) is activated, "COLUMN" is shown. ═══ 2.4. Menu Bar, Popup Menu ═══ WSedit has got a Menu Bar and a Popup menu (activated with the right mouse button) which are functionally identical. To get a maximum of room for text, you can disable the Menu Bar (Options - Show/Omit Menu Bar). To get the Menu Bar back, press the right mouse button and select the same menu item again. "Options" - "Windows-like Popup" switches between two appearances of the popup menu. The Menu shows important commands or commands which are not expected in a "Wordstar-like" editor. Some functionality which affects the whole file and which is not often used is only located in the Menu and is not in reach from Ctrl key commands. Macro recording only works with key commands and not with the Menu. ═══ 2.5. Ctrl Menu ═══ You can activate the Ctrl Menu by typing ^J (means Ctrl-J) or by typing the "Wordstar Ctrl-key menu commands" ^K ^Q ^O and ^P. These Ctrl commands expect a second character key and are not typed alone. If you type one of these commands alone and wait a moment, the Ctrl Menu automatically appears. If the Ctrl Menu has got the focus, you can type the missing second character key or you can doubleclick to the function you want to have executed. When typing Ctrl commands fast (by heart), the Ctrl Menu does not appear automatically. In the settings notebook, page misc, you can define the time delay for activating the Ctrl Menu. ═══ 2.6. Drag and drop ═══ You are allowed to drag and drop a marked block to another text position or to another WSedit window. To drag and drop, use the right mouse button. The default function is moving the block. Pressing CTRL while dropping will copy the block. You are also allowed to drag text file icons to a specific position of the text area. This will read the file (Wordstar Ctrl-KR). ═══ 2.7. Undo ═══ WSedit has got a powerful multi undo functionality. You can undo your input by typing Alt-Backspace and redo by typing Shift-Alt-Backspace or you can open the Undo Slider window by pressing ^OU. The number of undo events can be set by the user, see Misc Page of the settings notebook. The recommendend number of undo events depends on the settings (press ^OO) of the Wrap Page. ═══ 3. Dot commands ═══ A dot command is part of normal text you type into the editor. A dot command is a complete line beginning with a dot, for example .BD If there's not dot at the first column, the line will be printed and not interpretated. If you want to use WSedit as an ASCII editor, you can use dot commands nevertheless. In the "File - Export" function, there's a dot command filter. Dot commands aren't case sensitive. Some dot commands require parameters, for example .TB10 will set a tabulator stop at column 10. You can leave a space between the dot command and the parameter. A very useful dot command is a line beginning with a double dot: ..don't forget to add this and this! This is a comment line which won't be printed. In the "File - Export" function, you can choose whether to export comment lines or not. subchapters: unformatted files formatted files next chapter: Ctrl Commands ═══ 3.1. unformatted files ═══ In comparison to WSformat and Hypermake, WSedit (unformatted) interpretes only a few dot commands: .TB 5,7,10,20 With ".TB" (a Wordstar 5 command), you can set the tabulator stops: You can let jump the cursor to the next tabulator stop by typing TAB or ^OG; up to the tabulator stop, "snow characters" are automatically inserted. The default setting is ".TB4". With "File - Export", snow characters are converted to spaces or ASCII tab characters. You can change the ".TB" value and then type Ctrl-B on the lines which you want to have modified. Ctrl-B is a on-screen formatting command which uses the tab stops of the last ".TB" command. .BE (enabling word wrap) .BD (disable word wrap) (or .BA) Normally, word wrap is on. In tables, it can be necessary to turn off and on word wrap functionality. You can do it by typing the commands ".BE" word wrap enabled and ".BD" word wrap disabled. Because WSedit cannot handle lines larger than 255 chars, ".BA" sets the right margin to 250, and this will have (nearly) the effect of turning word wrap off. .RM 60 The Wordstar Right Margin command is interpreted while writing an unformatted WS file to disk. By default, a WS file created by WSedit will have set the right margin to 78, so you can read the WS file with a DOS Wordstar without problems. On the WSedit screen, you won't see an effect of ".RM". ═══ 3.2. formatted files ═══ If you don't use Write&Set or Wordstar (DOS) and use WSedit stand-alone, you won't need to work with formatted files. "WSedit (formatted)" means using WSedit together with files with extension ".FMT" instead of ".WS" or ".TXT". FMT files are automatically created by WSformat. WSedit (formatted) shows the page breaks like Wordstar does it. For counting lines and pages, only four commands are interpreted: .PL (Page length) .MT (Margin Top) .MB (Margin Bottom) .LH (Line Height) Instead of showing a page break line, WSedit (formatted) shows the page break by highlightning the background, dependend on the "Highlightning" settings