America Online APPLE II DEVELOPMENT FORUM CONFERENCE LOG Tuesday, March 9, 1993 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time Topic: EdIt-16 with Bill Tudor Forum Leader: Gary Jacobson (AFL GaryJ) AFL GaryJ Welcome to the Apple II Development Forum! AFL GaryJ Tonight, we have a special guest.... AFL GaryJ ...Bill Tudor, the author of Edit-16. AFL GaryJ He's here to talk about Edit-16 2.0, which will be published by Lunar Productions! AFL GaryJ (Speaking of Lunar Productions.... Hi Marc :) M Wolfgram Hi all! AFL GaryJ Let's use forum PROTOCOL tonight, which means, if you have a question, type a "?" AFL GaryJ on a line by itself, or if you have a comment on the current topic, type a "!" ADV BTudor Hi Marc! AFL GaryJ on a line by itself. We'll keep track of who's turn is up, and I'll call on you AFL GaryJ when it's your turn to go. AFL GaryJ So, Bill, to start off with, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, and what you have AFL GaryJ planned for Edit-16 2.0? ADV BTudor OK.. ADV BTudor Well, EdIt-16 v1.0 shipped about two years ago. Last Feb it was updated to v1.2 ADV BTudor but no one was able to get a hold of that version. So, after months of ADV BTudor "negotiations", Lunar Productions will be publishing v2.0. ADV BTudor Some of the new features are: ADV BTudor Orca 2.0/System 6.0 compatible (HFS/etc) ADV BTudor Better network support (read-only file systems/etc) ADV BTudor A "recent files" list, which if you open a file from this list you get the ADV BTudor cursor placed on the line you were last on. ADV BTudor A new "Go Back" command, which essentially send you Back to the line you ADV BTudor were previously on. ADV BTudor And a large number of bug fixes. AFL GaryJ (There were "bugs" in the previous versions? :) M Wolfgram (There are always bugs in all programs, Gary :) AFL GaryJ I know :) ADV BTudor Yes. There were over 20 bugs removed since v1.1 Most of them minor. ADV BTudor GA AFL GaryJ Ok, looks like we have some questions for you.... AFL GaryJ Developer has the first question. GA Developer1 ok, obviously from the name, this is an editing program, can you explain in Developer1 greater detail the formats it opens, saves and any comparison to something like Developer1 AWGS or Teach or something of the kind. (i never even SAW v 1.0) AFL GaryJ Good question. Developer1 Thanks. AFL GaryJ (We should have explained the plain vanilla version first :) ADV BTudor Yes... ADV BTudor EdIt-16 is a text file editor, designed primarily for editing source code, ADV BTudor but it can be used for any text file. It can replace the "Editor" file that ADV BTudor comes with Orca or APW, OR it can be run as an EXE under a shell program, OR ADV BTudor you can run it as an S16 under GS/OS. It is a text-mode program (not desktop). Developer1 oic. if it isn't desktop, then how do you do multiple documents and windows or Developer1 menus? ADV BTudor The program has a number of built-in programmer-friendly commands. There are ADV BTudor macros, optional menu bar, EVERY command can be re-assigned to any keystroke ADV BTudor combination you can think of. Up to 9 files can be edited together. GA Developer1 nice. AFL GaryJ Thank you, Bill and Developer. Let's go on to MikeF32's question. GA, Mike MikeF32 Ummm, 1) What's the deal with the upgrade and 2)Do you still have the 64k limit MikeF32 AFL GaryJ That's allright :) ADV BTudor Marc will have to cover #1, and yes, there is still a 64k limit on file sizes ADV BTudor because of the method of memory management used, however, a new version later ADV BTudor this year will remove all that -BUT- don't wait! because v2.0 is _much_ better ADV BTudor than previous versions. GA. M Wolfgram Upgrade from 1.x to 2.0 is half price... $25.00 plus an original disk. MikeF32 Ok, so I have to mail you the original disk? M Wolfgram Send the original to Lunar Productions. MikeF32 M Wolfgram (Make a backup first though :) AFL GaryJ There is/will be info on that posted in the Lunar Productions area (info on where to send). MikeF32 Ok, I'm done. AFL GaryJ (Lunar Productions area is found under the "Company Support" menu item here AFL GaryJ in the Apple II Development Forum). M Wolfgram Thanks, Gary! AFL GaryJ Ok, Jawaid, you're next. GA GNO Jawaid Gracias. Two Q's. 1) Is there TAB support? 