Tex-Edit is a multi-window, styled text editor that includes a built-in text reader. I keep a copy in my Apple menu and an alias on the desktop (for drag-and-drop operations). Tex-Edit is fast, easy-to-use and requires very little memory. It is particularly adept at formatting text which is transmitted to and from a BBS. Tex-Edit 1.8.1 and its source code are freely released to the public domain. (4/8/93)
••• Apple Menu •••
• About Tex-Edit…
This gives a few helpful hints for using Tex-Edit. It also includes instructions on how to contact me for suggestions or bug reports.
••• File Menu •••
• New
This will open a new blank document window. Any number of windows can be open, up to the limit of memory. To open more documents, increase Tex-Edit’s memory partition in the Finder’s “Get Info…” dialog box. (You will need to add about 50K per extra window.) The default font and size are set in the Preferences… dialog.
• Open…
This will bring up the standard file selection dialog. Pick the document you wish to open. Tex-Edit can open any TEXT file. If you choose a non-TEXT file, the file’s data fork will be displayed. If you open a TEXT document containing a ‘styl’ resource (such as documents created by JoliWrite, Stylus, America Online and, of course, Tex-Edit), the text will display style attributes (boldface, italics, color, size, etc.).
• Close
This will close the active window. You will be prompted to save any changes you may have made.
• Save
This will save any changes you have made to the file in the active window.
• Save As…
This will bring up the standard file dialog for creation of a new text file on your disk. There is also a checkbox which allows you to create a stationery pad document (if you are running System 7).
• Revert
This will revert to the last saved version of the file in the active window. All changes made since the last time the file was saved will be lost.
• Page Setup
This will display the standard Page Setup dialog allowing you to set certain characteristics for your printer.
• Print…
This will display a Print Options dialog, which allows you to set the page margins (in inches). Two checkboxes let you to choose whether or not you want double spaced printouts or numbered pages. None of these choices affect the actual file or its window. When you select ‘OK’, you will see the standard Print dialog box, which allows you to specify number of copies, print quality, etc.
• Preferences…
This dialog box allows you to customize several of Tex-Edit’s features:
1) Show “Open…” dialog at startup. If this is selected, when you first launch the Tex-Edit application, you will be greeted with the standard file selection dialog instead of a new blank window.
2) Open window to full screen size. If this is selected, new windows will open up to fill the entire desktop. Otherwise, new windows will be slightly smaller than a 9 inch screen.
3) Smart (“”) quotes. If this is selected, typographer quotes will automatically be used whenever you hit the single or double quote key. You may wish to disable this feature if you are creating files to be sent to non-Mac systems.
4) Change file “creator” to:___ If this is selected, the 4 character creator code in the editable box will be used instead of Tex-Edit’s usual TBB5. This allows Tex-Edit to create files that would be recognized as belonging to another application. (For example, Microsoft Word’s creator is MSWD.) Documents created for other word processors in this manner do not contain a ‘styl’ resource, thus decreasing the file size by about 20%.
5) Tab creates ___ spaces. If this is selected, a tab key entered at the keyboard will result in the insertion of the chosen number of spaces into the text. This may be helpful to indent the first line of a paragraph or create columns (if you are using a mono-spaced font like Monaco).
6) Wrap text inside window. If this is selected, the horizontal scrollbar is disabled and all text automatically wraps inside the right side of the window. If this is deselected, the right margin is set at approximately 1500 pixels and the horizontal scrollbar becomes active. This should be useful if you are writing source code and wish long lines of text to stay on one line.
7) Smart cut and paste. If this is selected, Tex-Edit will include the trailing space (if any) when cutting a word to the clipboard. If the selected word is followed by punctuation instead of a space (as is the case for the last word in a sentence) the leading space will be cut. Cutting a word from the middle of a sentence will thus leave only a single space, which is usually what you want. Subsequently paste operations will insert the word along with its trailing space. In most cases this will save two steps in the cut-and-paste cycle.
8) Default Font:___ This editable text box allows you to change Tex-Edit’s default font. The default font is used when a new window is created or when a generic text file is opened. Incorrectly spelled or non-existent fonts will result in the use of the system font (Chicago).
9) Default Size:___ This editable text box allows you to change Tex-Edit’s default font size. This size is used when a new window is created or when a generic text file is opened. Type the font size you wish to use (9-48). If you enter an illegal value, size 12 will be used.
• Quit
This will close the Tex-Edit application. You will be prompted to save any altered or unsaved open documents before Tex-Edit quits.
