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Text File | 1992-06-18 | 23.7 KB | 555 lines | [TEXT/Rich]

Before using BBEdit, you should be comfortable with using a word processor (such as MacWrite), or some other text editor. GENERAL INFORMATION BBEdit is a multiple-document text editor; you can have an arbitrarily large number of windows open, with each window containing a different document. The number of documents you can open at once is limited only by available memory; the maximum size of each document is likewise dependent on available memory. BBEdit supports editing features such as a changeable tab width and automatic indentation, and offers convenience features such as en-masse Save, Close, and Print commands, and the ability to print in a font and size other than the font and size used when editing - for example, you can edit a document in the Monaco font, 9 point size, but you may wish to print it out using the Courier 6 point font in order to minimize paper usage. BBEdit works in fairly traditional fashion; in the interests of brevity and minimal obfuscation, only those features unique to BBEdit are described in following sections. CREATING AND OPENING DOCUMENTS New editing windows can be created by choosing "New" from the File menu; newly created windows are stacked down and to the left, and are set up for editing in Monaco 9. To open an existing text file, use the "Open" or "Open Several" commands from the File menu. The "Open Several" dialog box allows you to open many files from different disks and folders. The left half of the dialog behaves in much the same fashion as a traditional Open box, except for the addition of the "Add" and "Add All" buttons. To dismiss the dialog, click the "Cancel" button on the right half of the dialog, or the "Done" button, which is next to it. Instead of dimissing the dialog, double-clicking on a file adds it to the list on the right half of the dialog. This list is the list of files to be opened; you can add a file to it by double-clicking the file, pressing the Return or Enter keys, or clicking the "Add" button. If a folder is selected, the "Add" button becomes the "Open" button, and clicking the "Open" button or double-clicking the folder opens the folder. The "Remove" button can be used to remove selected files from the list of files to be opened. Files in this list can be selected by clicking on their names; Shift-clicking extends the selection to consecutive files, and Command-clicking allows you to select files out of order. The "Add All" button will add all files in the current folder to the list of files to be opened. When you click the "Done" button, all files on the list will be opened, provided that there is enough available memory to open them all. You can also open files in BBEdit by selecting their icons in the Finder and choosing "Open" under the Finder's "File" menu. Of you open documents created by THINK C, MPW, or Macintosh Pascal, BBEdit will use the settings stored in them to position the window, and set the font and size. The "Open Selection" command may be used to open a file whose name is contained in the current selection range. If the name is a simple file name, then BBEdit will look in the directory containing the current document for the file. If it's not found there, or the document has never been saved, then BBEdit will bring up a dialog requesting a directory; this directory will be the starting point of a search for the specified file. If the character after the end of the selection range is a period, then BBEdit will behave like THINK C's editor, and extend the selection as if you had selected a file name and its suffix. Files may be opened read-only, or they may be opened in such fashion that the Projector settings are honored; the file will be opened read-only if it's been checked out read-only. A file will also be opened read-only if its "Locked" switch (in the Finder's Get Info box) is set, if it's on a locked disk, or in a read-only AppleShare directory. When the "Filter Line Feeds" switch is checked, BBEdit will scan each file that it opens, and will convert carriage return/line feed pairs to single carriage returns, and single line feeds to single carriage returns. You can also open files other than text files, using the "Show All Types" switch. EDITING FEATURES BBEdit supports the following editing features, all of which are undoable: Balance Select the parentheses, braces, or quotes which enclose the current selection range. Twiddle Exchange the characters on either end of the selection range. If there is no selection, then the characters on either side of the insertion point are swapped. If the insertion point lies at the end of a line or the end of the document, then the two characters preceding the insertion point will be switched, rather than the characters on each side. If the insertion point lies at the beginning of a line or the beginning of the document, then the two characters following the insertion point will be exchanged. Raise Case Lower Case Make the selection range all uppercase or all lowercase. Shift Left Shift Right Shift the line(s) containing the selection range left or right by one tab stop. Holding down the Shift key while choosing either command causes the shift to be by one space instead of by a tab stop. Wrap… This command will wrap the text so that it breaks at the philip bar; the philip bar is a vertical gray line in the document window which indicates the right-hand edge of the usable editing area when the window is zoomed to fill a standard 9-inch Mac screen. Optionally, text can be wrapped to the width of the document window, or to constant character width. Text can be optionally paragraph-wrapped; instead of simply breaking the line, the next carriage return after the new line break will be changed to a space, for smoother