Welcome to Unicorn Editor, my styled text editor based on the WASTE text engine. It is a small, easy to use program which fill the gap between SimpleText and a full featured word processor. For oriental people, it fills a void for a stand alone styled text editor for double byte language with built-in font and input method support. Unicorn Editor v1.0 is a ShareWare ($10). If you like the program, please support shareware concept by paying the registration fee.
This WorldScript compatible style text editor for both 68K and PPC Macintosh is back engineered based on the features of the popular Tex-Edit Plus. Because both Tex-Edit Plus and Unicorn Editor use WASTE text engine, one should find that the two programs share a lot of similarities in the text editing features. While this program is not exactly the Tex-Edit Plus yet, especially in sound and picture handling, the text handling is further enhanced with various oriental language code set translation, input method support and custom bitmap fonts support. The program was writen in C and compiled with CodeWarrior 8.
With Unicorn Editor you can
Ñ Create, edit and print styled multilingual text in Chinese, Korean, Japanese and of course, any Roman languages, such as English.
Ñ Convert language code set by importing and exporting text file to be loaded to internet.
Ñ Set up an external Chinese, Korean, Japanese viewer and editor for internet browser.
Ñ Quickly create, edit and print styled text documents of any size (limited by RAM).
Ñ View and print TeachText or SimpleText read-only (╥ReadMe╙) documents.
Ñ Embed picture and sound in your file for breath-taking presentation.
Ñ Drag and Drop any text, picture, sound object around or to other drag and drop compatible application.
Apple Menu
About Unicorn Editor╔
This brings back the startup logo as a copyright notice. if you click on the very bottom of the logo, a detailed credit dialog will show up.
Register Unicorn Editor ...
This item only shows on an unregistered copy of this software. After proper registration, it is not in the Apple menu any more. Select this item if you decide to register this software after obtaining your registration number from me.
File Menu
New
This opens a new blank document window. Up to 50 windows can be open simultaneously, depending on Unicorn Editor╒s memory allocation without worrying of memory segmentation. One can open even more windows if the application memory allows, but beyond 50 windows, openning and closing windows will cause memory segmentation in application heap.
Open╔
Use this command to pick the TEXT document you wish to open.
Close
This closes the active window. You will be prompted to save any changes you may have made.
Save
This saves any changes you have made to the file in the active window. Unicorn Editor displays a standard Save As dialog if the document has not yet been saved to disk.
Save As╔
This brings up the standard dialog for creation of a new text file on your disk.
Import ...
There are four items under the Import... menu. Each of these corresponds to a language code set filter, or converter. Selecting any of the submenu item brings up the standard dialog for openning a document. After the file is read, a designated text filter for converting language code set is applied. The default font is used. You should select all the text after importing and apply the right font to it.
Export ...
There are four items under the Export... menu. Each of these corresponds to a language code set filter, or converter. Selecting any of the submenu item brings up the standard dialog for saving a document. The text of the front most window will then be applied with a designated language code set converter, and then saved in a text without any style information (plain text). The front most window will then be closed.
Page Setup
This displays the standard Page Setup dialog allowing you to set specific options for your printer. The front most window will be repagenated according to the printer description.
Print╔
This displays the standard Print dialog for the printer you have selected in the Chooser.
Preferences╔
The Preferences dialog allows you to preset many of these features and store your preferred settings in a ╥Preferences╙ file in the Preferences folder. The preference dialog contains many sections with related setting group together.
The Feature Pref controls the text engine feature. Use Alignment popup menu to set the text alignment as align to left, align to right, align to the center or align to adjust. The checkbox Auto Scrollmake the destination rectangle automatically scrolled to keep a particular text position centered in the middle of the view rectangle. The checkbox Outline Hilite set the selection range framed with the highlight color even though the selection is inactive. The checkbox Read Only is only used when you want the next new window not editable. The checkbox Intelligent Cut & Paste set the text engine to insert a space before or after the inserting words depending of the context. This feature should be disabled in any oriental language handling because it tends to insert a space in any 2-byte character. The checkbox Drag & Drop Editing sets the text engine to take advantage of D&D ability. The checkbox Offscreen Drawing set the text engine to first draw in offscreen and then copy the bitmap onto the editing window. This makes the window handling very smooth. The checkbox Use Temperary Memory set the text engine to use memory outsite the application heap and therefore allows very large file handling.
The Styles Pref controls the default font and size. Note, the custom HanZi font and its size can not be set from this pref.