••• Edit Menu •••
• Undo
Undo can reverse your most recent editing action or style change. After you undo something, it can be redone if desired. Undo does not work for the Replace and Modify functions.
• Cut
Cut will remove the current selection to the clipboard, making it available for pasting to Tex-Edit or other programs.
• Copy
Copy will make a copy of the current text selection and place it in the clipboard.
• Paste
Paste will move a copy of the clipboard contents to the current insertion point, deleting any text which may be selected in the active window.
• Clear
Clear will erase the current text selection.
• Select All
All the text in the file will become hilited (selected).
• Paste Time
The current system time will be pasted at the insertion point. The clipboard is not affected.
• Paste Date
The current system date will be pasted at the insertion point.
••• Special Menu •••
• Find/Replace…
This dialog will let you enter a text string to search for. You may also enter a text string to use as a replacement when the search string is found. Selecting the “Find” button will hilite the first occurrence of the search string. (You may then use the “Find Next” or “Replace & Find Again” menu commands.) If you push the “Replace All” button, Tex-Edit will replace all occurrences of the search string with the replacement string, then report how many replacements were made. “Replace All” is not undo-able. The three small buttons labelled “CR”, “Tab” and “LF” allow you to easily enter a carriage return, tab or linefeed character into either the find string or replace string.
All searches start at the top of the document, unless you select the “Start search at cursor position” option. Once the desired text is found, it is hilited. The “Cases must match” option will force Tex-Edit to only look for matches in which the cases of all the letters also match. The “Whole words only” option will limit matches to distinct whole words (i.e. looking for ‘the’ will find ‘the’ but not ‘them’).
• Find Again
This option becomes available once a match has been found. It allows you to keep searching down through the file looking for the next match.
• Replace & Find Again
This will replace the hilited word with the replacement string (from the “Find/Replace…” dialog box) and continue searching for the next match.
• Change Case
If some text is hilited (selected), this submenu gives you a choice of various case-changing commands. You may change all the selected text to uppercase, lowercase, title case or sentence case. (Title case capitalizes the first letter of each word and sentence case capitalizes the first letter of each sentence.) Only the hilited text is affected.
• Strip LF’s
This option removes all linefeeds from the text. Linefeeds show up as useless little boxes at the start of each line. They are inserted by MS-DOS text editors to handle line wrap, but they are not needed on the Mac.
• Modify…
This dialog box allows you to globally change special characters in the text. If some text is selected, only that hilited text is affected by these changes:
1) Strip foreign control characters. If this is selected, Tex-Edit will delete all non-Mac control characters. Specifically, it will delete all characters with an ASCII value less than 32 (except for tabs, carriage returns and linefeeds). Control characters usually show up as useless little boxes scattered through the text.
2) Convert tabs to ___ spaces. If this is selected, all the tab characters in the text will be replaced with however many space characters you specify. This is useful for aligning columns, since Tex-Edit is unable to directly handle tab characters.
3) Quotes. The two available choices allow you to replace all ordinary quote marks with typographer quote marks or visa versa. Note that most BBS’s and MS-DOS systems don’t recognize these “smart” quotes.
4) Ligatures. The two available choices allow you to replace all occurrences of “fi” and “fl” with the single-character typographer ligatures or visa versa. Note that some fonts do not have these ligatures installed, thus producing ugly little boxes. As with the smart quotes, ligatures are usually not recognized by less intelligent computer systems.
5) Line Endings. These various choices allow you to change your file’s line formatting. In a Mac editor (like Tex-Edit), line endings are determined by “word-wrap” and carriage returns are only used to end paragraphs. Non-Mac systems usually end each line with a carriage return (or more likely a carriage return/linefeed combination). You can use “Strip CR/LF” to convert the text to Mac-formatted word wrapping text.
Alternately, you can force carriage returns (or carriage return/linefeeds) at the end of each line. In this case, you need to specify the number of characters per line. This will allow those with non-Mac systems to easily read your uploaded text files.
• Go To Line #…
This command displays a dialog that lets you jump to any line in the active document. The desired line is hilited and scrolled into view. This option is most helpful if you de-select “Wrap text inside window” (Preferences dialog).
• Word Count…
This command shows the word count, line count and character count for the active document.
••• Font Menu •••
The font menu lists all the fonts available to Tex-Edit. The current selection’s font is checked.
••• Size Menu •••
The size menu lists a selection of common font sizes. The current selection’s font size is checked.
• Smaller
This decrements the current selection’s font size by one point (2 points minimum), redrawing the selected text if necessary. The command keys are an easy shortcut for quickly changing font size.
