The Business Master (3rd Edition)

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CHANGES TO ME VERSION 2.1 Virtual/EMS memory support!!! The really big news for this release is that ME now supports virtual memory and expanded memory (if you have an expanded memory driver in your system). This means that you can edit files as large as the free space on your disk!!! ME still relies on the memory management routines found in the Microsoft C run-time library (ie - malloc()) to allocate blocks to hold the lines in. When malloc() returns a NULL to ME, signifying that DOS no longert has any free memory to give away, ME will try to allocate pages from expanded memory. When expanded memory runs out, ME will start swapping to disk. ME creates a temporary swap file with the name VMxxxxxx. ME will delete this file when you exit back to DOS. The METEMP environment variable controls where the swap file will be stored. By default, ME puts the swap file in your current directory. If you want the swap file to be placed in another directory, or on a RAM disk (for faster access), then you can set the METEMP environment variable to the full DOS path name that you want to use. For instance, if you have a RAM disk on drive E:, then you can have the following line in your autoexec.bat file : set METEMP=e:\ Real Tabs now supported! Thanks to user John Palmer, ME now supports real variable-length tabs. The cursor will now jump over the virtual space represented by a tab character. Using real tabs will probably save you some space on your disk, especially if you tend to use a lot of blanks for padding. You can control whether ME will use real tabs or not by altering the 'rt' parameter in the CONFIG.ME file. Customizable word delimiters Three commands need to know what constitutes a word; these commands are <NEXTWORD>, <PREVWORD>, and <DELWORD>. By default, ME considers a word to be a series of alpha-numeric characters. Through the macro language, you can tell ME what it thinks a word should consist of. See the section below on the macro language additions for more in- formation. New option for Block Indent The amount of space a block moves when you indent/undent is now con- trolled by the 'sh' parameter in the options menu (and CONFIG.ME file). Support for enhanced keyboard. ME now supports the extended keyboard. Previously, ME did not recognize the keys on the separate cursor keypads. Now, those keys invoke the same functions as their counterparts on the numeric keypad. New arguments for the DOS command line You can now give wildcards on command line. ME will find all matching files and will attempt to load in as many files as it can before it runs out of window space. (Unfortunately, ME will not load the remaining files into "invisible" buffers. Let us know if you want this capability.) If ME is started with a command line argument of -g<n> where <n> is a number, then upon loading the first file on the command line, ME will jump to line <n> in that file. This is useful for programs which analyze the error messages generated by a compiler, and wish to invoke the editor and bring it immediately to the error line. As an example, the command line "me -g25 ed.c" will load file ed.c and immediately jump to line 25. Two new command line arguments, -c<num> and -r<num>, tell ME how many rows and columns are supported on the video display. Some video adapters are able to display more than 80 columns and more than 25 rows in normal operation. If ME is invoked with these options, then it will start up assuming that your display is already set at the specified number of rows and/or columns. For instance, the Everex enhanced EGA board is capable of displaying 132 columns of text on one row. If your display is already set up in this mode, then you must put the argument "-c132" on the ME command line. It is probably easiest to do this within a BAT file. Support for Video Boards In the paragraph above, we mentioned that the -c and -r options will work only if you are in the alternate video mode when you enter ME. Many people would also like to use alternate video modes in conjunction with the <TOGGLE EGA> command (CTRL-E). In version 2.0 and below, the <TOGGLE EGA> command would simply toggle between the normal 25 line mode and the 43 line mode produced by the EGA when you load in the EGA's 8X8 font. Now, we offer video drivers which ME can load in when it starts up. The video driver contains information about the alternate video mode, such as the number of rows and columns it supports, the code to turn the alternate mode on, and the code to turn it off. A video driver is loaded into ME by specifying the "-v<drivername>" option on the ME command line. ME will perform its normal searching algorithm to find the driver (first search the current directory, then the paths specified by the ME environment variable, then search through the DOS path). If you have a need for a video driver, or information on ow to write your own, please contact us. Command-line history