and edited by
[still under construction - and so is the manual]
Under construction...
Dear peditor:
Thank you for having made such an intelligent decision. In case you are one of those self-assured people who never read manuals [just like yours truly], then go ahead and experiment on your own. I know you won't regret it. On the other hand, if you want to be a savvy, intelligent, and educated customer prior to immersing yourself into the limitless features of pedit, then please set aside a few minutes of your precious time to read this [relatively speaking] short introduction to pedit.
The word pedit stands for Palm editor, and/or Paul's editor, and/or programmers' editor, and/or whatever else you prefer. It must be spelled with a lower cased p as in pedit. If you are a certified peditor, then you pronounce pedit as a 3-syllable word as in pee-edit.
By definition, a peditor is a person who installed
pedit on his or her Palm computing device. A true peditor duly
REGISTERS
pedit. In case you happen to have a shorter than normal
attention span [just like yours truly], let me repeat that a true
peditor...
pedit is based on Palm Computing's built-in Memo Pad and is meant to
replace it [just like DateBk made "Date Book" obsolete]. It packs a myriad
highly customizable features which makes it a perfect tool for anyone using
the Palm for serious text editing.
pedit also imports and exports industry standard Palm-style
DOC
files so that it is a perfect replacement for all Palm based text
editors known to mankind.
Even casual writers will appreciate its simple but rich and efficient
interface.
Due to overwhelming popular demand, the pedit family of editors consists
of several applications, namely, pedit [aka pedit04], pedit32, peditPro
[to be released in August of 2000], and peditLight.
pedit [aka pedit04] is for those peditors who want a hassle free and
super sophisticated Memo Pad replacement with 100% Memo Pad
compatibility, and who don't want to be bothered and/or concerned with
HotSync and DeskTop issues.
In what follows, sometimes we will refer to pedit as pedit04
since the word pedit is also used as a generic
term for any member of the pedit family. If a specific feature relates
to a specific pedit, then it will be emphasized.
pedit04 and pedit32 are essentially identical in practically every form and function with the
exception that pedit32 breaks the infamous 4K barrier,
and it works with memos of size up-to 32K
[well, it is really 32K - 1, i.e., 0X7FFF, i.e., 2^15-1, i.e., 32767 bytes].
pedit32 is for those peditors who want to be able to create files which are bigger than
the regular Memo Pad files are. Those peditors who want to access their pedit32
memos on the Desktop, will have to do some additional steps involving
exportation
[see here too]
of pedit32 memos to pedit04 or
DOC
files, and
importation
of
DOC
files to pedit04.
Prior to installing pedit32, you should read the section
pedit04 vs pedit32
so that you would be fully aware of the subtle and not so subtle
differences between the two.
peditPro is the flagship of the pedit family. It combines pedit04 and
pedit32 into one convenient application whose RAM demand is more than
200K less than that of pedit04 and pedit32 combined. peditPro has two
modes. If it is in pedit04 mode then it looks like pedit04, smells like
pedit04, and behaves like pedit04. Similarly, if it is in pedit32 mode
then it looks like pedit32, smells like pedit32, and behaves like
pedit32. If I may suggest so, use peditPro and forget all the other
pedits.
If your Palm is short of free RAM, then you can save approximately 100K
if you use peditLight instead of pedit04. peditLight is identical to
pedit04 in almost all essential editing functions. However, many of the
"high end" feature of pedit04 are unavailable in peditLight. More
precisely, those "high end" features are visually indicated but are
functionally disabled in peditLight. For instance, all menu items
starting with ! are disabled. This way, based on your
editing needs, you can decide whether or not you wan to upgrade to
another pedit04.
pedit04 and Memo Pad can and do co-exist peacefully. Although pedit04
uses the Memo Pad database "MemoDB" with creator ID 'memo', it does not
alter its structure in any way whatsoever so that the user can switch
back and forth between the two with no harm done
[see Clear History...
and
Clear Preferences...].
To be quite honest, once you try pedit04, you will probably never ever
want to go back to Memo Pad. Still, if you wish, you
may. In addition, deleting pedit04 from your hand-held device, does not
remove the database MemoDB created by Memo
Pad, although it will delete pedit04's own preference record
and its own peditDB database. In particular, you don't need to worry
about HotSync and conduit issues in conjunction with your memos since
they all reside in MemoDB. The peditDB database holds the contents of
your
magiPad
only and nothing else. For your protection, peditDB gets backed
up by HotSync.
pedit32 and the Memo Pad can and do co-exist peacefully
as well. However, pedit32 uses its own memo database which is called
Memo32DB with creator ID 'pn32', and, therefore,
pedit32 is almost 100% incompatible with everything imaginable which
uses Memo Pad. Please see
pedit04 vs pedit32
for more details.
If your Palm's operating system is below 3.0 you are out of luck. I
designed pedit to work with OS 3.0 and above. It was tested with all
operating systems above 3.0 with the exception of 3.1 which I do not
have. Some of the early Palm 3x and Palm V devices have OS 3.1. Some
peditors use OS 3.1, and I have received no reports of compatibility
problems yet.
There are many peditors with Visors and with TRGPros [including yours
truly], and there seems to be absolutely no problem with using pedit on
them. I believe that pedit will work flawlessly on all Palms and all
Palm Powered handhelds as well as long as the operating system is at
least 3.0.
There are a few pedit features which are available only on Palms with
operating system 3.5 and above. However, they are minor features and I
seriously doubt that you will miss them.
There is one feature of pedit which I like very much and which is only
available if your Palm operating system is below 3.5. Namely, you can have
inverted or black buttons
only if your Palm OS is below 3.5.
If I may give you some unsolicited advice, as of July 7, 2000, my choice
for a Palm OS is 3.3. It is the fastest and the most bug free [or least
bug ridden]. Alas, it is a fact of life that all but the simplest
computer programs have scores of bugs, and this includes the Palm OS as
well.
If I may give you another unsolicited advice, as of August 25, 2000, I
have been using Palm OS 3.5.2 on my Palm Vx and Palm OS 3.5.1 on my
TRGPro for a couple of weeks now, and the only problem I encountered so
far was that it takes longer than I wish to go to the Application
Launcher.
Whether or not you want another piece of advice from me, here it is. If your
Palm Powered handheld is upgradable, that is, it has a flash
ROM, then please do not procrastinate and upgrade it.
I must admit that even pedit may have some bugs. If you find any,
please e-mail a bug report to
me.
pedit was written with a 100% compliance with the Palm software
developers' general guidelines. It was built with the latest version of
MetroWerks' and Palm's CodeWarrior on a Power Macintosh G3.
Well, I did improve upon the standard Palm interface on several
occasions. For instance, my tips dialogs are more
legible then Palm's. Another example is that even my simplest dialogs
can take keyboard inputs and they even react visually to such inputs.
I also introduced a number of new concepts such as
buttonPanel,
instantHelp,
magiPad,
magiFind'n'Replace,
and so forth.
pedit was written with a 100% compliance with the Palm software
developers' general guidelines.
Therefore, there are absolutely no compatibility issues whatsoever
except the following.
First, the Palm OS itself is not entirely bug free, and therefore,
pedit, just like any other Palm application is at the mercy of
Palm's software engineers.
Second, there are a great number of applications which themselves are
not exactly bug free and which may effect the behavior of other
applications. Unfortunately, there is no way that pedit can defend
itself against problems introduced into the Palm operating environment by
other applications.
In particular, there are a number of hack extensions which are defective.
Moreover, there are a number of defective applications which behave like
hacks even though they are not installed using the standard HackMaster
mechanism.
Third, pedit itself is a rather complicated program, and, therefore, it
also must contain a large number of bugs despite the fact that it passed
tens of millions of gremlin test with various hardware and operating system
configurations on the
Palm OS Emulator
[POSE].
pedit should work perfectly with every bug free hack extension as long as
HackMaster
is used as the hack installer application.
I have tried out at least one other hack installer application, and I
found problems with it despite its fancy features and interface when
compared with
HackMaster.
Therefore, I recommend and endorse
HackMaster
only, and not any other hack installer application.
As long as the hack is bug free and it is flash ROM
certified, pedit doesn't care whether your hack is installed into the
regular RAM or the flash ROM.
Beware of applications which play tricks with your Palm's operating system.
Some users of pedit reported some problems with the following hack
extensions and applications: AportisDoc, ClipHack, Clipper, EVPlugBase,
GoType!'s keyboard driver, PPK's keyboard driver, TakeNote!, and TrapWeaver.
Please note that when I polled the peditors regarding the above mentioned
hacks and applications, there were quite a few who have never experienced
any problem with them whatsoever.
However, for instance, if you have ClipHack and the "wrong" Palm OS
[newer than 3.0], then the following procedure, as described by David
Sommers, leads to a guaranteed crash which has nothing to do with pedit.
1) Open a small memo in pedit.
You have a crash with a "HwrRes.c, Line:215, Menu rsrc not found" error
message.
The author of ClipHack told me on June 16, 2000, that he is working on
trying to figure it out how to fix the problem.
The problem with AportisDoc and TakeNote! is that they treat
DOC
files differently than all the other
DOC
related applications.
It is somewhat unfair to accuse AportisDoc with anything since
Rick Bram
invented the
DOC
format in the first place. Nevertheless, if you use AportisDoc to read a
DOC
file prior to
importing
it to pedit, then all bets are off. In practically all cases you will not
experience any problem at all. Nevertheless, there are scenarios under
which the
import
procedure may fail.
The problem with TakeNote! is more innocent but, at the same time, it is
more serious. As of July 17, 2000, when TakeNote! opens a
DOC
file, it modifies it in such a way that the file may no longer be
interpreted by any other
DOC
related application in the proper way. While TakeNote! has every right
to do so, it should also leave a message that it modified the
DOC
file so that the other
DOC
applications would have a chance of re-reading the
DOC
file prior to interpreting it. For instance, TakeNote! could [should]
change the creator ID of all
DOC
files it modifies. This would send a clear message
to the other
DOC
applications.
I hope that TakeNote!'s authors will take note of this very unfortunate
behavior of TakeNote!, and that they will take steps to fix their
program. Although I have notified them of this problem, as of July 17,
2000, TakeNote! has not been fixed yet. As soon as I get notified by the
TakeNote! people that the problem has been fixed, I will update this
discussion.
At this point, it must be clear to you that resolving compatibility
problems is more like a subtle excursion into fine art than a rigorous
scientific exercise.
Although you may have found pedit in various excellent Palm forums such
as
PalmGear,
Handango,
ZDNet
[search for pedit], and
EuroCool
[search for pedit],
they are all linked to the official
pedit
web page which always has the most recent versions of all pedits.
Note.
I recommend that you do not download the ".prc" files directly
, but, instead, download the ".zip", or ".tgz", or ".tar.gz", or
".hqx" files, since some downloading software is not capable to deal
correctly with ".prc" files.
You can download the latest version of this very same manual as
pedit_man.zip
right here, or you can read
pedit_man.html
on-line here.
You can download
pedit.prc
or
pedit.zip
or
pedit.tgz
or
pedit.tar.gz
right here.
You can download
pedit32.prc
or
pedit32.zip
or
pedit32.tgz
or
pedit32.tar.gz
right here.
For your convenience, pedit
You can download
peditPro.prc
or
peditPro.zip
or
peditPro.tgz
or
peditPro.tar.gz
right here.
You can download
peditLight.prc
or
peditLight.zip
or
peditLight.tgz
or
peditLight.tar.gz
right here.
You can download
peditFixer.prc
or
peditFixer.zip
right here. It is also included in all of the pedit packages.
If you are a Mac user, then you can download
pedit.prc.hqx,
pedit32.prc.hqx,
peditPro.prc.hqx,
peditLight.prc.hqx,
and
peditFixer.prc.hqx
here.
All pedits install the usual way via a HotSync job. If you are not sure
how to install Palm applications, please study the manual which came
with your Palm.
pedit can run both from the regular RAM and from
the flash ROM.
It may be useful to remind you that if you already have any of the
pedits installed, and if they happen to be in the flash ROM, then please
move them back to your regular RAM prior to installing the newer
versions.
If you are a Mac user and if you don't have
Florent Pillet's
PalmBuddy,
then you will be grateful to me for the rest of your life for
recommending such an fantastic installation tool.
If you are about to install peditLight then use
peditFixer
first to delete pedit04, and then do a normal installation job. If you
delete pedit04 using Palm's built-in deletion mechanism, then you will
lose your
magiPad.
If you are about to install a pedit over an older version of the same
pedit, then there is no need to delete your pedit prior to installing
the new version. Otherwise, you will lose your corresponding pedit
preferences, including your pedit registration [see the
Preferences...
command in
EditView's
Options
menu and the
Preferences...
command in
ListView's
Options
menu].
If you are installing a new version of pedit32 over an existing pedit32,
then you must not delete your current pedit32 prior to installing the
new version. Otherwise, you will lose your pedit32 memos.
If you are about to install peditPro then please read the following
paragraphs very carefully.
It is safe [but not recommended] to use Palm's built-in deletion
mechanism to delete pedit04 prior to installing peditPro, but you will
lose your
magiPad
if you do so. In addition, you will also lose your pedit04 preferences,
including your pedit registration [see the
Preferences...
command in
EditView's
Options
menu and the
Preferences...
command in
ListView's
Options
menu].
If you have pedit32 memos then do not delete pedit32
via Palm's built-in deletion mechanism before you install peditPro.
Otherwise, you will lose your pedit32 memos. In addition, you will also
lose your pedit32 preferences, including your pedit registration
[see the
Preferences...
command in
EditView's
Options
menu and the
Preferences...
command in
ListView's
Options
menu].
If this is the first time you install peditPro, please install peditPro
over your existing pedit and/or pedit32. Then run
peditPro and the first thing to do is to use the
Total Cleaner Upper
command in
ListView's
Options
to delete pedit and/or pedit32 without deleting your pedit04 memos
and/or pedit32 memos.
QUESTION.
What are pedit! [peditLauncher] and pedit32! [aka pedit32Launcher]?
ANSWER.
Please see the truth about pedit! and pedit32!
here.
QUESTION.
Which flavor of pedit should I install?
ANSWER.
I recommend peditPro although the truth is that all pedits are equallly
powerful [except perhaps peditLight] and your own editorial needs should
determine which one to pick. It may be useful for you to review the
differences
between pedit04 and pedit32. If you can't decide, get peditPro.
Now a few words about the benefits of registering pedit.
If you shell out the registration fee then, in return, all updates will
be made available to you for free on
pedit's
web page or
here.
Please keep in mind that I will always notify the
peditors Forum
if there is an update
[subscribe].
For some details about the peditors Forum see
here.
If you wish, then we can work out a deal that I will always e-mail you
the most recent updates.
Here is another excellent reason for registering pedit. If you do so, then
you will never see my friendly reminders which, eventually, will make even
the most stubborn conscientious objectors follow the directions in the next
paragraphs.
Upon registration you will be issued a personal password which
you should enter using the
Register
button in the
About pedit...
window.
Please note that you are not allowed to share registered versions of
pedit and/or pedit passwords with anyone, including [but not limited to]
your friends, relatives, colleagues, and neighbors.
However, your immediate family members [spouses, significant others,
children, and parents living in the same household under the same roof]
are allowed to use your registered pedit, as long as they agree to abide
by the same rules as regular registered users.
If you have not registered pedit yet, then please do so without any delay.
Registering pedit and pedit32 will set you back by $US20, peditCombo and peditPro by
$US32, whereas peditLight costs $US9.
You can always upgrade/downgrade/sidegrade from one pedit to another by contacting
me.
There is an upgrade fee, whereas downgrades and sidegrades are usually free.
For instance, if you are registered for peditCombo then peditPro is free
for you, and vice versa, whereas, going from pedit to peditPro costs
$US12.
If you cannot afford this but you must have pedit anyway, or if you are
[and you can prove it] a [starving] student, or a mathematician, or a
senior citizen, or a Palm programmer, or a vegetarian, or a runner, then
please contact
me
for discount rates.
PayPal
[secure version]
is the easiest and fastest way to register pedit.
Please register
A working alternative is to mail a check to Paul Nevai, 3346
Mansion Way, Columbus OH 43221-1573, USA. Please include your e-mail or
your mailing address if you have no e-mail.
You can also register pedit at
PalmGear
and
Handango.
If you prefer registering pedit via
PalmGear
by phone or fax, then please use 1-800-741-9070 [phone], 1-817-640-6558
[phone], or 1-817-640-6614 [fax], respectively.
If you prefer registering pedit via
Handango
by phone or fax, then please use 1-877-469-7256 [phone], 1-817-280-0129
[phone], or 1-817-280-9262 [fax], respectively.
Please add
QUESTION.
I am a Palm-procrastinator, and I allowed my unregistered pedit to
expire. Now I realize that I can't live without pedit, and I quickly
registered it. However, I am unable to start up pedit since it refuses
to run. What can I do? Am I doomed for good?
ANSWER.
Do not panic! You did the right thing when you registered pedit. Now
wait for your password to arrive. Once you have the password,
download
the latest release of pedit and then go ahead and run it on your Palm.
It will allow you to register it even if your trial time has run out.
First, please read the section about
troubleshooting.
Second, if the advice given in the section on
troubleshooting
did not solve your problem, then please contact
me.
Please state clearly the name of your pedit, the version number of your
pedit, the exact name of your Palm hardware, the version number of you
Palm operating system, and please describe the problem you have
experienced.
If you live in North America, please provide your phone number, your time
zone, and the times which are convenient for you.
Please note that you can also obtain help by contacting the
peditors Forum.
In fact, as it turns out, the collective mind of all peditors works
better than mine alone. Therefore, in most if not all cases,
it makes sense to write to the
peditors Forum
prior to contacting
me.
First, please read the section about
compatibility issues.
Second, turn off all your hacks and see if the problem goes away. If it
did, then turn on your hacks one by one and isolate the problem. Once
you identified the guilty party, please contact their technical support
and explain the problem. I know from personal experience that most Palm
developers provide superior support.
However, there are some exceptions. If you happen to experience the
latter, then please be persistent. It may help your case if you send a
copy of your correspondence to the
peditors Forum
and to some of the Palm related newsgroups such as
comp.sys.palmtops.pilot and alt.comp.sys.palmtops.pilot.
You may also try Calvin's
PGHQ FAQ.
Much of my Palm knowledge comes from studying this
FAQ database.
Third, use the
Clear History...
and
Clear Preferences...
commands in
ListView's
Options
menu.
Fourth, run
peditFixer
and try to delete some or all pedit components. Then reinstall
your particular version of pedit and reenter your
password.
It is always safe to delete all pedit components except MemoDB and
Memo32DB which contain your pedit04 and pedit32 memos, respectively.
Delete the latter only if you did a HotSync job prior to running
peditFixer.
WARNING.
Please keep in mind that pedit04 memos and Memo Pad memos are exactly the
same animals.
Next, check out the
peditors Forum
or write to
peditors Forum
since, as I mentioned it already, the collective mind of all peditors
works better than mine alone.
If the problem still persists then contact pedit's
Technical Support.
QUESTION.
My pedit refuses to start up. When I tap on the icon, the screen looks
for pedit but then returns to the launcher program I am running on my
Palm. What is going on?
ANSWER.
I don't have the faintest idea what is going on. This happened to three
peditors only out of thousands. One of them disappeared from the pedit
the scene before I could investigate it, whereas the second one, Elwood
Matthews, solved the problem by deleting
magiPad
with
peditFixer
so that I never had a chance to be able to find out the reasons. I
suspect that you may have a corrupted
magiPad
but I can't be sure until I am able to complete a case study. I told the
third person what Elwood did, and I also told him to delete all the
pedit preferences with
peditFixer
as well. It worked and I was again robbed the opportunity to investigate it.