in the Highlt Page of the settings notebook. In formatted files, automatic word wrapping is disabled. This is defined on the "wrap" page of the settings notebook. ═══ 4. Ctrl Commands ═══ subchapters: "I hate the mouse..." Cursor movement Quick commands Block commands Toggles and Special chars Delete text The Trash Buffer On-screen Formatting next chapter: Special Functionality ═══ 4.1. "I hate the mouse..." ═══ WordStar is a very old editor which was already available before the first IBM PC existed. In this time (end of the 70's), the computers had got a Ctrl key but nearly nothing more than a typewriter keyboard. Keys like "Page down" were not available on all computers this time. The mouse was not invented yet. So it was necessary to have the full functionality of a Computer text editor by using Ctrl and the character keys from A to Z. Today, the Wordstar Ctrl commands can be very useful for people who type blind to the keyboard. If you can type blind, you should take a look at the Ctrl commands. They offer you the ability of blind cursor movement, block manipulation and more - all commands where you normally use the mouse. If you take a look at the Ctrl Dialog window (press Ctrl-J) and you are not familiar with Wordstar Ctrl commands, you will think it's difficult to learn this. But it is easier than it looks, because there's a logical principle behind the key combinations. Ctrl is abbreviated ^. The Ctrl-keys overview window (Ctrl Menu, press ^J) is complete, this overview not. To locate the text cursor which your eyes lost, press the CTRL key alone without another key. This will force Cursor highlightning, if it is enabled (^OO settings notebook, page misc). ═══ 4.2. Cursor movement ═══ Take a look at your keyboard. Between the S and the D key, you have to imagine a central point. This is the geometrical center of all cursor movement keys: ^S, ^D: Cursor left, right ^A, ^F: Word left, right ^E, ^X: Cursor up, down ^R, ^C: Page up, down ^W, ^Z: Scroll up, down (For german users: Z and Y is changed on german keyboards) ═══ 4.3. Quick commands ═══ By typing ^Q ("Quick") before some of the commands above, you will get a "strong" or "repeat" effect: ^QS, ^QD: Cursor to the begin, to the end of the line ^QE, ^QX: Cursor to top, end of window ^QR, ^QC: Cursor to the begin, end of the document ═══ 4.4. Block commands ═══ In addition to the "modern" mouse selection of text, this editor supports the Wordstar block commands. Blocks marked by Wordstar commands are not transient. The marking of the block disappears only if you delete the block (^KY) or if you hide the block (^KH). Marking a block by using the mouse will be transient: clicking into the text with the mouse will let go the block. Nevertheless, you can mix CUA commands (like Ctrl-Ins for "copy block into clipboard") with Wordstar Ctrl commands. ^KB: mark the beginning of the block ^KK: mark the end of the block ^QB: jump "quick" to the beginning of the block ^QK: jump "quick" to the end of the block ^KC: copy the block to the cursor position ^KV: move the block to the cursor position ^KR: read file into block at the current cursor position ^KW: write block into file ^KY: delete block ^KH: hide/show block marking ═══ 4.5. Toggles and Special chars ═══ You can enter the ASCII characters with the decimal numbers from 1 up to 26 by entering ^P, followed by a character key from A to Z. To get ASCII 1, enter ^PA, for ASCII 2 enter ^PB and so on. There are a few exeptions:  To get an ASCII character 0 in Wordstar files (^P@), press ^PZ.  The ^Z character is not supported, of course. (Some editors interprete this character as "end of file".)  ^M and ^J (decimal 13 and 10) is also omitted. These characters represents a Return in an ASCII text. Write&Set and Wordstar use some of these characters as "toggles", that means they are used in pairs. E.g. ^PS turns underlining on and off. Besides ^PZ (Wordstar ^P@), the corresponding character images of the IBM Codepage are shown, e.g. ^PB is a face, ^PS a double exclamation mark. If WSedit was loaded with a Wordstar file, a new item "emphasize" appears in the menu bar. With this menu, you can insert toggles and special chars with the mouse. Marking a block before using this command let you insert toggle chars in pairs. Only the editor itself accepts ^P commands. If you want to enter these ASCII charcters into an edit field of the search dialog or the search/replace dialog, you can choose one of the following possibilities:  use the ALT-(Number) commands  or put the ^P character from the editor into the clipboard and paste it to the editfield  or type the character ^, followed by a letter, e.g. ^B for the "bold" character  or type the hash (doublecross) sign, always followed by three digits representing the decimal ASCII value. By default, WSedit provides syntax highlightning for the toggles  ^PB bold  ^PS underlined  ^PT superscript  ^PV subscript  ^PY italic but you can change this in the Highlt page of the settings notebook. ═══ 4.6. Delete text ═══ The deleting keys are located in the middle of the keyboard: ^G: delete character on cursor position (same as DEL) ^H: delete character left from cursor (same as BACKSPACE) ^T: delete word right from cursor ^Y: delete line ^QY: delete line right from cursor ═══ 4.7. The Trash Buffer ═══ If you use ^T, ^Y or ^QY for deleting, the deleted text part will be stored in a "trash buffer". With ^U, you can paste the content of the trash buffer to the current cursor position. This is e.g. useful for changing the position of two words: ^T^F^U. The trash buffer is independent from the clipboard. ═══ 4.8. On-screen Formatting ═══ ^B reformats a paragraph on-screen. After some special commands, a line can exceed the window width. In this case, typing ^B will reformat the current paragraph. If you edit an unformatted file, the text fits always the window width. Changing the window size will always reformat the whole file. You can also force reformatting the whole file by typing ^OF. If you want to indent a paragraph, you can enter a TAB or ^OG at the beginning of the paragraph. The indention depends on the last ".TB" dot command. ═══ 5. Special Functionality ═══ subchapters: Contents window Spell checking Function key macros Read only files, Workgroups Backup functionality Translation next chapter: Settings Notebook ═══ 5.1. Contents window ═══ The contents window is activated by entering ^OC or ^OI. You enter a heading in your text by using the dot commands .1 This is a level-1 heading .2 This is a level-2 heading .3 This is a level-3 heading .3 This is also a level-3 heading In the printed document and in the contents window, you will get a structure like 1. This is a level-1 heading 1.1 This is a level-2 heading 1.1.1 This is a level-3 heading 1.1.2 This is also a level-3 heading If you use "File - Export", the dot command will be interpreted and converted e.g. to "1.1.2". WSformat and Hypermake are based on this heading syntax. Wordstar dot commands ".i1", ".i2" are automatically converted when loading a WS file. If the contents window is open, you can double click to a line and you will get to the editor position where the corresponding heading is located. If you press ^OC, the contents window will be simply opened. When typing ^OI, in addition the heading will be marked where the editor cursor is currently located. (In WSedit for OS/2, you have to scroll sometimes to see the marked heading line.) There are some buttons at the bottom of the window:  expand and collapse the function tree  refresh: the contents window and the go-to information for double-clicking to the heading lines will be actualized. If you double click and get to a wrong editor position, use "refresh".  >clip: copies the text of the selected heading into the clipboard  >file: writes the complete current contents into the file "tempcont.txt" in the current text directory.  digit in editfield: represents the heading level which is written into the file. If you enter "3", the heading levels 1, 2 and 3 are written when using >file. ═══ 5.2. Spell checking ═══ In WSedit, there is a simple but effective spell checking function implemented. subchapters: How to get a dictionary Working with the spell checking function next chapter: Function key macros ═══ 5.2.1. How to get a dictionary ═══ To use the spell checking function, you have to create a dictionary by yourself or you can visit http://www.WriteAndSet.com and download the current dictionary collected by WSedit users. All spell checking functionality is available from the Menu, item "spell checking". You can enter a filename for the dictionary in the Dict Page of the settings notebook. If you don't enter a directory, the spell checking file has to be located at the same directory where WSedit.exe resides. If you want to create a dictionary by yourself, you need to have existing Wordstar or ASCII files which are already spell-checked or where you can be sure that there are no incorrect words: Load the file into WSedit and choose "spell checking - absorb current file to dictionary". If you have received another WSedit dictionary file from a friend or from the Internet, you can merge this file with "your" dictionary file by using "import external directory". The principle of the WSedit dictionary is quite simple: If a word has to be absorbed, the endings (english) es 's s ions ion ings ing (german) es e 's s en em n are cutted and the first character is converted to lower-case. Then it is compared to the contents of the dictionary. If no similar entry is found, it is placed into the dictionary. The dictionary file is a normal ASCII file in IBM codepage. The words are sorted by an internal sort algorithm, not by the alphabet. You can add manually words at any position. ═══ 5.2.2. Working with the spell checking function ═══ You can turn on and off spell checking by entering ^QL. The background of unknown words is getting red. There's no spell checking dialog window. You simply press ^QO, and WSedit learns all words from the beginning of the file up to the line of the editor cursor. Some marking of words below the cursor will automatically disappear. To go to the next marked (wrong) word, you can simply type ^L. (If spell checking is disabled, ^L is the command for "search/replace text