2) Does it sort filenames in GNO Jawaid file dialogs? ga ADV BTudor Yes and Yes. Tabs use either "real" or "space insert" tabs depending on the ADV BTudor user's setup. GNO Jawaid And it uses the ORCA systabs file to config? Or do I have to configure those GNO Jawaid inside Edit-16? ADV BTudor It uses SYSTABS _if_ you are running under Orca/APW. Else, there is a setting ADV BTudor insude Ed16 as well. GA GNO Jawaid Okay, great. It sorts filenames in dialogs! WHERE DO I GET MINE?!?!?! :-) done ADV BTudor Not only sorts them...but you can type the first letter of a filename to move to ADV BTudor that name as well. :-) AFL GaryJ Ok, Jim is next. GA Jim AFC DYAJim I am seriously considering EdIt as a replacement to the orca editor.. I used AFC DYAJim to love using a AFC DYAJim Max/Edit under orca 1.x, but when Max/Edit would not be upgraded to support AFC DYAJim real tabs, I gave up on it and I'm back to the orca editor. I miss many AFC DYAJim features the orca editor lacks, and EdIt seems to have most of the features I AFC DYAJim used to like so well in Max/Edit. However, it really disturbs me to know AFC DYAJim that I will be limited to a 64k maximum size on source files, and 9 files AFC DYAJim open at once. It's always been my philosophy that "if you've got the memory, AFC DYAJim there should be no limits." Will either of these issues be addressed in the AFC DYAJim future? ADV BTudor Yes. I agree with you. Now that I have a new publisher it will be addressed. GA GNO Jawaid Jim, it's always been _my_ philosophy that source files bigger than 64K are GNO Jawaid unmanageable and you'd be better off better modularizing your code. :) ga AFC DYAJim Yes, usually Jawaid, but I still think the limit is silly.. you might be AFC DYAJim loading a big text file, or other special circumstances. Why limit yourself :) Sheppy (editing docs, perhaps) GNO Jawaid Well, there's always uEmacs for 10MB text files. :) ADV BTudor I do not think there should be limits either, however, that particular ADV BTudor enhancement will take some time and testing because it will affect large ADV BTudor areas of the program, that's all. You will like ed16 despite that limit, ADV BTudor however. GA. AFL GaryJ AndyW is up. AFL GaryJ GA, Andy AFA AndyW What is there about ed16 as compared to ORCA 2.0 ed that I should get it AFA AndyW instead of sticking with ORCA (besides the delay when large amounts of changes AFA AndyW are being undone)?? ADV BTudor First of all, you can set all the editor's commands to any key combination ADV BTudor you like, including function keys on an extended keyboard. Secondly, you can ADV BTudor type "edit file1 file2 file3 file4 file5 file6 file7" on the command line, ADV BTudor Third, you get a whole bunch of "programmer-oriented" commands such as.. ADV BTudor "Bracket" which finds corresponding "{, [, (" characters, or "Goto Label", ADV BTudor which "picks" a label right off the screen and then jumps to that routine. AFA AndyW Sounds like one of Merlin 16+ functions.. ADV BTudor You can customize the screen layout, display two files at once. AFA AndyW Can you tell it to go to a specific line number too?? AFC DYAJim (good feature, Andy! :) ADV BTudor I believe the file dialogs are much better. Yes you can goto a line number, ADV BTudor goto a marker, and go "back" (command depends on context used in). The go back ADV BTudor feature is great. GNO Jawaid Yea! AFA AndyW Nice.. ORCA