Please check out
Paolo Amoroso's
peditors Forum
for details
[
subscribe].
You can post messages to the peditors Forum
here.
The pedit Sofware Developer Kit [SDK] is available
here.
In addition, all legitimate Palm software develpers can count on my
absolute and enthusiastic cooperation in providing mutual support for
each others' software.
As I already mentioned it, the word pedit is used as a
generic term for any member of the pedit family.
When pedit refers to the actual pedit application, then we will use the
term pedit04.
In what follows, Palm refers to any Palm
computing device or any clones thereof.
DeskTop refers to your computer which is used when you
HotSync files. It is irrelevant whether it is a Macintosh or a PC or a
Unix/Linux box. The only thing what matters is that it holds your backed
up files after a HotSync operation.
When we refer to a keyboard, we mean an actual
piece of hardware, and not Palm's built-in virtual keyboard.
A DOC file has nothing to do with dot.doc files which
are used in the DeskTop universe in conjunction with some word
processors. In the Palm universe, a DOC is a special
file [or a file structure] which allows to install and view [large] text
files on your Palm.
Quoting from
Ron Tillotson:
The Doc format is the de facto standard for large text documents on the
Palm Computing Platform. It enjoys wide support in both software and
content, but documentation is sparse.
I suggest that you read Ron Tillotson's
The Doc Format
[see also
here]
as an introduction.
A pedit04 memo refers to a memo created by pedit04 or peditLight
as opposed to a pedit32 memo which is created by pedit32.
Of course, peditPro can create either of these.
WARNING.
Please keep in mind that pedit04 memos and Memo Pad memos are exactly the
same animals.
When we refer to a memo created by any of the pedits and in the given context
it is irrelevant which pedit was the particular pedit which created it, then
we use the expression pedit memo as a generic term.
When I say sister pedit, then I am referring to the
other pedit. In other words, if you are running pedit
or peditLight then pedit32 is the sister pedit, whereas
if you run pedit32 then pedit is the sister pedit.
If you are running peditPro then the sister pedit depends
on the current mode you are in.
Also, in what follows, using the original Palm terminology, we call
ListView the window with title p04Memos...,
and we call EditView
the other one with title p04 #xxx of yyy
[more or less].
If your run pedit32 then instead of p04Memos... you will see
p32Memos... and so forth.
You can think of ListView as the table of contents,
and of EditView where the actual editing takes place.
For our understanding of what a memo title is, please
look
here.
pedit absolutely loves all external keyboards, including the Palm
Portable Keyboard [aka PPK or Stowaway Keyboard] and GoType!, and
greatly enhances their ability to enter text.
In response to many peditorial inquiries, I want to state it clear and
loud that I think both GoType! and PPK are absolutely first rate, and I
consider each an engineering marvel. I endorse both of them when used
with pedit. However, please keep reading...
Even though the software drivers of some of the keyboards are less than
prefect and more than buggy, it is totally irrelevant as far as pedit
goes, since pedit uses its own internal mechanism to utilize the
keyboards. As long as the driver of your keyboard is able to recognize
the letters you type on the keyboard, you are set for good. If I may
suggest so, please do write to the manufacturer of your external
keyboard whenever you discover a bug. Otherwise, you may never see a bug
fix.
In what follows, when we refer to a keyboard, we mean an actual piece of
hardware, and not Palm's built-in virtual keyboard. So please do not try
to use any of our tricks on the latter.
As it turns out. even some of the third party software implemented
virtual keyboards behave as if they were a piece of hardware. This is
good news for pedit users although there will be no performance benefits
since every function can also be accessed via menus and/or tapping at
the right time in the right place.
In almost all dialogs, unless there is a text field accepting alphabetical
input, all buttons and check boxes can be activated by entering the
lower cased version of the first
letter of their label. This is the reason for ".Cancel" and why some labels
are misspelled intentionally such as "K" standing for capitalization and
"Qopy" for "Copy". When there is no text field, many times even
the upper cased version of that letter works.
If there is a bold framed button in a dialog, then it can be activated
by your keyboard's RETURN key or by the equivalent
/ graffiti character [stroke from NE to SW] or by
"ESC RETURN".
If there is a multi-line text field in the dialog such as the one
activated by the
"F"
button then "RETURN" is no longer available for this purpose, and use
"ESC RETURN"
only. The explanation of the
ESC
key mechanism is an important basic concept so that please do not skip
it. This default button concept is well familiar to all
Macintosh and Windows users.
pedit has full GoType! keyboard support as well. If the installed keyboard
driver version is at least 1.5, then all buttons can be activated by
depressing the first letter of the button label while simultaneously
depressing the "Command" and "Alt" keys on the GoType! keyboard.
There is is similar approach if you use the Palm Portable Keyboard, although,
as of July 8, 2000, the current software driver for PPK is not yet able
to recognize all buttons on the screen.
Therefore, we find
the ESC key approach preferable to trying to use the
particular keyboard's built-in functions.
If in a dialog all the text fields are numeric only, then entering
either a space or a tab character rotates the focus between the fields.
In addition, if underlined letters are visible, then entering on eof
them makes the cursor jump to the corresponding field.
If in a dialog there is more than one text field, then entering either
"ESC space"
or
"ESC tab"
rotates the focus between the fields.
The user defined escape character ESC [the default
value is the backquote character "`"] allows the
peditor to activate almost any button and check box from external
keyboards and/or via graffiti input.
It is very important to understand that in pedit's terminology
ESC is NOT a hard key on your
keyboard such as one labelled with Ctrl, or
Alt, or Cmd or whatever, but it is an
ordinary key playing the role of ESC . By default we call
the backquote key "`" the ESC key
although you can change it in the
Preferences...
dialog in
EditView's
Options
menu to any other key.
The way it works is as follows. First you hit ESC and
then the required letter. Do it consecutively and not
simultaneously. Of course, this is a very familiar concept to
emacs, vi, and joe users, and to others as well.
EXAMPLE.
"ESC ." activate the ".Cancel" button.
EXAMPLE.
"ESC h" = "ESC H" = "ESC ?" = "ESC i" = "ESC I" invokes
HELP in most dialog even if there is no
HELP button present on the current screen.
Did you notice that there is a visual confirmation when you use
ESC to activate a button? Isn't that cool?
To use ESC itself as a regular character in the text,
just enter ESC twice as in "``".
You can determine if a menu command has an ESC key equivalent
by examining the command in the dropped down menu. All the equivalent
ESC keys are listed next to the command.
On GoType! and on almost every other standard keyboard,
"`" is an ideal choice for ESC. On the
Palm Portable Keyboard, I recommend using "1" or
TAB for ESC, although, I must admit
that neither are perfect choices from the ergonomic point of view.
In addition to
both
ListView
and
EditView
share the following ESC commands.
"ESC =" = drop menu
"ESC C" = menu command
"ESC F" = SilkScreen FIND
"ESC L" = BackLight
It is crucially important to understand clearly and fully that pedit
works with the built-in Memo Pad memo database which is called
MemoDB with creator ID 'memo', and, therefore, pedit is
100% compatible with everything imaginable which uses Memo Pad.
On the other hand, pedit32 uses its own memo database which is called
Memo32DB with creator ID 'pn32', and, therefore,
pedit32 is almost 100% incompatible with everything imaginable which
uses Memo Pad.
One important consideration is that pedit32 loses some of its snappiness when
editing files whose size approaches 32K.
By the way, Palm's built-in SilkScreen FIND button works perfectly with
both pedit and pedit32, and so does
Florent Pillet's
FindHack.
Further good news is that, if you choose to install both, then pedit and
pedit32 can simultaneously co-exist on your Palm. They share the same
magiPad database called peditDB, but otherwise they
have their own creator IDs, preferences, and so forth. So go ahead and
install both pedit and pedit32.
However, if I were you, I would rather have peditPro on my Palm than
pedit and pedit32, since the former saves approximately 200K is RAM real
estate.
Additional good news is that, after you did a HotSync job, if you wish,
you can open up your huge pedit32 memos residing in Memo32DB on your
DeskTop computing device with any competent text editor such as emacs,
vi, joe, BBEdit, and so forth. I leave the rest to your imagination and
creativity.
Of course, you should follow this advice only if you are the kind of
person who does not follow any advice anyway. On the other hand, if you
want to access your pedit32 memos in a professional and elegant manner
then please keep reading.
QUESTION.
How can I move a large text file from my DeskTop computer into pedit or pedit32?
ANSWER.
Convert your text file to
DOC
format using one of the many widely available utilities [see, for instance,
MakeDoc
at Aportis,
PalmGear
or
Handango].
Then HotSync it to your Palm. Then import it to pedit or pedit32 using
the
Import Doc File...
command in
ListView's
Record
menu.
QUESTION.
How can I move a memo [and its
sister segments]
from my beloved pedit or pedit32 to my DeskTop computer?
ANSWER.
Open up your memo [or one of its
sister segments]
using the
Export Memo
command in
EditView's
Record
menu. Then export it to a
DOC
file. After your next HotSync operation,
you will find your memo [as a
DOC
file] in the backup directory on your DeskTop computer. Now use your
DOC
converter to turn it into a humanly readable text file.
Note.
You may want to check peditDesk, a DOS utility by Jerry
Skelley for extracting pedit32 memos from the Memo32DB.pdb database,
which is available at the
Files
section of the
peditors Forum.
Note.
EXpedit is a similar Windows utility by Casper
Lassenius which is currently [as of November 3, 2000] under closed
testing. A public Beta version will be available soon. In the meantime,
you may peek at a screen shot at the
Links
section of the
peditors Forum.
Once EXpedit becomes available, you will find
it at the
Files
section of the
peditors Forum.
So far, I have received no reports whatsoever of any problems with pedit32 which
were not present in pedit [with the exception of some performance degradation
with large memos]. In fact, the great news is that, at least in principle,
pedit and pedit32 should share the same bugs, no more and no less.
But, as we all know, even if theory and practice are the same in theory,
they are definitely different in practice. [I thank the author of pedit
for allowing me to include this deep thought, and Daniel D. for taking
time to polish it].
Note.
Of course, pedit is 100% bug-free. It just may have some unexpected,
undocumented, and perhaps inexplicable features. [smiley]
Since there are several pedits, it is not at all simple to keep track
of them. If you want to figure out which pedit is the pedit which you are running at the moment,
please examine the title bar.
If the title starts with the letter p, then your are in
pedit04.
If the title starts with the letters .p, then your are
in pedit32.
If the title starts with the letters !p then you are in
peditPro.
If the title starts with the letters :p then you are in
peditLight.
In addition, you can also find out if your current memo in
EditView
is a 4K or 32K memo. Just look at title bar. If the title has
p04 in it then your memo is a pedit04 memo. If the
title has p32 in it then your memo is a pedit32 memo.
If you are in
EditView
and if you are running stats in the title bar, then look carefully
at the upper right area of your Palm's screen just below the title bar.
If you see a small black square [2*2 pixels], then you have a pedit32
memo. Otherwise, it's a pedit04 memo.
Similarly, if you are in
ListView,
look for p04 or p32 in the tiltlebar,
and you will know which mode you are in.
These considerations are especially relevant if you are running peditPro
where you can switch between pedit04 and pedit32 memos.
The peditPro package includes two tiny applications called pedit! [aka
peditLauncher] and pedit32! [aka pedit32Launcher]. In order to
differentiate between them and the pedit/pedit32 package, they both have
an exclamation mark "!" at the end of their titles.
Think of them as "aliases" for peditPro. You can use them to start up
peditPro in either pedit or pedit32 mode. You can assign them to hard
buttons, and to GoType! and PPK function keys as well.
I use the word alias with quotation marks since the concept of aliases
is unknown in the Palm universe, at least as of July 18, 2000. It is a
shame since aliases work perfectly in the Macintosh and PC environments.
In unix, the concept of soft and hard links goes way beyond the concept
of Mac and PC aliases.
For the technically oriented, pedit! and pedit32! fakes soft link
to peditPro, and peditPro behaves like, for instance,
vi in unix. Here is a part of our /bin directory which shows
the edit, ex, vedit, vi, and view are, in fact, the same application.
Of course, here we have hard links, but they are functionally equivalent
to soft links as in our /opt/local/bin
I hope that Palm will seriously consider the implementation
of aliases and/or links in its upcoming OSs.
The installation of pedit! and pedit32! is optional.
Start out with our About pedit... dialog which can be
accessed from the
Options
menus in both
ListView
and
EditView.
Among others, you will see the expiration date of your particular copy
of pedit. Of course, if your pedit has already expired, then a clever
dialog will inform you of your next moves prior to having a chance to
see the About pedit... box. Please explore the Credits,
Abstract, and Register buttons, and
please tap i in the upper right corner.
If you have a keyboard, then you can use the first letters of the buttons.
Please use this occasion to enter your pedit password via the
Register button.
Once you invoke Register, just type your password as it
was given to you. Make sure that you enter the right lower/upper case
letters, and that you do not add additional space or tab characters.
Before you contact me that the password did not register, please make
100% sure that you are entering the password of your particular pedit
into the correct pedit, and not into another pedit.
It may sound incredible, but about 5% of the registered peditors
try to enter their password into the wrong pedit.
As a registered user, you will get periodic [but not at all obnoxious]
friendly reminders of the expiration date but panic no more since you
will have the option of continuing using your copy of pedit even if it
expired, and even if it became 100% obsolete, and even if it is full of
bugs. Of course, if you were smart enough to register, then you are also
smart enough to make sure that you always download the freshest and
practically bug free version of
pedit.
Upon entering
ListView
or
EditView
you will see a row of buttons on the bottom of the screen.
They constitute the
ListView
and
EditView
buttonPanels
[© copyright Paul Nevai 1999-2000 & all rights reserved].
Think of them as the instrument panel in your Palm's cockpit and that
you are the pilot of your Palm.
If your operating system is below 3.5, then the buttons are always
displayed in black. If you are one of those very few individuals who are
not struck by the beauty of the view, then please use the
Preferences...
command in
ListView's
Options
menu, and please check the white buttons... box.
All buttons in the buttonPanels are tied to an
ESC
key to facilitate activation via
keyboards.
I hope the buttonPanel concept will become
standard in all Palm applications. Any interested party should contact
me
regarding licensing questions and the buttonPanel SDK.
The editPanel
[© copyright Paul Nevai 1999-2000 & all rights reserved]
is a cluster of several buttons which allows access to the basic editing
operations both by tapping the buttons on the screen or by using
ESC keys.
For instance,
"ESC c"
copies the selected text, and
"ESC g"
brings up Graffiti Help.
Isn't it cool? I hope the editPanel will become
standard in all Palm applications. Any interested party should contact
me
regarding licensing questions and the editPanel SDK.
Now let's talk for a little while about Palm's built-in
FIND SilkScreen button and its interaction with pedit.
As you will see soon, I put a twist on the search process via Palm's
built-in FIND SilkScreen button.
First, FIND can be invoked by typing
"ESC F"
[capitalized "F"] in both
ListView
and
EditView.
Second, FIND can find any string in your memos via
pedit unlike via the built-in Memo Pad where it finds the beginnings of
words only.
Note.
peditLight does not allow FIND to search its memos.
Third, whether you initiate the FIND process inside or
outside pedit, you can add modifiers [options] to your search string to
change the behavior of the search process of pedit memos.
These modifiers work whether or not you have
Florent Pillet's
highly recommended
FindHack
installed in your Palm.
Note.
These modifiers will have no effect on your search of databases
created by applications other than pedit. Simply put, they will not
recognize these modifiers.
Here is how it works. You can add one or more of the modifiers
'.' [period]
'^' [caret]
'+' [plus sign]
':' [colon]
to the beginning of the search string [in an arbitrary order].
The exclamation mark '!' means that your string will
not be processed [successfully] by Memo Pad or any
other application except for pedit so that you get no duplicate matches
by both pedit and Memo Pad. By the way, there are some exceptions to
this rule, so that if you find one, please smile and do not demand your
money back. We, mathematicians, like to use '!' to indicate that some
object is unique. This option is not likely to influence the
speed of your search.
The period '.' means that the search in pedit is performed only in your current
category. I borrowed '.' from unix where it refers to the current directory
[unlike in pattern matching where '.' means exactly one character which is
not a line terminator]. This option is likely to speed up your search.
The caret '^' means that the search in pedit is restricted to the first
line of the memos. I borrowed '^' from pattern matching where it refers
to the beginning [well, it's the beginning of a line and not that of a
file, but it is still a good way to remember it]. This option is
likely to speed up your search significantly.
By the way, many peditors like to refer to the first line of a memo as
its
title,
so that you could say that '^' searches the table of contents.
The plus sign '+' means that the search in pedit is not
case-blind, unlike the search in Memo Pad which always ignores
cases. This option is likely to slow down your search
significantly.
The colon ':' means that the search in pedit is no longer restricted to
the beginnings of words as in Memo Pad, and partial words can be found
as well. This option is likely to slow down your search
significantly.
I want to emphasize that if you use either of the options '+' or ':', be
prepared to be patient if you have many large memos.
Having pointed out the superiority of our implementation of "FIND" as
opposed to Memo Pad, here are some examples:
"!^.pedit" finds in pedit but not in Memo Pad all memos in the current
category which contain in their first line [the title] one of the words "pedit", "Pedit", "pEDit",
and so forth.
On the other hand, "!+^.pediT" does the same for the word "pediT" but
not for "pedit", "Pedit", and so forth.
".^" gives you the
titles
of all your memos in the current category. Try it in
ListView.
What a cool navigational tool!
If you don't care for these fancy FIND features, and
you wish you could turn them off so that the FIND
button would regain its pre-pedit [lack of] functionality, worry no
more! In fact, for the fancy mode to be active you need to turn it on
by opening up the
Preferences...
command in
ListView's
Options
menu, and by checking the SilkScreen "FIND" is fancy box.
2) Select a small amount of text.
3) Press the "X"
button in
EditView's
buttonPanel.
to cut the selected text.
4) Press the silk-screened menu button.
78088 -r-xr-xr-x 5 root 206948 Jan 5 2000 edit
78088 -r-xr-xr-x 5 root 206948 Jan 5 2000 ex
78088 -r-xr-xr-x 5 root 206948 Jan 5 2000 vedit
78088 -r-xr-xr-x 5 root 206948 Jan 5 2000 vi
78088 -r-xr-xr-x 5 root 206948 Jan 5 2000 view
150230 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root 5 May 19 12:37 ftp -> ncftp
150224 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root 213588 May 31 07:55 ncftp
If you are in EditView, then you can enter ListView by pressing the "OK" button, or by using the "OK" & ".C" buttons" command in the Record menu.
What you see is your pedit's table of contents. Many peditors will refer
to what you see as the titles of your memos.
I beg to differ. What you see is [a perhaps abbreviated version of] the
first line of your memo. As a matter of fact, there is no such concept as
the title of a memo in the Palm universe. Although some
memo editors do create titles, these title are stored separately from
the memo database, and, therefore, extra bookkeeping is required which
can slow down ListView's startup significantly.
Nevertheless, for the lack of better terminology, we will
refer to what you see as the title of your memo.
Once you graduate to
segmented
memos, you will realize that
ListView
makes a smart decision when displaying titles of such memos. I have no
doubts that you will appreciate pedit's native intelligence.
In addition to
ListView's
Navigate Menu,
we have a number of other ways of exploring it.
As expected, the PageUp and PageDown
buttons help you to navigate in
ListView.
