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-
- {{{THIS DOCUMENT DESCRIBES HOW TO EDIT TEXT WITH PBWRITE}}}
-
- Using PBWRITE
- =============
-
- PBWrite is an ASCII text editor that contains many editing features.
- The largest document size you can edit is just under 32K. While
- this is not an extremely large amount of space to edit a document,
- 32K is substantially enough room for most and probably all of the
- types of editing that will be done by the people who need to use
- it. Larger and more complex editing tasks would probably be
- done outside of the application with a more advanced word processor
- or program editor. 32K is sufficient to store approximately 800
- lines of average text, or about 15 full pages.
-
- (((PBWrite is also quite adaptable to editing portions of large
- documents with multiple window views and multiple windows containing
- various other portions of the same document. In this way, huge
- text files can be edited in memory. It depends on how the programmer
- makes use of the options and techniques available. Although PBWrite
- contains features which allow loading, reformatting, and saving
- text, and has a wide range of utilities built in, a resourceful
- programmer can do a great deal with how and when the PBWrite
- subroutine is called, what is passed to it, and what happens when
- it is exited. For instance, the document in PBWrite can be printed
- with the word-star keystrokes ^K-P. If the user presses the F7
- key (one of several exit keys) the PBWrite subroutine will exit.
- The programmer can tell what key was used to exit the program and,
- as an example, if F7 was used, he may then initiate a mail-merge
- and print routine of his own design. F10 could, perhaps, advance
- to the next file in a row or ESC could go back to the previous
- window. It is all up to the programmer. PBWrite is designed to
- provide the best possible environment during which editing is
- taking place.)))
-
- EDITING KEYSTROKES
-
- Navigation
-
- Of course the cursor pad controls cursor movement within the
- edit window, up, down, left, right, home, end, etc. all are
- used to navigate within the text in the window. The cursor
- will not advance beyond the end of the document or beyond
- the end of a line with these navigation keys. The only way
- to move beyond the end of a line is by adding more text to it,
- and the only way to scroll past the end of the document is
- by adding lines by typing more lines in or pressing ENTER.
-
- Why Word-Star
-
- PBWrite's hot keys are closely related to the Word-Star convention
- which, although considered old fashioned by the new generation of
- mouse and track-ball jockeys, are still the most widely used, widely
- standardized, and widely remembered convention. These keystrokes
- were not implemented because they are the most pleasant, they were
- implemented because any other hot-key convention would probably be
- more alien to more people than these. The author of PBWrite also
- declined to invent his own set of keystrokes because nothing is more
- irritating to him than when people try to invent conventions and
- actually expect a tiny handful of people to take the time getting
- used to them. If you are going to get used to a standard set of
- keystrokes, it might as well be something that can be found else-
- where as well.
-
- Editing Hot Keys
-
- Some edit functions can be performed with a simple control+key
- operation, that is, you hold down the control key and press another
- simultaneously. Other more specialized editing functions require
- that you press control+K or control+Q and then follow it with
- an additional keystoke (without holding down the control key).
-
- ^Y means control+Y (which means to hold down the control key and)
- ~~ ~~~~~~~~~ (then press Y simultaneously, then release. )
-
- ^K-D means control+K and then D
- (which means to press both control and K, )
- (then release, and then press just the D key.)
-
- ^Y = Delete the current line that the cursor is on.
- ^T = Delete the word immediately following the cursor.
- ^U = Restore the last line or word deleted.
-
- Every line and word you delete will be remembered, up to 32K, in
- the order they were deleted. You can restore any number of lines
- or words deleted with ^U in the reverse order they were originally
- deleted.
-
- ^D = Erase all text in the current edit window. If you have not
- saved the document since it was last changed, PBWrite will
- ask if you want to save it.
-
- ^G = Change margins. A box will pop up with the right margin
- value in it. Enter another number (from 15 to 4096) or press
- escape to abort. If you enter a number to change the margin
- you will be given three options for reformatting.
-
- 1) reformat on double carriage returns
- 2) reformat, preserve carriage returns
- 3) do not reformat and continue
-
- The first option will rebuild every paragraph with the new
- margines. It will only start a new paragraph where a blank
- line appears, that is, a double carriage return. The second
- option will reformat, however every line will be followed
- by a carriage return, so very little actual reformatting will
- take place. The final option will reset the current margin
- leaving existing text unchanged.
-
- Block Operations
-
- ^K-B = Mark beginning of block at current cursor position.
- ^K-K = Mark end of block at current cursor position.
-
- A marked block will not appear highlighted in the
- current version of PBWrite.
-
- ^K-C = Copy a marked block to the current cursor position.
- ^K=V = Move a marked block to the current cursor position.
- ^K-Y = Erase a marked block of text
- ^K-W = Write a marked block to a disk file
- (You will be prompted for a file name.)
- ^K-P = Print a marked block to the default PRN printer.
- ^K-R = Read a file into the block paste buffer.
- (You must use ^K-C to actually insert the block at
- the current cursor location)
-
- Loading and Saving
-
- ^K-D = Save the current text to disk and exit PBWrite
- ^K-S = Save the current text but do not exit
- ^K-Q = DO NOT SAVE the current text and exit PBWrite. You will
- be prompted "Are you sure?"
-
-
- F2 = Save text (same as ^K-S)
- F3 = Load a new document into the editor
- F4 = Print the current document to LPT1, 2 or 3
-
- Other operations
-
- F5 = Toggle ZOOM the current window from small to full-screen
- and back again. The window will automatically return to
- small (the original size) when exited.
-
- ^K-M = Start Macro. You will be prompted for a hot key (ALT+
- something) for the macro. Then enter any sequence of
- keystrokes (without exiting PBWrite). Press ALT+M to
- finish recording. Macros are not saved unless the
- program containing PBWrite is designed to save them.
-
- ^Q-A = Search and Replace. You will be prompted for a string
- of characters (case sensitive) to search for and then
- a string to replace them with. All occurances of the
- search string will be replaced with the replace string.
-
- The following keys will exit PBWrite. It is up to the programmer
- what happens after that. The scan code or ASCII code of the
- exit key is stored in the ExitCode% parameter. The programmer
- must list in his documentation what each key may possible do.
-
- ESCAPE
- ALT-X
- ATL-Q
- F6
- F7
- F8
- F9
- F10
-
- Comments and suggestions for PBWrite please send to ...
-
- Erik Olson
- C/O PowerBASIC Tech Support
- 1350 Birchcrest Blvd.
- Port Charlotte, FL 33952
-
- (813) 625-1172 = PowerBASIC Tech Support line.
-