again".) If you find an incorrect word which is not highlighted and in consequence the wrong word is part of the dictionary, you can correct your dictionary by moving the mouse over the wrong word and choosing "remove single word from dictionary" in the popup menu. ═══ 5.3. Function key macros ═══ Perhaps you have noticed that you won't find "press F7 to get this and this" in the WSedit documentation. Function keys are not defined in WSedit, besides some function keys used by the operating system (F1 for help, F10 for system menu, this depends on your operating system). All other function keys can be defined by the user. subchapters: Storing macros Recording macros next chapter: Read only files, Workgroups ═══ 5.3.1. Storing macros ═══ Press ESC to get the "function key macros" window. There are four listboxes: FX, Shift-FX, Ctrl-FX and ALT-FX. Combinated keys like Shift-Ctrl-F7 are not supported, but 4x12=48 macro definitions should be sufficient! Clicking to a function key name like "F4=" will show a window where you can record and play macros like a music tape. The macro commands are saved in separate files in a new directory F-MACROS located in the directory where WSEDIT.EXE resides. You can copy the files located in the F-MACROS directory and send it to another WSedit user. The name of the macro file shows the key, e.g. SHIFT-F5.DTA. (When german language is set, the file name will also be "SHIFT.." or "CTRL.."). You can change the allocated key of a macro by renaming the file and reopening the function keys window. ═══ 5.3.2. Recording macros ═══ The function key macro recorder records only keystrokes, with some exceptions. So don't use the Menu, don't use the Ctrl menu. Instead, type the key commands. It is allowed to use the dialog windows  ^QF find dialog  ^QA search/replace dialog  ^KR read block from file  ^KW write block to file. If you play the macro, the dialog window won't appear. The information which was produced by the dialog is stored directly in the macro. So you can write a macro "write block to the file TEMP1.WS". While recording, the usage inside the dialog makes no difference. You can click to the filenname or type it. It can happen that some specific function keys do not work at all. These function keys are defined by your Operating System and are not available (e.g. Alt-F4 for closing a window). ═══ 5.4. Read only files, Workgroups ═══ If you are a single-worker, this chapter won't be interested for you. If serveral persons work with the same text files, you will normally get a problem. Some editors like DOS Wordstar do not allow two programs (or users) to read a file. So you won't have a problem by overwriting a file, but on the other hand reading a file simultaneously won't be possible. Others allow reading and writing, but if two persons have opened the text file simultaneously, only the changes of the person who saved the file at last are written to the file. The WSedit workgroup functionality is enabled by checking when opening, set file to read only (for workgroups) on the Save Page in the settings notebook (^OO). WSedit sets the read-only flag of the text file if a user opens the file. The first user has got write-access. All users who open the file later won't have write-access, but they can read the file. To remember that writing is not possible, the background is gray instead of white or blue and in the title bar "READ ONLY" appears. After the user which had got write-access leaves the file, the WSedit program of the other ("read-only") user catches automatically the write-access and the window background turns to white (or blue). If the user with write-access saves the file, the other users will get automatically an actualized file content. In the Menu, you will find a command "File - let go write access". Here you can give your write-access to the other user - your WSedit switches to read-only. To simulate a dual-user mode, open one text file twice by starting WSedit two times. If the workgroup functionality is enabled, the text file which is opened by WSedit is set to read-only. If WSedit crashes (what we won't hope!), the text file will rest in read-only state. To turn on or off the read-only workgroup feature, open the settings notebook of the text file icon (right mouse button, properties) and activate/deactivate the "read only" checkbox. ═══ 5.5. Backup functionality ═══ WSedit supports two kinds of backup functionality which can be set in the Save Page of the settings notebook. With a specific time delay, WSedit saves the content of the editor into an ASCII file (even the current file is in WS format). The name of the file is always the same. It is located in the directory where the text file resides. WSedit writes the text to the backup file every e.g. 3 minutes, but waits for a moment where for e.g. 5 seconds no character key was pressed. In addition, you can let rename the old text file to *.BAK when the file is saved by the user. ═══ 5.6. Translation ═══ WSedit supports two kinds of translation: Bubble Translation and Dialog Translation. Normally you will use Bubble Translation when reading a text in a foreign language