using up and down keys We have enhanced the prompting mechanism by allowing you to recall previously entered responses. Responses are saved in a circular queue in a last-in-first-out fashion. When ME prompts you for a response (such as when you invoke the <SEARCH> command), you can use the up and down arrow keys to scroll backwards and forwards through the previous responses. You can press <ENTER> to accept that response, or you can use the editing keys to modify the response before accepting it. The maximum number of responses which are saved is 16. When the response queue gets full, the oldest response is discarded to make room for the new response. Current pick buffer displayed The number of the current pick buffer is now displayed on the status line, right next to the "modified" indicator. Desqview compatibility. ME now detects if DESQVIEW is loaded, and if it is, uses DESQVIEW's alternate screen buffer when video accesses are done. This enables you to use ME in a DESQVIEW window along side other processes. In addition, if DESQVIEW is loaded, ME will not continuously poll the keyboard for the shift status. This will let other processes run smoothly under DESQVIEW. (DESQVIEW is a trademark of Quarterdeck Office Systems.) Keyboard push/pop fixed The keyboard_push() and keyboard_pop() functions now work correctly. Thanks to Kirk Wyatt for pointing out some glitches. MACROS LANGUAGE ENHANCEMENTS ---------------------------- ************************************************************************** * IMPORTANT ATTENTION ACHTUNG ATTENZIONE * ************************************************************************** You must recompile all of your existing macros with the new 2.1 macro compiler!!! They will not work otherwise!!! In addition, we now recognize the difference between a carriage return ('\n', ascii 10) and a line feed ('\r', ascii 13). An ASCII 13 ('\r') is generated when the user presses the ENTER key. An ASCII 10 ('\n') is generated when the user presses the CTRL ENTER key combination. If any of your macros test the keyboard for an ENTER key, you will need to change the test from a '\n' to a '\r'. We have added several new datatypes to the ME macro language which should help with calling external C functions. The new data types are unsigned values range from 0 to +65,335 long values range from -2,147,483,647 to +2,147,483,647 unsigned long values range from 0 to +4,294,967,295 You can now take get address of a variable and assign it to another variable or pass it as an argument to an external C function. Just like with the C language, an ampersand ('&') before a variable will give you the address of the variable. We added a new event (event number 9) which can be "hooked" into. This new event occurs just after a command is processed. Event number 8 still occurs just before a command is processed. The new event will let you perform any post-command processing that you need to do. We added new functions to let you access the delimiter table. These functions are : void reset_word_delimiter() Resets the word-delimiter table to its default state. void set_word_delimiter(string delimiters, int value) For each character is the string 'delimiters', sets the corresponding entry in the word-delimiters table to 'value' (usually 0 or 1). If entry 'i' has a value of 0, then it is *not* a word delimiter. void clr_word_delimiter(int value) Sets the entire word-delimiter table to the specified value (usually 0 or 1). If entry 'i' has a value of 0, then it is *not* a word delimiter. New C functions added The following C functions can be accessed through the macro lan- guage : void vidsetcursor(int start, int end) Sets the starting and ending scan lines for the cursor to 'start' and 'end' respectively. This is useful for macros where you would like to hide the cursor (start=32,end=0) or change it from the default scan lines for insert and overstrike modes. int get_window_color() Gets the color of the current window. The color returned has the value of (background * 16 + foreground). Mouse Support (DOS only) ME now supports the use of any mouse which has a Microsoft mouse compatible driver. In the macro language, we have set up some new events which let you trap mouse button presses. Event 11 is generated when you press the left mouse button, event 12 is generated when you press the right button, and event 13 is for the middle button. If the editor finds that there is a hook defined on any one of these event, it will call the hook macro. Otherwise, the default actions that it takes are : Left button click - mark the current line Right button click - set the cursor position to the clicked coordinates Middle button click - no action If the mouse is moved while the left button is held down, then the marking of the lines which the mouse passes over will be toggled. CHANGES TO VERSION 2.0 OF THE ME TEXT EDITOR Windows ------- The biggest change to ME's windowing is the addition of vertical windows. When you press <ALT> 2 to open another