QEdit: Common Questions and Answers ---------------------------- KEYBOARD ------------ QUESTION: I try to use the "*","-", and "+" key on my numeric keypad and it doesn't seem to work. ANSWER: By default QEdit has the Paste, Cut, and Copy commands assigned to these keys. They are referred to as the "grey*", "grey-", and "grey+" keys. If you want to use these keys at "Face-value", then unassign them in your keyboard definition file. See page B-2 in the printed manual for a listing of these keys. QUESTION: I have a NorthGate keyboard that has an additional "*" key, but it doesn't seem to work. ANSWER: This extra "*" key is the same as the "grey*" key. Please see the previous Question and Answer. Reader's note: The two grey colored "*" keys on the Northgate OmniKey/Ultra keyboard both are the grey * key. QUESTION: I can't get the F11 and F12 keys to work. ANSWER: The F11 and F12 keys are present on "Enhanced Keyboards", also known as the 101-key keyboards. By default, QEdit has enhanced keyboard testing turned off. Run Qconfig.exe, select Advanced options, and answer Yes to "Test for presence of enhanced keyboard (Y/N)? ". Be sure that you Save your changes when you quit Qconfig.exe. As long as you have an "Enhanced Keyboard" and also a Rom Bios that recognizes the Enhanced keyboard, you will be able to use these additional keys. For a list of the "Enhanced Keyboard" keys, see page B-6 in the printed manual. QUESTION: My TSR will not pop up over QEdit, why? ANSWER: Some TSR's will not pop-up when Enhanced keyboard calls are being made. Run Qconfig.exe, select Advanced options, and answer NO to "Test for presence of enhanced keyboard (Y/N)? ". Be sure that you Save your changes when you quit Qconfig.exe. This should allow your TSR to pop-up. If you have Enhanced Keyboard testing turned off, you will not be able to access commands that you have assigned to the F11, F12, and other enhanced keys. For a list of the Enhanced keyboard keys, see page B-6 in the printed manual. QUESTION: My Tab key doesn't seem to work right. What is wrong? ANSWER: It's possible that you have ToggleSmartTabs ON. Make sure that ToggleSmartTabs is OFF. Please see pages 1-41 and 3-23 in the printed manual for a description of the ToggleSmartTabs command. TEXT ENTRY AND MANIPULATION: ------------------------------ QUESTION: How can I enter _ANY_ ASCII character in QEdit? ANSWER: Any ASCII character having a decimal value of 0-255 can be entered into a text file while in QEdit using one of the following methods: ASCII 1-255: Press and hold the key. Now, using the numeric keypad (this is the keypad that is usually located on the right hand side of the keyboard), type the decimal value of the Ascii character that you want. Now release the key and you should have the character placed in your text. (If you have a problem entering an ASCII 240, see the discussion in this section.) ASCII 0: To enter the NULL character (Ascii 0) into your text, first use QEdit's literal command (our default ) and then press . You will get the NULL character placed in your text (it will look like a space). For more information on the Alt numeric keypad see the QEdit tip on page 1-26 of the printed manual. For more information on the Literal command see pages 1-25 and 3-12 in the printed manual. QUESTION: How can I change a lower case character to an Upper case one or Vice-versa? ANSWER: QEdit has 3 case changing commands. They are Upper, Lower, and Flip. These commands can be used to force uppercase, lowercase, or togglecase at the cursor position OR on all characters in a marked block (if the cursor is within the marked block). QUESTION: How can I enter page breaks into my text? ANSWER: You can enter a Form-feed character into your text by using the Literal command (our default ) followed by . You can also use the Alt-numeric keypad method (described previously). Hold the key and type 12 on the numeric keypad, then release the key. QUESTION: I am writing batch files and QEdit puts a carriage return/line feed on the last line of a file. How can I keep from getting the double Dos prompt when my batch file is done? ANSWER: QEdit writes a carriage return/line feed pair at the end of each line whenever a file is saved. If you don't want the carriage return/line feed on the last line of a batch file to be "SEEN" by Dos, then enter a Ctrl Z as the last character on the last line. Dos will stop processing the batch file when the ctrl Z is reached so you won't get the double prompt. QUESTION: How do I enter a NULL character into my text? ANSWER: Use QEdit's Literal command (our default ) immediatly followed by . This will place a NULL (ASCII 0) character in your text. Please see the discussion of the Literal command in this section. QUESTION: How can I draw boxes in QEdit? ANSWER: Use the ToggleBoxDraw command (our default ). When box drawing mode is on, a "B" will be present in the Status line. You can now use the cursor keys to draw boxes in your text. To turn box drawing off, issue the ToggleBoxDraw command again. The "B" will be gone from the status line. You can also select several Box Styles, plus an eraser mode, by using the ToggleBoxType command (our default ). See pages 3-22 and E-7 in the printed manual. QUESTION: How can I use a spellchecker with QEdit? ANSWER: If you want to spell check a file you have loaded in QEdit, you can save your file and then use the Dos command to run your SpellChecker program. The easiest way to do this is to create a macro. E.G. macrobegin EditFile currentfilename return SaveFile Dos "c:\somedir\speller " currentfilename return return NewFile Return QUESTION: I try to enter