Binary Software, Inc. Orders and registrations only:
2118 Wilshire Blvd Suite 900 Phone: (800) 8-BINARY (824-6279)
Santa Monica, CA 90403 or: (310) 449-1481
United States of America Fax: (800) 555-7217 or (310) 449-1473
Internet email: sales@binarysoft.com
CompuServe email: 74220,3377
America Online email: BINARY SW
ftp://users.aol.com/binarysw/
• Shareware: $10
◊ This program is distributed as shareware: if you use it please honor the shareware system by sending $10 U.S. to Binary Software at the address above. You can email, fax, snail-mail, or call. When registering please specify the name and version of this program as well as your name, mailing address, email address, phone number, fax number, and your credit card number and expiration date (we accept Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover). You can also pay with a check, money order, or cash.
◊ Binary Software is only collecting the registrations on my behalf; please contact me directly by email for any information, suggestion, permission, or request about this software. If you want to send non-U.S. cash or any other material including software, books, magazines, CD-ROMs or any hardware, please send it to me at my Italian address. If you do so, however, you should also notify me by email because I only receive my snail mail once per month.
◊ If you can’t afford to register you may still want to send Binary Software your name, address and email address so they can send you new product announcements and other special offers.
◊ Site licenses and group discounts are available for 5 or more registrations. Please check my ftp site or send email for more information.
◊ Please register: your support is the only way for me to keep working on cool shareware programs.
• Introduction
◊ Better Edit Keys is a cool system enhancement that allows you to use the shift, option and control keys with the arrows, delete, forward delete and clear keys in any standard text editing field, including basic text editors such as SimpleText. This makes it much easier to work with text without reaching the mouse. The following key combinations are allowed:
- shift + any arrow: extend the current selection.
- option + left/right arrow: move to the previous or next word.
- control + left/right arrow or option + up/down arrow: move to the beginning or end of the current line.
- shift + option + any arrow: move like option + arrow while extending the selection.
- option + delete: delete up to the beginning of the current word (or clear selection).
- forward delete or shift + delete: delete the next character (or clear selection).
- option + forward delete or shift + option + delete: delete up to the end of the current word (or clear selection).
- clear: clear the current selection, if any.
- option + clear: delete the current word (or clear selection).
◊ You may selectively enable or disable the above combinations by clicking the Settings button in the Control Panel. For example, some users don’t want the Shift-Delete key combination to act as Forward Delete.
• Troubleshooting
◊ The above tasks should usually be performed by applications, but many of them don’t care. Better Edit Keys implements this default behavior in all situations where the application is not already taking care of it, but it does nothing if the application handles the keystrokes by itself. This means that the above keystrokes will not work if the application already handles them. For example recent versions of SimpleText handle the forward delete key by themselves, which also disables the option + forward delete keystroke provided by Better Edit Keys. There is no safe way to override the application’s own handling of the keystrokes, so Better Edit Keys is only useful for applications that don’t handle them and for generic text editing fields like the ones in dialog windows.
◊ For technical reasons, Better Edit Keys can’t tell the esc key from the clear key. This never causes any trouble with the usual esc key behavior, so you can still use it to dismiss dialogs and cancel operations. The only side effect is that you can use the esc key just like the clear key if no Cancel button is currently visible.
◊ Because of the way the Mac toolbox works, Better Edit Keys can’t add editing keystrokes that use the command key. It can’t be done, so don’t even bother asking about it. I know you’d like to use command + shift/right arrow to go to the beginning and end of the line, but you’ll have to do it with control + left/right arrow instead.
• Installation
◊ To install Better Edit Keys, move it inside your Control Panels folder (inside your System folder) and restart your Mac.
◊ To disable Better Edit Keys, remove it from the Control Panels folder and restart.
• Version history
◊ 1.0.1 - Added a Settings dialog to selectively enable or disable the editing keys, fixed a bug that made the control panel crash on some machines.
◊ All online services and bulletin boards may make it available to their users at no charge other than the normal connection fees.
◊ All non-profit user groups may distribute it at no charge.
◊ All magazines may publish it on floppy disk or CD-ROM without asking me first, as long as I get a copy of the issue containing my software.
◊ All CD-ROM shareware collections and CD-ROM magazines may include it without my prior consent, as long as I get either a copy of the CD-ROM or an offer to buy the CD-ROM at a discounted price.
◊ All redistribution companies such as Pacific HiTech, AMUG, Celestin or Educorp may distribute it, as long as I get a copy of each media containing my software and a catalog of the company’s offerings (where applicable).
◊ You may find the latest version of all my shareware and freeware programs by anonymous ftp to ftp.alpcom.it, inside the /software/mac/LMontalcini directory. The ALM Share and ALM Free packages, which contain most of my stuff and can be registered at a very low price, are also available there.
• Disclaimer
◊ This software should never cause any damage, but you’re using it at your own risk. As an independent software developer, I can make no warranties whatsoever on it.
• Have fun!
◊ And don’t forget to register your shareware, so that more cool inexpensive utilities can see the light in the future.
