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@ED-PC Screen Shots
@ED-PC Top Ten
@ED-PC History
Developer's Notes
@ED-PC was written to answer the need for an industrial-strength, programmable macro
editor. It is written to be as backward-compatable as possible while taking
advantage of features in the PC environment.
New Commands and Features
- The command history. F7 (like in DOSKEY) shows you what your last 50 commands
were, F8 retrieves via mask, and F9 retrieves by command number (again all just like
DOSKEY).
- On-screen cutting, copying and pasting, using the @ED-PC screen clipboard buffer.
- The @@LINES command. If your screen size is less than 50 lines try @@LINES 50 to
see a lot more of what you're working on.
- HELP. I can't always remember every command or what their parameters are. In
@ED-PC, help is context-sensitive and interactive - press F1 anytime, anywhere. Or,
just enter HELP at the SOE. Each help topic has hypertext links to related
topics.
- JOIN and WRAP. WRAP chops one line into two, and JOIN combines two adjacent lines
together into one. They can be used in word processing macros because they honor
margins, which can be set with LIMIT WRAP.
- The DOS command (also callable as SPAWN and @@SPAWN). This command allows DOS (or
CMD.EXE) commands to be submitted to the operating system for execution, or allows
temporary access to a command-line shell session or DOS prompt (the user decides to quit
the DOS prompt by typing - what else - EXIT). Since you can LPSUB right into the DOS
command parameters, you have complete control of the command that is submitted to your
operating system. The DOS command can also SET environment variables which can be
tested after @ED is done.
- The EN function, which retrieves an environment variable from the operating system.
Using the EN function and the DOS SET command, @ED-PC becomes a powerful batch
language extender.
- The AL, SF, MP and other 'parsing' functions for picking at a macro's parameter.
- The MO (Month) and WD (Weekday) functions and the D2 (formatted date) function.
- File name functions NM, EX and NE; path function P; line preview function NX.
- "Update discretion". @ED-PC won't write out a new copy of your file if
you've made no changes. You can always force an update if you want, but now you
don't have to update your time/date stamp if all you're doing is looking (and you forgot
,R or OMIT).
- The line at the bottom of the screen shows the edited file's name and current status.
If you've changed the file since you've started working on it, an asterisk shows
there; if you're creating the file, it displays an I. This status line also displays
the current cursor position, time, and other information.
- Extended status information is visible with the STA! command.
- Hex arithmetic. 0xFF=255=0377, try com.255 , com*0xFF , com!0xFF
- It handles text lines up to 10,000 bytes long, and files up to 2.1GB in size.
- And you can edit the last line in the file immediately after using the LAST
command.
What's NOT in @ED-PC
- The CPU command. It reports how many cards you've punched in this run (CPU is
short for CPUNCH$). I haven't punched many lately, so I left it out.
- Autorecovery (/A switch). "It'll be in a future version."
(However, @ED-PC's work files are preserved in the event of a program failure - an
infrequent event - so most edits are saved.)
- The /B switch (for batch) doesn't alter the way prompts look to the user.
- CSF commands beyond CSF @ASG,A . There was need for a test of file existence, and there
was already syntax for it, so here it is. But I was building a text editor, not
emulating an operating system, so I refrained from putting too much in here. CSF @ASG,A
works. CSF @ASG,UP or anything else won't.
- Two of the documented obsolete commands, H(EAD) and SAVE.
- Many XPC functions. There are some for page size and header, but again, I wasn't
writing device drivers, just a text editor. Some functions aren't implemented at
all, others only partially.
- File cycle support.
- LPTST OLD. OS/1100 program file elements are maintaned in multiple versions by an
element cycle number. This cycle number makes possible the OLD function, which tells
you if a line was changed this session. I had written a macro, NEW, which used this
feature to show me the lines I'd edited; it was a handy way to review my work. Alas,
@ED-PC cannot do that, for PC's have no analogue of element cycling. The loss is
somewhat lessened by the command history (see above), which at least tells me what I've
done even if it doesn't show the final product.
- For the above two reasons, the TIM command just gives a dummy cycle spec: (0,1)
for any update, and (,0) for any file create.
- CPT. Shows SUPS. Not a PC feature.
- GI. Goes to a line based on its initial number, again an element cycling-related
feature.
- MAIL. But email support in a future Windows release is possible.
- OPR. No 'operator' interface is implemented.
- PCC. May be in a future release.
- SHCHAR. Most PCs support upper and lower case with no trouble, so this command was
considered not critical.
- SP function. May be in a future release. Please see note for SSP below.
- SSP. Embedded spacing control is a feature of symbiont files, which won't be found
on a PC.
- IL and NI prefixes. Initial line numbers, a part of element cycling, aren't
supported.
- ESC / EM Uniscope sequence support. The user interface doesn't do any special
handling of output text except to throw away nulls.
- Fieldata. There hasn't been any clamor for support of Fieldata. The K option
isn't implemented, nor does the P actually produce FD output (P DOES change everything to
uppercase on output).
Thanks for reading.
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