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Text File | 1985-11-19 | 12.5 KB | 245 lines

New Version of ACE coming soon!!! Will probably be sent out sometime after the Beta-Testers have a go at it. It'll probably be sometime in December. A new version of ACE (1.25) will be finished soon. This new version is unbelievably better. It has TONS of new stuff, like: If you have a color graphics adapter, screen display is much faster... You may specify the character that takes the place of ASCII 174, instead of it always being 254. There is a function that will list all the functions in the current file (Up to 176) and allow you to position a cursor on the one you would like to go to. When you press enter ACE will place you on the line of the declaration. You may also with a different function type in the name, and have it (using the above search method) place you on the line of the function declaration. There is now an UndoRemark function to remove remarks from a block or line. There is a function to jump to the end of the code on a line. This is useful when you have remarks after your lines and you want to add some code to the end of the line without having to cursor past your remark to the end of your code. Search and replace now support wild cards. Below are the newly added characters you can use in a search string: * - This functions like dos's asterisk. It specifies that any number of character can fill it's position. ? - This also operates like the dos question mark. It signifies that any one character can take its place. ^1 - This search's for the ASCII 1 char, that is normally used to tell ACE you want to change search or replace parameters. ^* - This lets you search for an actual asterisk. ^? - This lets you search for an actual question mark. ^^ - This lets you search for a ^ character. ^C - This lets you search for a carriage return/linefeed combo. ^E - This lets you search for an escape character. (ASCII 27) ^F - This tells ACE to take the information following the ^F and ending with a ^F as a function name, and to search for it appropriately. Using this is essentially the same as using the function mentioned above where you type in a function name for ACE to go to. Using ^F^F would go to the next function declaration. The replace string supports all these new functions except for the ^F function. In the replace string you may replace with an asterisk field or a question mark field from the search string. So for example, in the file you had a bunch of function calls like this: hello(10,20); hello(5,14); hello(1,2); hello(99,145); hello(12,38); etc.. Well, you want to insert the number 5 after the first number in that call, what a pain... No more.. You would just specify for the search string: hello(*,*); and for the replace string: hello(*1,5,*2); this would insert the string found for the first asterisk field then a five then the string found for the second asterisk field. Understand? I hope so.. Anyway you could use this for alot of stuff, like for a replace string: printf("*1",*5,*4,*3,*2); This would reverse the four asterisk fields found in the file. So if the file contained this: printf("%d %d %d %d",a,b,c,d); it would now contain: printf("%d %d %d %d",d,c,b,a); pretty cool, eh? There is also a new Go To function. Thumb position. So now when you select go to. You can type in the line number, tag char, or T for thumb position. This function allows you to use the cursor keys to move the thumb at the left side of the window. So if you place the thumb in the middle of the window and press enter it will take you to the middle of the file. There is a new utility function: Comment align. This new utility has you enter a column number where it then takes the entire file or a block and right align's the remarks with that column. So, if you have lines like this: main() /* main... */ { /* beginning of main. */ int h; /* define loops variable as int. */ etc.. then having it line up with whatever column will make it look something like this: main() /* main... */ { /* beginning of main. */ int h; /* define loops variable as int. */ The Scan for errors function has been revamped. Some bugs in it have been fixed, it is faster, and it is a little friendlier. The option "Indent after {" has been changed to "Indent aft. { and }". You ask why? Well, when this option is active, each time you enter a line containing a left brace, ACE stores the beginning indent of that line. Then whenever you type in a right brace and there are no character besides spaces/tabs in front of it, ACE will automatically indent that line so that it matches with the correct starting left brace line. ACE also now, finally correctly supports tabs!!! You remember how before, the tab key inserted hard spaces... That took up tons of space as you knew. But now ACE in memory has each tab as an ASCII 9 (The way it should be) and just displays the appropriate number of spaces... So in effect changing ACE in this way lets you edit larger files, and also got rid of the convert utility. ACE manages itself better... There is no longer a limit on the number of lines you may have, well almost... You can't go beyond 32,000, but at this time that is far beyond what anyone will be able to go with ACE's current buffer size. This new revamp also has speeded up all the block operations. No more waiting a sec/or two... Just WHAM! it's there... ACE will have a new option that when on, will scan the line upon pressing enter to determine if it is a variable definition line. If it is it stores the names of those variables in a stack and later on when you are, say, creating a for loop and you want to call up one of these variables, you just press a key and it ACE pops this stack and places the most recently defined variable there if you like it, type on. If you don't you just press the key again and ACE deletes that variable name and inserts the variable that was defined before that. So if you had something like this: int loop_counter,var_count,line_number; for( when you press the key, the line would then look like this: for(line_number if you were to press it again, it would look like this: for(var_count and, if you were to press it again it would look like this: for(loop_counter Pretty cool, eh? I believe that is all for 1.25, but following is a list of some of the things ACE's registered users can expect in version 1.26 which will be done a few months after 1.25 is released: ACE will allow you to edit two separate files at once. They will be in two separate windows that the user can resize, copy to/from, edit, everything! It will have an expanded Scan for errors function. It will do lint type analysis... Possibilities: (Not for sure, but likely to be there) ACE will have an option that when on will allow ACE to load Very Large files, up to ACE's max. line limit, which by then will be around 65,000. Using this method ACE would store a 40 or so K section of that file in memory, and as the user would scroll through the file ACE would load in the required section of that file. All editing while in this mode would be stored in a duplicate file, and later when you save your file ACE would delete the old file, and rename the duplicate file that had been changed to the old file name. If the option is set to off, then ACE will act as it does now... Fast but smaller files... ACE might have some kind of a macro language in 1.26. With this language you would have full control over ACE, so you could say.... Ok when I press Ctrl F1, I want you to tell me if the current line has a certain string in it, if it does then oh.... Remark it with a special kind of indent, Or if it has this other string then uh.... copy that and the next 20 lines into a file... Things like this could be possible... With this new language many of ACE's current functions like ALT R, ALT U, ALT J (last two in 1.25), etc.. Could be replaced with macros!! So with these macros you could essentially customize ACE! There will probably be an awesome new print function. It was written by a friend of mine, and it is NICE... It prints an index containing all the functions page #'s, keeps functions with their describing remarks, etc.... It has a few bugs in it at this time, but one of us plan to have it fixed by ACE's new version. There might be some kind of automated Compile option that after you defined what programs it would run along with parameters, and what kind of erorr output the program displayed. (like: Line number error message...) You would just specify File Compile and ACE would automatically run your compilor, linker, whatever and route their output to a ACE file. It would then scan this file for messages that matched your definition for errors. It would then open the second window with the error messages from this file and highlight the first one. ACE would also in the first window place the cursor on the line specified in the error message above. By pressing a key ACE would automatically highlight the next error message above and again place the cursor on the appropriate line for editing. ACE will have some AWESOME new stuff that you could call Artificial Intelligence. If you want a few details call. Oh Yeah, ACE is going to have ALL NEW documentation! This will be MUCH better than before, It's going to be written by someone else is why. Anyway's it's going to be much more technical than before, it's gonna tell you how certain functions work, the layout of datafiles, etc. BIG Special Thanks to Steve Mills for offering to write the new docs. His Fido system can be reached at: (412)367-2505 I think that's about it, but PLEASE if you have any ideas/comments/suggestions... Anything! (Ver. 1.26 is not totally thought out, so if you want something added, speak up!) Call me or Write, but it's easier if you call... The address/number is: R.R.#12 Box#19 Muncie, IN 47302 (317)288-7547 After 3:30 p.m. Compuserve ID#: 70167,1123 R.R.#12 Box#19 Muncie, IN 47302 (317)288-75