and Dialog Translation when writing a text in a foreign language. To use translation functionality, you have to download the translation dictionary files from http://www.WriteAndSet.com (yet only German to English and English to German). Then copy the two files to the location where WSedit.exe resides and fill out the settings notebook Dict Page. Bubble Translation: After typing ^OT, words or expressions at the mouse position are translated and the result is shown in a yellow bubble help window. Dialog Translation: ^OV activates a dialog where you can enter the expression into the edit field. In the Listbox below, several possible translations are shown. If Bubble Translation is also activated, these several possible translations are re-translated in parenthesis so it will be easier to select the correct translation. The re-translation has the effect of a Thesaurus: a single expression translated to another language and re-translated back will show 10 or 20 slightly different expressions. Double clicking to a listbox item or single clicking and pressing OK copies the translated expression into the Trash buffer. It can be copied to the cursor position by typing ^U. ═══ 6. Settings Notebook ═══ subchapters: General File Page Wrap Page Save Page Dict Page Misc Page Highlt Page WS page next chapter: About WSedit ═══ 6.1. General ═══ WSedit has got a settings notebook: select "Window - WSedit settings" or press Ctrl-OO. The information is stored in the binary WSEDIT.DTA file which is located in the same directory where WSEDIT.EXE resides. WSEDIT.DTA is read when WSedit is started and it is written when you exit WSedit. If several WSedit windows are opened, the last window overwrites the settings of the other programs. So if you want to make changes, make sure that only one WSedit is running. The contents of the settings notebook is dependent on the file extension. It is possible to store entries for up to 20 different file types. There are also some other settings stored in the WSEDIT.DTA file dependent on the file type which are not part of the settings notebook, e.g. window size and font size. You can enter a new file type by pressing the "New" button outside the notebook itself. The entry field near the "New" button gets empty and you can enter a new file extension. You are allowed to enter more than one file extension for one file type, separated by colon and without spaces, e.g. HTM,HTML If you define a new file type, the notebook entries of the type which was active before pressing "New" rest in the notebook. So choose the file type with the closest settings before pressing "New". ═══ 6.2. File Page ═══ The File Page is the most important page of the settings notebook. Here you can define the text file type Wordstar / ASCII and "with word wrap", "no word wrap". ASCII Codepages The codepage of the ASCII file depends on your operating system: OS/2 and eCS uses IBM (DOS) codepage, Windows and Linux ISO codepage. But Wordstar file format has always IBM (DOS) codepage. If you want to save or read a file in the not default codepage, then use the file - import/export function in the menu of WSedit. Wordstar format "Unformatted" shows Wordstar/Write&Set files like in an ASCII Editor with word wrap on; saving an "unformatted Wordstar file" will create a right margin of 78, so the file will fit the screen of a DOS Wordstar with its 80 column window. While saving a file, "Wordstar formatted" stores the formatting of the text (the position of the Soft Returns, the hyphenation), "WordStar unformatted" will destroy all Soft Return and hyphenation information! If you reformat a "Wordstar formatted" file, WSedit fetches the right margin value from the last ".RM" (right margin) dot command. In Wordstar 5, 6 and 7, the data format differs from Wordstar 3.4 and 4. WSedit reads Wordstar 3.4 up to 7, but writes always Wordstar 4 format (which can be read by Wordstar 5, 6, 7 without problems). But it is possible that some formatting information gets lost. Footnotes/endenotes gets converted to Write&Set/Hypermake format. Distinguish WS tabs is only relevant if you have got Wordstar (DOS) files. Wordstar knwos two different tabulators: the ^I and the ^OG tab keys. If you check this box, the ^I tabs are converted to normal spaces, otherwise they are converted to snow chars. Default checkboxes The two "Default..." checkboxes can be checked only by one file type. ═══ 6.3. Wrap Page ═══ The Wrap Page has got a great influence to the "feeling" of WSedit. If the file type supports word wrapping (see "file" page), you can choose the personal behaviour of wrapping text:  with time delay is my personal favourite setting. If enabled, you can select a delay time which omits a continious reformatting while typing text. I prefer 0 quarter seconds.  after every keypress is the behaviour of most word wrap editors. Because of the need of reformatting a big paragraph after every keypress, the amount of processor time becomes noticeable on slow computers. If you type very fast and your computer is not fast, this setting is not recommended.  