wrapping. Holding down the Option key and choosing this command will perform a text wrap without bringing up the dialog, using the current settings. (The defaults can be set in the Preferences dialog.) This command is intended to be used once after opening word- wrapped documents, such as TeachText files. Zap Gremlins Replace all non-printing control characters with bullets (option-8). Line feeds are treated specially - if a line feed is preceded by a carriage return, then it is deleted; otherwise, it is replaced with a carriage return. The standard editing operations (undo, cut, copy, paste, clear, and typing) are all undo-able, as are all of the operations listed above. BBEdit will warn you if any text action is not undo-able. PRINTING DOCUMENTS Printing documents in BBEdit works in the standard fashion; however, you may choose to print pages in reverse order, for convenience when using a standard LaserWriter. You may also choose to place a border around each page. The "Print Pages In Reverse Order" and "Frame Printing Area" check-boxes enable these functions, respectively. The "Print Page Headers" switch controls whether the page number and other information will be printed at the top of each page. Clicking on the "Options..." button will bring up a dialog for setting the above options. The "Print Selection Only" switch will instruct BBEdit to only print the current selection range, if there is one. Clicking on the "Printing Font..." button will bring up a dialog which allows you to set the font and size to use when imaging the document on the printer. SETTING FONT AND SIZE The "Font and Tabs..." item under the Text menu is useful for editing documents in a font and size other than Monaco 9. In this dialog, you can also set the width in spaces of a tab stop. THE SEARCH MENU The "Search" menu contains commands for searching within a document. The "Find..." command brings up a dialog box in which to enter the text you are looking for, and optionally, the text you wish to replace with. Also provided are check boxes for making the search case-sensitive, wrapping around to the beginning of the document once its end is reached during a search, and for searching for an entire word. See "MULTI-FILE SEARCHING", below, for details on the function of the "Multi-File Search" check box. "Find Again" searches for the find string, if one is entered. The "Find Selection" command will make the current selection the find string, and search for it. This is equivalent to making a selection, copying it, choosing "Find..." and pasting into the dialog, with the exception that "Find Selection" will not change what is already on the Clipboard. "Enter Selection" behaves the same as "Find Selection", except that it does not search for the selection. "Replace" will replace the current selection with the replace string. If there is no selection, "Replace" is equivalent to pasting the replace string, except that it doesn't change the Clipboard. If there is no replace string, then a "Replace" is equivalent to deleting the current selection. "Replace And Find Again" is equivalent to choosing the "Replace" command, followed by choosing the "Find Again" command. "Replace All" will search for all occurrences of the search string (including the current selection) and replace them with the replace string. The "Go To Line" command will place the insertion point at the beginning of the desired line. If you request a line number that is less than one or greater than the number of lines in the document, the insertion point will be placed at the beginning or end of the document, respectively. Note that all searches are subject to the options set in the "Find..." dialog box. MULTI-FILE SEARCHING When you turn on the "Multi-File Search" check box in the Search dialog, BBEdit provides options to perform various kinds of multi-file searches. To set these options click on the "Options…" button, which is enabled when multi-file searching is enabled. The "Search Method" popup provides the following options: • Directory Scan: all text files in the directory tree rooted at the specified Starting Directory will be searched for occurrences of the "Search For" string. (If "Show All Types" is turned on, then ALL files in the directory tree will be searched.) This option is always available. • Search Results: files listed in the "Search Results" window (see Batch Search, below) will be used as the basis for the multi-file search. This is useful to narrow down the list of matches by doing multiple searches on the Search Results with different search strings. If there are no Search Results, then this option is not available. • Open Windows: the multi-file search will search only open windows. Again, a useful way to narrow the search. This option is not available if there are no windows open. • On Location: BBEdit will use On Location 2.0 ("OL") as an engine for searching, using OL's searching rules (see your manual for details). The options passed to On Location are OL's defaults. You can search all known indexes, or limit the search to one index, by using the "Search Index" popup. If On Location is not running, then this option is not available. The various settings for multi-file searches are: • Batch Find: when this option is turned on, the search happens all at once, and the results are displayed in the Search Results window. In the Search Results window, you can double-click on an entry, and the file will be opened and the matching string will be selected. You can also select multiple entries and display the matches, or use Return or Enter instead of double-clicking. The Search Results window can be saved as a text file, or printed out. If Batch Find is turned off, then windows are opened one at a time, as they are found. • Add To Results: (only if Batch Find is on) when this option is on, the