an ASCII 240 using the Alt numeric keypad and my system seems to hang. What can I do? ANSWER: There is a "Known" problem with some versions of the Phoenix Bios that occurs when an ASCII 240 is being generated from the numeric keypad and "Enhanced Keyboard" calls are being made. Internally, the bios code enters an infinte loop. To break out of this loop, Press and you will again have control of your keyboard. *NOTE: will NOT get you out of the loop, you must use . If you have enhanced keyboard testing turned off in QEdit, you will not have this problem. As a side note, DOS 4.0 and above also make enhanced keyboard calls and the above disussion applies there as well. QUESTION: How can I change all the Tab characters in a file to spaces? ANSWER: Before running QEdit, run Qconfig.exe and select the Tabs Settings option. The first two questions are as follows: Do you want the editor to start in Physical Tab Expansion Mode (Y/N)? Make sure you answer Yes to this one. Do you want the editor to start in Tabs Out mode (Y/N)? Make sure that you answer No to this one. If you had to make changes, be sure to save your changes before leaving Qconfig.exe. Now run QEdit with the file that you want to remove the Tab characters in. Go to the top of the file and issue the Markline command (our default key assignment is ). Now go to the end of the file and issue markline again. Now issue the Flip command (our default key assignment is ) 2 times. Save your file and quit. This method assumes that your file contains at least 1 alpha character on each line of the file. FINDING TEXT -------------- QUESTION: How can I limit a "FIND" or "SEARCH and REPLACE" operation to a specified area? ANSWER: The "L" option was added as a way for the user to limit a search operation to within a marked block area. When prompted for options, just include "L" with the other options. QUESTION: How can I do a Find and place the found item on the center of the screen. ANSWER: Try the following macro: Macrobegin Find Pause Return Pause Return JFalse ENDMACRO: MakeCtrOfScreen ENDMACRO: CURSOR MOVEMENT ----------------- QUESTION: When I use the cursor key in QEdit to move to the right or left, the cursor stays on the same line when I come to the beginning or end of the line. How can I have the cursor move to the start of the next line when I reach the end of the current line OR move to the end of the previous line when I reach the beginning of the current line? ANSWER: Assign the following macro in your Qconfig.dat file: (put the macro on 1 line) cursorleft MacroBegin CursorLeft JTrue end: CursorUp JFalse end: EndLine end: cursorright MacroBegin IsEndLine JTrue down: CursorRight Jump end: down: CursorDown JFalse end: BegLine end: **PLEASE NOTE** You must have QEdit 2.15 or later to use these macros. Otherwise you may experience odd side-effects in the menus and other special contexts where the arrow keys have meaning. The cursorright macro uses the QEdit 2.15 command "IsEndLine". QUESTION: When I am inserting text on a line, wordwrap does not seem to work. ANSWER: In order for wordwrap to operate, the cursor has to exceed the right margin that has been set. Once the right margin has been exceeded and you type a non-wordset character, the line will wrap. PRINTER --------- QUESTION: How can I enter Printer control codes in QEdit? ANSWER: Please see the TEXT ENTRY AND MANIPULATION section. You will need to know the ASCII values of the control characters. These values will be mentioned in your printer manual. QUESTION: I print a file that I have in QEdit, but the Box drawing characters do not print on my printout. ANSWER: Check your printer manual and make sure that you have the printer set up to utilize the Character Graphics Set. QUESTION: How can I have QEdit print to LPT2 or Com1? ANSWER: QEdit prints to PRN. If you can redirect PRN to LPT2 before you get into QEdit, then you can use QEdit's print to go to LPT2. If you can't do this then use the WriteBlock command and specify LPT2 as the filename to write. WriteBlock uses the marked block, if you have one, otherwise the whole file is written out. If you use the WriteBlock command to send output to a printer, you will have to put your own form-feeds in the file if you want them. QUESTION: How can I get double spaced lines on my printout? ANSWER: You can use the "print left margin" setting to obtain double and triple spaced text in most cases. If you have your printer set up so that it prints 80 characters on a line, then set the "print left margin" in QEdit to 80. This will cause QEdit to send 80 spaces before printing each line, so effectively get double spaced lines. If you want triple spacing, then make the setting 160. QUESTION: I have QEdit sending formfeeds to the printer, but am getting parts of a page AND some blank pages on my printout. ANSWER: Make sure that your text does not have some long lines that are being wrapped by the printer. If your printer wraps at 80 characters on a line, make sure that your file does not have lines longer than 80 characters. CONFIGURATION --------------- QUESTION: I make some changes to QEdit using Qconfig.exe and they do not take effect. ANSWER: Make sure that you are using the copy of QEdit that you just configured. If you are not in the current directory where your newly configured copy of QEdit is, then check your path to see if you are getting a different copy of QEdit. Be sure to look for batch files as well as EXE's and COM's that share the same primary name. I.E. Look for Q.exe, Q.com, Q.bat along your path. QEDIT COMMANDS ---------------- QUESTION: When I use the CenterLine command, my text is not