window, ME will read the specified file and then ask you if you want to split the file horizontally or vertically. The default is a horizontal split; if you press 'v', the window will be split vertically. In previous versions of ME, each window was approximately the same size. So, if you had three windows open, then each window would take up 7 lines. Starting with version 2.0, when you open a window, the current window will be divided in half. The addition of vertical windows also meant some difficulties for EGA mode. Starting with version 2.0, you can only toggle in and out of 43-line mode if there is one window open. It gets extremely difficult to determine how a user wants windows resized when the characteristics of the screen changes, so we took the easy way out. Windows now have window identifiers associated with them. A window identifier is just an integer. This id can be used in the new window oriented macro functions which are detailed below. New Keyboard Handling --------------------- The entire method of handling the keyboard was changed. As much as we have tried to avoid the EMACS model of editing, there are just some things that Richard Stallman did that we can't ignore. The concept of "keymaps" fits the concept of "extensibility" perfectly. Therefore, ME now supports keymaps. A keystroke can be bound to an editor function, a user-defined macro, a keyboard macro, or another keymap. A keymap is just an array of 256 keystrokes, and can be referred to by an integer identifier (much the same way that buffers and windows have ids). There is also a "current keymap" which is active at any time. When a keystroke is pressed, the command associated with the bindings of the current keymap will be executed. There are several new primitives in the macro language which allow you to manipulate keymaps. You can push and pop keymaps from a stack. You can create new keymaps and assign them default value. These new primitive are outlined in the section below. By using keymaps, we have been able to remedy some deficiencies that were present with the macro language, as well as making the command structure and keyboard handling more consistent. Some of the things we were able to fix/enhance are : - The repetition factor now works for all commands - A macro function can now be bound to more than one keystroke sequence (For instance, both F1 and ALT F1 can now invoke the same macro). - Assign_key() can now bind a macro or editor function to a keystroke sequence consisting of multiple keystrokes. For instance, #define CTRL_Q 17 #define CTRL_G 7 ...... assign_key("goline", CTRL_Q, CTRL_G); will assign to <GOTO LINE> function to the two-keystroke sequence <CTRL> Q, <CTRL> G. This will make it much easier to emulate other editors' keystroke bindings. In previous versions of ME, you could capture a sequence of keystrokes using the F4 key and replay them using the F3 key. This meant that you could only have one keyboard macro defined at one time. Starting with this version, you can assign a keyboard macro to any key using the SHIFT-F4 key. Macro Language -------------- Several enhancements to the syntax of the macro language were made. Switch/case statements can now take strings. This means that you can have the following switch statement : string s; ... switch (s) { case "HELLO" : ...... break; case "BYE" : ...... break; default : ...... break; } We have added labels and gotos to the macro language. These are exactly the same as the corresponding ones in C. The format of a label is label-name: The format of a goto is goto label-name; Of course, the label name must exist in the same function as the goto. An example of a goto statement is the following : a: ...... ...... goto b; ...... goto a; ...... b: ...... A goto may backward or forward reference a label. Hexidecimal constants are now allowed in the macro language. These constants have the same format as hex constants in C. The format is 0x followed by a series of hex digits For example, 0x10 is hexidecimal 16, and 0xFFF is hexidecimal 4095. Keyboard Speedup ---------------- If you have an AT-class machine, then you can take advantage of the machines programmable typeamatic rate. There are two new parameters in the options menu (and in the CONFIG.ME file as well). These parameters are : kr - keyboard typeamatic rate when a key is held down kd - delay until typeamatic takes effect In a normal computing environment, the rate is 12 and the delay is 1. To get maximum keyboard speedup, set both of these values to 0. New Macro Primitives -------------------- We have added a bunch of new primitives to the macro language. id = create_window(r1,c1,r2,c2[,color]) int id; int r1, c1, r2, c2; /* coordinates of the window */ int color; Creates a "popup" window at the coordinates <r1,c1,r2,c2>. You may optionally specify a color as the last parameter. The color value should be : (background color * 8) + foreground color A window created with this function is considered to be a temporary popup window for doing