only by hand (^B) is the classic old DOS Wordstar behaviour. A lot of people get confused if the text is reformatted automatically while writing. Ctrl-B reformats the paragraph from the cursor to the end of the paragraph. In any case, the paragraph is reformatted if the cursor exceeds the line.  not at all deactivates reformatting. Soft Returns are handled like Hard Returns. Even ^B has no effect. The undo slider works more efficient if WSedit does not reformat a paragraph too often: if the text is reformatted every second while typing, there are a lot of events to remember for the undo functionality: one event per line and in a 10-lines paragraph for 10 events per second. You can reduce this event amount by using "with time delay" and a higher delay time value, e.g. 4. The Cursor left/right checkbox influences the behaviour of cursor movement. If disabled, the behaviour is like in a programmers editor: you can reach every point of the screen by using the cursor. If enabled, the cursor follows the text. Where there is no text, you have to fill the line with spaces to reach a position where no text is written yet (or simply use the mouse). The behaviour does remember to the ^OX Wordstar command, but it's not the same. Anyway, you can toggle this behaviour by typing ^OX. ═══ 6.4. Save Page ═══ The "Save" Page is related on opening, saving and write access. Starting WSedit without parameter influences the behaviour when starting WSedit without opening a file at the beginning. You can get a file dialog at the beginning or you get an empty editor field with the filename Newtext1, Newtext2, Newtext3 (up to 9). These files are located where WSedit.exe resides. When opening, set file to read only is the read only workgroup functionality of WSedit. This helps you sharing text files with your collegues in the network where several people have got access to a text file: the user which opens the file first has got write access, the others have got only read access. Refresh WSedit if file was written by an external editor is useful for files which are created by another program and are read in WSedit. Every 1,5 seconds, WSedit compares the file date with the date where the file has been read the last time. If the date has changed, WSedit automatically reads the actualized file. If you have changed the text file in the editor, WSedit asks whether to loose changes or not. There are two independent Backup functionalities. Backup helps you to restore a file if your computer or WSedit crashes. WSedit writes the text e.g. every 3 minutes to a TXT file (even Wordstar format is used; use the clipboard to copy the text back). The file is located in the directory where your current text file resides. You can change the name of the file. If you have got several WSedit files open where the text files shares the same directory, all editors uses the same backup file. (I assume this is not relevant in practice.) Create *.BAK files renames the old text file to *.BAK when the file is saved again. (If you use OS/2 or eCS and start WSedit by double clicking the text file icon, I cannot recommend this setting. The text file icons shows the gray open background after WSedit is closed; this is caused by the object structure of the WPS which is independent from the file names.) ═══ 6.5. Dict Page ═══ For the spell checking function (^QL), you can enter a file name of the dictionary. It has to be in WSedit/Hypermake format. Before a word is compared with the words in the dictionary, the ending of the word is cutted. You can define other endings if you use WSedit in another language. WSedit supports two different kinds of translation functionality: Bubble Translation (^OT) and Dialog Translation (^OV). If you don't enter a full pathname, the two translation dictionary files are searched in the directory where WSEDIT.EXE resides. Both spell checking and translation files can be downloaded from http://www.WriteAndSet.com ═══ 6.6. Misc Page ═══ The miscellanneous page holds all settings which are not part of the other topics. WSformat-related bubble help let you turn on and off bubble help for dot commands which is shown in the WSedit editor, but generated by WSformat. This also affects the font sample window when moving the mouse cursor over font dot commands. max Undo steps influences the behaviour of the Undo slider. If you choose a high value (e.g. 10000), a slow motion of the slider will redo a lot of events, so it can get less practicable. If you choose a low value (e.g. 100), the undo functionality will be too limited. delete word right from cursor (^T) influences the behaviour of the ^T command. The middle setting is the same as in Wordstar DOS, auto correct spaces is a self-made further development improving changing the position of two words where one word is located near a dot or a comma, but sometimes it shows a not Wordstar-like behaviour. Ctrl Menu time delay defines the time from pressing e.g. ^K and activating the Ctrl Menu. Experienced users know the commands, and between the first and the second key of the double-key commands like ^KB (mark beginning of block) there's only a close moment. But if the user hesitates, the Ctrl Menu should appear. The time