centered on the screen. ANSWER: The centerline command uses column 1 and the right margin that you have set as the basis for centering text. If you want the text centered on the screen, assuming that your screen is 80 columns wide, you can set your right margin to 80 and then issue the centerline command. If you don't want to change your right margin, you can use column block marking to mark your left and right hand margins, then issue the centerline command. QUESTION: How do I get the Sort command to work? ANSWER: In order to use the Sort command, you must be in a single, nonzoomed window. You must use the MarkColumn command to mark the range of lines to sort, and the width of the field to sort on as the key. If you use any other type of blocking, the sort command will not work. QEDIT COMMAND LINE OPTIONS ---------------------------- QUESTION: How can I have QEdit run a macro on start-up? ANSWER: The "-Emacroname" or "/Emacroname" command line switch, will execute the first macro in macroname. Be sure to specify a path to macroname if it is not in the current directory. E.G. Q ABC -Ec:\path\mymacro.mac will load file ABC and execute the first macro in c:\path\mymacro.mac. Please note that this switch does not load macroname. If you also want to load macroname, then use the -L or /L option described in this section. QUESTION: How can I have QEdit pre-load a macro set? ANSWER: The "-Lmacroname" or "/Lmacroname" command line switch, will load macroname. Be sure to specify a path to macroname if it is not in the current directory. E.G. Q ABC -Lc:\path\mymacro.mac will load file ABC and load the macrofile c:\path\mymacro.mac. QUESTION: I used to be able to have QEdit load a file and then go to a certain line number, but now it does not work. ANSWER: In versions of QEdit prior to version 2.1, going to a specified line on startup was a configuration program option. This has been replaced with a command line switch of the format -nLINE# or /nLINE#. I.E. To load file ABC and immediately go to line# 35 type: Q ABC -n35 QUESTION: How can I have QEdit come up in 43/50 line mode? ANSWER: Use the "-Emacroname" or "/Emacroname" command line switch to execute the first macro in macroname. Make sure that the first macro in macroname uses the SetEGA43 command. Example: If the first macro in Start.mac is: MacroBegin SetEGA43 Then, Q ABC -EStart.mac , will load file ABC and then set the screen to 43/50 line mode. QUESTION: How do I use a QEdit command that is not tied to a key? ANSWER: If you would like to have the command available at all times, just assign the command to a key in your keyboard definition file. Once you have modified your keyboard file, be sure to run the Qconfig.exe program. Select the Keys option, supply the name of your Keyboard file, then save your changes and quit the program. You may use all the QEdit commands when creating macros. ---------- A QEdit Tip from the SemWare Technical Support Staff .. Startup Macros .. QEdit has the capability of loading and/or executing your compiled macro files on startup through the use of command line parameters. QEdit startup macro command line options were implemented in QEdit Advanced v2.08. The macro files being used must be in binary format created using the MacroWrite command command or QMAC (QEdit's macro translator). To _load_ a macro from the command line enter "-l" or "/l" (a dash or slash and the letter "l") followed immediately by a macro filename. The maximum size of a loadable macro file is 2k. The format for loading a macro follows: q -l To _execute_ a macro from the command line enter "-e" or "/e" followed immediately by a macro filename. The maximum size of an executed macro is 500 bytes. The format for executing a macro on startup follows: q -e When using the execute ("-e or /e") option, the first macro in the macrofile is executed. The macro is then executed only after the file to be edited has been loaded. The macro file is executed once and not loaded into the editor. A filename must be supplied to QEdit to make use of the command line parameters. Both the load and execute macro parameters may be used at the same time. The order that they are specified on the command line is not important. The format for executing a macro and loading a macrofile on startup follows: q -e -l To illustrate the above, suppose you want to edit a file called WORK.TMP and at the same time, from the command line, load the macro file called FIRST.MAC and execute the macro file called SECOND.MAC. From the command line you would enter: q work.tmp -lfirst.mac -esecond.mac ---------- A QEdit Tip from the SemWare Technical Support Staff .. QMac: The Basic's .. QMac is a translator of QEdit macro files. It translates QEdit macros from the binary file in which QEdit saves macros to a text file which allows easy macro editing, and translates such text files back into a QEdit binary file. This allows you to "record" a macro using QEdit; fine-tune it by editing the text representation of the macro; and then translate the edited version and reload it into QEdit for replay. QMac allows appending to or overwriting existing files, making it easy to add new macros to existing files. QMac's text file format allows comments, permitting documentation of the macros within their "source file". To see a summary of QMac's operations, type "QMAC ?" at the DOS prompt and press Return. All of the command line switches are optional and are only necessary to control QMac's operation in special ways. Here is quick run-through of what you can do with QMac, including recording a macro, saving it to disk, and converting it with QMac. The keystrokes mentioned below assume you are using the default QCONFIG.DAT supplied with QEdit; if you have re-installed your keyboard using QCONFIG, please modify as needed. Recording a Macro: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1. From inside QEdit, select MacroRecord. (Either hit or select "Macro record" from the "Macro" menu in the pull-down menu system, by pressing ). 