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The Best of Select: Windows 95 Special 2
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CD_1.iso
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utils
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pfe32
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faq.txt
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1995-03-24
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Frequently Asked Questions
on
Programmer's File Editor
--------------------------
[Answers in this file refer to facilities available in PFE 0.06.001]
You may find information on any problem you have encountered in the
problems.txt file, which lists known major problems in the current release
--
Q. What version of PFE is recommended for my current environments? I use
Windows 3.10, Windows NT and Windows 95
A. PFE is supplied in two forms: the 16-bit edition (PFE.EXE) and the
32-bit edition (PFE32.EXE). The recommended versions for various
platforms are these:
Windows 3.1x 16-bit edition
Windows NT 3.5 32-bit edition
Windows 95 32-bit edition
Although the 32-bit edition should function on a Windows 3.1x system if
you have Win32s 1.20 installed, its use is not recommended. Some
functionality is not available, and the version is not extensively
tested in this mode
----
Q. How can I arrange that edit windows are created to use the maximum area
available in the MDI client area?
A. You can do this with the Options Preferences command. Start the
preferences dialog and select "Window Control" from the list of option
categories on the left. This shows you a panel that lets you configure
exactly how child windows will be created
----
Q. Why don't all the TrueType fonts I have installed on my system appear in the
printer and screen fonts dialogs?
A. Because PFE is a programming-oriented text editor, rather than a word
processor, it supports only fixed pitch fonts (ones in which all characters
occupy the same width on screen or paper). There are, sadly, very few fixed
pitch fonts available. There are no plans to add variable fixed pitch support
in a future release.
----
Q. How can I ensure that if I associate PFE with a file type in File Manager,
double clicking on a file of that type will bring up a new PFE window rather
than opening the file in an already-running instance?
A. Normally, whenever you start PFE, it will look to see if an instance is
already running. If it is, this instance is activated, and the names of any
files you give on the command line will be passed to it across a DDE link. If
you want to force a new instance of PFE to start instead of activating an
existing one, use the '/m' command line flag.
----
Q. I want PFE to remember the names of more than the last 5 files I've edited,
so I can pick them quickly from the File menu. How can I do this?
A. You can configure the Most Recently Used (MRU) list with the Options
Preferences command. Start the preferences dialog, and select "File
Menu" from the list of option categories on the left. This shows you the
panel that configures the MRU list.
You can configure the total size of the list, and how many files from
the list will appear on the File menu (you will be able to select from the
entire list with a dialog command that will follow the list on the menu).
You can also specify that the File menu should be drawn in two columns rather
than one if you want to show a large number of files. Note that you will need
to exit PFE and restart it before your changes take effect.
----
Q. I don't like the standard Windows File Manager, and prefer to use a third
party one. How can I get the File Manager item on the Execute menu to start
this instead of the standard one?
A. You can configure what the various "Manager" items on the Execute
menu do with the Options Preferences command. Start the preferences
dialog and select "Windows Managers" from the list of option categories
on the left to show the panel that handles this
For each of the menu items, you can specify that PFE should run either
the standard manager program supplied with Windows, or runs a command
line of your choice
----
Q. I use 4DOS-for-NT as my Windows/NT command processor instead of Microsoft's
cmd.exe - how can I get the Execute DOS Prompt and associated tool bar button to
start this?
A. Normally, PFE will use the executable file named in the COMSPEC
environment variable as the command processor. If this variable is not
set, it uses the standard defaults "command.com" under Windows 3.1x, and
"cmd.exe" under Windows NT
You can define the command processor you want to start with the Options
Preferences command. Start the preferences dialog and select "DOS
Shell" from the list of option categories on the left to show the
relevant panel, and define your preference
----
Q. What's the difference between the Execute Launch Application command and the
Execute Launch Windows Tool command?
A. In terms of what they accomplish - to start a Windows or a DOS application
running independently of PFE - there's none. Execute Launch Application starts
a dialog that prompts you for a command line; it remembers the last command
line you used, but that's all.
The Execute Launch Windows Tool command, by contrast, lets you define a whole
set of command lines, and label each one with a meaningful name. For example,
you could name a tool entry as "Edit Help File", and associate a command line
that runs Word for Windows to edit a file. Or you could have one called "Build
data file" that runs a DOS application with a set of files on its command line.
You just pick the function you want from your mnemonic list, without needing to
bother about what the command line has to be
----
Q. I use Windows NT on MIPS and DEC Alpha platforms - is there an executable
of PFE32 for these?
A. PFE32 exists only for Intel hardware. There are no plans for MIPS or DEC
Alpha versions
----
Q. How can I record my keyboard macros for use in other sessions?
A. This ability is not a part of the current PFE release. A future version will
include savable keyboard macros, implemented as editable macro libraries
----
Q. How does PFE manage to allow more than 32K of text to be edited in an edit
control?
A. PFE doesn't, in fact, use standard edit controls to show text. The windows
you see are ordinary MDI child windows, and the text is drawn explicitly by PFE
as required. Internally, a complicated memory management system keeps track of
where each line of each file is stored.
----
Q. Why, if I have word wrap switched on for a window, will PFE wrap text only
when I'm typing at the end of the line and not when I insert in the middle of
it?
A. The current design of PFE is set to do things that way for efficiency
reasons. A forthcoming release will feature a command to reflow the text of a
paragraph so that it fits within the wrap margin.
----
Q. Why do I get "Help file not found" when I ask for help?
A. Make sure that you have the help file pfe.hlp in the same directory as the
pfe.exe or pfe32.exe executable program
----
Q. Why is the default of 32 undoable actions so small? Surely, when I'm typing
text, I'll fill that up in 32 keypresses?
A. Actually, no - the undo system doesn't work in quite that way. It records
specific _actions_ in its stack, such as a drag-drop move of text, or a cut of
the highlighted text. When you're typing, each keypress is considered as part
of a _single_ action, which is terminated only when you do something different,
like moving the caret with the arrow keys, or switching to another window.
Then, when you use the Undo Typing command, PFE will remove all the typing
you've performed in that action (a future release of PFE will probably let you
undo typing actions character-by-character too)
You can change the number of undo actions that PFE records with the
Options Preferences command. Start the preferences dialog and select
"Editing Files" from the list of option categories on the left to show
the relevant panel that lets you set the size of the list
----
Q. If I select some text and start to drag it to a new location, how can I
change my mind without having to drop the text somewhere and then undo the
action?
A. You can cancel a drag-and-drop in one of two ways. If the highlighted tex