is limited to 10 files, but they can be larger than 64k AFA AndyW although, I don't think I'v gone that large yet except for docs.. ADV BTudor Here is another one I like: You can put mousetext right in your source code ADV BTudor if you like...great for comments displaying the stack frame. Prints on an ADV BTudor imagewriter printer. GA. AFA AndyW Sounds very useful.. AFA AndyW How does that affect the file on disk?? AFL GaryJ That sounds useful. AFA AndyW Would there be multiple characters stored in the file that might affect some AFA AndyW other editor?? ADV BTudor The file on disk looks "normal", even to other editors. The mousetext will ADV BTudor look like the characters ABCDE... AFA AndyW And, can all control characters be searched for, like even CR?? ADV BTudor No, you can't search for control characters. AFA AndyW Hmmm.. I hate what ORCA does with ctrl chars.. They LOOK like normal, but AFA AndyW they don't act like it!! AFL GaryJ Anything else, Andy? ADV BTudor Another nice feature is the printout with optional line numbers, title page, ADV BTudor etc. I must admit I have not even run the new Orca editor so I am not sure ADV BTudor of all _its_ features. AFA AndyW I'd like to be able to search for ctrl chars. I can find tabs with ORCA.. AFC DYAJim (how can you find tabs with Orca?) AFA AndyW OA-TAB.. AFC DYAJim Cool! I never knew that ADV BTudor EdIt-16 is not just an Orca replacement editor. You can highlight 5 text files ADV BTudor in the Finder and have EdIt-16 launch with all of them loaded. GA. AFA AndyW I guess I'll let someone else get a crack at it for awhile while I'm thinking AFA AndyW of more ?s...!! GA AFL GaryJ GA, Jim AFC DYAJim I have two questions here: AFC DYAJim Can I use wildcards from the command line like edit = to edit all files in AFC DYAJim a directory? AFA AndyW Or edit =.c =.h! AFC DYAJim and Have you thought about implementing prefix strings for the open AFC DYAJim dialogs (like 6.0 StdFile)? Typing the first char of a file to select that AFC DYAJim file is nice, but prefix strings make it much nicer. AFC DYAJim (ga) ADV BTudor Sort of...The Orca shell would expand "edit =" into edit , ADV BTudor but you _can_ type "edit =a.c =b.c =c.c =d.c to get the four files that AFC DYAJim That's exactly what I was hoping you wouldn't say :-( AFC DYAJim Major bummer. ADV BTudor match those criteria (this is a _shell_ feature). File Dialogs: The answer is ADV BTudor "yes", but only for the first letter. However, you can also type 0,1,2,3,4,5,6 ADV BTudor 7,8,9 on the keypad to instantly jump to prefix 20, 21, 22, 13, 14, 15 etc., AFC DYAJim Yes, that's a cool feature. I wish you'd consider pfx _strings_ for the AFC DYAJim future though :) ADV BTudor which is nice if you set a few of them up nice or want to load a header file. ADV BTudor GA. AFL GaryJ GA with your comment, Jawaid GNO Jawaid Jim, GNO's gsh shell will wildcard expand properly.. So, under GNO, GNO Jawaid "edit16 *.c" will work as you want it to. GNO Jawaid GA AFC DYAJim Great Jawaid.. I don't understand though, because Max/Edit would expand AFC DYAJim a wildcard into however many files it matched under orca 1.x. Did they AFC DYAJim change something in the 2.x shell to prevent this? AFA AndyW I think things work differently between the ORCA edit command (c) and having AFA AndyW the editor set up as a utility (u).. ADV BTudor That is true. In fact, if you setup EdIt-16 as a utility you can get ADV BTudor multiple filenames passed under pre-orca 2.0 shells (and the APW shell). GA AFC DYAJim ok, that's it for me. AFL GaryJ Thanks, Bill and Jim. AFC DYAJim I feel better that it's an orca problem :) AFL GaryJ Now it's Sheppy's turn. AFL GaryJ GA, Eric Sheppy Okay. This one's really simple. Can EdIt-16 be set up as the default editor Sheppy for Merlin 16+? :) Sheppy GA ADV BTudor No. Merlin's editor is built-in. You