The Printing Pref controls the printing effect. Margins adds some space inward from the edge. If you want date and time stamp at the right header, check the "Print date and time stamp". If you want to print a page number at the footer, check the "Print pages numbers". If you want to print the document title at the left header, check the "Print document title". The line spacing is the separation between the line. (currently disabled. )
The Layout Pref controls some parameters of window layout. The window size popup menu allows you to set the default window size as small, medium, large, printer setup size or custom size. The text wrapping popup menu allows you to set the text wrapping feature. The text can have a fix field size or it can be scaled as the window re-sizes. If you decide to use the real tab display, check the Tabs Display checkbox and also select the tab width. Note, if you would like to use custom HanZi fonts, the Tabs Display has to be off. Sometimes, for the purpose of text alignment, you can use a fixed number of spaces as tabs. For HanZi font user, this is recommended. If you want to change the file that you ever opened to Unicorn Editor file, check the "Change File "creator" to UCED. Similarly if you set the creator type to others, e.g., ttxt the file can then be opened directly by SimpleText. Only file with "UCED" as creator can be opened by Unicorn Editor via double clicking. If you would like to maintain the same window size and position when you open the document next time, check the "Remember size and position". (Note, this is not yet implemented yet. ) If you want Unicorn Editor present a standard "open file.." dialog instead of a blank new document after launching, check the "Present Open dialog at startup.
The Special Pref handles some features available only for oriental 2-byte language. Check "Use Bitmap HanZi Fonts" to enable the custom HanZi font handle hooks. Enabling this feature automatically turns off Tabs hooks. Enable the "HZ code" to alter the char/line field. This breaks the HZ coded Chinese at the designated length. This is specially helpful you would like to send the HZ code to a terminal program. I found 61 char/line (28 2-byte characters) gives very good result for 80 char/line terminal display. Enable the "Transparent Filter HZ" if you want Unicorn Editor automatically convert HZ coded Chinese into GB, or automatically convert text when copying and pasting. This feature disables the handling of picture or sound object in the scrap board and only text can be handled. It is useful as an external viewer/editor for IRC hanzi channel. If you would like Unicorn Editor to handle picture and sound through scrap board, disable this feature.
Quit
This closes the Unicorn Editor application. You will be prompted to save any altered or unsaved documents before Unicorn Editor quits.
Edit Menu
Undo
This reverses your most recent editing action or style change. After you undo something, it can usually be redone if desired.
Cut
This removes the current selection to the clipboard, making it available for pasting into other locations or other documents. The clipboard holds the text as well as its ╥styl╙ information, making styled selections available to other programs.
Copy
This makes a copy of the current text/sound/picture selection and places it in the clipboard. Sometimes it is convenient to move plain text (without any associated attributes, such as font, size or style).
Paste
This moves a copy of the text/sound/picture in the clipboard to the current insertion point, deleting anything that may be selected.
Clear
This clears the current selection.
Select All
This selects the entire document.
Paste Time
The current time is pasted at the insertion point.
Paste Date
The current date is pasted at the insertion point.
Insert Page Break
If you want to make sure that chapter headings always appear at the top of the page, use this command to insert a formfeed character. All subsequent text will print starting at the top of a new page. The formfeed character shows up as a little non-printing box.
The Page Break (form feed) is not supported with GX printing.
Font Menu
The font menu lists all the fonts available to Unicorn Editor. The current selection╒s font is checked.
Format Menu
Use the Format options to add a splash of color or emphasize important points.
The Justification submenu may be useful for centering text on announcements or if you are using a right-to-left language script. The justification setting affects how the document is displayed and printed, but does not alter the file╒s contents.
Full justification will flush-align both the left and right margins in the display and the printout. Default justification will set document alignment to match your system╒s usual convention. Left justification (default Roman) is recommended for fastest performance and is required for use of real tab spacing (Preferences dialog).
The size submenu lists a selection of common font sizes. The current selection╒s font size is checked. Use smaller to decrement the current selection╒s font size by one point. If the selection contains varying text sizes, then each of the various text sizes is reduced by one. The command keys are a useful shortcut for easily adjusting font size. Use Larger to increment the current selection╒s font size by one point. If you wish to change quickly to an odd font size, use Others... command to select any point size between 1 and 256. Simply enter the desired value in the font size box (or use the arrow buttons).
The sample text is redrawn as its size changes.
If you have a color-compatible Mac, then the standard color picker dialog is available in the Color submenu.
Special Menu
Find/Replace╔
Suppose you wish to quickly locate a specific name in a long text document? Or, you want to update a document by replacing all instances of the year ╥1994╙ with the current year? The Find/Replace dialog allows you to locate any given text string and optionally specify a replacement string.
The Find button hilites the first occurrence of the desired string. (You may then use the Find Next or Replace & Find Again menu commands.) The Replace All button replaces all occurrences of the find string with the replacement string, then reports how many replacements were made.