• Larger
This increments the current selection’s font size by one point (127 points maximum), redrawing the selected text if necessary.
• Other(_)…
This command brings up a dialog which allows you to select any point size between 2 and 127 by simply entering that value in the edit box (or using the arrow buttons). A sample of the currently selected text’s font and size is displayed interactively.
••• Style Menu •••
This is a standard style menu with the addition of color and justification submenus. You may change the selection’s color in the same manner as you change its other style attributes. Of course, the color only shows up on your printout if you have a color printer. The justification setting (left, center or right justified) affects how the entire document is displayed and printed, but does not alter the file’s contents.
••• Speech Menu •••
• Read Document
This command will cause the active window to be read aloud by the Mac, if you have Macintalk installed in your system folder. The reading session starts at the top of the file and reads one sentence at a time, hiliting each sentence as it is read (scrolling as needed). Editing is not permitted while the text is being read. The reading can be canceled or paused at any time. This command is remarkably useful for helping to proofread a document, catching grammatical errors which eluded both my spelling checker and my tired eyes.
• Read Selection
If some text is selected, this command will read it aloud. It cannot be interrupted.
• Pause/Resume
If you are reading a document, this will allow you to temporarily pause or restart the reading session.
• Turn Speech On/Off
This command activates the Macintalk system. It must be selected before any other speech related commands are usable. An informative warning dialog is displayed with each activation. Macintalk apparently has some problems working correctly in certain situations on the older Macs. It is still very useful and reliable if you heed the warnings. (I have yet to see a Macintalk related crash on the LC or Quadra, even with extensive use of the Sound Manager, 32 bit mode, application switching, etc.)
• Speech Settings…
This command brings up a dialog which allows you to modify some of Macintalk’s speech characteristics. Try experimenting with different rates and pitches to get the most pleasing results. The “Sample” button will cause a sample sentence to be read aloud.
••• Miscellaneous •••
• Requirements
Tex-Edit requires a Mac or Mac-compatible running System 6.0.3 or better. I assume it would run on a 512K (fat) Mac, but unfortunately I have been unable to test that hypothesis. To use the speech facility, you need to install Macintalk in your system folder. The latest version I have found is 1.5.1 (Baseline includes it with Talking Moose and it is available for download from America Online.) Tex-Edit runs fine without Macintalk.
• Extended Keyboards
Tex-Edit makes full use of Apple’s extended keyboard including the forward delete, home, end, page up, page down and cursor keys. The escape key can be used to cancel any dialog box (just like command-period).
• Other Features
Tex-Edit is 32 bit clean, stationery-aware, System 7 compatible, MultiFinder compatible, color compatible, big screen compatible, 68040 cache compatible and adheres to all of Apple’s interface guidelines (as best I can tell). Undo is implemented for most functions and balloon help is available (under System 7). If you triple click on a sentence, the entire sentence will be selected.
• File Formats
Tex-Edit saves its documents in a format which can be read by any text editor or word processor (type ‘TEXT’). It saves the style information (font, size, color, boldface, etc.) in the file’s resource fork. Since this style information is ignored by other text editors, they are unable to display anything other than plain text when editing Tex-Edit’s files. When Tex-Edit re-opens a file which has been altered by another editor, all the style information will be gone, unless the other text editor also stores the document’s style information in the resource fork. For example, America Online, JoliWrite and Stylus create styled text files which can be easily opened by Tex-Edit with all style information intact! (Tex-Edit scans the document file for a resource of type ‘styl’. The first one it finds is used to style the text. If the document is using ‘styl’ resources for some other purpose, the text will look funny.)
In order to move a styled Tex-Edit document into a word processor without losing style information, you can use the clipboard to copy and paste the entire document.
Tex-Edit can open any ‘TEXT’ document (up to 32K) and can also display the data fork of any other file. Tex-Edit can correctly open stationery pad documents.
• Limitations
Tex-Edit is limited to 32K text files. This is due mainly to the author’s decision to keep the code as small and fast as possible. For the same reason, Tex-Edit does not deal directly with tab characters or graphics.
• Source Code
If you would like a copy of the THINK Pascal source code, please send me a disk (hopefully not blank) and a self-addressed stamped envelope and I will return code to you as quick as possible. My address is:
Tom Bender
5313 Beverly Drive
San Angelo, Texas 76904
• On-Line Support
If you have questions, suggestions or bug reports, you can also reach me via modem:
America Online: TomBB
GEnie: TBBENDER
• Other Products
Please also try Eliza, Re-Pete and Azile, hopefully available on a BBS near you!