2. At the prompt that says "Assign to what key:" press a key to redefine. We will use 3. Press Find , type "the" and press Return, and type "IW" and press Return again. (This is just an example of what you can do, you could of course record any legal series of QEdit keystrokes here.) 4. Select MacroRecord again to end the macro, like step 1 above. 5. Now, you can press to search for the word "the" in your text in just one step. Saving the Macro: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 6. Let's write this macro to disk in a file that QMac can use. Select MacroWrite from the pull down menus, by pressing then . 7. Give it a filename of "FIND.MAC", and press Return to save this macro on disk. Converting the Macro to Text: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 8. Press Dos to send a command to MS-DOS. Type: QMAC FIND.MAC FIND.TXT /A- /T to convert FIND.MAC to a text form in the file FIND.TXT. Press Return. (The /T selects text output). 9. Press EditFile to load this file into QEdit. Type "FIND.TXT" to load the text file you just created with QMac. Press Return. You should see something like this on the screen: * * Converted by QMAC from: C:\FIND.MAC * ^f10 MacroBegin Find "the" Return "IW" Return Which is, of course, a text representation of the keystrokes you just recorded. 10. You can now edit your macro if need be. Let's change the word "the" to "and", and save the file back to disk by pressing File . Converting the Macro from Text back to Binary: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 11. Press Dos to send a another command to MS- DOS. This time, type: QMAC FIND.MAC FIND.TXT /A- /B to convert FIND.TXT back to its BINARY form, FIND.MAC. (NOTE that we use /B to tell QMac to make the binary file from the text file we just edited). Press Return. QMac Additional Notes: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ QMac will create whichever of the two files (binary or text) that did not exist already: If the text macros already exist, it will convert them to binary. Or if the binary macros already exist, it will convert them to text. However, if both files exist, you must supply one of the optional switches to determine the direction. The switch /B tells QMac to create a Binary file, while /T tells it to create a text file. If the output file already exists, you must also supply a /A+ or /A- switch to tell QMac whether to "append" to the existing file. With /A+ it will append, /A- tells QMac to overwrite the existing file. Anywhere an asterisk ("*") appears on a line, outside of a quoted string, the rest of the line is treated as a "comment" and is ignored by QMac. You can use this to include notes to yourself about how your macros work, or what they are supposed to do. Comments are not included in the binary macro file that QEdit loads, so there is no penalty for including them in your text macro files. A macro can continue onto more than one line, simply indent the second and subsequent lines of the macro one or more spaces. The macro continues until QMac runs out of text or encounters another key at the beginning of a subsequent line. Lines in your text macro files can be up to 512 characters long. ---------- A QEdit Tip from the SemWare Technical Support Staff .. QEdit in 43/50 Line Mode on Startup .. If you want to have QEdit start-up in 43/50 line mode, you can call QEdit via a batch file, and have QEdit execute a macro on start-up. EXAMPLE: 1) Using QEdit, create a macro file called file43.txt containing the following macro: f10 MacroBegin SetEGA43 2) Using QEdit, create a macro file called nofile43.txt containing the following macro: f10 MacroBegin SetEGA43 Quit DelLine The DelLine will delete the current filename from the file to edit prompt box. 3) After you have created file43.txt and nofile43.txt, you need to run Qmac.exe and create the binary macro file that QEdit uses. If we call the binary macro file file43.mac, then running Qmac at the Dos prompt using the following format: Qmac file43.mac file43.txt It will create file43.mac from the file43.txt file. Repeat the process to create nofile43.mac using the following format: Qmac nofile43.mac nofile43.txt 4) Create a batch file called Q43.bat with the following entries: @Echo off if "%1" == "" goto NOFILE C:\QEDIT\Q.exe -eC:\QEDIT\file43.mac %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9 goto END :NOFILE C:\QEDIT\Q.exe nul -eC:\QEDIT\nofile43.mac :END *NOTE* Use the path to your copy of Q.exe and file43.mac Now when your run Q43.bat.... If no parameters are passed to Q43.bat, QEdit will load file "nul" and execute the first and only macro contained in nofile43.mac, which will set the screen into 43/50 line mode and then quit file "nul". You will now be in a "file(s) to edit" prompt box. If parameters are passed to Q43.bat... QEdit will load the first file specified on the command line and execute the first and only macro in file43.mac, which will set the screen into 43/50 line mode. *PLEASE NOTE* If you don't supply filenames to the batch file, you will need to make sure that you have the following option set to YES (our default) within the General Options of the Qconfig.exe program. Should PQuit, Exit and File return to the edit file prompt (Y/N)? Y If this is set to NO and you run Q43.bat with no filenames, you will be back at a Dos prompt as soon as you run Q43.bat. ---------- A QEdit Tip from the SemWare Technical Support Staff .. Saving Files and Exiting .. QEdit provides several different ways to save files, discard files, and exit the editor. A set of five basic commands provides various combinations of saving, discarding, and exiting in order to suit individual preferences. We recommend selecting one or two methods with which you feel most comfortable and use them consistently. Below is a description of the basic commands for both single and multiple files along with our default key combinations. 