have to type "editor " from ADV BTudor the disk command prompt. Sheppy Heh, heh, heh. Thought you'd say that. Okay, as long as you can use it, it's Sheppy cool. Just kidding. :) AFA AndyW You could execute it from the prompt as Bill said, but I don't know if you'd AFA AndyW return to Merlin + as I don't think it puts itself on the quit stack, but AFA AndyW expects an RTL from EXE files.. ADV BTudor I should add.. ADV BTudor If you edit a "merlin" file, the editor mimicks some of the merlin editor ADV BTudor features. And it formats things properly. You do return back to Merlin. I use ADV BTudor EdIt-16 under Merlin all the time. AFA AndyW Nice to know. I use Merlin + for 8 bit stuff.. Sheppy Okay. If I gotta user Merlin, at least I won't have to keep using that Sheppy damnable editor. :) Sheppy Thanks. That's all for me. :) AFL GaryJ Barnabas, did you have a comment? Barnabas Yes. Seems to me the version of Merlin I have (or at least prev. Merlins) used Barnabas to allow you to set up which full-screen editor you want to use. I know the Barnabas version of Merlin that Eric has has many features built in that are separate Barnabas utilities on my version. Barnabas (So it seems to me you might be able to set up another editor for Merlin...) ADV BTudor Ed16 v2.0 has better merlin file support than previous versions. As far as I ADV BTudor know the Merlin full screen editor is built-in. GA. AFA AndyW Merlin + lets you use either the full screen editor or the line editor, but AFA AndyW not an external one (unless I missed it in the documentation). AFA AndyW You could put edit16 in the commands directory and access it that way though.. Barnabas Let me check my files. I have the very earliest version of Merlin 16+. Sheppy I was thinking of Merlin Pro... its full screen editor is in a separate file. ADV BTudor You can use EdIt-16, just like any other EXE, but you still have the built- ADV BTudor in version there, and, you have to enter it (I think) to compile. GA Barnabas Merlin Pro is ProDOS 8, Eric. Sheppy No kidding, Greg. I was recalling that that particular Merlin's editor was Sheppy external, that's all. Jeez. :) AFL GaryJ Good thing you told us, Eric :) AFL GaryJ Ok, the hour is officially up, and I'd like to thank Bill for coming tonight! ADV BTudor Your welcome, Thanks for having me! AFL GaryJ If you'd like, Bill, you're welcome to stay afterward and chat. ADV BTudor I have a final comment.. ADV BTudor Editor for programmers are kinda personal things. Everyone has their ADV BTudor favorites. I wrote EdIt-16 with the primary goal of it being customizable so ADV BTudor that each person could "tune" it the way they like. Once you start using it, ADV BTudor you can't live without it! GA. GNO Jawaid <--- Looks forward to sorted file dialogs :-) Sheppy Thanks, Bill. Sounds great! ADV BTudor Jawaid, didn't v1.0 have sorted dialogs??? GNO Jawaid I'm referring to the ORCA editor, whose v1.0 was from the dark ages. ADV BTudor Oh. GNO Jawaid So Bill, under ORCA does Edit-16 quit with a QuitGS or rtl? ADV BTudor Let me think... GNO Jawaid (Edit-16 is restartable, I presume) ADV BTudor I believe I use rtl if I am an EXE and quit if I am an S16. ADV BTudor Yes, re-startable. GNO Jawaid Okay.. Whoever is doing the docs should make a note that under GNO it GNO Jawaid should be set up as an S16.. unless that messes up passing filenames on GNO Jawaid the command line. ADV BTudor I think that it would. If I am an S16, I use the message center. I could check ADV BTudor for GNO and make the quit call. AFC DYAJim restart is the stupidest handled feature. how are you to know which utils AFC DYAJim are restartable and which aren't, so you knwo what to set in the syscmnd AFC DYAJim file. dumb, dumb dumb :) GNO Jawaid Jim - that's why Apple said that restartable programs should quit with QuitGS Sheppy I just leave