In addition, please memorize this table and you will no longer have
any problems in finding the memo you are looking for.
left-arrow = one line up
PageDown = down-arrow = space character = page down
right-arrow = one line down
Please look up in your graffiti reference how to enter the left-arrow and
right-arrow characters. Basically, they consist of a left-right or a
right-left job.
For additional tricks, please see the information about the
SilkScreen
FIND
button.
Let us discuss the menus in
ListView
now.
This command creates a new memo.
This command is just a way to get out of the
batcher
modes which are defined
as the
Preview Memo,
Delete Memo,
Categorize Memo,
Privatize Memo,
Beam Memo,
and
Print Memo
commands.
This brings up a small dialog where you can enter the index of a memo you want to open.
Preview Memo,
Delete Memo,
Categorize Memo,
Privatize Memo,
Beam Memo,
and
Print Memo
commands share the same underlying interface.
Namely, they all look like the regular
ListView
on the surface, but when you are in one of the batcher
modes and if you hit the title of the memo then you are placed into a
special dialog where on one hand you can preview the current memo and
perform certain operations, and on the other hand, you can navigate
between memos via the arrows and/or the page up|down key and/or via
keyboard action.
Please look at the tips in the dialogs which can be invoked via the "i"
button in the upper right corner of the screen or by entering one of the
letters 'h', 'H', '?', 'i', and 'I'.
For your convenience, the title of the batcher dialogs shows the size of
the current memo.
Navigation in the Batchers
Button "<=" = 'p' or 'P' or space characters =
left or up arrow keys on keyboard = scroll up hard key =
preview previous memo in current category
Button "=>" = 'n' or 'N' or backspace characters =
right or down arrow keys on keyboard = scroll down hard key =
preview next memo in current category
Note.
When privatizing or printing then 'p' and 'P' are used for
[de]privatizing or printing so that use 'b' and 'B' instead for
switching to the previous memo.
In this mode tapping on the title of the memo brings up the memo previewer
dialog from which you can easily decide which memo to open up.
In this mode tapping on the title of the memo brings up the memo deleter
dialog where you can decide whether or not to delete the selected memo
and its
sister segments
as well.
When deleting memos, the save archive copy on PC option
will store deleted memos in an archive file on your DeskTop at the next
HotSync operation.
Note.
In pedit32 archiving of records is not implemented and it is not
necessary since there is no DeskTop conduit associated with it.
Strictly speaking, this is not a
batcher
operation since there is no
batcher
dialog associated with it. Nevertheless, it also allows a batch job on
changing the categories of your memos. When in this mode, then tapping
on the title of the memo makes the category list drop down, and thereby
you can do quick change of category without the need of opening up the
memo whose category is being changed.
In this mode tapping on the title of the memo brings up the memo
privatizer dialog where one can decide whether or not to change the
private property of the selected memo and its
sister segments
as well.
Note.
A private memo can be seen and edited only when
your Palm is set to show private records. The latter can be set from the
Security...
item in
ListView's
Options
menu, or via Palm's built-in Security application.
Note.
If your Palm's OS is at least 3.5, then you have a third option. Namely,
in addition to hiding and showing private records, you can also
mask them so that they will show up in
ListView
but you will not be able to peek at them. Just between us, in my humblest
opinion, this third option does not seem to be too useful.
Note.
The concept of private records is useful only if your Palm's password
has been assigned. The latter can be set from the
Password... item in
ListView's
Options menu,
or via Palm's built-in "Security" application.
Note.
I should point it out to you that Palm's security is not something I
would count on. I will probably not break news if I tell you that any
hacker worth her salt would find any of your hidden records in a jiffy
as long as your Palm is turned on and is unlocked. Depending on the
circumstances, you can think of this as good news since forgetting your
password is no big deal as long as you do not lock your Palm when you
turn it off.
In this mode tapping on the title of the memo brings up the memo beamer
dialog where one can decide whether or not to beam the selected memo and
its
sister segments
as well.
Note.
All beaming operations require that both the beaming and the beamee
Palm have the same type of pedit installed.
Of course, if you want to beam a 4k memo, you can always use
Palm's built-in Memo Pad.
If you have
Stevens Creek Software's
PalmPrint,
or
TealPoint's
TealPrint
installed in your Palm, then pedit provides a number of customizable
ways of printing your memos and/or parts of it to any device which is
supported by your print software.
In the Print Memo mode tapping on the title of the memo
brings up the memo print dialog where one can decide whether or not to
print the selected memo and its
sister segments
as well.
You can also decide whether the headers of
segmented
memos should be printed.
In addition, the number of copies to be printed can be determined by
entering any number between 1 and 9. You can enter the number either
via Graffiti or an external keyboard, but not by using the built-in
virtual keyboard.
As opposed to
Beam Memo,
this command allows you to beam an entire category of memos to
another Palm in one fell swoop. When selected then all memos in
ListView's
currently visible category get beamed. If
ListView
shows all categories, then all memos get beamed.
Note.
All beaming operations require that both the beamer and the beamee
Palm have the same type of pedit installed.
Exporting provides a means to communicate between your pedit and its
sister pedit. You can move memos back and forth with minimal effort.
The analogous
Export Memo...
command in
EditView's
Record
menu also allows to export your memos to
DOC
files.
Although the Export Category command is pretty much
self explanatory, it is worthwhile to summarize it.
First, this command allows exporting either all memos which are in
ListView's
currently displayed category or all your memos in one fell swoop from
one pedit to its sister pedit.
There are only two exceptions to this rule.
Well, there are two more exceptions. Namely, the sister pedit's memo
database must be installed, and sufficient free RAM real estate must be
available for performing the export operation.
Note.
If a pedit32 memo is
segmented
but it consists of one single
segment
only, then you can delete its
segment header
so that it would become exportable from pedit32 to pedit.
However, you will loose the information which was kept in the
segment header.
In order to be able to manage both pedit and pedit32 simultaneously, and
in order to keep pedit32 memos apart from pedit04 memos, please keep the
export segmented memos only box checked all the time
when exporting from pedit to pedit32. This way your regular pedit04 memos
will never end up in pedit32.
If you choose to delete exported memos and if you are in pedit04, then the
$ave archive copy on your PC option will store deleted
memos in an archive file on your DeskTop at the next HotSync
operation.
Exporting is as smart as it [or, should I say, yours truly] could be. In
particular, it will place the exported memo in the same category where
it resided originally. If that category name does not yet exists in the
sister pedit and if the will clone category names too
box is checked, then it will create one. If the sister pedit has no
vacancies for new category names, then the exported memo will go into
the Unfiled category.
If a memo is
segmented,
then exporting it from pedit to pedit32 will assemble your memo and its
sister segments into one pedit32 memo.
A pedit32 memo will turn into a
segmented
memo in pedit04 after an export operation unless your memo is less than 4K
and you check the no segmenting if less than 4K box.
Each segment will fill up only 75% of pedit's 4K capacity so that you will
have plenty of capacity avaliable for changes and further additions.
Note.
I should point out that the exported memos get deleted from pedit only
after the export operation went flawlessly so that your precious data
are as safe as possible.
Here is a neat hint for you. If you want that all of your memos show up
in your DeskTop Palm application, then do an export job of all of your
pedit32 memos, then HotSync, then work on your memos on your DeskTop,
then HotSync again, then export all your
segmented
memos from pedit04 back to pedit32. Just
make sure that you always choose to delete your exported memos.
Otherwise, you may end up with multiple copies.
Importing
DOC
files provides a means to move your pedit memos from the DeskTop to
pedit with minimal effort. Using
DOC
files is especially recommended if your pedit memo, together with its
sister segments,
is longer than 4K so that using the standard route via your DeskTop
Palm application becomes cumbersome since it was not designed
the handle large memos.
The commmand
Export Memo...
in
EditView's
Record
menu allows you to export your memos to
DOC
files.
Although the Import Doc File command is pretty much
self explanatory, it is worthwhile to summarize it.
Invoking Import Doc File takes you to
magiPad
where all your installed
DOC
[including TealDoc] files are listed.
Once you familiarize yourself with
EditView,
you will be able to navigate here using all the powerful tools in it.
In order to speed up the operation, the list is not alphabetic. It
tells you the title of your
DOC
files [with the card number and the
uncompressed size listed as well].
You can think of a card as a hard drive. We can all
foresee the near future when we will have dozens of cards sitting in our
Palm computing devices providing zillions of bytes of available memory.
Although no two different Palm files sitting on the same card can have
the same name, files on different cards do not need to have uniquely
defined names. Therefore, it is essential to know which card is the host
of your file to be able to identify it uniquely.
It is interesting to note that many Palm aplications ignore this fact
and, unlike pedit, they are hardcoded to use card #0 no matter what.
As of July 11, 2000, all Palms have one built-in card only.
If you see an exclamation mark ! before the title of a
DOC
file, it means that the file is read-only and it cannot be deleted after
you complete the import operation.
Tapping on the title of a
DOC
file brings up a dialog which is also self-explanatory except for the
no segmenting if fits one memo check box.
If you choose the no segmenting if fits one memo option
then your pedit will try to place the
DOC
file into one memo. Otherwise, it will break the file up into segments
where each segment will occupy roughly speaking 75% of the maximum
available memo size. This way you will have plenty of real estate left
for editing your memos.
After you initiate the import operation you can sit back and relax. Depending
on the size of your
DOC
file, the operation may take longer than you wish it did. For instance, a 1Mb
DOC
file import job on my Palm Vx takes about 60 secs.
Depending on your
DOC
file, you may end up being confronted by another
dialog starting with "Hmm...". If you ever see it, I have no doubts that
you will know what to do.
In case you end up never seeing this dialog, here is what it says:
I believe that this file uses a unix [DOS] style end-of-line notation.
Would you like me to convert it to the one used by the Palm OS?
This command allows you to change the display font in ListView.
This command allows you to Show and
Hide your private memos on the fly. If
you use OS 3.5 then you will also have yet another option which allows
you to mask off your private records without removing
them from ListView.
Palm's built-in Security application can also
accomplich the same task.
Use the editPanel while entering your Palm
password.
This command allows you to change and/or delete your
Palm password on the fly provided that you are a
registered user of pedit and you know your pedit password.
Use the editPanel while entering your
passwords.
If you edited any of your memos with a program other than this
particular pedit, whether on the Palm or on the DeskTop, it may be a
good idea to clear the history of recently visited memos since pedit
keeps track of information which may have been altered by the other
programs such as cursor position and so forth. If you fail to clear your
pedit's history, you may face unpredictable consequences such as
incorrectly selected text or even a crash now and then.
If you experience a crash which you think may be related to your pedit's
history file, and if you are unable to start up pedit after the crash
then use
peditFixer
which can do the same Clear History job and more...
For the technically inclined, the history of pedit04 and pedit32 memos
is kept in the Palm database called MemoHIST and
Memo32HIST, respectively.
If you edited any of your memos with a program other than this
particular pedit, whether on the Palm or on the desktop, it may be a
good idea to clear pedit's preferences since they keep track of
information which may have been altered by the other programs such as
cursor position and so forth. If you fail clear your pedit's
preferences, you may face unpredictable consequences such as incorrectly
selected text or even a crash now and then.
If you experience a crash which you think may be related to your pedit's
preferences, and if you are unable to start up pedit after the crash
then use
peditFixer
which can do the same Clear Preferences job and more...
Regarding this command we note that you want to use it only if
you do not use a DeskTop conduit for your pedit04
memos. If you do then the conduit takes care of removing the footprints
of your deleted pedit04 memos.
Otherwise, these footprints keep accumulating in your database, and it is a
good spring house-cleaning practice to remove them periodically.
Please note that Clear Deleted Records... has no effect
on pedit32 memos since there is no DeskTop conduit associated with them,
and, therefore, whenever you delete a pedit32 memo, it's gone for good.
This command operates on peditPro only it performs duties similar to
peditFixer
[see
troubleshooting].
This command does precisely what it promises. Among others, it gives the exact
time and yields quintessential information about the battery status.
The battery info may be refreshed by entering the letter "r". With
enough patience, one can watch the voltage tank go from full to empty.
With a rechargeable Palm device, one can also play with the cradle and
refreshing the display after each movement.
I will spare the reader from the details of the game.
This is
ListView's
Preferences... dialog.
Sort by Manual [order] allows manual sorting of memos
by dragging them up and down the list. To drag, first pen down on a
memo, then drag it to the desired order, and, finally, lift up the pen.
Sort by Alphabetic [order] sorts all the memos
alphabetically. This sort order will overwrite the current sort order.
If the category of myNotes is fixed box is
unchecked, then 000.myNotes
inherits the current category in
ListView
every time it is invoked via the
myNotes
button. Otherwise, the category 000.myNotes remains fixed.
If the date stamped myNotes box is checked, then
000.myNotes gets a new date'n'time stamp every time it
is invoked via the
myNotes
button.
If the top starting myNotes box is checked, then every new
entry in 000.myNotes is placed in the beginning of the
file if it is invoked via the
myNotes
button.
If the SilkScreen "FIND" is fancy box is checked, then
the search routine via the SilkScreen
FIND
button allows to use certain options as described
here.
If your Palm's OS is below 3.5, and if the white buttons under
memos box is checked, then the
buttonPanels
are displayed in white. Otherwise, they are black.
As of OS 3.5, the
buttonPanels
are always displayed in the default color.
Note.
There is another
Preferences...
dialog which is located in
EditView's
Options
menu.
This command is explained
here.
This is self-explanatory, isn't it?
It takes you to the top of
ListView.
This command allows you to jump to memos very quckly in
ListView.
You enter a number between 0 and 99, and upon activating the OK
button, you will be taken to that area of ListView which
corresponds the the entered number interpreted as a percantage of the
total number of currently displayed memos.
This is self-explanatory, isn't it?
It takes you to the bottom of
ListView.
This command brings up Palm's built-in silkscreen "FIND" dialog.
I provided this command for
keyboard
users.
This command takes you to
magiPad
where all your recently visted files are listed in reverse chronological
order.
Once you familiarize yourself with
EditView,
you will be able to navigate here using all the powerful tools in it.
This command is the same as the
Switcher
[">"] button in
EditView's
buttonPanel.
pedit keeps track of the last 25 memos you have visited since you last
cleared
pedit's history.
Tapping on any of the memo titles, pedit transfers you to the selected
memo instantaneously.
Please see the
Switcher
for more details.
As a related and very convenient shortcut, if you enter
"ESC }"
in
ListView
then you are immediately taken to the memo which you visited most
recently.
This command is functional on peditPro only. It switches between pedit04
memos and pedit32 memos.
Please note that there is an even easier way to invoke Switch.
Namely, tap in the left 1/8th of
ListView's
title bar, to the left from the small pixel visible just under the title bar.
You start a new memo by tapping on the New button.
This command is the same as the
New Memo
command in
ListView's
Record
menu.
You can also start a new memo by simply entering any printable letter
which becomes the first letter of your new memo.
In addition,
ListView
displays the myNotes button which takes you immediately
to a memo called 000.myNotes. If such a memo doesn't
exist yet, then it will be created upon tapping on the
myNotes button. Once inside
000.myNotes", you can add quick notes to it.
Please keep in mind that peditPro has two modes, and the those two modes
operate independently of each other. Therefore, you have two separate
000.myNotes". One in pedit04 mode and one in pedit32
mode.
The variety of uses of myNotes is limited only by the
peditor's imagination. I use it for making quick reminders on how to
improve pedit, for jotting down some really deep thoughts which come to
my mind, and for keeping track of important world events such as how
many Ann Landers messages deal with the quintessential toilet tissue in
or out problem.
A great feature of myNotes is an optional date'n'time
stamp which can be configured through the
Preferences...
command in
ListView's
Options
menu.
You can also decide in the
Preferences...
command in
ListView's
Options
menu whether you want your new entry added to the top or to the bottom
of your 000.myNotes".
If your 000.myNotes gets filled up, simply rename it,
say 001.myNotes, and then the game starts all over
again.
This button is the same as the
Export Category...
command in
ListView's
Record
menu.
Another way of accessing it is via the "ESC e" command.
This button is the same as the
Import Doc File...
command in
ListView's
Record
menu.
Another way of accessing it is via the "ESC i" command.
This button is the same as the
Recent...
command in
ListView's
Navigate
menu.
Another way of accessing it is via the "ESC r" command.
When entering a memo from
ListView,
you will notice that the cursor is located at the beginning of your memo
so that it is visible as opposed to Memo Pad where it is always blinking
at the end, and, therefore, it is invisible much of the time.
I have removed Memo Pad's "feature" that the PageUp and PageDown buttons
move to the previous and the next memo, respectively. I personally found
this "feature" quite annoying but who am I to judge? Wheteher this was
annoying or not, the issue is moot since these buttons have been
assigned new roles which is explained
here and here.
I have also added a useful feature that the characteristics of a
particular memo such as cursor position, text selection, and scrollbar
position are preserved when switching back and forth between pedit and
other applications [why didn't they think of this?].
As soon as you enter
EditView,
please visit the
Preferences...
dialog which is located in the
Options
menu.
Let us discuss a new concept which I named
instantHelp
[© copyright Paul Nevai 1999-2000 & all rights reserved].
Use
EditView's
?
button or
"ESC ?"
to invoke instantHelp.
Once instantHelp
is active,
tap any button for an explanation of its function. Tapping
"ESC ?"
again terminates instantHelp
and you are back to regular
EditView.
Tapping anywhere while an instantHelp message is
diplayed, terminates the message. Therefore, you don't need to wait
until the countdown in the title bar reaches 0.
I hope the concept of instantHelp will become
standard in all Palm applications. Any interested party should contact
me
regarding licensing questions and the instantHelp SDK.
Here is a short summary of the appropriate navigation commands in
EditView
buttonShifted PageUp =
ESC left-arrow =
one line up
PageDown =
ESC down-arrow =
ESC chrSpace =
page down
buttonShifted PageDown =
ESC right-arrow =
one line down
and within your memo use these shortcuts
jump to the end of current word =
"ESC j f w" =
"ESC s w right-arrow" =
"ESC W right-arrow"
jump to the beginning of current sentence =
"ESC j b z" =
"ESC s z left-arrow"
jump to the end of current sentence =
"ESC j f z" =
"ESC s z right-arrow"
jump to the beginning of current
ScreenLine =
"ESC A" =
"ESC j b s"
jump to the end of current
ScreenLine =
"ESC E" =
"ESC j f S"
jump to the beginning of current
line =
"ESC j b l" =
"ESC s l left-arrow"
jump to the end of current
line =
"ESC j f l" =
"ESC s l right-arrow"
jump to the beginning of current
paragraph =
"ESC j b l" =
"ESC s l left-arrow"
jump to the end of current
paragraph =
"ESC j b p" =
"ESC s p right-arrow"
Please look up in your graffiti reference how to enter the left-arrow
and right-arrow characters. Basically, they consist of a left-right or
a right-left job.
Please note that
buttonShifted
PageUp and
buttonShifted
PageDown are sticky, that is, until the next
buttonShift,
they do not change their currently assigned behavior unless you quit
EditView.
Isn't this cool?
For other methods of jumping from one place to another, please see the
Jump to...
command in
EditView's
Options
menu or the
"J"
button in
EditView's
buttonPanel.
In addition, you can find some useful navigational macros
here
too.
Let me speak for a moment of a revolutionary concept which I named
buttonShift
[© copyright Paul Nevai 1999-2000 & all rights reserved].
Using buttonShifts, some of the buttons in the
buttonPanel
can perform double duty roles. The way it works is as follows.
The bottom right corner area of the
EditView
screen, where the graffiti shift indicator resides, just right to the
buttonPanel,
is the sweet spot for initiating a buttonShift.