1) SaveFile - save the currently edited file to disk. The file remains loaded into the editor for further editing. GSave - Like the SaveFile command but it issues the SaveFile command for all the files that have been modified. 2) File - Unconditionally saves and then discards the current file. It then either goes to the next file in the QEdit file ring or the file to edit prompt. GFile - Like the File command but it instructs the editor to save all files that have been modified and then discards all the files that are loaded and exits. 3) Exit - Conditionally discards the currently edited file. If the file has not been modified, the file is discarded without prompting and the editor is exited. If the file has been modified, the editor will prompt "Save Changes (Y/N)?" Selecting will save and discard the file, then exit. Selecting will discard the file without saving any changes and exit. GExit - Like the Exit command but it issues the Exit command for all loaded files. If no files have been modified, it will immediately exit the editor. If any files have been modified, the "Save Changes (Y/N)?" prompt will be displayed for each modified file. 4) PQuit - A protected quit that will warn the user of a modified file before discarding the file. If the file has not been modified, it is discarded without prompting. If the file has been modified, the editor will prompt "Lose Changes (Y/N)?" Selecting will discard the current file without saving changes and then either go to the next file in the QEdit file ring or the file to edit prompt. Selecting will return you to the file to resume editing. GPQuit - Like the PQuit command but it issues the PQuit command for all loaded files. If no files have been modified, it will immediately exit the editor. If any files have been modified, the "Lose Changes (Y/N)?" prompt will be displayed for each modified file and then the editor is exited. 5) Quit - An unconditional quit. The current file is discarded regardless of any changes made to it. NOTE: Use this command with caution! The Quit command is not assigned to a default keystroke. The Exit, File, PQuit commands can be configured to terminate or not terminate the editor and ask for another file to edit. This option can be customized using the configuration program QCONFIG.EXE. Run QCONFIG.EXE, select G)eneral Options, and return till you get to the option that reads: Do you want the PQuit, Exit and File commands to return to "EditFile" prompt (Y/N)? [Y] The default configuration is set to and will return you to the EditFile prompt upon executing the PQuit, Exit, and File commands or go to the next file in the QEdit file ring. If set to , it will terminate QEdit upon executing the above commands. The SaveFile and Quit commands are not affected by this setting. A Few Recommendations: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * If you know what you are doing and want to get in and out of the editor quickly, use the GFile command. * If you want to make one more final check before you exit the editor, use the GExit. * PQuit/GPQuit and Exit/GExit are not intended to be used at the same time, but to give the user opposing approaches to saving files and exiting the editor. ---------- A QEdit Tip from the SemWare Technical Support Staff .. Types of Block Marking and Unmarking .. A block is a portion of a text file which has been defined by using QEdit's Block marking commands. QEdit has a rich set of Block commands. These commands mark Blocks by lines, columns, and characters. To define a block, you must first "mark" or outline a Block. There are four Block types in QEdit: line, column, inclusive character blocks, and non-inclusive character blocks. The one you choose will depend on the editing situation and what you feel most comfortable using. Below is a description of the commands along with our default key combinations. MarkLine - will mark only complete lines and no portions of lines. To use this command, place the cursor anywhere on the first line of the text you want to mark and press . Now move the cursor to the last line of text you wish to be marked and press again. DropAnchor - will mark a Block one character at a time. The Block will contain a stream of characters and can span over multiple lines. To use this command, place the cursor over the first character of text you wish to mark and press . Now move the cursor toward the end of text to be marked. (Notice that the Block "follows" the cursor position.) Once the cursor is placed over the last character to be marked, press again. MarkCharacter - will work just like DropAnchor except that while the Block is being marked, the cursor is _not_ included within the Block. MarkCharacter is not assigned to a default keystroke. MarkColumn - will mark one or more columns of text. To use this command, place the cursor over the upper left-hand character of the text you wish to mark and press . Now move the cursor to the right and/or downward toward the end of text