Perhaps you want to search for non-printing characters in order to manually clean up a passage of downloaded text. The small buttons labelled CR (carriage return), Tab, FF (formfeed/page break) and LF (linefeed) give you easy access to four commonly encountered invisible characters.
All searches start at the current cursor position, unless you select the Search from Beginning option. The Cases Sensitive option forces Unicorn Editor to look for exact matches. Turn this switch off if you wish case to be ignored. (To properly find and replace words with foreign language characters/diacriticals, you must leave this switch on.)
The wildcard button inserts a placeholder character (╫) into either the find or the replace text field. This is not yet properly implemented yet.
Find Again
This option becomes available once a match has been found. It allows you to continue searching for the next match.
Replace Again
This replaces the hilited word with the replacement string (from the Find/Replace dialog) and continues searching for the next match.
Enter Selection
If you see a word in the document and wish to find its next occurrence, select the word and use this command to instantly copy the selection into the Find/Replace dialog. Then use the Find Again command.
Change Case
If someone sends you a file that is ALL CAPS, select the offending text and use this command to fix it. You can change all the selected text to uppercase, lowercase, word case or sentence case. Word case capitalizes the first letter of each word and sentence case capitalizes the first letter of each sentence. A rarely used command "toggle case" is also provided.
LF╒s->CR╒s (UNIX->Mac)
Use this command to quickly convert a downloaded UNIX file into Mac format. UNIX systems use a single linefeed character (without a carriage return) to terminate paragraphs. All linefeeds are converted to carriage returns.
CR╒s->LF╒s (Mac->UNIX)
This is handy if you wish to upload a Mac file to a UNIX system. This command converts all carriage returns in the active document into linefeeds.
Strip Line Feeds
Sometimes you download a file with funny boxes in front of each line. These boxes are actually linefeed characters that are inserted by MS-DOS systems. (They generally follow each carriage return to signify line endings.) Macs don╒t use linefeeds. Use this command to remove all these useless characters from the document.
Strip Catridge Return
Sometimes you download a DOS or Windows file with funny boxed in front of each line. These boxes are actually linefeed characters followed by a carriage return. Use this command to remove all CR characters from the MS-DOS document before uploading to Unix.
Strip Double Spaces
If you use the YA-NewsWatcher 2.1.5 with my Chinese code-set enhancement to read HZ coded Chinese, you will find all escape squence ~{ and ~} will be replaced by double spaces. Use this command to reformat such downloaded files.
Go To Line╔
If you are working with source code or a line-numbered legal document, use this command to jump to any specified line in the document.
This option is most helpful if you use the ╥Wide Open╙ text wrapping width (Preferences dialog).
Windows Menu
All open documents are readily available using the Windows menu. Choose the document you wish to activate (bring to the front). The currently active window is checked.
Switch Window
Having trouble juggling several documents at once? Use this command repeatedly to ╥cycle╙ through all open documents.
Full Screen Window
This command make the current active window full screen.
Stack Window
Use this command to stack all open documents. The window size is small.
Tile Window
Use this command to tile up all open documents.
Vertical Tile Window
Use this command to tile up all open documents with document window height always full screen height.
Miscellaneous
Helpful Hints
Here are some simple hints and tricks to increase Unicorn Editor╒s usefulness:
Ñ The watch cursor will spin during any time-consuming, interruptible operations. Use command-period to interrupt the operation.
Ñ Open any file by dragging it onto Unicorn Editor or its alias.
Ñ Insert the plain text from any document by simply dragging the document onto an open Unicorn Editor window.
Ñ To move a styled Unicorn Editor document into another word processor without losing style information, use the clipboard to copy and paste the entire document. This only applies to document without HanZi fonts.
Ñ Triple click to select a line.
Ñ Option-click on a close box to close all windows.
Ñ To delete all occurrences of a string, use the Find/Replace dialog. Just leave the replace field blank and choose Replace All.
Ñ Count the number of occurrences of any given string using the Find/Replace dialog. Enter an appropriate number of wildcard characters in the Replace with box, then choose Replace All and note the number of replacements.
Ñ If you notice a delay when opening or resizing large documents, make sure the text is left justified and Tabs Display (Preferences dialog, Layout options) is off.
Keyboard Shortcuts
Unicorn Editor makes full use of Apple╒s extended keyboard including the forward delete, home, end, page up, page down and cursor keys. The F1-F4 keys invoke the standard undo, cut, copy and paste commands. Other shortcuts:
Ñ Shift-arrow extends a selection.
Ñ Option-left/right arrow moves the cursor one word at a time.
Ñ Option-shift-left/right arrow extends the selection one word at a time.
Ñ Command-left/right arrow moves the cursor to the beginning/end of the line.