Once you tap there, a black rectangle shows up for a short period of
time, and then a 2*2 pixel sized tiny black square indicates that
buttonShift is on. You will see that a number of buttons
will get inverted and remain inverted for approximately 2.5 seconds.
Congratulations. You have just performed a buttonShift.
If you don't press a button for which the buttonShift is
functional for 2.5 seconds or you perform an unrelated action, then the
buttonShift gets deactivated until you activate it
again. However, if you do press a buttonShift friendly
button, then, as explained at the appropriate button descriptions,
the action associated with that particular button will correspond to the
shifted state.
Please note that once buttonShifted, the PageUp and
PageDown hard keys are sticky.
I hope the concept of buttonShifts will become
standard in all Palm applications. Any interested party should contact
me
regarding licensing questions and the buttonShift SDK.
The
Preferences...
dialog in
EditView's
Options
menu allows you to activate doubleTaps and to determine
the time period during which the doubleTap indicator
remains activated after the first leg of a doubleTap
[100 ticks are equal to 1 second].
If doubleTaps are allowed, then, after each tap on a
portion of the text, a small indicator shows up right above the
scrollbar, and, while this indicator is active, a second tap activates
the
Select...
comand in
EditView's
Options
menu with the location of the taps properly filled in.
If you have
MagicText
installed in your Palm, then you can avoid undesired tap conflicts by
performing the second tap sufficiently far away from the first one so
that MagicText would not process it, and, therefore, pedit can take care
of the double tap. In the latter case, you should study the ins and outs
of MagicText so that you would know precisely if and when MagicText
hijacks double taps.
The displayable statistics is a summary of the state of your memo's capacity,
the total number of bytes, the current cursor location, the coordinates of
the current selection, if any, and the location of the cursor within the
current line. The stats are displayed in
EditView's
title bar.
Here is an example:
means that 8% of your memo's capacity is filled, there are 346 bytes in
your memo, the text between bytes 104 and 109 is selected, and the cursor
is at position 4 in the current line.
The statistics can be toggled via the
Stats on|off
command in
EditView's
Options
menu, or, even better, by tapping in the left 1/8th of the title bar [to
the left from the small pixel visible just under the title bar].
While in
magiPad,
the statistics are always displayed, and, therefore, the above described
pixel is invisible.
If there are more than 10,000 bytes in your memo [which only happens in
pedit32] then pedit is running out of real estate in the title bar, and,
therefore, the capacity information is omitted.
Maybe I should explain that if there is no current text selection, then
both the beginning and the end of the selection are defined as the
coordinate of the current cursor position.
If the statistics are hidden, then pedit looks like the good old Memo
Pad so that, for instance, the current memo's category can be changed
directly via the category trigger in the title bar [in addition to
EditView's
D
button].
By the way, pedit is 100% MenuHack friendly.
MenuHack users should tap the title area to the right
from the above mentioned pixel. The same goes for the built-in
MenuHack support in OS 3.5 and up.
As an experienced Palm operator, you know that MenuHack
allows you to access the menu bar by tapping on the title of your memo,
don't you?
Whether you use 4K memos or 32K memos, eventually you will find out
that they fall short of your expectations of being able to edit [or write]
"War and Peace" on your Palm.
Unfortunately, as of September 25, 2000, the Palm operating system
allows no larger than 32K text fields, and, to make matters worse,
[a little less than] 64K is the size of the largest record you can create.
In terms of a memo and in terms of a "newbie's" terminology, this means
that the largest memo you could create can have no more than 64K
characters in it, and even if you have such a huge memo, you can only
view it. In order to be able to edit it, your memo must have no more
than 32K characters.
Even if you managed to create a large memo, after a HotSync job, your Palm
DeskTop application would butcher [truncate] the poor soul.
There are several options to circumvent this limitation.
The best and most challenging solution is to write a text editor from scratch
without relying on the Palm OS tool box. This a doable task although most likely
this is not going to happen unless a dedicated professional text processor aficionado
goes into action [she must be much better than I am].
Another solution is to create "virtual" memos. Such memos are, in fact,
a collection of a number of memos which appear to be one from certain,
but not all, points of view. This is the approach taken by all the
DOC
editors. This works but, alas, all the current
DOC
editors are low on both features and speed, and they all fall short of
[my admittedly not low] minimal expectations.
EXAMPLE.
Open up a large
DOC
file with either a
DOC
editor or a
DOC
reader, and try to select the entire text. Did you succeed?
Enter pedit. Just like
DOC
editors, pedit can create "virtual" memos of practically arbitrary size,
but, unlike
DOC
editors, pedit does not completely hide the technical details
of such memos from the user.
I call such "virtual" memos segmented memos,
and I call the memos making up a segmented memo,
its sister segments.
Another way of conceptualizing such "virtual" memos is to think of them
as a book with individual chapters, or sections, or pages.
Even though from the purely technical point of view
segments and chapters of a memo refer
exactly to the very same concept, I will still use both words in
conjunction with segmented memos.
Once you learn pedit's
export/import
[see also here] business, and
you start to examine your segmented memos, you will
realize that the files have been split up without taking into
consideration logical pauses in the text such as
paragraphs,
new lines.
or spaces.
Such operations allow you to move your memos between pedits, and between your Palm
and the DeskTop.
I will refer to such memos as segmented memos.
On the other hand, when you write your great Aborigine novel, and you
decide to start a new section or chapter, then you will use the
New Chapter
command in
EditView's
Edit+
menu. This will place you into a new memo which is a logical continuation
of your previous memo and which will be treated as such by many of pedit's
functions.
When you are sitting on an important presentation, and you are taking
notes with
SkyIsLimit
engaged, then your memos will be split up when you type a space or add a
line.
The resulting segments are more structured. You could say that
you started a new page.
In order to not confuse the situation even further, I will refer to the latter
type of memos as consisting of segments.
Just like chapters in a book have headers, so do segmented
memos.
Some peditors will view this as an annoyance, and some even asked me to
hide such details from the user. Let me explain [some would say
"rationalize"] my approach.
Just like with the entire Palm OS, one of pedit's underlying philosophy
is that speed and efficiency are essential. Very few peditors will read
"War and Peace" patiently while their Palm and pedit are processing
their precious memos.
Therefore, pedit takes the approach that the segment information is kept
with the memo itself in form of a segment header. This allows to
minimize time spent on bookkeeping.
For instance, when starting up pedit, there is practically no time spent
on searching various sister files where bookkeeping information is kept,
and there is no need to update such information.
Note.
There are two exceptions. First, pedit's preferences are loaded every
time pedit is started. Second, pedit keeps track of the last 25 memos
you have visited since you last
cleared
pedit's history [see the
Recent...
command in
ListView's
Navigate
menu].
Of course, if pedit gave up Memo Pad compatibility, then each memo could
easily store extra information hidden from the user right with the memo
itself. However, the rules of the game are set by Memo Pad and new rules
can be defined only in accompanying sister files such as
MemoHIST for pedit and Memo32HIST for
pedit32.
The structure of a segment header is as follows.
Here "123456" are the first 6 letters of your segmented
memo, the four digit non-negative integer "0020" is the segment
index, and "2000/04/08 11:54:42 00DB2152" is the timestamp which shows
the creation date, time, and the unique ID number of the first member of
your segmented memo.
Note.
The segment index must be a four digit non-negative integer. For
instance "0000", "0001", and "1776" are valid, whereas "999" is invalid.
pedit relies on the correctness of the information stored in the segment header.
Therefore, I beg you that under no circumstances change anything in it.
However, if you are a technically oriented peditor, then I tell you that
you could change the title and the category in the header as long as you
don't exceed the length limitations. If you do, then please keep in mind
that in most operations pedit uses the title and category as defined in
the very first segment of a segmented memo.
Note.
As of Palm OS 3.5, Palm file names can have no more than 31 characters,
whereas Palm category names can have no more than 15 characters [plus a
null terminator].
You can also change the first 6 letters ["123456" in the above example]
but if you do then you better change it in all the sister segments to the same.
The following diagram, created by Paolo, is a visual representation of the
structure of a segmented memo.
Tip.
If you have a segmented memo and you want to
disassociate one or more of its sister segments from the memo, just
change the header a little bit. For instance, you could change
"00DB2152" to "tmp 00DB2152" in the above
example.
Tip.
If you have a segmented memo and you want to re-segment
it [in order to even out the segment sizes], the easiest way to do it
via
exporting
it and its sister segments to a
DOC
file, and then
re-importing
it.
Tip.
If you want to combine several of your pedit04 memos into one pedit32
memo, or several memos into one
DOC
file, then please read
here.
Tip.
If you want to combine existing memos by adding segment links to them,
then please read
here.
Tip.
For the most convenient way to transport your segmented memo
from pedit to your DeskTop and vice versa, please read
here.
Among others, segmented memos are used in exporting
pedit32 memos to pedit04 memos [see the
Export Category...
command in
ListView's
Record
menu, and the
Export Memo...
command in
EditView's
Record
menu], in
importation
[see
ListView's
Record
menu] of
DOC
files to pedit, and in the
SkyIsLimit
command in
EditView's
Edit+
menu.
The MA button, that is, the M and
A buttons in
EditView's
buttonPanel
[see also
here]
are a story on their own. Hence, I will discuss them separately from
the general description of
EditView's
buttonPanel.
They allow you to enter magiPad
[© copyright Paul Nevai 1999-2000 & all rights reserved]
and asciiPad, respectively.
The latter is the same as magiPad with an added ASCII table.
Think of magiPad as a giantic scratch pad which can save
[almost] up-to 32767 [2^15 - 1] characters. You can keep anything you
wish in magiPad. It is always at your fingertips, and
it allows you to paste anything from it back to your current memo.
The way it works is as simple as possible.
Here are the details. First, you enter magiPad either
through
EditView's
M or A buttons. Entering via
M shows a plain-vanilla scratch pad, and upon
subsequent re-entries the state of the previous M visit
will be restored, whereas the A button also adds a
handy ASCII table, and puts the cursor to the very beginning of
magiPad. In every other respect, the two methods are
identical.
Once in magiPad, either you position your cursor just
before a character and hit the Qopy'n'Paste button, or
you select any text, and then do the Qopy'n'Paste
job. You will be instantaneously transferred back to your current memo,
and the newly pasted item will be shown highlighted. If, prior to
entering magiPad, you already selected some text, then
upon returning via a Qopy'n'Paste job from
magiPad, your selected text gets replaced by the new
newly pasted item.
Note.
When doing a Qopy'n'Paste job, the usual 1000 character
limit of the Palm OS on the size of copying to the clipboard does not
apply.
Note.
Right after a Qopy'n'Paste job, the
Undo
command in
EditView's
Edit
menu and its sister
"U"
button in
EditView's
buttonPanel
are not functional.
Note.
If you change your mind after having accomplished a
Qopy'n'Paste job, you can always undo it by using the
Restore Memo...
command in
EditView's
Record
menu.
Of course, you should keep your favorite phrases in
magiPad so that they are always available for instant
pasting into your memos.
For instance, you could keep a short dictionary in it, or a thesaurus,
or your publication list, or your CV, and so forth. The opportunities are
limitless, up-to 2^15-1.
Some
peditors
go even further. For instance, Margret has a magiPad
category in her pedit which allows her to have the functionality of multiple
magiPads.
The ".C", that is, the ".Cancel" button
enables you to leave magiPad without any further action
except for possibly saving its contents.
Both the
Preferences...
dialog in
EditView's
Options
menu and magiPad's "D" button allow you
to decide whether or not to save the contents of
magiPad upon exiting it. If you are bold enough to
save the contents of magiPad, then the
D button is displayed in bold font while in
magiPad.
The PopUp Font Trigger in the bottom right corner of
EditView's
screen and the
Font...,
command in
EditView's
Options
menu allow you to change the display font in
EditView.
Note.
You can switching between the last two display fonts in
EditView
[even while in an editable magiPad]
via the
buttonShifted
"U"
button in
EditView's
buttonPanel
or by "ESC U" [upper case "U"].
Thanks to Rick Bram, Steve C. Gilardi, Carl Osterwald, Ken Hancock,
Harry Konstas, and Andrew Welch who allowed me to use their fonts and/or
font utilities, pedit [except peditLight] has a number of custom fonts.
I strongly recommend using the mono-spaced fonts for
regular text editing.
The only [some would say fatal] flaw of the original
Profont family of mono-spaced fonts is
that they are almost completely screwed up when it comes to non-standard
characters, including the international characters [ASCII 128 and up,
and even some between 1 and 31].
The reason for this defect is that that they were designed originally
for the Macintosh, and then they were converted to the Palm as an
afterthought. So, if you have a pre-4.09 version of pedit, please do not
blame the creators of Profont.
As of September 10, 2000, and as of version 4.09, I have great news for
all Profont lover peditors.
Michael J. Rider
got fed up with the above described situation, and, with the generous
permission of Steve C. Gilardi and Carl Osterwald, he fixed all of them.
Hence, the Profont family in all current pedits is as
perfect as the other mono-spaced fonts, that is Monaco,
Courier, and TinyFont [aka HKFont] are.
I am not in the font designing business. Therefore, please do not expect
me to create new fonts for pedit.
On the other hand, you are more than welcome to volunteer your services
to the peditor community...
I have invented [discovered?] and incorporated the [yet another]
revolutionary magiFind'n'Replace and
select'n'Search technologies. In addition, I put a
twist on the search process via Palm's built-in FIND
SilkScreen button. The latter is discussed
here.
All find functions in pedit are unrestricted as opposed to Palm's
built-in SilkScreen "FIND" which matches the beginnings of words only.
One enters the magiFind'n'Replace dialog either via the
magiFind...
command in
EditView's
Options
menu or by tapping the
"F"
button in
EditView's
buttonPanel
[see also
here].
magiFind'n'Replace which has two text fields.
The top one displays Please enter search string... or,
if your memo in
EditView
has a text selction, then it displays that particular text, or,
if a search string has already been defined, then it displays that
search string.
For pedit's purposes, a string is any combination of characters in the
256 character ASCII table [excluding the '\0' character], including
carriage returns and so forth (see
magiPad).
Once you are magiFind'n'Replace, you can create an
arbitrary search string of length not exceeding 255.
First, I tell you how to use the magiFind component
or magiFind'n'Replace.
Once you finished composing your search string, and after the
Ign[ore] Case, Top Start[er], and
Wrap check boxes have been appropriately set, hit the
FindIt button.
If the second text field in magiFind'n'Replace was left
untouched or it is empty, then magiFind'n'Replace
assumes that you initiated a search only operation and
no automated replacement will take place.
Thus you will be transported back to your memo in EditView, and then magiFind finds
the first occurrence of the search string in your memo.
Then use either the
Find More
command in
EditView's
Options
menu or the
"G"
button in
EditView's
buttonPanel
[see also
here]
to find more occurrences of the same search string.
Please note that magiFind works in context in the sense
that the found string always shows up in the middle of the text field.
GNU aficionados will see the similarity betweeen this and "grep
--context".
I will not insult your intelligence by explaining the meaning of the
Ign[ore] Case check box except that I note for the
benefit of non-native [broken] English speaking peditors that "case"
refers to lower and/or upper case as in "pedit" as opposed to "pEdIt".
In case [no pun intended] you did not figure it out yet, the Top
Start[er] check box allows you to decide whether to start the
search at the beginning [top] of your memo, or at the current cursor
position.
Similarly, Wrap means that the search continues at the
beginning [top] once it had reached the end [bottom].
There is also a straightforward plain-vanilla way to search without
entering the magiFind'n'Replace window, namely via the
double duty select'n'Search
Find More
command in
EditView's
Options
menu or the
"G"
button in
EditView's
buttonPanel
[see also
here].
Just select a string and invoke
Find More
or hit the
"G"
button. This action will find the first occurrence of the same string in
your memo located after the selected string. This can be repeated as
many times as one wishes. When the end of your memo is reached, the
search starts at the beginning of your memo again unless the
Wrap option has been deselected.
Please note that both Ign[ore] Case and
Wrap can be controlled from both
EditView's
Options
menu (see
Case yes|no and
Wrap yes|no)
and from magiFind'n'Replace as well.
So far I explained the case when the second text field in
magiFind'n'Replace was left untouched or was empty so
that you searched your memo only.
On the other hand, if you entered a replacement string into this second
text field, then magiFind'n'Replace assumes that you
want to conduct a full featured magiFind'n'Replace
operation, that is, a "global search and replace" operation in
professional lingo, and, assuming that there is at least one proper
match, it takes you to the magiFind'n'Replace View
where a row of buttons on the bottom gives you full freedom whether to
find [Find], replace [Peplace],
replace and find [R & F], or replace all [All R].
The "H" button is there for help.
Just hit the Done button when you are finished to get back
to your memo in EditView.
If your search string has no match in your memo, then, instead of
magiFind'n'Replace View, you are taken back immediately
to your memo in EditView.
In addition, the the bottom row of buttons, magiFind'n'Replace
View also displays the usual
stats
on the top, and gives you a summary of the search [F:] and replacement
[R:] strings right above the buttons at the bottom.
If you initiated a replace all [All R] operation,
you can always interrupt it by tapping anywhere either on the screen
or the Graffiti input area of your Palm.
Note.
If the replacement string is defined as "\0" then
the matched string will be deleted from the memo.
Here is a neat trick. First copy a string, say "replace with" with the
"C"
button. Then select another string, say "replace me". Now use the
"G"
button to find occurrences of "replace me" and then hit the
"P"
button to replace it with "replace with". This can be repeated as many
times as one wishes. The
"G"
button keeps searching for "replace me" and the
"P"
button keeps replacing it with "replace with". This is addictive!
However, the same can be accomplished in a more professional way via the
"F"
button.
Let me add that if you decide to turn off Ign[ore] Case then the
"F"
button is displayed in bold font. Similarly, if Wrap is
turned off then the
"G"
button is displayed in bold font.
This command saves your current memo, and then it creates a new one.
This command allows you to delete your current memo and its
sister segments.
It is the
non-batch
version of the
Delete Memo
command in
ListView's
Record
menu. Please see
Delete Memo
for further details.
This command allows you to beam your current memo to another Palm. Even
if your memo is
segmented,
it will beam only the currently displayed segment of your memo.
For a more sophisticated beaming operation of individual memos, whether
segmented
or not, please see the
Beam Memo
command in
ListView's
Record
menu for further details.
The
Beam Category
command in
ListView's
Record
menu is also related to this operation.
This is the
non-batch
version of the
Print Memo
command in
ListView's
Record
menu.
If you have
Stevens Creek Software's
PalmPrint,
or
TealPoint's
TealPrint
installed in your Palm, then this command prints out
the currently selected text of your memo.
It is related to the
Print Memo
command in
EditView's
Record
menu and the
Print Memo
command in
ListView's
Record
menu.
This command operates similarly to
Export Category...
command in
ListView's
Record
menu except that
(i) it exports memos individually, (ii) it also exports to
DOC
format, and (iii) it allows you to create an export header.
For the latter, please see the
Add a Header
command in
EditView's
Edit+
menu.
When you see this dialog
then you are in the pedit export mode.
Please see the
Export Category...
command in
ListView's
Record
menu for a detailed discussion.
When you see this dialog
then you are in the doc export mode.
This mode is the inverse of the
Import Doc File...
command in
ListView's
Record
menu.
First, select a title [file name] for your
DOC
file.
Second, decide if you want to delete your memo and its
sister segments
after the export operation has completed.
Third, if your memo is a pedit memo, then
decide if you want to have an archival copy left on your PC.
Once you have made these decisons, hit the export this memo +
all its segments button and pedit takes care of the rest.
For your convenience, pedit is smart enough to pick a proposed
DOC
file name. If the memo originated from a
DOC
file, then the original name is
shown, or else the current text selection is used as the basis of a
proposed name.