to be marked. (Notice that the Block "follows" the cursor position.) Once the cursor is placed over the lower right-hand character of the Block, press again. MarkBlockBegin and MarkBlockEnd - will mark one character at a time. These commands do _not_ show the block until MarkBlockEnd is executed. To use this command, place the cursor over the first character of the text you wish to mark and press . Now position the cursor one character past the end of the text that is to be marked and press . MarkWord - will mark a single word. To use this command, place the cursor at the first character of the word you wish to mark and press . (If no word is at the current cursor position, then no action is taken.) UnMarkBlock - will cause the currently marked Block to be unmarked. A few side notes: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * QEdit allows you to mark one Block at a time. * If you mix Block types, QEdit will mark the Block according to the last command entered. * MarkCharacter is provided as a replacement for the DropAnchor command. If you want the cursor position included in the character Blocks, then continue to use DropAnchor; otherwise, replace the DropAnchor command with MarkCharacter in the QCONFIG.DAT file. * When using MarkLine, MarkCharacter, MarkColumn, and DropAnchor commands, it is not necessary to mark the end of the Block. QEdit will assume the end of the Block to be the current cursor position and/or line depending on the command being used. Marking the end of the Block is only necessary when moving or copying text within the same file. ---------- A QEdit Tip from the SemWare Technical Support Staff .. Manipulating Marked Blocks (Part A).. QEdit provides several ways to manipulate a marked Block. Manipulation can be done directly, using the scrap buffer (Clipboard), or using the scratch buffers. Following is a description of each of QEdit's block manipulation commands along with our default key combinations. Manipulating Directly ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The following commands allow you to manipulate a marked Block directly. CopyBlock - will make a copy of the marked Block and insert it where you decide. This can be either in another place in the same file, or in another file. To use this command, mark the Block and move the cursor to the position where you wish to insert the marked text. Now press and notice the Block will be inserted at the new position. To unmark the copied Block, enter the UnmarkBlock command. CopyOverBlock - will work just like the CopyBlock command except the Block is copied to the current cursor position by overlaying the existing text. The command can _only_ be used with column Blocks. The Block will be inserted without shifting the text to the right. MoveBlock - will work just like the CopyBlock command except that upon entering the MoveBlock command, the original marked Block is deleted from the file. DeleteBlock - will delete a marked Block of text from the file. To use this command, mark the Block of text to be deleted, then enter the DeleteBlock command. ShiftLeft and ShiftRight - will shift the text contained in a marked Block one column to the left or right. To use these commands, mark the Block and enter the ShiftLeft or ShiftRight command. If there is not a marked Block or the cursor is outside of the Block, the current cursor line will be shifted. Manipulating Using the Scrap Buffer (Clipboard) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Scrap Buffer is a temporary holding area for marked Blocks of text. The commands Cut, Copy, Paste, and PasteOver are solely responsible for manipulating text to and from the Scrap Buffer. Cut - will copy the marked Block into the Scrap Buffer. The Block is then deleted from the file being edited. If no Block is marked, the cursor line is cut into the Scrap Buffer. Copy - will copy the marked Block into the Scrap Buffer and then unmark the Block. If no Block is marked, the cursor line is copied into the Scrap Buffer. Paste - will insert the contents of the Scrap Buffer to the current cursor position. If the Scrap Buffer contains a character or column Block, it is inserted at the cursor position. If the Scrap Buffer contains a line Block, it is inserted before or after the cursor line depending on the configuration setting. PasteOver - will work like the Paste command, but for column Blocks. It takes a column Block which has been loaded into the Scrap Buffer using the Cut or Copy commands and places it at the current cursor position by overlaying the existing text and without shifting text to the right. When you issue a Copy or Cut command, the marked Block is placed in the Scrap Buffer. The next time you Copy or Cut a Block into the Scrap Buffer, the previous contents of the Scrap Buffer are deleted and replaced with the new Block. You can use the Paste and PasteOver commands as many times as needed to insert a copy of the Block held in the Scrap Buffer at multiple positions in your file or files. The Paste and PasteOver commands will not purge the contents of the Scrap Buffer. The Cut and Copy commands can be configured to act on the current cursor line if no Block is marked. This option can be customized using the configuration program QCONFIG.EXE. Run QCONFIG.EXE, select A)dvanced options, and return till you get to the option that reads: Should Cut and Copy use the current line if no block marked (Y/N)? [N] The default configuration is set to and will result in no action if the Cut and Copy commands are used outside of a block. If set to , QEdit will take use the current cursor line if the Cut and Copy commands are