value depends on your knowledge of Wordstar commands and your key typing speed. Cursor highlightning when editor idle If you don't use the editor for a while, it can be visually difficult to detect the cursor position again. WSedit shows a lightblue cross after a while. Enable this setting and enter a smaller time, if you have got problems in detecting the cursor. After every keystroke or mouse click, the counter controlling the appearance the cursor highlightning restarts. Typing the CTRL key without another key forces the highlighted cursor immidiately. If close, save without querying If checked, closing the WSedit window by clicking the Close button in the title bar will automatically save the text file without question. ═══ 6.7. Highlt Page ═══ The usage of Highlightning depends on the used file type. E.g. in Write&Set/Wordstar/Hypermake files, dot commands and printer characters are shown highlighted. The left checkbox window (double clicking and not single-clicking changes the checkbox state), the Wordstar, Hypermake and Write&Set syntax is supported. On the right window, you can enable and disable HTML syntax. Do you miss other highlightning functionality? Sorry, but the read index dot command ".IC" is BUGGY, please do not use if not really necessary. You can enter a default Index char below instead which is valid for the whole document. Independent from the syntax of the text you write, one highlightning feature is useful anyway: the checkbox rightmost column shows type of line (outside the listboxes) let you distinguish Soft Return lines from Hard Return lines. This is very useful if you use the word wrapping functionality. Lightblue shows Soft Return lines, darkgreen shows Hard Return lines. Note that two different Color settings are accessible for the whole editor (press ^OM). The Syntax highlightning enabled checkbox disables all highlightning functionality in the two listboxes. The Softreturn / Hardreturn (rightmost column shows type of line) function is independent from this main checkbox setting. The first two Wordstar highlightning functions (Toggles, Highlightning toggles) are dependent on the Toggle characters defined below (toggle chars). The toggles itself are shown red and between two toggle characters, the text is shown blue. You can also define special characters which are simply shown colored (special chars). If you enter normal letters here, the function is related to the corresponding Ctrl key, e.g. to enter ^B (Wordstar bold print), simply enter a B capital letter. ═══ 6.8. WS page ═══ The "WS" page does not hold separately data for each file type. It stores settings related to Wordstar/Write&Set file format and about the WSformat program. The dot command default groupbox stores the dot command default values which are necessary to calulate the page breaks in files with file type "Wordstar formatted". These values should be identical to the default values in the WSformat settings notebook, page "Layout". Otherwise, the page breaks shown in WSedit and previewed/printed by WSformat are not the same. Full filename of WSformat executable: If you want to use the ^KF command "Save file and run WSformat", WSedit has to know the filename of WSformat. ═══ 7. About WSedit ═══ subchapters: Freeware - Disclaimer Why do I have written WSedit? How this program help file was created Bugs and Versions How to contact the author Other Freeware/Shareware ═══ 7.1. Freeware - Disclaimer ═══ WSedit is Freeware. You are allowed to distribute this program on Freeware/Shareware CD's, to place it on Internet Servers, to bundle it with new Computers and so on. But all rights to the program remain with the author. WSedit is provided as is and comes with no warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied. In no event will the author be liable for any damages resulting from the use of this software. The full featured Wordprocessing suite Write&Set containing both WSedit and WSformat is Shareware. ═══ 7.2. Why do I have written WSedit? ═══ I had got different reasons for writing WSedit.  I do a lot of word processing and I like Wordstar. But today, a DOS program is no more acceptable. And I missed some functionality in Wordstar.  For my Shareware program Hypermake, I need a powerful integrated editor. It is much more efficient to develop the editor as a separate project. Hypermake and WSedit shares a lot of program code. Fixing a bug in WSedit will fix the same bug in the Hypermake editor and reverse.  