QUESTION.
Why can't I export my memo into a compressed
DOC
file?
ANSWER.
Quoting one of the US presidents, it is the speed, stupid.
Simply put, crunching your memo into a compressed
DOC
file would take too much time.
HINT.
If you want to combine several of your pedit04 memos into one pedit32
memo, or several memos into one
DOC
file then proceed as follows.
First, open up the intended first segment of your memo in pedit.
Second, create an [export] header using
either the
create export header
button in this
Export Memo...
command, or the
Add a Header
command in
EditView's
Edit+
menu.
Third, copy this header into those memos which you want to export to
as one single memo. Adjust the segment number 0010
appropriately.
Finally, export one of them to pedit32 or a
DOC
file.
Note.
I should point out that the exported memo gets deleted from
pedit only after the export operation went flawlessly so that
your precious data are as safe as possible.
When you open up your current memo, a copy of it is saved automatically
in a temporary file. That temporary file contains what we call
last saved state of your memo.
Such a saving takes place every time you open your current memo, that
is, it also includes the times when you return from
magiPad
or you switch to your memo [see the
Switcher
(aka ">") command in
EditView's
buttonPanel].
As you edit your memo, there is absolutely no need
whatsoever to use this command to save your memo, since when
you quit pedit, or switch to
ListView,
or open up another memo, your current memo is automatically saved.
This is different from DeskTop applications where you must make
decisions whether or not to save your files.
However, it happens occasionally that you want to save your current memo
after a few editing steps so that later on you could restore it to its
last saved state.
You can restore your current memo to its last saved
state with the
Restore Memo...
command
EditView's
Record
menu.
This command is related to the
BackUp
button in
EditView's
buttonPanel
[see also
here].
This command restores your current memo to its last saved state.
Please see the
Save Memo
command
EditView's
Record
menu for further details.
This command allows you to insert into your current memo text from any
other pedit04 or pedit32 memo or a selection thereof.
The way it works is as follows.
First, place your cursor in your current memo to the position
where you want to insert text from another memo.
Note.
If you wish, you can also select text in your current memo and
then the inserted text will overwrite your selection.
Second, invoke the Insert Memo... command.
This will place you into
ListView
where you can see p04Insert... or
p32Insert... depending on what pedit you are currently
running.
Third, go to the memo you want to insert into your current memo.
You can use any of the navigational tools, including the
Switch
command in
ListView's
Navigate
menu which allows you to visit memos in the sister pedit.
Fourth, either hit the Insert Memo button
[aka "ESC i"], or make a text selection, and then hit
the Insert Selec'n button
[again aka "ESC i"].
Note.
In addition, to the Insert Memo or Insert
Selec'n buttons, the title bar also reminds you that you are in
the midst of an insertion operation.
That's all. You will be taken back to you original memo where the
insertion operations gets autoMagically completed right in front of your
eyes.
Note.
pedit makes sure that you do not overstep the size limits of your current
memo, and depending on the circumstances, it will warn you if you decide
to insert too much text.
Note.
If you change your mind and you want to abort the insertion operation at
any time, just go to
ListView,
and hit the bottom button labelled
.Return to the Open Memo Mode,
or pick any of the
batcher
commands in
ListView's
Record
menu with the exception of the
Preview Memo
command which can assist you in finding the memo you want to insert into
your current memo.
Note.
If you change you mind after the facts, then you can always use the
Restore Memo...
command in
EditView's
Record
menu to alleviate the situation.
If you are in
EditView
[but not in
magiPad]
then it takes you to
ListView.
If you are in
magiPad
then it takes you to
EditView.
This command is especially handy when
EditView's
buttonPanel
[see also
here]
was removed via the
Buttons on|off
command in
EditView's
Edit+
menu.
For you convenience, if you are in
EditView,
then
"ESC return"
also activates this command.
In addition, if your current memo is empty, then
"ESC ."
takes you to
ListView
as well.
This is Palm's built-in undo operation. It undoes
[reverses] some of your most recent editing operations such as typing,
backspaces, delete,
Paste,
and
Cut.
Note.
Palm's undo capabilities are rather limited. As of October 22, 2000, when
3.5.2 is the latest version of the Palm OS, the undo bufffer still holds
no more than 100 characters.
Note.
When undo doesn't work, sometimes you can save the
situation by using the
Restore Memo...
command in
EditView's
Record
menu.
This command is the same as the
"U"
button in
EditView's
buttonPanel
[see also
here].
This is Palm's built-in cut operation. It copies the
current selection to the text clipboard, and deletes the selection from
the field.
This command is the same as the
"X"
button in
EditView's
buttonPanel
[see also
here].
This is Palm's built-in copy operation. It copies the
current selection to the text clipboard.
Note.
The usual 1000 character limit of the Palm OS on the size of copying to
the clipboard has been removed.
This command is the same as the
"C"
button in
EditView's
buttonPanel
[see also
here].
This is Palm's built-in paste operation. It replaces
the current selection in the text, if any, with the contents of the text
clipboard.
This command is the same as the
"P"
button in
EditView's
buttonPanel
[see also
here].
This command selects the entire text in your memo.
As of October 11, 2000, this has replaced the original
Select...
command in
EditView's
Edit
menu.
It has been my experience that it is usually the sophisticated peditor
[as opposed to "newbies"] who uses this command. Therefore, many of the
text selector commands are quite sophisticated themselves in nature. If you are
willing to invest a little extra time to get acquainted with them, they
will provide for you an easy way to select text within your memo very fast
and very efficiently.
It may be a good idea to study carefully the description of the various
text selector commands since not all of them operate in a completely self-evident
fashion.
I also recommend that you study the
Select...
and
Jump to...
commands [see
EditView's
Options
menu] simultaneously since they share many features.
Please do not forget to read
this
either. It explains how to repeat the last text selection.
First, let us discuss the top line in the pedit ...
selector dialog.
When you start up the pedit ... selector dialog, you
will see two numbers displayed in the vrom [from] and
to fields. They represent the location of the first and
last characters of the text which was selected [highlighted] just before
entering the pedit ... selector dialog. If no text was
selected, then these numbers coincide with the current cursor location.
Note.
Please do not forget to read about
doubleTaps
which help you to fill in the vrom and
to fields fast and efficiently.
Pressing the Select button
["ESC s"] takes you back to
EditView
and selects a range of characters in your memo
starting with the value of the
vrom field, and ending with the value
of the to field.
The vrom [from] field allows you to enter a
non-negative integer which will be used as the location of the first
character of the text selection to be performed when pressing the
Select button.
You may also pick the value of vrom field by pressing
the vrom button [lower case "v"] which takes you back to
EditView.
Now you can either place your cursor anywhere in your memo, or make a
text selection manually. Upon getting back into the pedit ...
selector dialog again via the normal invocation of the dialog,
the vrom field will be changed to the current location
of your cursor in the former case, whereas in the latter case the value
of the vrom field will be the beginning of the text
selection you made in your memo.
Note.
This may sound more complicated than it is. Just go ahead and try it.
I am pretty sure that after the first experiment it will become
rather self-evident.
Homework.
Why did I spell from as vrom?
Hint.
Enter "f" and watch carefully.
Similarly, the to field allows you to enter a
non-negative integer which will be used as the location of the last
character of the text selection to be performed when pressing the
Select button.
Again, you may also pick the value of to field by pressing
the to button ["lower case "t"] which takes you back to
EditView.
Now you can either place your cursor anywhere in your memo, or make a
text selection manually. Upon getting back into the pedit ...
selector dialog again via the normal invocation of the dialog,
the vrom field will be changed to the current location
of your cursor in the former case, whereas in the latter case the value
of the vrom field will be the end of the text
selection you made in your memo.
Note.
The current values shown in the vrom and
to fields are used by the various commands in the
pedit ... selector dialog as the values of the start
and the end of the current text selection in your memo.
Note.
Although you can enter any [at most 5 digit] non-negative integer in the
vrom and to fields, pedit is smart
enough to recognize when the number in the vrom field
is greater than the number in the to field. If the
latter happens, then, prior to any action, the to numbers are switched.
In addition, pedit also recognizes if these numbers are greater than the
size of your memo. If this is the case, then again, prior to any action,
the numbers are reduced to the size of your memo. In other words, in
what follows, we may assume without loss of generality that the number
in the vrom field is no greater than the number in the
to field, and that the number in the
to field is at most the size of your memo.
EXAMPLE.
When you learn to use the Home button, you will see that
the selection in your memo will end at the current value of the
to field instead of the last highlighted character
which was selected just prior to entering the pedit ...
selector dialog. Of course, if you did not change the number in
the to field, then the latter two values are the same.
Next, let us discuss the second line in the pedit ...
selector dialog.
The Repeat # field allows you to enter a non-negative
integer which will be used as the number of times the selected command
will be performed.
Note.
Just to make your pedit experiences more pleasant, entering
"V", "T", or "R"
[upper case "V", "T", and "R"] always selects the number displayed in
the vrom, to, or Repeat
# fields, respectively, and makes that field focused.
In addition, please don't hesitate to use the following shortcuts.
PageDown = down-arrow = decreases the number in the field which is focused
Note.
Just to make your pedit experiences even more rewarding, entering
SPACE or TAB will rotate the focus
between the three number fields.
EXAMPLE.
For instance, if the Repeat # field contains the number
"5" and the abs => push button is
highlighted, and then you select the Word button, then
the fifth word of your memo will be selected counting from the home
position, that is, from top of your memo.
EXAMPLE.
For instance, if the Repeat # field contains the number
"5", and you select the bWord button,
then you will end up selecting the range of characters as defined by
vrom and to fields, and, in addition,
five more words will be selected backward counting from the character
whose position is equal to the number in the vrom
field.
This may sound somewhat complicated and intimidating. However,
just a few taps will convince you that it is easy and natural.
Note.
If you are an experienced peditor, then it is self-evident to you that
the ESC key version of the above two examples are
and
respectively.
Homework.
What should and will happen if you enter
as an ESC key shortcut?
Note.
When wanting to use the ESC key mechanism, please
keep in mind that there is no need for an ESC key
within the pedit ... selector dialog since there is no
text field in it accepting alphabetical input [see
here].
Now we will discuss the Home and End buttons.
The Home button selects all the text between the top
[beginning] of your memo and the end of the current text selection as
defined by the to field.
ESC s T NUMBER h =
selects from the beginning of your memo to the character whose location
is "NUMBER"
ESC s ST ST NUMBER h =
selects from the beginning of your memo to the character whose location
is "NUMBER"
where ST stands either for a SPACE or
TAB character.
Note.
In this case the value in the vrom field is irrelevant.
EXAMPLE.
"ESC s T 13 h" selects the first 13 characters of your
memo.
The End button selects all the text from the start
of the current text selection, as defined by the vrom
field, to the bottom [end] of your memo.
ESC s V NUMBER e =
selects from the character whose location is "NUMBER" to the end of your memo
ESC s ST NUMBER e =
selects from the character whose location is "NUMBER" to the end of your
memo
where ST stands either for a SPACE or
TAB character.
Note.
In this case the value in the to field is irrelevant.
EXAMPLE.
"ESC s V 13 e" selects from the 13th character to the
end of your memo.
Next, let us discuss the groups of triplet buttons in the pedit ...
selector dialog.
Looking at the pedit ... selector screen, you can see
three columns of five buttons each with labels bP%,
P%, and fP%.
In each of the rows the buttom labels are very similar, except that the
buttons in left column start with the letter "b"
[backward], and in the right column they start with the letter
"f" [forward].
In fact, typing the letter "b" once, puts you into
a backward mode, whereas typing the same
letter "b"again, takes you out of the
backward mode and places you back to the default
symmetric mode.
Simlarly, typing the letter "f" once, puts you into
a forward mode, whereas typing the same
letter "f" again, takes you out of the
forward mode and places you back to the default
symmetric mode.
In addition, there are two push buttons in the bottom right corner
of the pedit ... selector screen
called abs => and x <=>.
Pushing abs => or typing "a"
puts you into the absolute mode, whereas
pushing x <=> or typing "x"
puts you into the symmetric mode.
Another way of changing modes is by typing "b",
"f", or "a" [absolute], or
"x" [symmetric] in any order you wish.
The title bar of the pedit ... jumper screen always
tells you which mode you are in.
Note.
If you use your stylus to tap buttons on the screen then you don't need
to be concerned about the above described backward and
forward modes although you still need to be able to
differentiate between the absolute and
symmetric modes. For the latter, just use the
abs => and x <=> push buttons.
If you are in the symmetric mode, then the middle
column allows you to perform various text selections in a symmetric
direction, that is, both left and right, starting from the current text
selection, as defined by the vrom and
to fields. This is what I define as a text selection in
symmetric mode.
If you are in the absolute mode, then the middle column
allows you to perform various text selections starting from the home
position, that is, from top of your memo. This is what I define as a text
selection in absolute mode.
Note.
The home position of your memo is always the beginning
[top] of your memo and the end is the very end of it
[bottom].
The left column allows you to to perform various text selections
backward starting from the current text selection, as defined by the
vrom and to fields. This is what I
define as a a text selection in backward mode.
The right column allows you to to perform various text selections
forward starting from the current text selection, as defined by the
vrom and to fields. This is what I
define as a a text selection in forward mode.
Notation.
In the following discussion and tables "#" stands for
the number which you entered in the Repeat # field. If
the Repeat # field is empty or contains the number
"0", then, depending on the function of the selected
button, you may get a warning dialog reminding you to enter a number
into that field.
Notation.
In addition, we also use the notation "x" and
"y" for the values of the vrom and
to fields, respectively.
Now let us discuss the buttons themselves.
The three "Character" buttons bChar,
Character, and fChar allow you to
select "#" characters counting from the current text
selection, as defined by the vrom and
to fields. The details are as follows.
The bChar button selects the range of characters as
defined by vrom and to fields, and, in
addition, "#" characters backward counting from the
character whose position is equal to the the number in the
vrom field.
If you are in the default symmetric mode, then the
Character button selects the range of characters as
defined by vrom and to fields, and in
addition, "#" characters are selected backward and
forward counting from the characters whose positions are equal to the
the numbers in the vrom and to fields,
respectively.
If you are in the absolute mode, then the
Character button selects "#"
characters counting from the beginning of your memo.
Note.
In this case the values in the vrom and
to fields are irrelevant.
The fChar button selects the range of characters as
defined by vrom and to fields, and, in
addition, "#" characters forward counting from the
character whose position is equal to the the number in the
to field.
ESC s NUMBER c =
ESC s NUMBER x c =
selects from "x - NUMBER" to "y + NUMBER"
ESC s NUMBER a c =
selects from the beginning of your memo to the character whose location is "NUMBER"
ESC s NUMBER f c =
selects from "x" to "y + NUMBER"
where "x" and "y" are defined
here.
The three "Word" buttons bWord,
Word, and fWord allow you to
select "#" words counting from the current text
selection, as defined by the vrom and
to fields. The details are as follows.
The bWord button selects the range of characters as
defined by vrom and to fields, and, in
addition, "#" words backward counting from the
character whose position is equal to the the number in the
vrom field.
If you are in the default symmetric mode, then the
Word button selects the range of characters as
defined by vrom and to fields, and in
addition, "#" words are selected backward and
forward counting from the characters whose positions are equal to the
the numbers in the vrom and to fields,
respectively.
If you are in the absolute mode, then the
Word button selects "#"
words counting from the beginning of your memo.
Note.
In this case the values in the vrom and
to fields are irrelevant.
The fWord button selects the range of characters as
defined by vrom and to fields, and, in
addition, "#" words forward counting from the
character whose position is equal to the the number in the
to field.
Note.
If the repeat number "#" is equal to
"0" and you select word backward [bWord],
then you will end up selecting from the beginning of the current word to
the end of the current selection. Similarly, if the repeat number
"#" is equal to "0" and you select
word forward [fWord], then you will end up selecting from
the beginning of the current selection to the end of the the current word.
EXAMPLE.
If there is no current text selection in your memo, that is,
"x" = "y" [see
here]
then
Note.
However, there is a [useful] exception to the above rule when the repeat
number "#" is equal to "0". Namely, if
both the beginning and the end of the selected text happen to be inside
the very same word gap, then that particular word gap is selected. This
can be used to delete word gaps, that is, to join words.
Note.
If the repeat number "#" is equal to
"0" then the Word button is not
functional.
Note.
See also
here
for the effects of the status of the Smart [select]
check box.
ESC s NUMBER w =
ESC s NUMBER x w =
selects from "x" to "y" and "NUMBER" words backward from "x"
and "NUMBER" words forward from "y"
ESC s NUMBER a w =
selects "NUMBER" words from the beginning of your memo
ESC s NUMBER f w =
selects from "x" to "y" and "NUMBER" words forward from "x"
ESC s 0 b w =
selects selects from "x" to "y" and at most one word backward from "x"
[the last word is the selection may be partial]
ESC s 0 f w =
selects selects from "x" to "y" and at most one word forward from "y"
[the first word is the selection may be partial]
where "x" and "y" are defined
here.
Note.
Typing the number "NUMBER" above is optional. If you leave it
out then its default value "1" is used as the
"NUMBER".
The three "Sentence" buttons bZent,
Zentence, and fZent allow you to
select "#" sentences counting from the current text
selection, as defined by the vrom and
to fields. The details are as follows.
The bZent button selects the range of characters as
defined by vrom and to fields, and, in
addition, "#" sentences backward counting from the
character whose position is equal to the the number in the
vrom field.
If you are in the default symmetric mode, then the
Zentence button selects the range of characters as
defined by vrom and to fields, and in
addition, "#" sentences are selected backward and
forward counting from the characters whose positions are equal to the
the numbers in the vrom and to fields,
respectively.
If you are in the absolute mode, then the
Zentence button selects "#"
sentences counting from the beginning of your memo.
Note.
In this case the values in the vrom and
to fields are irrelevant.
The fZent button selects the range of characters as
defined by vrom and to fields, and, in
addition, "#" sentences forward counting from the
character whose position is equal to the the number in the
to field.
Note.
If the repeat number "#" is equal to
"0" and you select sentence backward
[bZent], then you will end up selecting from the
beginning of the current sentence to the end of the current selection.
Similarly, if the repeat number "#" is equal to
"0" and you select sentence forward
[fZent], then you will end up selecting from the
beginning of the current selection to the end of the the current
sentence.
EXAMPLE.
If there is no current text selection in your memo, that is,
"x" = "y" [see
here]
then
Note.
If the repeat number "#" is equal to
"0" then the Zentence button is not
functional.
Note.
See also
here
for the effects of the status of the Smart [select]
check box.
ESC s NUMBER z =
ESC s NUMBER x z =
selects from "x" to "y" and "NUMBER" sentences backward from "x"
and "NUMBER" sentences forward from "y"
ESC s NUMBER a z =
selects "NUMBER" sentences from the beginning of your memo
ESC s NUMBER f z =
selects from "x" to "y" and "NUMBER" sentences forward from "y"
ESC s 0 b z =
selects selects from "x" to "y" and at most one sentence backward from
"x" [the last sentence is the selection may be partial]
ESC s 0 f z =
selects selects from "x" to "y" and at most one sentence forward from
"y" [the first sentence is the selection may be partial]
where "x" and "y" are defined
here.
Note.
Typing the "NUMBER" above is optional. If you leave it
out then its default value "1" is used as the
"NUMBER".
Note.
I am sure you know that "Sentence" is spelled as "Zentence" above because
"z" is the activator letter.
The three "LineFeed" buttons bLine,
LineFeed, and fLine allow you to
select "#"
lines
counting from the current text
selection, as defined by the vrom and
to fields. The details are as follows.