issued. Manipulating Using the Scratch Buffer ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A Scratch Buffer is a special type of buffer to which you assign a name. QEdit allows you to create and name up to 99 Scratch Buffers for each editing session. These can be useful if you have several different Blocks of text that you want to insert in multiple locations. The commands StoreScrbuff, AppendScrbuff, and GetScrbuff are used to place text in, and retrieve text from, a Scratch Buffer. Whenever you issue one of these commands, QEdit will ask you for the name of the Scratch Buffer. The contents of all Scratch Buffers are discarded when the editor is terminated. StoreScrbuff - will copy the marked Block to the named Scratch Buffer. The editor will prompt for the name of the Scratch Buffer. AppendScrbuff - will append the marked Block to the end of the named Scratch Buffer. The existing contents of the named Scratch Bufferss are _not_ lost. If the named Scratch Buffer does not exist, a new Scratch Buffer will be created. GetScrbuff - will insert the contents of the named Scratch Buffer at the cursor position. ---------- A QEdit Tip from the SemWare Technical Support Staff .. Manipulating Marked Blocks (Part B).. QEdit provides several other ways to manipulate a marked Block. Manipulation of Marked Blocks can be done by using the Upper, Lower, Flip, Sort, Fill, Print, and WriteBlock commands. Following is a description of each of QEdit's block manipulation commands along with our default key combinations. Upper - will change all characters in a marked block to upper case. Lower - will change all characters in a marked block to lower case. Flip - will reverse the case (upper to lower and lower to upper) of all characters in a marked block. The Upper, Lower, and Flip commands must be used within the marked block. If the cursor is outside of the marked block or if no block is marked, the character at the current cursor position is changed to upper case. Sort - will sort a range of lines in ascending order. The sort key is determined by a marked column block. The length of the column block determines the range of lines to be sorted. This command can _only_ be used with a single, nonzoomed window on the screen. FillBlock - will fill an entire block with any ASCII character. FillBlock is recommended for use with column and word blocks only because it will fill other type blocks with characters beyond column 80. PrintBlock - will print the entire contents of the marked Block. The marked Block must be in the current file. WriteBlock - will write the marked Block to the named file. The editor will prompt for the name of the file. This feature will also allow you to save your current file under a different name. To do so, press with no marked blocks in the file. QEdit will prompt you for a filename. If the filename already exists, QEdit will prompt you with "Overlay existing file" and "Append to file." Select the option you desire or press escape to abort. If there is a marked block in the file, the WriteBlock command will, as before, write the current marked block to the named file. ---------- A QEdit Tip from the SemWare Technical Support Staff .. QEdit's Keyboard Configuration .. Are you tired of signing your names to all those messages you write in QEdit? Would you like to change the help screen to the F10 key like it was in your "other" editor? This is where QEdit's flexible keyboard configuration is extremely helpful. It will provide you with the ability to assign editor commands and macros to almost any key you prefer. Below you will find an explanation of QEdit's keyboard definition file (QCONFIG.DAT) and how to modify it to meet _your_ needs. What is QCONFIG.DAT? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It is QEdit's keyboard definition file which contains the default settings for the keyboard. This file contains a list of all the keys to which commands may be assigned. The configurable keys are on the left side of the file with the commands or macros assigned to the keys on the right. Blank lines and lines starting with an asterik "*" are ignored. The control, alternate, and shift keys are used within QCONFIG.DAT to assign to commands. The following are some examples of each. - Control keys are specified with a "^". (i.e. - ^F1 means Control F1 and ^PgUp means Control Page Up) - Alternate keys are specified with a "@". (i.e. - @F1 means Alternate F1 and @PgUp means Alternate Page Up) - Shift keys are specified with a "#". (i.e. - #F1 means Shift F1) The case of the commands, as well as underscores in command names, are ignored by the configuration program (QCONFIG.EXE). This means that CursorDown, cursor_down, and Cursor_Down all refer to the same command. What are twokeys? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A twokey is a keystroke sequence assigned to two distinct keystrokes. This allows for more key assignment possibilities. To assign a command to a twokey, enter both of the keystrokes of the twokey in the first column separated by an underline. The key here is that the commands must be separated by a '_'. For example, to assign the Exit command to the twokey, , enter the following into your keyboard definition file: ^F1_F2 Exit Any QEdit command can be assigned to a twokey, however macros can _not_ be assigned to a twokey. How can I modify MY QEdit keys? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Any QEdit user can modify his/her keys to suit their needs. It is easy and simple. Just follow the steps below to modify your QCONFIG.DAT file. 1. Edit QCONFIG.DAT (i.e. - q QCONFIG.DAT). 