The majority of editor code was already available in the program developing environment I use. So the amount of work was not as much as it looks like. The WSedit project is based on a programmers editor without wordwrap functionality which is part of the cross-platform Pascal developing environment "Sibyl". See http://www.speedsoft-online.de  WSedit is an important part of the wordprocessing suite Write&Set. I think it is necessary to offer a non Winword-like wordprocessing software which is not "Tex". Too much users are frustrated with Winword and Winword-like programs. ═══ 7.3. How this program help file was created ═══ Hypermake is a hypertext compiler which compiles Write&Set (Wordstar 4) files or ASCII files with dot commands and toggles to HTML, Winhelp, MS HTML-Help or IBM Help. The source of this help file is a WS file with dot commands which can be formatted and printed with Write&Set. You will find this source file in the Write&Set archiv file, subdirectory DOCUSRC. Hypermake has got a lot of dot commands similar to Write&Set, many are the same. The commands for fonts, footnotes, line drawing, headings, index are identical! The Hypermake 4.0 editor does not yet have the ability of reading and writing Wordstar 4/5 format, but it understands the majority of Wordstar Ctrl commands (if you choose Wordstar in the popup menu of the Hypermake editor window). I plan to implement WS reading/writing support in Hypermake 4.10. Please visit http://www.WriteAndSet.com http://www.hypermake.com ═══ 7.4. Bugs and Versions ═══ Bugs Because auf continously problems with screen fonts in the Windows version and my interest in publishing a Linux version, I plan to change the development environment for WSedit. After changing, I hope not having problems with screen fonts anymore. So you will select different screen fonts without problems. Then, there are sometimes problems when typing an indented paragraph. These problems cannot be reproduced, so I was not able to fix it. Improvements, changes or bugfixes in WSedit 0.95 (May 2003)  the WSedit search and search/replace dialog accepts printer characters (enter ^ and B or write a hash, followed by three digits for the ASCII decimal code)  more communication between WSedit and WSformat Improvements, changes or bugfixes in WSedit 0.94 (March 2003)  Communication between WSedit and WSformat to get part of Write&Set  Menu bar (can be switched off, see menuitem Options)  Alternate appearance of popup menu (see menuitem Options)  "highlighted cursor": after a while with no cursor movement, the cursor is marked by a lightblue cross; pressing CTRL without another key forces the highlighted cursor immediately  modified behaviour when starting WSedit without a file (see Settings notebook - page Save). Improvements, changes or bugfixes in WSedit 0.92 (November 2002)  A great number of small bugfixes, not worth to mention all.  ^OD "do not show toggles" is available now, but pressing any key will show the toggles again: You can't type while toggles are not shown. The old ^OD command (show translation window) has moved to ^OV.  The cursor gets highlighted if WSedit is idle for a specific time. See Settings Notebook, page misc.  If spell checking is enabled, ^L goes to the next marked (wrong) word.  WSedit is adapted now for use together with WSformat. The look and feel is like a single program. E.g. pointing with the cursor to a font dot command in WSedit opens a font example window near the cursor which is drawn by WSformat. All documentation refering to communication between these two programs is hold in the WSformat documentation. Fixed bugs and improvements in WSedit 0.91 (June 2000)  Improved reading of Wordstar 5, 6, 7 files (footnotes, style sheets)  recording a macro which exits WSedit now possible  in "popup menu - options", you can set the background and (default) foreground color for each file type Version 0.90 (March 2000) was the first version of WSedit, available only for OS/2. If you will get a window "error found at address..., Exit program Yes/No ?" or something like that, then press "no" for do not exit, save your file immediately, exit and restart WSedit. If you can reproduce this bug, please send me an E-Mail with a description of the bug. I will also publish a Linux version in the future. ═══ 7.5. How to contact the author ═══ Dr. Martin Vieregg, 37. I've studied economics. My main job is working in my own consulting company http://www.vr-transport.com . Our special subject is public transport: railways and airports. The title of my doctoral (PhD) thesis was "increasing efficiency of railway long-distance passenger traffic". E-Mail: Martin@hypermake.de Homepage: http://www.hypermake.com WSedit Homepage: http://www.WriteAndSet.com ═══ 7.6. Other Freeware/Shareware ═══ I've written some other programs, Freeware and Shareware. Please visit my Homepage http://www.Hypermake.com  Simple Zipshell (Freeware) Using the Info-Zip Freeware packer from the Windows 95/NT4 desktop  Tiny Alarm (Freeware) A slider from 0 to 60 minutes, alarm and chime.  cd-shortcut (Freeware) is a substitute for the "CD" command in the command line. It is sufficient to enter substrings.  pmCalc (Shareware) is a pocket calculator with a separate input and output field and no "=" button: while editing your input, the output is actualized immediately. Calculating with variables, regression, programmers functions, scientific functions. Works together with WSedit (Clipboard and column block mode ^KN)  Hypermake www.hypermake.de Hypertext builder (Shareware) let you generate Winhelp, HTML, IBM Help and MS HTML-Help from one source text. This Help file was generated by HyperMake. The integrated editor is very similar to WSedit and the Hypertext source file format is Wordstar-like with dot commands and toggles. End of text