Ñ Command-shift-left/right arrow extends the selection to the beginning/end of the line.
Ñ Option-up/down arrow moves the insertion marker to the beginning/end of the document.
Ñ Option-shift-up arrow will select all text up to and including the current selection.
Ñ Option-shift-down arrow will select all text from the current selection to the end of the document.
Ñ Option-page up moves the cursor to the top of the previous screenful of text.
Ñ Option-page down moves the cursor to the bottom of the next screenful of text.
Ñ Shift-delete mimics the extended keyboard╒s forward delete key.
Ñ Enter or Return activate the default (outlined) button.
Ñ Esc or Command-period activate the Cancel button.
Requirements
Although the compilation is done with 68000 option, I would suggest user to go for 68020 Mac or above. Unicorn Editor only works with system 7.x. System 6 is not supported.
WorldScript II is optional for proper handling of 2-byte oriental language. For users who want Chinese handling but do not have a Chinese system, the WorldScript II extension and system script can be obtained from Apple's Chinese Language Kit updater 1.1.1.
To use the Drag & Drop function, you will need to use System 7.5 or place the Macintosh Drag and Drop extension in the Extensions folder.
Limitations
WASTE text engine in the heart of Unicorn Editor is made to handle files of unlimited size, although noticeable slowdowns will happen when file is very large.
If you use the plug-in custom oriental language font (HanZi font), it is possible to create a document whose the text styles may be lost when the document is re-opened. This is because the HanZi font number is not unique, in fact, it is just the loading sequence number. If the content of the HanZi Font folder changes because you add or remove some HanZi fonts, next time when you open a document with HanZi font, font has to be reset manually. Off course, if you by any chance enabled the Tabs Display, no HanZi font can be displayed at all: system font is used instead.
For big5 or korean code editing, sometimes the text handle may split in the middle of a hanzi character. This is due to the fact that the second byte of a hanzi character in these code sets is not necessarily 8-bit.
In unusual circumstances, it is possible to create a document that is so stylistically complex (many changes in font, size, style, color, etc.) that the text styles will be lost when the document is re-opened. Normally, the speed problems associated with large, complex files will intervene long before this style limit is reached. If you need to create huge documents with many different styles, it is wise to break the document into manageable chunks.
When opening SimpleText read-only documents, Unicorn Editor converts all of the original picture resources into real picture objects (which can be moved, copied, etc.). As a result, the pictures will no longer be automatically centered on the page when viewed in Unicorn Editor. Instead they will be positioned in accordance with your text╒s Justification setting.
Registration
Unicorn Editor is ShareWare (US $10). You can send me an equivalent amount of foreign currency or stamps as payment. My mailing address is:
Dr. Xiaolin Zhao
Department of Chemistry
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Please include your e-mail address if possible, so that I can inform you of your registration number. After I received the payment, I will send you a registration number (through e-mail if possible) which you will need to register or enable the application after 30 days trial period. To register, choose the "register the Unicorn Editor ..." item under the Apple menu, fill your name, organization and registration number in the dialog. This will finish the registration. After the 30 days trial period, some functions of the application will disable itself and always ask you for the registration number to re-enable it at launching. Any further functional enhancement such as the internet capability will not be available to unregistered copy.
Registered owners are entitled to all updates. Technical support is provided only for registered user at:
<URL:mailto:xlz@chem.lsa.umich.edu>
About source code:
The original application shell is the WASTE demo source code in C in the WASTE 1.2a3 distribution. The text editing feature is pretty much in it. I further enhanced the code and back-engineered the code according the popular Tex-Edit Plus feature set. I did not start with the Tex-Edit Plus source code because I don't know Pascal that well to port it into C. Nevertheless, most of the Tex-Edit Plus feature is in place with Unicorn Editor. The oriental language code set support comes from several sources: HZ 2.0, HC 3.0, hztty, etc. I also did a major GUI rearrangement, added the custom 2-byte language input methods, custom 2-byte language bitmap font support, all the modeless dialogs, such as find/replace, preference, goto, other font size, and most importantly QD/QDGX printing, etc. The only thing which is missing is the sound and PICT file handling ability in the Tex-Edit Plus. All these will be added gradually as time allows me.
Credit:
I would like to thank Yi Hsiao, Chenfang Chen (for suggestions and extensive beta testing), MacBlue (for development of the beautiful HanZi input method and font handling), and Marco Piovanelli (for development and support of the excellent WASTE text engine that allows large file handling).
Unicorn Editor 1.0, copyright ⌐1995-1996 by Xiaolin Zhao. All rights reserved.
WASTE text engne, copyright ⌐1993-1995 by Marco Piovanelli. MacBlue Telnet, copyright ⌐1995 by MacBlue.