2. Make the appropriate changes to your QCONFIG.DAT file. (i.e. - change the definitions of @0 and ^F2 to be: @0 InsertDate ^F2 MacroBegin "Matthew Giles" Return "SemWare Technical Support" Remember that the commands and/or text must fit on one line, not exceeding 512 characters in length. Also that text should be enclosed in single or double quotes. 3. Save your QCONFIG.DAT file. 4. Run QCONFIG.EXE, enter program name and select K)eys 5. Enter keyboard definition name 6. Select S)ave options and quit You have now installed your new keyboard definitions into QEdit. Next time the editor is loaded your new keys will be in effect. What if I liked the keys assignments on my "other" editor? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There are many keyboard definition files written by QEdit users and staff that will allow you to customize your editor to run like another editor. You may find these additional keyboard definition files on the SemWare Support BBS. To install and/or edit the other keyboard definition file, follow the steps above with the addition of entering the new filename when it prompts you for the keyboard definition filename. ---------- A QEdit Tip from the SemWare Technical Support Staff .. QEdit and Spell Checking .. Are people constantly harassing you about your spelling? Do simple words like "the" come out wrong during those late night message editing sessions? You say you've found a spell checker program to solve the problem... but how can you make it work with QEdit, your favorite editor. QEdit support conference users have been using both ShareSpell by Acropolis Software and EZSpell by Sam Smith for some time. Below are two macros that let you use either of these programs within QEdit to make spell checking a breeze. The following macro invokes ShareSpell from within QEdit to spell check the current file. The macro assumes that both SS.EXE and the dictionary ACROP.DIC are in a directory named in your PATH statement. MacroBegin SaveFile Dos "SS " CurrentFilename Return Return EditFile CurrentFilename Return NewFile Return The following macro invokes EZ-Spell from within QEdit to spell check the current file. The macro assumes that both EZS.EXE and the dictionary EZSPELL.DCT are in a directory named in your PATH statement. EZSpell creates a backup file with the last letter of the name changed to a "$". The macro then deletes that file in this macro after EZSpell is done. MacroBegin SaveFile Dos "EZS " CurrentFilename Return Return Dos "DEL " CurrentFilename Backspace "$" Return Return EditFile CurrentFilename Return NewFile Return NOTE: is the key to which you should tie this macro. The macro must all be on one line in your QCONFIG.DAT file. Once you have added the macro to your keyboard, run QCONFIG.EXE to install the changes. To use QCONFIG.EXE, run it, press return to accept Q.EXE, press K for keys, press return to accept QCONFIG.DAT, then press S to save your changes. ---------- A QEdit Tip from the SemWare Technical Support Staff .. QEdit TSR's Benefits .. Have you ever been in a program and wanted to simply jot a note to yourself? Have you ever had the need to take a quick look at a document, but the program you were in had no shell option? Then, QEdit TSR, the memory resident version of QEdit, is for you! As a memory-resident version of QEdit Advanced, QEdit TSR (Terminate and Stay Resident) resides in the background, giving you the power of QEdit with a single keystroke, but without having to exit the file you're working in. Unlike more familiar TSR programs, QEdit TSR utilizes a unique swapping feature to provide the benefits of a TSR without draining precious memory. QEdit TSR uses less than 9k memory, and when popped up swaps your current applications out of memory and into extended/ expanded memory or to disk. In this configuration, you can edit files up to 400k in size. QEdit TSR contains all of the QEdit v2.15 commands plus four additional commands. These are described below along with the default key combination for each. GrabScreen - reads in the contents of the screen, as it appeared when you popped up QEdit TSR as a marked block at your current cursor position, and inserts it into the current file as a marked block. The GrabScreen command behaves as if you were using the QEdit Advanced ReadBlock command. GoBack - returns you to your DOS application, in the exact configuration as when you left it. The GoBack command can be customized to prompt you to save edited files. This is done by using QTCONFIG, QEdit TSR's configuration program. Purge

- purges QEdit TSR from memory after first prompting the user to save any changed files. TsrPaste - "pastes" a marked block into the foreground application. TsrPaste does not have a default keyboard assignment. To use this command, follow these steps: 1) When the foreground application is waiting for input, pop up QEdit TSR. 2) Within QEdit TSR, mark a block of text and stuff it into the keyboard buffer with the [TsrPaste] command (available as the last item on the "Quit" pulldown menu). 3) Quit QEdit TSR and return to the foreground application by issuing the [GoBack] command, and the text will be immediately pasted into the foreground application. Notes: Each line that is pasted, including single lines, has a carriage return appended to it. Although QEdit TSR has all the features QEdit Advanced is famous for, most users want a non-TSR editor as well. For this reason, QEdit TSR currently comes bundled with a separate copy of QEdit Advanced. Registered users may purchase only the TSR software at a discount over the full TSR package price. Please call us at 404-641-9002 M-F 9a-5p EST for details