results of the batch search will be added to the existing Search Results, instead of replacing them. If there are no Search Results, or if Batch Find is turned off, then this option is not available. • Search Nested Folders: (Directory Search Only) When this option is OFF, only the designated folder will be searched. When it's on, the entire directory tree rooted at the designated folder will be searched. If a search method other than Directory Search is chosen, this option is not available. • Search All Types: When this option is ON, files of any type (not just text files) will be searched. • Skip (…) Folders: (Directory Search Only) When this option is on, folders whose names are enclosed in parentheses will not be searched. If a search method other than Directory Search is chosen, this option is not available. (The "(…)" is pronounced "Meredith".) • Starting Directory (The "Set…" button): This button is used to designate the starting directory for directory scan searches. The dialog that it presents is a Standard File-based directory selection dialog. To select a folder, navigate your folder hierarchy until the name of the desired folder appears in the large button at the bottom of the dialog, then click that button. • Note: Grep is not supported for direct On Location searches. However, you can search for a known part of the Grep string, and then use Grep in combination with a Open Windows or Search Results search. Alternatively, you can use a Directory Scan for multi-file Grep searching. The "Find In Next File" command under the Search menu will continue the multi-file search; the "Open All Matches" command is equivalent to choosing "Find In Next File" repeatedly until no more occurrences are found. Find In Next File and Open All Matches are only available when doing non-batch searches. Multi-File searches can be done in the background. If a search completes and BBEdit is not in the foreground, a Notification Manager alert will be posted, so that you know it's done. A multi-file search in progress can be stopped by pressing Command-Period. "Find And Replace All Matches" is a convenient way to do automatic multi- file search and replace. The dialog presented when you choose this command allows you to specify whether files are modified in memory or on disk; the "safe" way to proceed is to instruct BBEdit to leave the document open after replacing all occurrences; alternatively, you can request that any changed files are saved subject to your confirmation, or without your confirmation. Note that this last alternative will result in files being modified on disk without your knowledge, so you should be absolutely sure you want to do this. Find And Replace All Matches is only functional for non-batch searches. SAVING A document can be saved via the "Save As…" command, or part of its contents may be saved with the Save Selection… command. Using "Save As" gives you the opportunity to determine which elements of a document's state will be saved; some applications besides BBEdit use state information which is saved in the resource fork of a document. None no state MPW Shell font, size, tabs, window placement & size, selection range BBEdit font, size, tabs, window placement & size, scrollbar settings, print settings, selection range THINK C font, size, tabs Mac Pascal font, size, tabs, window placement & size If any aspect of a document's remembered state is changed, the hollow diamond will appear in the document's status bar, and next to the file's name in the Windows menu. "Make Backup Now..." is useful for making a snapshot the state of a document before you modify it. Choosing "Auto-Backup" (option-Make Backup Now) will cause BBEdit to save a backup whenever you choose "Save", before it writes out the new changes. Backup documents and documents created with "Save Selection" have no state information in them. THE WINDOWS MENU "Stack Windows" and "Tile Windows" can be used to neatly organize your windows on the screen; if there are more windows present than can be neatly tiled, they will be tiled into small stacks. "Send to Back" and "Exchange with Next" are useful for cycling through the open windows on the screen, or toggling between the top two documents. Below these four commands is a list of all open windows. Choosing a window's name will bring it to the front. Documents that have been modified but not saved will have a filled diamond next to their name. If a document's state has been modified, the diamond will be hollow. SPECIAL FEATURES BBEdit is sensitive to whether a file can be modified or not; if the file is locked, or is opened from a write-protected disk or AppleShare volume, then the file will be opened read-only regardless of the switch in the Open… dialog box. To create your own modifiable copy of a read-only file, use Save As… to save the document in a different location. BBEdit will also open a document read-only if the "Projector-Aware" switch is turned on in the Open… dialog, and the file is currently checked out from a Projector project. KEY TRICKS Keyboard Support - BBEdit supports the extra keys on the Apple Extended Keyboard, as well as the arrow keys provided on all keyboards except the original Mac keyboard. The sense of the "Auto-Indent" setting can be reversed on the fly by holding down the Option key when typing a carriage return. Holding down the Command key when using a scrollbar will make the document scroll twice as fast. Holding down the Option key when pressing left-arrow or right-arrow will move the insertion point to the end of the line containing the current selection range. Holding down the Option key when pressing up-arrow or down-arrow will move the insertion point to the beginning or end of the document, respectively. Typing Command-Tab or Command-Return in the Find dialog will cause a tab or carriage