The bLine button selects the range of characters as
defined by vrom and to fields, and, in
addition, "#" lines backward counting from the
character whose position is equal to the the number in the
vrom field.
If you are in the default symmetric mode, then the
LineFeed button selects the range of characters as
defined by vrom and to fields, and in
addition, "#" lines are selected backward and
forward counting from the characters whose positions are equal to the
the numbers in the vrom and to fields,
respectively.
If you are in the absolute mode, then the
LineFeed button selects "#"
lines counting from the beginning of your memo.
Note.
In this case the values in the vrom and
to fields are irrelevant.
The fLine button selects the range of characters as
defined by vrom and to fields, and, in
addition, "#" lines forward counting from the
character whose position is equal to the the number in the
to field.
Note.
If the repeat number "#" is equal to
"0" and you select line backward
[bLine], then you will end up selecting from the
beginning of the current line to the end of the current selection.
Similarly, if the repeat number "#" is equal to
"0" and you select line forward
[fLine], then you will end up selecting from the
beginning of the current selection to the end of the the current
line.
EXAMPLE.
If there is no current text selection in your memo, that is,
"x" = "y" [see
here]
then
Note.
See also
here
for the effects of the status of the incl[ude] EOL
check box.
Note.
If the repeat number "#" is equal to
"0" then the LineFeed button is not
functional.
ESC s NUMBER l =
ESC s NUMBER x l =
selects from "x" to "y" and "NUMBER"
lines
backward from "x" and "NUMBER" lines forward from "y"
ESC s NUMBER a l =
selects "NUMBER"
lines
from the beginning of your memo
ESC s NUMBER f l =
selects from "x" to "y" and "NUMBER"
lines
forward from "y"
ESC s 0 b l =
selects selects from "x" to "y" and at most one
line
backward from "x" [the last line is the selection may be partial]
ESC s 0 f l =
selects selects from "x" to "y" and at most one
lines
forward from "y" [the first line is the selection may be partial]
where "x" and "y" are defined
here.
Note.
Typing the "NUMBER" above is optional. If you leave it
out then its default value "1" is used as the
"NUMBER".
Note.
Please do not forget that
lines
and
ScreenLines
are not the same objects.
The three "Paragraph" buttons bPar,
Paragraph, and fPar allow you to
select "#"
paragraphs
counting from the current text
selection, as defined by the vrom and
to fields. The details are as follows.
The bPar button selects the range of characters as
defined by vrom and to fields, and, in
addition, "#" paragraphs backward counting from the
character whose position is equal to the the number in the
vrom field.
If you are in the default symmetric mode, then the
Paragraph button selects the range of characters as
defined by vrom and to fields, and in
addition, "#" paragraphs are selected backward and
forward counting from the characters whose positions are equal to the
the numbers in the vrom and to fields,
respectively.
If you are in the absolute mode, then the
Paragraph button selects "#"
paragraphs counting from the beginning of your memo.
Note.
In this case the values in the vrom and
to fields are irrelevant.
The fPar button selects the range of characters as
defined by vrom and to fields, and, in
addition, "#" paragraphs forward counting from the
character whose position is equal to the the number in the
to field.
Note.
If the repeat number "#" is equal to
"0" and you select paragraph backward
[bPar], then you will end up selecting from the
beginning of the current paragraph to the end of the current selection.
Similarly, if the repeat number "#" is equal to
"0" and you select paragraph forward
[fPar], then you will end up selecting from the
beginning of the current selection to the end of the the current
paragraph.
EXAMPLE.
If there is no current text selection in your memo, that is,
"x" = "y" [see
here]
then
Note.
However, there is a [useful] exception to the above rule when the repeat
number "#" is equal to "0".
Namely, if both the beginning and the end of the selected text
happen to be inside the very same paragraph
trailer,
then that particular
trailer
is selected. If
EOLs
are not included then the first linefeed is deselected. This can be used
to delete
trailer,
that is, to join paragraphs, with or without joining lines.
Note.
If the repeat number "#" is equal to
"0" then the Paragraph button is not
functional.
Note.
See also
here
for the effects of the status of the incl[ude] EOL
check box.
ESC s NUMBER p =
ESC s NUMBER x p =
selects from "x" to "y" and "NUMBER"
paragraphs
backward from "x" and "NUMBER" paragraphs forward from "y"
ESC s NUMBER a p =
selects "NUMBER"
paragraphs
from the beginning of your memo
ESC s NUMBER f p =
selects from "x" to "y" and "NUMBER"
paragraphs
forward from "y"
ESC s 0 b p =
selects selects from "x" to "y" and at most one
paragraph
backward from "x" [the last paragraph is the selection may be partial]
ESC s 0 f p =
selects selects from "x" to "y" and at most one
paragraphs
forward from "y" [the first paragraph is the selection may be partial]
where "x" and "y" are defined
here.
Note.
Typing the "NUMBER" above is optional. If you leave it
out then its default value "1" is used as the
"NUMBER".
Note.
Please do not forget to check what
paragraphs
really are.
If the Smart [select] box [upper case "S"] is checked,
and you are selecting words or sentences, then all trailing
strict spaces are also included in the selection. A
strict space is defined as a regular
SPACE or TAB character and a few
additional exotic space-like characters which may depend on the
particular Palm operating system.
If the Forth w[ord] box [upper case "F"] is checked then,
by definition, words are separated from each other by
white spaces only unlike in regular spoken languages
where punctuation signs also separate words. For instance,if Forth
rules,then this sentence contains ten words only.
If the incl[ude] EOL [EOL means "end-of-line"] box
[lower case "i"] is checked, and you are selecting lines, then the text
selection will also include the nearest trailing carriage return
characters. This is is useful when selecting text which extends over
several lines.
If the incl[ude] EOL box [lower case "i"] is checked,
and you are selecting paragraphs, then the text selection will also
include the nearest paragraphs trailers. This is is useful when selecting
text which extends over several paragraphs.
Note.
What the heck is a paragraphs trailer? It refers to the stuff you
cannot see between paragraphs. It consists of
SPACE, TAB characters squeezed between
linefeeds [carriage returns].
The .Cncl [.Cancel] button
["ESC s." - but why]
aborts the text selection operation and takes you back to
EditView.
The Marker button ["ESC sm"] selects
text in your memo depending on the current text selection, as defined by
the vrom and to fields, and the marker
[see the
Set Marker
command in
EditView's
Edit
menu].
The rules are as follows.
If there is no text selection in your memo, that is, both the
vrom and to fields
have the same value, then tapping the Marker button
selects text between the marker and the current cursor location
as defined by the vrom field.
EXAMPLE.
If both the vrom and to fields contain
the number 1918 and the marker is located at position 1939, and you
enter "ESC sm" then the text selction will contain
all the characters from 1918 to 1939.
Homework.
What will happen if you enter "ESC sV1945T1945m"
instead of "ESC sm" in the above example?
When there is a text selection in your memo then the situation is a
little more complicated.
If the marker position is outside the range of the
selected text, as defined by the vrom and
to fields, then tapping the Marker
button extends the selection of the text to the marker.
EXAMPLE.
If the vrom field contains the number 1914 and the
to field contains the number 1918 and the marker is
located at position 1939, and you enter "ESC sm" then
the text selction will contain all the characters from 1914 to 1939.
Homework.
What will happen if you enter "ESC sV1945T1956m"
instead of "ESC sm" in the above example?
If the marker position is inside the range of the
selected text, as defined by the vrom and
to fields, then tapping the Marker
button has no effect.
If you have a better idea what should happen in the latter case, please
let
me
know.
EXAMPLE.
If the vrom field contains the number 1914 and the
to field contains the number 1945 and the marker is
located at position 1939, and you enter "ESC sm" then
the text selction will contain all the characters from 1914 to 1945.
Note.
All the text selection commands are sticky in the sense that the last
text selection command can be repeated by simply either doing a
buttonShifted
"S"
job in
EditView's
buttonPanel
[see also
here],
or by entering "ESC S" [capitalized "S"].
Of course, once you quit your memo or
magiPad,
the last text selection becomes history.
As of October 11, 2000, this has been replaced by the brand new
Select...
command in
EditView's
Edit
menu.
I kept the old version of "Select..." in this manual for two reason.
First, there are many peditors who are somewhat slow in upgrading
their pedits. Second, this gives a chance to see pedit in progress.
This command brings up the text selector window which allows a myriad
customizable text selections.
All buttons and check boxes can be activated by entering the first
letters of their labels. Switching between the number fields can be achieved
by entering SPACE or TAB.
Here is a neat example. Perform a
doubleTap
with the consecutive component taps in two different areas of your text.
This brings up the text selector window where you hit the
Word button. Voila, the words containing the two taps
and, in addition, all the words between the two taps become selected.
If the smart select box is checked then all trailing
strict spaces are also included in the selection. A
strict space is defined as a regular space or tab
character and a few exotic space-like characters which may depend on the
particular Palm operating system.
If the Forth word box is checked then, by definition,
words are separated from each other by white spaces
only unlike in regular spoken languages where punctuation signs also
separate words.
If the include EOL [EOL means "end-of-line"] box is
checked then the text selection will also include the nearest trailing
carriage return character. This is is useful when selecting text which
extends over several lines.
As a convenient shortcut, in
EditView
"ESC S"
selects all text in the memo just like the
Select All
command in
EditView's
Edit
menu so that there is no need to open up the text selector
window for this operation [which, by the way, responds to
"ESC s"].
Another time saving shortcut in
EditView
is
"ESC W"
which selects the word surrounding the cursor.
Use this command to set the marker at the current cursor position.
If you have some text selected while you use this command then
the marker is set to the beginning of your selected text.
Once a marker is set, you can always jump back to it from an arbitrary
location via a tap on the
"J"
button in
EditView's
buttonPanel
[see also
here],
and then selecting the
Marker
button, or simply by entering "ESC jm".
In this case the marker will move to the current cursor, and the cursor
moves to the original location of the marker. In other words, the marker
and the cursor exchange their coordinates.
Once a marker is set, you can always select text from the marker by
tapping the
"S"
button in
EditView's
buttonPanel
[see also
here],
and then selecting the
Marker
button, or simply by entering "ESC sm".
Please see
here
in the description of the
Select...
command in
EditView's
Options
menu for more details about selecting text from the marker.
Note.
If the text of your memo changes, then the marker is deselected
automatically, and, therefore, it becomes history.
If you have already
set the marker,
then use this command to visit it. It takes you to the marker, blinks it
for a couple of fractions of a second, and then takes you back to your
current cursor location.
Note.
This command is different from jumping to the marker [see the
Set Marker
command in
EditView's
Edit
menu].
This command pops up Palm's built-in virtual keyboard so that you can
edit your memo while pretending that you are in fact typing.
This command pops up the Graffiti Reference Dialog.
This command opens the help dialog which is mostly [but not always]
context sensitive.
This command is the same as the
"A"
button in
EditView's
buttonPanel
[see also
here],
and it is described in details where
magiPad
is discussed.
This command brings up the Auto Indent and Shift Preferences window.
Auto indenting and shifting allow your Palm to be used as a serious
program source code editing tool, and the opportunities outside the
scope of programming are limited by your imagination only.
If you are a programmer, you don't need any explanation whatsoever. If
you aren't, then let me just say that after you adjusted your
preferences here, and if you enabled automatic indentation, then every
new line inherits the indentation [the white space characters] of the
previous line as long as neither Palm's built-in virtual keyboard nor
pasting is used for entering text.
Since it is much easier to explain this on an example, here is one.
For instance, typing
the next line will have an autoMagic "# "
["#" and "SPACE"] in the beginning of
it as long as you check the space character is white
space and the extra white space character
boxes and define the latter character as "#".
If you enter a carriage return after the word "comment" and then you
enter "pedit" then you will have
Did you get it? If not, please try it.
We will define the collection of characters which get reproduced by
entering a carriage return to be the line indentation
header.
In the example above the line indentation header consists
of "SPACE" and "#".
If the allow automatic indentation box
["ESC a"] is checked then auto indentation in
enabled.
QUESTION.
How do I know if I enabled auto indentation?
ANSWER.
Look for the small 2*2 pixel sized black square just above
EditView's
scroll bar.
If the space character is white space box
["ESC s"] is checked then auto indentation assumes that
the SPACE character is part of the
line indentation header.
If the tab character is white space box
["ESC t"] is checked then auto indentation assumes that
the TAB character is part of the
line indentation header.
If the extra white space character box
["ESC e"] is checked then auto indentation assumes
that the character in the field next to the check box is part of the
line indentation header.
The SPACE, TAB, and XTR
push buttons determine which character gets added in front of the shifted
line once you perform a
right-shift
[see
EditView's
Edit+
menu].
The two number fields below the push buttons determine the number of
shift charaters which are added or deleted when performing
right-shifts
or
left-shifts,
respectively [see
EditView's
Edit+
menu].
Note.
Just to make your pedit experiences more rewarding, entering
SPACE or TAB will rotate the focus
between the three entry fields.
In addition, please don't hesitate to use the following shortcuts.
PageDown = down-arrow = decreases the number in the field which is focused
as long as the focused field expects a number input.
This command is related to what many programmers would call
block indentation.
I recommend that you use one of the
mono-spaced fonts
while shifting so that you would have a perfect visual feedback of what
you have accomplished.
If no text is selected in the current memo, then this command (i)
selects the line where your cursor is currently located, and (ii)
shifts the entire line to the left.
If there is a text selection in the current memo, then this command (i)
selects all the lines surrounding your current text selection, and (ii)
shifts those lines to the left.
The quality and quantity of the shift depend on the definition of
white space characters and the size of left
shifts which are defined in the
Auto Indent...
dialog in
EditView's
Edit+
menu.
Please keep in mind that a line is not necessarily
what you think a line is. Please check out the
definition of lines
here.
The analogous right shifts are performed by invoking
the
Shift Right
command in
EditView's
Edit+
menu.
This command is related to what many programmers would call
block indentation.
I recommend that you use one of the
mono-spaced fonts
while shifting so that you would have a perfect visual feedback of what
you have accomplished.
If no text is selected in the current memo, then this command (i)
selects the line where your cursor is currently located, and (ii)
shifts the entire line to the right.
If there is a text selection in the current memo, then this command (i)
selects all the lines surrounding your current text selection, and (ii)
shifts those lines to the right.
The quality and quantity of the shift depend on the definition of
right shift character and the size of right
shifts which are defined in the
Auto Indent...
dialog in
EditView's
Edit+
menu.
Please keep in mind that a line is not necessarily
what you think a line is. Please check out the
definition of lines
here.
The analogous left shifts are performed by invoking
the
Shift Left
command in
EditView's
Edit+
menu.
If SkyIsLimit is on then a "*" [sky =>
star] appears right next to the
"H"
button in
EditView's
Button Panel.
SkyIsLimit allows you to create 4Mb and 32Mb virtual
memos in pedit and pedit32, respectively. Please note that I am
referring to "Mb" and not "Kb". Of
course, as most of you will find out, 32Mb is rarely reachable unless
your sister works for one of those companies which make Palm clones.
This feature was primarily created for those peditors who hook up their
Palm to an external keyboard [or the other way around, depending one's
outlook on life], and then they pretend that they have a full featured
laptop computer. Boy, they are right!
With SkyIsLimit you can take notes at meetings lasting
hours and hours and/or you can write the great American [or any other
nation's] novel right on your Palm.
The way this works is as follows.
If you are typing into a memo [except for the built-in virtual keyboard], and
then a new memo
is created autoMagically which starts like
and then you can continue typing where the cursor is.
Here "123456" are the first 6 letters of your memo.
When you fill up segment.0020, then segment.0030 is created, and so
forth. It is easier to experience this than to describe it, so please go
ahead and play with it.
Since each of your memos is filled up to 75% of its maximum capacity, you have
plenty of real estate for additions, corrections, editing, and so forth.
QUESTION.
How do I know if my 75% limit is approaching?
ANSWER.
Turn on the displayable
statistics.
When you do a HotSync job, you can join your segments on your DeskTop
any way you want it.
Of course, you can also export your segmented memo and its
sister segments
into a
DOC
file using the
Export Memo...
command in
EditView's
Record
menu, and then, by the time it hits your DeskTop, it will be a single
DOC
file.
Needless to say, this process is reversible.
I can almost guarantee you that you will love SkyIsLimit.
Here is a tip. If you don't care for it, then don't use it.
We use the word chapter and segment
interchangably. If you are writing a novel, then
chapter is the right word. If you take notes, then
segment [or even page] is perhaps more
appropriate.
There is a subtle difference between chapters and
segments. Usually, but not always,
chapters are broken at logical interruptions, whereas
segments may be broken anytime whenever pedit decides
that it is time to start a new segment.
Please see
here
for a more detalied discussion of
segments vs chapters.
With this command, whether or not
SkyIsLimit
is active, you can always force the creation of a new
segment
whose segment index will be right after the segment index of your
current memo.
If your current memo is not yet
segmented
then it will be given a
header
prior to placing you into a new segment.
Whenever you use this command, the
segment indices
of your memo and its
sister segments
get automatically readjusted so that if you added some segments manually
to your memo then the new segment indices will be again in multiples of
ten.
If your current memo is
segmented
and the current segment is not the first one, then this command takes
you to the bottom of the previous segment of your memo.
If you are at the top of your memo then hitting the PageUp
button has the same effect as this command.
Note.
If the previous segment was already visited and it is invoked via the
segmentSwitcher
["V" aka "$"] button in
EditView's
buttonPanel
[see also
here],
then the previous memo vitals are restored.
If your current memo is
segmented
and the current segment is not the last one, then this command takes
you to the top of the next segment of your memo.
If you are at the bottom of your memo then hitting the PageDown
button has the same effect as this command.
Note.
If the next segment was already visited and it is invoked via the
segmentSwitcher
["V" aka "$"] button in
EditView's
buttonPanel
[see also
here],
then the previous memo vitals are restored.
With this command, if your current memo is
segmented,
then the
segment indices
of your memo and its
sister segments
get automatically readjusted so that if you added some segments manually
to your memo then the new segment indices will be again in multiples of
ten.
A memo header
contains all the essential information regarding your memo which is used
both in the SkyIsLimit feature and in exporting several memos into one
pedit32 memo or DOC file. The details are explained
here.
QUESTION.
Why do I need to create header?
ANSWER.
So that you can create segments manually which can be combined into one
pedit32 memo or DOC file via an export job.
Once you have a header, you can use it as a template to paste it to the top of other
memos so that they would create one family of
segmented memos.
Please make sure that you adjust the segment number appropriately in each of the
segments so that they would be ordered exactly the way you want it.
Any (exactly) 4 digit number can be used such as 0002 and 1976.
This command inserts a date'n'time stamp of the form
into your memo at the current cursor location if there is no current
text selection in your memo, and replaces the latter by a date'n'time
stamp if there is one.
This command allows you to toggle
EditView's
buttonPanel
[see also
here]
on and off.
When it is off, that is, when you are in the full screen edit mode, then
the text editing field is slightly larger which seems to please many
pedit aficionados.
I personally love the
buttonPanel
[see also
here]
and would never turn it off.
This selection is sticky in the sense that it survives visits to
ListView
and to other applications.
This command yields another way of changing fonts in
EditView.
Please see
EditView's Fonts
for more details.
This command allows you to examine the beginning of your memo.
The location of the cursor remains unchanged.
If you want to move your cursor as well, then please
use the
Jump to...
command in
EditView's
Options
menu.
As of September 11, 2000, this has replaced the original
Jump to...
command in
EditView's
Options
menu.