them all "not restartable". GNO Jawaid and the QuitGS restart bit set. AFC DYAJim Ahh.. how long has that rule been in effect, Jawaid? GNO Jawaid (There was a time when GS/OS Quit didn't handle restartability) AFC DYAJim Where is it written? (I'm curious how I missed it :) GNO Jawaid Since GS/OS. (System 4) GNO Jawaid GS/OS Reference, Jim. AFC DYAJim Cool.. GNO Jawaid Bill - how many places in the program do you directly read the keyboard GNO Jawaid latch? Do you have a single "get keypress" routine? ADV BTudor One. ADV BTudor Yes. GNO Jawaid Ooh, excellent. :) GNO Jawaid Do you use ^Z for anything? AFL GaryJ What are you up to, Jawaid? :) ADV BTudor The user can make control-Z to anything :-) ADV BTudor to-do GNO Jawaid Hm. Okay, what I'm up to is being able to ^Z Edit-16 in GNO if I need GNO Jawaid to play in the shell and return back to the editor. GNO Jawaid (^Z being suspend) ADV BTudor I suppose we can steal cntrl-Z from users. They can use other things. GNO Jawaid Bill - the keypress that suspends a program is also configurable in GNO GNO Jawaid via a simple tool call, so that's no big deal. :) Sheppy Well, GNO users could just not assign ctrl-Z. AFL GaryJ I agree with Sheppy. If a user wants to use GNO, he just doesn't have AFL GaryJ to assign ctrl-Z as anything in Edit-16. GNO Jawaid Hey, I've got a Finder Extension question. GNO Jawaid Anyone here successfully written a modeless FExt (using the GetAuxWindInfo)? ADV BTudor Yes. Sheppy Yeah. It's called a New Desk Accessory. :) GNO Jawaid Duh. Of course! Bill Tudor is here. :-) GNO Jawaid Okay.. Have you seen WildIcons? ADV BTudor I have had over 40 File Peeker windows on the screen at the same time! GNO Jawaid Yow. ADV BTudor (Talk about sluggish computer response!) AFL GaryJ I would think so :) ADV BTudor It took 15 minutes just to "Close All", if I remember correctly. GNO Jawaid Okay.. anyway, when I get the request that says "someone selected your GNO Jawaid menu item" I NewWindow2 my window. Then I GetAuxWindInfo and set up the NDA GNO Jawaid structure.. and then I SetSysWindow. My window never gets drawn, and GNO Jawaid the machine crashes in a couple seconds. I'm using TaskMasterDA in the GNO Jawaid Action routine to handle events passed to my window. Am I at least GNO Jawaid theoretically correct? GNO Jawaid DrawControls() and that's it. ADV BTudor Is this written in assembler GNO Jawaid Er, parts of it. :) ADV BTudor How 'bout the data bank register. Are you saving things to the wrong spot maybe GNO Jawaid I'm pretty sure I'm keeping track of the databank. At least, I think so. :) ADV BTudor Maybe Matt has an idea. GNO Jawaid Anyway, what I listed is correct? As far as how it's supposed to work? AFL GaryJ Is Matt at the keys? (That is the question :) ADV BTudor I can look over my code and talk with you on the telephone later if you like. GNO Jawaid Okay. ADV BTudor Does DrawControls use the correct port? GNO Jawaid Yeah, I'm using a ContentDraw proc in the window structure. GNO Jawaid (the WM sets up the port/region before calling) Matt DTS Jawaid: You're doing something wrong. Post it somewhere and let us look. :) GNO Jawaid Matt - heh :) AFA AndyW Anyone know where I can get source for YACC?? GNO Jawaid Andy - why YACC, in particular? AFA AndyW Because there's a lot of stuff written for YACC. It would be nice to port it.. GNO Jawaid BISON was ported; it's the same thing as YACC but better, and has been out GNO Jawaid for over three years. :) AFA AndyW Oh.. I wasn't aware there was something else that would do the same thing.. AFA AndyW Where can I get it?? GNO Jawaid Oh.. Get it, YACC, Bison? :) GNO Jawaid It's probably here on AOL. AFA AndyW They're different animals!! GNO Jawaid Hey, it's not _my_ pun. AFA AndyW Ok Jawaid.. It's there (ADV libs).. GNO Jawaid Great.. BISON works really well. I've used it in several projects.