return, respectively, to be entered in the current text field. The Option key is used in the File, Text, and Search menus to toggle between related menu items: • Paste File becomes Paste Hierarchy: Paste Hierarchy replaces the current selection with an indented listing of the desired directory. • Close becomes Close All: Close All closes all open windows except for the Search Results window. • Save becomes Save All: Save All saves all open windows. • Print becomes Print All: Print All prints all open windows except for Search Results. • Quit becomes Transfer: Puts up a dialog which allows you to specify an application to launch, and optionally leave BBEdit running, or quit BBEdit. • Make Backup Now becomes Auto-Backup: when turned on, Auto-Backup makes a time-stamped duplicate in the same directory as the original file whenever Save is chosen for that file. (The duplicate is made -before- the new changes are saved.) A diamond will appear next to this item when Auto-Backup is turned on. • "Wrap..." becomes "Wrap": wrapping will be performed using the current wrap settings, rather than bringing up the dialog. • Find In Next File becomes Open All Matches: Open All Matches does a Find In Next File until there are no more matches. PREFERENCES The "Preferences" command on the File menu allows you to set up BBEdit with your preferred settings… The various groups of commands in the Preferences dialog perform the following actions: Global - Controls various aspects of BBEdit as a whole: • Delay When Scrolling waits for a tenth of a second when you click in the arrows or gray part of a scrollbar, to make it easier to scroll a line at a time on fast machines. • Show Status Bar displays a bar at the top of each editing window, which gives the file's full path name, and the date and time the file was last saved. If the file has unsaved changes, a black diamond will be to the left of the "last saved" time. If some aspect of the window's saved state has been changed, then the diamond will be hollow. The "pencil" icon indicates the file's read-only state; if the pencil has a slash across it, then it is read-only. You can change the file's read-only state by clicking on the pencil. Also in the status bar is a small icon which indicates what state information is saved with the document. A "generic application" icon means that no BBEdit-readable state is saved. Clicking on the icon brings up the "Save As..." dialog, so that you can either make a modifiable copy of a read-only document, or change the state information that is saved with that document. • Show Philip Bar causes a vertical gray line to appear in the status bar. This gray line indicates the right- hand edge of the usable editing area when the window is zoomed to full-size on a 9-inch Macintosh screen. This makes it easy to write files which can be read without scrolling by users of "classic" Macintosh machines; simply break lines at the philip bar when you type, or wrap to the philip bar using the Wrap… command. • Auto-Indent, when turned on, auto-indents your text while typing. • MPW Compatible changes the command-key equivalents for Select All, Find Again, Replace And Find Again, and Go To Line to be more familiar to users of MPW (or other editors with similar command keys for these functions). When turned off, the command-keys are familiar to users of the THINK programming environments (which tend to outnumber MPW users...). • Show Line Numbers causes the left side of each window to display the line numbers for all lines visible in the editing window. • The "At Startup" setting controls what action is to take place if BBEdit is started up without double- clicking on a document. Editor - Controls default settings for editing: • Default Font sets the default font, size, style, and tab settings for newly created windows and for files with no saved font information. Printing - Controls default settings for printing: • Default Font sets the default font and tab information for printing; these settings may be changed and saved on an individual basis for files saved with BBEdit state information. • Frame Pages causes a double border to be drawn around the printed document (à la MPW). • Print Page Headers prints a header on each page with the date, time, page number, total pages, and document file name. • Print In Reverse Order prints out the pages backwards. This is useful on the original LaserWriters and on other printers that print backwards. • Print Full Pathname prints the file's full pathname in the page header (if Print Page Headers is on). • The Modification Date and Printing Date radio buttons control which date is printed in the page header; if Modification Date is chose, the date and time the file was last saved are printed; otherwise, the date and time the document's printing was started will be printed. Search - Controls the settings that appear in the Search dialog: • Wrap Around, Match Case, Entire Word, and Grep control the appropriate settings in the Find... dialog. • Leave Windows Open, Save Changes To Disk, and Confirm Saves control the appropriate settings in the Find And Replace All Matches… dialog. • Search All Types and Start From… control the analogous settings in the Options… dialog which is brought up from the Find… dialog. Filing - Controls the settings that appear in the Open… and Save As… dialogs: • Open Read-Only, Projector-Aware, and Show All Types control the settings that appear in the Open and Open Several dialogs. • The "Default Saved State" popup controls which state information gets saved when the file is saved. • The "Auto-Backup" switch is the default setting for the "Auto-Backup" option in the File menu. State • These settings control what parts of the saved state information are honored when a window is opened, regardless of what state information was saved with the document.