It has been my experience that it is usually the sophisticated peditor
[as opposed to "newbies"] who uses this command. Therefore, many of the
jumper commands are quite sophisticated themselves in nature. If you are
willing to invest a little extra time to get acquainted with them, they
will provide for you an easy way to navigate within your memo very fast
and very efficiently.
It may be a good idea to study carefully the description of the various
jumper commands since not all of them operate in a completely self-evident
fashion.
I also recommend that you study the
Select...
[see
EditView's
Options
menu] and
Jump to...
commands simultaneously since they share many features.
Please do not forget to read
this
either. It explains how to repeat the last jump.
The Repeat # field allows you to enter a non-negative
integer which will be used as the number of times the selected command
will be performed.
Note.
Just to make your pedit experiences more pleasant, entering
"r" always selects the number displayed in the
Repeat # field.
In addition, please don't hesitate to use the following shortcuts.
PageDown = down-arrow = decreases the number in the Repeat # field
For instance, if the Repeat # field contains the number
"5", and you select the Word button,
then your cursor will jump to the fifth word of your memo counting from
the home position, that is, from top of your memo.
If the Forth w[ord] box [upper case "F"] is checked then,
by definition, words are separated from each other by
white spaces only unlike in regular spoken languages
where punctuation signs also separate words. For instance,if Forth
rules,then this sentence contains ten words only.
Looking at the pedit ... jumper screen, you can see
three columns of six buttons each and another set of three buttons
under them with labels bP%, P%, and
fP%.
In each of the rows the buttom labels are very similar, except that the
buttons in left column start with the letter "b"
[backward], and in the right column they start with the letter
"f" [forward].
In fact, typing the letter "b" once, puts you into
a backward mode, whereas typing the same
letter "b"again, takes you out of the
backward mode and places you back to the default
absolute mode.
Simlarly, typing the letter "f" once, puts you into
a forward mode, whereas typing the same
letter "f" again, takes you out of the
forward mode and places you back to the default
absolute mode.
Another way of changing modes is by typing
"b", "f", or "a"
[absolute] in any order you wish.
The title bar of the pedit ... jumper screen always
tells you which mode you are in.
Note.
If you use your stylus to tap buttons on the screen then you don't need
to be concerned about the above described backward,
forward, and absolute modes.
The middle column allows you to jump to various cursor positions
starting from the home position, that is, from top of your memo. This is
what I define as a jump in absolute mode.
Note.
The home position of your memo is always the beginning
[top] of your memo and the end is the very end of it
[bottom] with the exception of
ScreenLine jumps when
home and end refer to the top and
bottom of the currently visible screen on your Palm.
The left column allows you to jump backward to various cursor positions
starting from the current position of your cursor. This is
what I define as a jump in backward mode.
The right column allows you to jump forward to various cursor positions
starting from the current position of your cursor. This is
what I define as a jump in forward mode.
Note.
If there is a text selection in your memo, then, in the context of
jumping, the current cursor position depends on the direction of your
jump. If you jump backward, then we define the current cursor position
as the beginning of your text selection, whereas otherwise the current
cursor position is defined as the end of your text selection.
Note.
As of September 25, 2000, the only exception to this rule is when you
perform
ScreenLine
jumps. As soon as we figure out a meaningful implementation of
ScreenLine
jumps with text selections, we will update this rule as well.
EXAMPLE.
For instance, if the Repeat # field contains the number
"5", and you select the bWord button,
then your cursor will jump backward to the fifth word of your memo
counting from the current cursor position.
EXAMPLE.
For instance, if the Repeat # field contains the number
"5", and you select the fWord [no pun
intended whatsoever] button, then your cursor will jump forward to the
fifth word of your memo counting from the current cursor position.
Note.
If you are an experienced peditor, then it is self-evident to you that
the ESC key version of the above two examples are
and
respectively.
Homework.
What should and will happen if you enter
as an ESC key shortcut?
Note.
When wanting to use the ESC key mechanism, please
keep in mind that there is no need for an ESC key
within the pedit ... jumper dialog since there is no
text field in it accepting alphabetical input [see
here].
Notation.
In the following discussion and tables "#" stands for
the number which you entered in the Repeat # field. If
the Repeat # field is empty or contains the number
"0", then, depending on the function of the selected
button, you may get a warning dialog reminding you to enter a number
into that field.
Now let us discuss the buttons themselves.
The three "Character" buttons allow you to jump backward
[bChar] or forward [fChar] exactly
"#" characters from your current cursor position, or to
jump to the "#th" character
[Character] counting from the top of your current memo.
ESC j NUMBER c =
jump the cursor forward by "NUMBER" characters counting from the top of
your memo
ESC j NUMBER f c =
jump the cursor forward by "NUMBER" characters relative to the current
cursor position
The three "Word" buttons allow you to jump backward
[bWord] or forward [fWord] exactly
"#" words from your current cursor position, or
to jump to the "#th" word [Word]
counting from the top of your current memo.
ESC j NUMBER w =
jump the cursor forward by "NUMBER" words counting from the top of your
memo
ESC j NUMBER f w =
jump the cursor forward by "NUMBER" words relative to the current cursor
position
Note.
Typing the number "NUMBER" above is optional. If you leave it
out then its default value "1" is used as the
"NUMBER".
The three "Sentence" buttons allow you to jump backward
[bZent] or forward [fZent] exactly
"#" sentences from your current cursor position, or to
jump to the "#th" sentence [Zentence]
counting from the top of your current memo.
ESC j NUMBER z =
jump the cursor forward by "NUMBER" sentences counting from the top of
your memo
ESC j NUMBER f z =
jump the cursor forward by "NUMBER" sentences relative to the current
cursor position
Note.
I am sure you know that "Sentence" is spelled as "Zentence" above because
"z" is the activator letter.
Note.
Typing the number "NUMBER" above is optional. If you leave it
out then its default value "1" is used as the
"NUMBER".
The three
ScreenLine
buttons are perhaps the trickiest components of my beloved pedit.
Note.
If you don't yet know what a
ScreenLine
is, please read about it
here
before you continue.
If you are brave enough to explore, you will be amazed to find out that,
in fact, these three buttons hide no less [and no more] than six
buttons. Namely, each of the three is spilt into two buttons.
The reason is simple. Each
ScreenLine
has two ends, namely, a left end and a right one. Since the Palm screen
real-estate is at a premium, I had to do a splitter-upper job to be able
to accommodate jumping to both the right and left ends of a
ScreenLine.
ESC j NUMBER s =
jump the cursor to the beginning of
ScreenLine
number "NUMBER" relative to the top of the current screen.
ESC j NUMBER f s =
jump the cursor to the beginning of the
ScreenLine
which is by "NUMBER"
ScreenLines
forward relative to the current
ScreenLine
Note.
Typing the number "NUMBER" above is optional. If you leave it
out then its default value "1" is used as the
"NUMBER".
Identical commands allow you to jump to the "end" of
ScreenLines
except that you have to replace the lower cased
"s" by the upper cased "S".
Namely,
ESC j NUMBER S =
jump the cursor to the end of
ScreenLine
number "NUMBER" relative to the top of the current screen.
ESC j NUMBER f S =
jump the cursor to the end of the
ScreenLine
which is by "NUMBER"
ScreenLines
forward relative to the current
ScreenLine
Note.
Typing the number "NUMBER" above is optional. If you leave it
out then its default value "1" is used as the
"NUMBER".
QUESTION.
How come that if the cursor is at the beginning of a
ScreenLine
and the previous
ScreenLine
does not end with a linefeed [carriage return], and I want to move to the
end of the same
ScreenLine,
then I end up at the end of the previous
ScreenLine
instead of the current one? There is a similar problem if I use a repeat
number "#" different from "1".
ANSWER.
The Palm OS does not differentiate between the beginning of a
ScreenLine
and the end of the previous
ScreenLine
if the previous
ScreenLine
does not end with a linefeed [carriage return].
All peditors can verify this by turning on the
stats
in the title bar, and then by
going to the beginning of a
ScreenLine
and entering a left arrow-character or a backspace Graffiti character.
You will see that, if the previous
ScreenLine
did not end with a linefeed, then the
stats
remain unchanged, that is, the cursor position remained the same.
SOLUTION.
Move your cursor to the right, and then do the jump.
The three "Line" buttons allow you to jump backward
[bLine] or forward [fLine] exactly
"#"
lines
from your current cursor position, or to jump to the
"#th" line [LineFeed] counting from
the top of your current memo.
ESC j NUMBER l =
jump the cursor forward by "NUMBER"
lines
counting from the top of your memo
ESC j NUMBER f l =
jump the cursor forward by "NUMBER"
lines
relative to the current cursor position
Note.
Typing the number "NUMBER" above is optional. If you leave it
out then its default value "1" is used as the
"NUMBER".
Note.
Please do not forget that
lines
and
ScreenLines
are not the same animals.
The three "Paragraph" buttons allow you to jump backward
[bPar] or forward [fPar] exactly
"#" paragraphs in your memo starting from your current
cursor position, or to jump to the "#th" paragraph in
your memo [Paragraph] counting from the top of your
current memo.
Note.
Please do not forget to check what
paragraphs
really are.
Note.
If the repeat number "#" is equal to
"0" and you jump backward [bPar], then
you will end up at the beginning of the current paragraph. Similarly, if
the repeat number "#" is equal to "0"
and you jump forward [fPar], then you will end up at the
end of the current paragraph.
Note.
If the repeat number "#" is equal to
"0" and you are not inside a paragraph, then jumping
backward [bPar] or forward [fPar] is
not allowed,
Note.
If the repeat number "#" is positive and you jump
backward [bPar], then you will end up at the end of the
chosen paragraph. Similarly, if the repeat number "#"
is positive and you jump forward [fPar] or you are in
the absolute mode [Paragraph], then you
will end up at the beginning of the chosen paragraph.
ESC j NUMBER p =
jump the cursor forward by "NUMBER"
paragraphs
counting from the top of your memo
ESC j NUMBER f p =
jump the cursor forward by "NUMBER"
paragraphs
relative to the current cursor position
Note.
Typing the number "NUMBER" above is optional. If you leave it
out then its default value "1" is used as the
"NUMBER".
The three "Percent" buttons allow you to jump backward
[b%] or forward [f%] exactly
"#" percent of the total number of characters in your
memo starting from your current cursor position, or to jump to the
"#th" percent of the total number of characters in your
memo [%] counting from the top of your current memo.
ESC j NUMBER % =
jump the cursor forward by "NUMBER" percent
counting from the top of your memo
ESC j NUMBER f % =
jump the cursor forward by "NUMBER" percent
relative to the current cursor position
The Home and End buttons
["ESC j h" and "ESC j e"]
move the cursor to the top and the bottom of your current memo,
respectively.
The .Cncl [.Cancel] button
["ESC j ." - but why]
aborts the jumper operation and takes you back to
EditView.
The Gursor [Cursor] button ["ESC j g"]
makes you jump directly to the current location of the cursor. This is
especially useful when you visited another part of your [huge] memo, and
you wish to get back to your current editing position.
The TopLeft button ["ESC j t"] jumps
the cursor to the top left corner of the currently visible screen.
The Marker button ["ESC j m"] jumps the
cursor to the marker location [see the
Set Marker
command in
EditView's
Edit
menu].
In this case the marker will move to the current cursor, and the cursor
moves to the original location of the marker. In other words, the marker
and the cursor exchange their coordinates.
Note.
When jumping, the cursor always ends up where one jumps to.
This is in contrast to the
Visit Top
and
Visit Bottom
commands in
EditView's
Options
menu which only visit the corresponding locations
without actually moving the cursor there.
Note.
Here are three convenient shortcuts [a la emacs] which can be used directly from
EditView.
ESC E =
jump the cursor to the end of the current
ScreenLine
ESC N =
jump the cursor to the top of the currently visible screen
Note.
Whenever it is feasible, the jumper functions work in context in the
sense that the cursor shows up in the middle of the text field.
Note.
Please keep in mind that the enumeration starts with
"1". Hence, for instance, if you wish to jump the
cursor to the beginning of the second line on the currently visible
screen then you need to enter "2" into the
Repeat # field. The corresponding keyboard command is
"ESC j2bs".
Note.
All the jumper commands are sticky in the sense that the last
jumper command can be repeated by simply either doing a
buttonShifted
"J"
job in
EditView's
buttonPanel
[see also
here],
or by entering "ESC J" [capitalized "J"].
Of course, once you quit your memo or
magiPad,
the last jump becomes history.
As of September 11, 2000, this has been replaced by the brand new
Jump to...
command in
EditView's
Options
menu.
I kept the old version of "Jump to..." in this manual for two reason.
First, there are many peditors who are somewhat slow in upgrading
their pedits. Second, this gives a chance to see pedit in progress.
This command needs no explanation, except that the myriad fields can be
rotated by entering SPACE or TAB, and,
in addition, a la Windows style, they can also be accessed directly by
entering the underlined letters.
When jumping, the cursor always ends up where one jumps to.
This is in contrast to the
Visit Top
and
Visit Bottom
commands in
EditView's
Options
menu which only visit the corresponding locations
without actually moving the cursor there.
A handy shortcut is
"ESC N"
which places the cursor to the top of the currently visible screen.
The cursor button makes you jump directly to the
current location of the cursor. This is especially useful when you
visited another part of your [huge] memo, and you wish to get back to
your current editing position.
This command allows you to examine the end of your memo.
The location of the cursor remains unchanged.
If you want to move your cursor as well, then please
use the
Jump to...
command in
EditView's
Options
menu.
This command is the same as the
"F"
button in
EditView's
buttonPanel
[see also
here].
Please go to
here
for more details.
This command is the same as the
"G"
button in
EditView's
buttonPanel
[see also
here].
Please go to
here
for more details.
This is just a handy shortcut to toggling the
Ign[ore] Case check box in the
magiFind'n'Replace dialog
which is explained
here
where the
magiFind...
command in
EditView's
Options
menu is discussed.
In a nutshell, this controls whether all find and search operations are
case sensitive.
This is just a handy shortcut to toggling the
Wrap check box in the
magiFind'n'Replace dialog
which is explained
here
where the
magiFind...
command in
EditView's
Options
menu is discussed.
In a nutshell, this controls whether all find and search operations are
going to stop once they reach the end of your memo, or else, they will
go back to the start of your memo and continue what they are engaged
in.
This command toggles the
statistics
displayed in the title bar.
This command calls Palm's built-in Address Book
application to lookup a phone number.
If there is some selected text in your memo and if there is a match, then
the selected text will be replaced with the phone number.
If there is no selected text and there is a match, then
the phone number is placed to the current cursor location.
If there is no match, the function displays the Address Book
short list.
This is
EditView's
Preferences... dialog.
The first two check boxes are explained where
doubleTaps
are discussed.
The allow double taps in the text box can also be activated by
entering "a".
If the capitalization is automatic box
["c"] is checked then each sentence will automatically
start with a capital letter.
Note.
Due to the nature of the Palm OS, as of September 6, 2000, automatic
capitalization only works in conjunction with text input via graffiti.
Neither the built-in virtual keyboard nor external keyboards are
affected by it.
If the display statistics in title bar box
["d"] is checked then the
stats
are on.
If the escape character is box ["e"]
is checked then the ESC key mechanism is activated,
and the character following this check box is your
ESC
character.
Note.
If you want either SPACE or TAB to be
the ESC character, then please enter
"P" [capitalized "P"] or "T"
[capitalized "T"], respectively.
Note.
If the ESC character is either SPACE
or TAB, then it will not show up in the text field
following the escape character is check box since it is
invisible. However, you can highlight it, and then it becomes visible.
If the ignore case during search box ["i"]
is checked then the
magiFind...
and
Find More
operations are case blind.
Please see the
magiFind...
command in
EditView's
Options
menu for more details.
The linefeed is considered invisible option
["l"] is used by the visibilator.
Please see the
"V"
button in
EditView's
buttonPanel
[see also
here]
for more details.
Regarding the save text in magiPad option
["s"], pelase see
magiPad
for more details.
Note.
Just to make your pedit experiences more rewarding, entering
SPACE or TAB will rotate the focus
between the two entry fields.
In addition, please don't hesitate to use the following shortcuts.
PageDown = down-arrow = decreases the number in the field which is focused
as long as the focused field expects a number input.
Note.
There is another
Preferences...
dialog which is located in
ListView's
Options
menu.
This command is explained
here.
This command is the same as the
Undo
command in
EditView's
Edit
menu.
This command is the same as the
Cut
command in
EditView's
Edit
menu.
This command is the same as the
Copy
command in
EditView's
Edit
menu.
This command is the same as the
Paste
command in
EditView's
Edit
menu.
If you have
Stand Alone's
Clipper
installed, then a
buttonShifted
tap on the
"P"
button
sends Clipper into action.
Ain't that cool? You will feel even more exhilarated when you realize
that if Clipper is installed then the
"P"
button is displayed in bold to remind you that Clipper
is at your disposal.
I am pretty sure that fans of Silkyboard will like that
Clipper and Silkyboard can co-exist
inside pedit. If you use Silkyboard, then please
un-check the Enable Clipper Menu in
Clipper.
By the way, normally you paste with
"P"
which also gets invoked by
"ESC p",
so that it should be easy to remember
"ESC P"
which is yet another way of activating Clipper.
A word of caution. Some peditors reported a few sporadic and
unreproducible crashes when Clipper was installed.
This command is the same as the
Select...
command in
EditView's
Edit
menu.
This command is explained where the
Set Marker
command in
EditView's
Edit
menu is discussed.
This command is the same as the
Jump to...
command in
EditView's
Options
menu.
This command repeats the last jump. It is explained
here,
where the
Jump to...
command in
EditView's
Options
menu is discussed.
This command is the same as the
magiFind...
command in
EditView's
Options
menu.
Please go to
here
for more details.
This command is the same as the
Find More
command in
EditView's
Options
menu.
Please go to
here
for more details.
I use this command for testing, debugging, and other goodies.
Programmers will find it useful too.
Among others, it tells you all the characteristics of the first
character which is either in a selected text or is right after the
cursor.
You can also find out the serial number of your Palm if it exists,
information about the
sister segments
of your memo, and so forth.
Amazingly, not all Palms have a serial number. Some clones do not
have one. I wonder why.
"H" stands for Help which is mostly
context sensitive.
This command is the same as the
Help...
command in
EditView's
Edit
menu.
Please note that
EditView's
instantHelp,
that is, the
"?"
button is related to the H button.
This command is the same as the
"OK" & ".C" buttons
command in
EditView's
Record
menu.
It allows you to quit
EditView
and to go to
ListView.
If you are in the regular
EditView
and not in
magiPad,
then this command serves three functions.
First, this command allows you to change the category of your current memo
[see
EditView's
Category Changer].
Second, it allows you to privatize your current memo
Please see the
Privatize Memo
command in
ListView's
Record
menu for further details.
Third, it allows you to delete your current memo.
Please see the
Delete Memo
command in
ListView's
Record
menu for further details.
If you are in
magiPad,
then this command allows you to decide
the contents of
magiPad
should be saved. Please see
magiPad
for further details.
This command brings up the word count dialog and it
requires almost no explanation except for the definiton of what
characters, words, and lines are.
The definition of characters is obvious except that it also includes
carriage returns which are called linefeeds in the Palm universe. For
the technically inclined, chrLineFeed = ^J = 10 = 012 = 0x0A.
The definition of words is also more or less obvious, except that the
total of the words up to the cursor or selection PLUS
the selected words PLUS the words from the cursor or
selection may add up to more than the total number of words since the
cursor or selection may split words.
A word is defined as a group of characters not containing word
separators. The latter are the space character, the horizontal and
vertical tabs, the linefeed, the formfeed, and the carriage return
characters.