things like menus, messages, etc. One distinction between this kind of window and a regular window is that a popup window will not be replaced with another window when the popup window is killed. When the window is created, there is no buffer attached to it, so nothing will be displayed. You must use attach_buffer() and show_buffer() to display the buffer in the window. The value returned is the identifier of the created window. The identifier can be used in various other window-related macro functions to address that particular window. window_id = attach_window(window_id, buffer_id) int window_id, buffer_id; Attaches the buffer whose id is 'buffer_id' to the window whose id is 'window_id'. If this function is successful, then the window_id is returned, or else -1 is returned. This function is typically used to connect a buffer to a popup window before displaying the buffer. Here is an example of its usage : int win_id, new_buf; new_buf = setcurrbuf(create_buffer("HELP.MNU")); win_id = create_window(MenuRow1+1,MenuCol1+1,MenuRow2-1,MenuCol2-1,MenuColor); attach_window(win_id, new_buf); show_buffer(new_buf); Keymap macros ---- id = keyboard_push() int id; Keyboard_push() will push the current keymap on the keymap stack. A copy of the current keymap is created and is made the current keymap. The id returned from this function is the identifier of the new keymap. id = keyboard_pop(destroy_old) int id; int destroy_old; Keyboard_pop() will pop the top keymap on the keymap stack and will make it the current keymap. The id returned is the id of the new keymap. In addition, the current keymap will be destroyed if the parameter 'destroy_old' is non-zero. If the current keymap is not destroyed, it can be recalled at any time by the function keyboard_set(). id = keyboard_id() int id; Keyboard_id() returns the id of the current keymap. id = keyboard_set(id) int id; Keyboard_set() sets the current keymap to the keymap whose identifier is id. If this is successful, then the id will be echoed as a return value. If not successful (ie - the keymap with the specified id does not exist), then -1 is returned. keyboard_defaults() Keyboard_defaults() will bind all of the keys of the current keymap to the default values. The default values are the keystroke bindings that comes preset when you obtain ME. change_option(option, value) string option; /* the two-letter option name to alter */ int value; /* the new value */ Change_option() allows you to alter the value of any of the editor parameters which you find in the options menu and in the CONFIG.ME file. The first parameter is the two-letter code for the option and the second parameter in the new value. Here are two examples : change_option("in", 'Y'); /* turns insert-mode on */ change_option("sv", 200); /* sets autosave to every 200 keystrokes */ pos = search_string(str, pattern) int pos; /* 0-based position that the pattern occured in */ string str, /* the string to search through */ pattern; /* the pattern to look for */ Search_string searches through the string specified by the first argu- ment for the regular expression specified by the second argument. if ((pos = search_string(currline(), "[0-9]")) >= 0) message("The current line contains a digit"); else message("No digit present in the current line"); Miscellaneous changes --------------------- The "-4" option on the command line will start ME in 43 line mode if you have an EGA. For example, the command line : me -4 ed.c will edit the file ed.c starting in 43 line mode. BUGS FIXED ---------- - Macro functions can now have names consisting of upper and lower case letters. - A bad EXM format on initial load will not cause a lockup. - Entab won't compress blanks embedded in double-quoted strings. This should make blank compression a little more reliable. 17) added tonum(str) in macro lang Ability to link in external C functions --------------------------------------- If you have the source and/or object code for ME, you have the ability to link in external large model C functions, or functions written in any language which obey the conventions of the C large model calling sequence. There are only two kinds of parameters which you can pass to these linked functions - integers and strings. You can only receive an integer back as a return value (or any data item which fits in 16 bits). To link an external C function in, you must make an entry in the table in file CFUNCTBL.C. Each entry in This table has two elements - the name of the function and a pointer to the function. You will use this name in the macro language to refer to your function. After your entry has been inserted in the table, you must recompile CFUNCTBL.C, and relink the editor modules. So far, the following C functions are available for use in the macro language : display(row, col, maxcol, color, str) int row, col, maxcol; int color; string str; Displays a string on the screen in the specified color. Row and Col are 0-based coordinates to display string at. Maxcol specifies the last column that a character from the string can be displayed. An example is: display(10, 20, 60, 0x2E, greeting); clear_screen() erases the entire screen. move_cursor(row, col) int row, col; moves the cursor to position <row,col> on the screen. Both row and col are 0 based, so the top left corner is at <0,0>. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Argument processing for do_macro() ---------------------------------- Do_macro() can now take arguments. This allows you to build a macro command line dynamically and invoke the macro with the passed arguments. Also, a macro name entered by ALT P can take args. An arg beginning with a digit is considered to be an integer, otherwise it's considered to be a string. Look at the macro called 'menu' to see how a command line for do_macro() is built at run-time. Each argument can be separated by spaces or a comma. As an example : string macname, arg1, arg2; int tab_amt, maxcol; macname = "shift_line"; arg1 = tab_amt; arg2 = maxcol; ....... do_macro(sprintf("%s %d %d", macname, arg1, arg2)); Enhanced formatting for message() and get_tty_str() --------------------------------------------------- Message() and get_tty_str() can now take sprintf()-type formats and a variable number of arguments. This will make the debugging of macros a lit- tle easier. For example : message("Hello %s", username); foo = get_tty_str("Variable i is [%d]", i); Hooks ----- A "hook" is a user-defined macro which is executed when certain events occur in the editor. The purpose of a hook is to allow the user to modify or "filter" the processing which the editor does when these events happen. The following events are supported : Event Number Event Type ------------ ---------- 0 The user inserted a character into the text 1 The editor is terminating 2 An illegal command was pressed 3 The CTRL BREAK key was pressed We will add other event numbers as the need comes up - send us your suggestions! There are two primitives which manipulate hooks - one for adding a hook and the other for removing a hook. add_hook(eventnum, macro) int eventnum; string macro; DESCRIPTION Add_hook() will cause the user-defined 'macro' to be called whenever the event 'eventnum' occurs. The macro should NOT expect any arguments to be passed. PARAMETERS 'Eventnum' is a number from 0 through 3. The event numbers are defined as follows : Event Number Event Type ------------ ---------- 0 The user inserted a character into the text. The hook will be called before the cursor is advanced to the next column. 1 The editor is terminating 2 An illegal command was pressed 3 The CTRL BREAK key was pressed 'Macro' is the name of a macro which should be called when the event occurs. RETURNS Nothing. EXAMPLE init() { ...... add_hook(0, "charhook"); /* called whenever a char is inserted */ ....... } charhook() { /* Map all lower case letters to upper case */ if ((c = currchar()) >= 'a' && c <= 'z') /* lower case letter */ { c = 'A' + c - 'a'; /* xlate to upper-case */ delchar(); /* remove the bad char */ insert(chr(c)); /* & insert the good one */ } } delete_hook(eventnum) int eventnum; DESCRIPTION Delete_hook() will remove the hook associated with event 'eventnum'. PARAMETERS 'Eventnum' is an integer defined in the table above. RETURNS Nothing EXAMPLE delete_hook(0); File Searching -------------- rc = set_filespec(file_spec) string file_spec; RETURNS If at least one file is found which matches the filespec, the number 1 is returned or else 0 is returned. fname = next_filespec() string fname; RETURNS If another file matching the filespec is found, the name of the file is returned, or else the 0-length string is returned. Example ------- /* Prompt for a file specification, and insert each file name matching */ /* the filespec into the file */ if (set_filespec(get_tty_str("Input the filespec : "))) { while ((fname = next_filespec()) != "") { insert(fname); insert("\n"); } } timestr = time() string timestr; The time() function returns a string which has the system time in the form hh:mm:ss. datestr = date() string datestr; The date() function returns a string which has the system date of the form mm/dd/yy. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The TAGS function <CTRL T> is now implemented as a macro. To use this facility, you must load the TAGS macro into the editor. If you do this from the DOS command line, you would use the command : ME -lTAGS <filename> When you invoke the TAGS macro, you will be asked for the name of the function to look up. If you press <ENTER>, you will be presented with a menu of functions in a full-screen window. You can use the UP and DOWN arrow keys to move through the menu. Position the highlight over the desired function and press <ENTER> to select that function. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ALT 4 now splits the window vertically Pressing <ALT F7> at a marked line will now unmark it. ----------------------------------------------------- i = get_option(param) c = get_lastkey() Hook number 8