EXAMPLE.
pedit;memo is one word even if we suspect that there is
a typo and we meant pedit; memo which is two words.
The definition of lines is also obvious except that it
is somewhat different from the common sense definition, since it only
counts linefeeds. Hence, for instance, a line may be counted as zero
lines if it does not end with a linefeed.
More precisely, using the REGEX terminolgy, a
line is defined as "^.*$".
It is a common misconception among inexperienced Palm users that a line
is what you see as a line on your Palm's screen. Please keep in mind
that what you think is a line is, in fact, only a "virtual" line which
depends on factors such as what font is used to display your memo and
how wide the text field is. We call such objects
ScreenLines.
It may be better, although not entirely correct, if you think of a line
as a paragraph. In the "virtual" sense this is closer to the truth than
the above described
ScreenLines.
The above seem to be in accordance with the generally accepted rules
such as the ones used by unix wc (GNU or not).
As opposed to
lines,
we define ScreenLines as the "virtual"
lines which are displayed across the screen of your Palm handheld device.
Since we talked about
lines
and
ScreenLines,
this is the right place to define
paragraphs
as well.
First we need to define WhiteLines. A
WhiteLine is a
line
consisting of space, horizontal tab, and vertical tab
characters only.
More precisely, using the REGEX terminolgy, a
WhiteLine is defined as
"^[\space\htab\vtab]*$".
As opposed to
lines,
we define Paragraphs as collection of lines which does
not contain WhiteLines and which start either at the
beginning of your memo or after a WhiteLine, and which
ends either at the end of your memo or before a
WhiteLine.
I hope that you will like the myriad pieces of information it yields.
This button was named in honor of the venerable unix command wc.
With this command
EditView's
ruler can be toggled on and off.
QUESTION.
What is the ruler?
ANSWER.
The ruler is what 99% of the non-experts would call
underline. It looks like underline, it
smells like underline, but it ain't no
underline!
If you think about, you realize that nothing is underlined. The ruler
simply gives a visual reference where the lines are separated from each
other.
The rule state is preserved until it is changed again. Try it. I prefer
no underline [oops, I meant ruler] whatsoever but please feel free to
make your own choice.
Please note that
magiPad
has its own ruler settings independently
of EditView.
pedit and
Neal Bridges'
ClearHack
are 99% compatible [after yours truly spent days to figure out how to do
it].
The reason that I say 99% and not 100% is that a hack is a
hack, and, no matter what, there can be no guarantees that a
hack will work under all circumstances whatsoever, especially since
operating systems keep changing and many hacks fall behind in their
maintenance schedules as their authors' priorities change. This should
be understood as a general statement and not as a claim specifically about
ClearHack.
I am sure you know that ClearHack removes those
annoying rulers in text fields, don't you? If you didn't know it then
probably they don't bother you.
This command changes the case of the selected text to lower case.
If there is no text selected, then the case of the character right after
the current cursor position is changed to lower case.
This command is the same as the
Shift Left
command in
EditView's
Edit+
menu.
This command changes the case of the selected text to title case.
Of course, the process of Title Casing is subject to
heated debate, and not even the greatest minds amongst us seem to agree
what constitutes a properly title-cased expression. For instance, how
should select'n'Search be title-cased?
As a time saving shortcut, and this is one of the most appreciated
features in pedit, if there is no text selected, then T
title-cases the word surrounding the current cursor.
This command changes the case of the selected text to upper case.
If there is no text selected, then the case of the character right after
the current cursor position is changed to upper case.
Just think of this command as capitalization, that is
KAPITALIZATION.
This command is the same as the
Shift Right
command in
EditView's
Edit+
menu.
This command brings up
instantHelp.
Please note that
EditView's
H
button is related to the ? button.
This command is the sans ASCII table version of the
"A"
button in
EditView's
buttonPanel
[see also
here].
It is described in details where
magiPad
is discussed.
This command is the ASCII table enriched variant of the
"M"
button in
EditView's
buttonPanel
[see also
here],
and it is the same as the
magiPad in|out
command in
EditView's
Edit
menu. It is described in details where
magiPad
is discussed.
This command backs up either the current memo or, if there is a text
selection, the selected text in the current memo [as long as it is not
too long], and puts a date'n'time stamp on the backed
up copy.
Most users will never experience a situation that their memo is too long
to be backed up, but, if they do, then a clever dialog will pop up which
explains why the operation cannot be accomplished.
If I may suggest, use the
buttonShifted
">"
button [aka Switcher]
after a back up job to return to your original memo.
This button invokes the visibilator command.
Have you ever wondered if that gap thing right there in
your text is two spaces, or three spaces, or, maybe, is it a tab or a
combination thereof? Worry no longer! Just invoke the
visibilator and it shows you the spaces and tabs by
replacing them with "·" [middle dot] and
"»" [right pointing double angle quotation mark,
similar to ">>"], respectively.
Feel free to edit your invisible characters as you wish. Then hit the
"V" button again, and you are back to "normal".
If you want to see the carriage returns [linefeeds] too then please set
the linefeed is considered invisible check box in the
Preferences...
dialog in
EditView's
Options
menu, and you are all set.
The next time you invoke the visibilator, all your
carriage returns will show up as ¶ [the pilcrow or
paragraph sign, similar to the mirror image of "P"].
QUESTION.
When my invisible characters were shown, I edited my memo, and now I have
a mixture of spaces, tabs, linefeeds, and their visibilator
equivalents in my memo. What a mess. How can I get my memo back to normal?
ANSWER.
Just hit "V" twice. That should fix your memo.
The
buttonShifted
"V"
button activates the segmentSwitcher which allows you
to survey all the
sister segments
of your current memo, and to jump to either of them.
The segmentSwitcher can also be activated by
"ESC 0" [zero]
This command takes you to
magiPad
where all
sister segments
of your current memo are listed.
The first line tells you the total size of your combined segments.
This number does not include the size of the individual header files.
The number in front of the title tells you the segment index
of the memo segment.
An exclamation mark "!" instead of a colon
":" after the segment index and the sign
"<=" at the end of one of the line refers to your current
memo.
A number at the end of a line indicates that that segment was
already visited, and the number itself tells you how recently
it was visited, where 01 refers the most recenty
visited segment.
Tapping on any of the segment titles transfers you to the selected
segment instantaneously.
HINT.
Use the
"F"
button in
EditView's
buttonPanel
[see also
here]
to locate your memo and then enter a carriage return
[the return key on your keyboard]. It's a no-brainer.
Note.
The segmentSwitcher is inactive if you are in [the genuine]
magiPad, or if your current memo is not
segmented.
Please see
Segmented Memos
for further details.
This button is the same as the
Recent...
command in
ListView's
Navigate
menu.
This command activates the Switcher which allows you to
jump back to a large number of previously visited memos.
The Switcher can also be activated by
"ESC 0" [zero]
and by
"ESC >".
The Switcher restores the state of your previous visits
such as cursor position, text selection, scroll position, and so forth.
pedit keeps track of the last 25 memos you have visited since you last
cleared
pedit's history.
This command takes you to
magiPad
where all your recently visted files are listed in reverse chronological
order.
Tapping on any of the memo titles, pedit transfers you to the selected
memo instantaneously.
HINT.
Use the
"F"
button in
EditView's
buttonPanel
[see also
here]
to locate your memo and then enter a carriage return
[the return key on your keyboard]. It's a no-brainer.
Note.
The Switcher is inactive if you are in [the genuine]
magiPad, or if you have not yet visited another memo
prior to entering the current memo.
WARNING.
If you edited any of your memos with a program other than this particular
pedit, whether on the Palm or on the DeskTop, it may be a good idea to clear
both the history of recently visited memos and pedit's preferences.
For further details, please see the
Clear History...
and
Clear Preferences...
commands in
ListView's
Options
menu.
This command is the quickSwitcher
which is a complement to the
Switcher
[">"] button in
EditView's
buttonPanel
[see also
here].
A
buttonShifted
tap on the
Switcher
[">"] button takes you instantaneously back to your
most recently visited memo.
The quickSwitcher can also be activated by
"ESC }".
This command activates the Launcher which allows you to
jump fast to "pedit friendly" applications.
Such applications include but are not limited to Arranger, Clipper,
HackMaster, HotPaw Basic, LispMe, Magic Text, Memo Pad, Memo PLUS,
NoteTaker!, OnBoardC, pedit, pedit32, PocketC, Quartus, RsrcEdit, Safe,
Secure Memo Pad, and StartFavorites.
This command takes you to
magiPad
where all "pedit friendly" applications are listed.
Tapping on any of the application names, pedit transfers you to the
selected application instantaneously.
HINT.
Use the
"F"
button in
EditView's
buttonPanel
[see also
here]
to locate your application and then enter a carriage
return [the return key on your keyboard]. It's a no-brainer.
I point out that if I define an application as "pedit friendly",
it does not necessarily imply that the developers of that particular
application have displayed a friendly attitude towards pedit. Although
in the great majority of cases Palm application developers were
cooperative and helpful, there were a few instances when I received cold
shoulders while trying to clarify some issues.
I consider an application "pedit friendly", if it has anything to do
with text editing or with programming on the Palm, and if peditors
requested that it be added to the list.
I hope that the developers of the above mentioned applications will
return the favor by providing a similar feature in their products.
The Launcher can also be activated by
"ESC 1".
If you have
Bozidar Benc's
PopFavorites
installed, then a
buttonShifted
tap on the
"»"
button pops it up.
How does one know if PopFavorites is installed? It's
elementary, my dear peditor, and probably you have already guessed it:
"»"
is displayed in bold.
Otherwise, that is, if
"»"
is not displayed in bold, then a
buttonShifted
tap on the
"»"
button activates
the quickLauncher.
The quickLauncher takes you to your most recently
visited pedit friendly application [if there is such an application
already].
PopFavorites can also be invoked by
"ESC 2".
The quickLauncher can also be invoked by
"ESC 3".
Another way of activating quickLauncher really fast is
by tapping the upper left corner of the title bar in
EditView
[a 5*5 pixel area].
This command is the same as the
"OK" & ".C" buttons
command in
EditView's
Record
menu.
It allows you to quit
magiPad
and to return to
EditView.
This command is described in details where
magiPad
is discussed.
This command allows you to change the category of your current memo.
In addition, you can also edit [add, rename, and delete] the names
of your categories.
By the time you get to this section, there is an excellent chance that
you will know of several ways of moving your pedit memos to your DeskTop
computer and vice versa [see, for instance
here
and
here].
Nevertheless, I have the example of at least one aspiring peditor who
could not figure it out from the manual, and, therefore, he put together
a cookbook style approach to the task. The rest of this section is based
on Doug Boulter's advice. I am sure that many "newbies" will be grateful
to him.
If you want to move your pedit memo to the DeskTop and the explanation
here
was insufficient, then please follow these steps.
Step #1.
Open your memo in your pedit in
EditView
Open the pull down
Record
menu. Select the
Export Memo...
command. A shortcut for the latter is either using
"ESC e"
or the Palm command stroke and "e".
Step #2.
Make sure the second line from the top in the pedit
export... dialog says Export from pedit[32] to
doc.
If it says Export from pedit32 to pedit or
Export from pedit to pedit32,
tap the doc push button in the lower right corner to
get the correct screen.
Note.
pedit remembers the previous state of this screen. Thus, if you do not
ever export to the
sister pedit,
you will never see that option screen again unless you select it.
Step #3.
If you want to delete your memo after you export it, check the delete
memos after exporting box. Enter the name you want the
DOC
file to have. You do not need to give it a ".pdb" extension. For
example, this file could be called 00test.
Note.
For your convenience, pedit is smart enough to pick a proposed
DOC
file name. If you have a current text selection in your memo then it is
used as the basis of a proposed name.
Step #4.
Once you have done all this, tap the export this memo + all its
segments button.
Step #5.
Do a HotSync job between your Palm and the DeskTop. On the DeskTop, look
in the backup folder under your user name. You will see the file
00test.pdb.
Note.
On the Macintosh, this backup folder is called "Backup", in Windows it
may be at "C:\Palm\USER\Backup" where "USER" is your user name, and
under unix or linux it is probably "~/???" [but who cares anyway, since,
if you use unix or linux, then you will never need to read this "newbie"
tutorial in the first place].
Step #6.
Use your "doc <=> text" converter (not included with pedit) to convert
this
DOC
file to an ASCII text file. You may then word process it to your
heart's delight.
Note.
Doug's favorite "doc <=> text" converter is
DocInOut.
I use
MakeDoc.
If you want to move a text file from the DeskTop to pedit and the explanation
here
was insufficient, then please follow these steps.
Step #1.
Using your "doc <=> text" converter, convert your ASCII text file to a Palm
DOC
file with a ".pdb" extension. Make sure that you remember the name of
your .pdb file.
Step #2a.
If you are a Windows user then from the DeskTop, select this ".pdb" file
for installation. Click the install button, then click the add button
to select the file. When you have added all the ".pdb" files you want,
click "Done". If you are using DocInOut, you can skip this step by
clicking the box that says "Install After" which will then perform this
step automatically.
Step #2b.
If you are a Macintosh, unix, or linux user then simply follow the usual
Palm rules of installing ".pdb" files. I have not yet met a Macintosh, unix,
or linux user who did not know how to do this. If you are one of
those, then please let me know, and then I will provide detailed
instructions.
Step #3.
Perform a HotSync job. This will load the .pdb file to your Palm handheld.
Step #4.
Open your pedit.
Go to ListView.
A trick here is to choose the correct memo category (located in the
upper right corner of the screen) into which you want the freshly loaded
DOC
file to go. That saves you the step of categorizing the new memo which
you are about to import.
Tap the Docs button in
ListView's
buttonPanel
[see also
here].
A shortcut for the latter is either using "ESC d",
"ESC i", or the Palm command stroke and "i".
This tap takes you to
magiPad
and presents you with a list of
DOC
files which you can import to pedit.
Step #5.
Tap the file you want to import from the list that comes up in
magiPad.
If the
DOC
file is writable, that is, it is not in the flash ROM, then decide
whether you want to delete it after you have imported it to pedit. If
yes, then check the delete doc file after importing
box. Decide whether you want no
segmenting
if the doc file fits one memo. If yes, then check the no
segmenting if fits one memo box. Then tap import this
doc file button.
Step #6.
Now your
DOC
file has been transformed to a memo, and you can put it in a memo
category and/or [p]edit it to your heart's delight.
Note.
Please read about
segmented memos
in general, and about
segment headers
in particular, if you are curious about those odd lines
which appear at the beginning of your memo. If your memo consists of one
single segment, then you can delete the segment header if you don't want
it with no ill effects in pedit except that subseqent exportation back
to
DOC
files will be much simpler if you leave it alone.
Here are a few bits and pieces of fun and pratical ways to use pedit
that you might not have thought of.
BookMarks
Just make an index of the words or expressions you want to visit on a
regular basis either at the beginning [I prefer this] or at the end of
your memo. Then select the appropriate words and hit the
"G"
button in
EditView's
buttonPanel
[see also
here].
Voila, your memo scrolls to your selected expression.
iambic Reader
[contributed by Edward Faith]
Write HTML (HyperText Markup Language) code using pedit, then export to
DOC
format and read it with iambic Reader.
EXAMPLE.
Writing "I absolutely love <b>peditPro</b>"
will come out as "I absolutely love peditPro" in iambic Reader.
For your convenience, you can find a list of HTML tags with their
definitions that are supported by iambic Reader
here.
Note.
A word of caution. As of September 29, 2000, I contacted iambic Reader's
technical support by e-mail twice and they have not cared to respond
yet. Therefore, I have some doubts about the degree of their dedication
to their users. Hopefully, they will contact me soon, and then I will
re-evaluate my opinion.
Arranger
[contributed by ???]
The clipboard.
If you think your clipboard is too small, you may want
to try one of these.
ClipHack [http://www.deskfree.com/ClipHack.html]
Clipper [http://www.standalone.com/palmos/clipper/]
MultiClipHac [http://www.palmgear.com/software/showsoftware.cfm?&prodID=1628]
MagicText [http://www.synsolutions.com/software/magictext/]
Note.
When you are in pedit, I removed the Palm Operating System's clipboard
limitation of a maximum 1000 characters when using either the
"C"
button in
EditView's
buttonPanel
[see also
here],
or the
Copy
command in
EditView's
Edit
menu, or the
Qopy'n'Paste
button in
magiPad.
EditView's Fonts.
[based on advice by Jacques Turbi]
Use the standard fonts for browsing memos,
Profont12 or Monaco for keyboard entry,
Profont14 if without clean glasses,
Profont10 for proof reading,
Profont7 or TinyFont to get an overall document feeling,
Profont18 to prompt key words when delivering a lecture,
Profont24 to try to check if the escape "`" is really
backwards or if the accents have the right slope (that's after "un repas
bien arrosi").
A MYSTERY.
Some of you have noticed that after unzipping or untarring the pedit package,
one's prying eyes can see real some really old files such as
[I am not making this up], and wondered what the heck was going on. Stop
torturing yourself. Here is the explanation.
I develop pedit on my Macintoshes but then the rest is done on unix.
Now, on unix machines, the universe started on January 01, 1900, whereas
the Mac Big Bang was on January 01, 1904. Hence, adding 4 years to what
you see is what you get. Well, this is almost true. I leave it up to you
to figure out the rest. Here is a hint: the above pedit.prc was created
on March 2, 2000.
Of course, pedit is not perfect. For instance, it can't tell the time
and the date. Oops, bad example. In fact, it can, and does so in more
than one way. Well, then what is it that pedit cannot do? The truth is
that the list would fill maybe at least half a page or less so that I
will leave this to the gentle peditor's imagination who is hereby
requested to communicate to yours truly
all the shortcomings of pedit with no delay whatsoever.
Speaking of dates, the careful peditor will note that I write dates in the
form 1976/08/10. To be honest, I ain't no pervert, and in every day life I
would write this as 08/10/76 but then people outside the US would think that
I am patronizing them by not writing 10/08/76. Is this August or October
anyway?
Turning serious, I find the YEAR/MONTH/DAY format the most logical
way of writing dates which, on one hand, is completely free of any Y?K bug,
and, on the other, makes comparison of dates a trivial matter.
By the way, 1976/08/10 is the most precious date of my life. If you
guess why [and your guess is correct], then you may win a special prize.
QUESTION.
Why is pedit so big?
ANSWER.
Under its skin, pedit may be one of the most sophisticated Palm
application ever. The full keyboard entry support and the myriad
features make the program rather complex. Do you realize that pedit, in
conjunction with a Palm computing device and an external keyboard, may
make your laptop obsolete? If you must have a leaner version of pedit,
please try out
peditLight.
A MYSTERY.
As Marv Waschke reported on October 15, 2000, when the display looks like this
QUESTION.
Why can't pedit edit DOC files directly?
ANSWER.
Under construction...
QUESTION.
Why can't the segment headers be hidden from the user?
ANSWER.
Under construction...
QUESTION.
What is this !p04 and !p32 at the top of the screen? Why can't you
replace it with a more user friendly expression such as "PeditPro
(single-page memo)"?
ANSWER.
Under construction...
QUESTION.
Why can't I customize pedit and decide which buttons should
be visible in the
buttonPanel?
ANSWER.
Under construction...
QUESTION.
Why can't the memo fonts be sticky?
ANSWER.
Under construction...
QUESTION.
Why can't I add line numbers to my memo in pedit?
ANSWER.
Under construction...
QUESTION.
Under construction...
ANSWER.
Under construction...
Many macros were contributed by
Jerry Skelley.
Jerry's macros can be downloaded from the
files
area of the
peditors Forum.
Note.
If the version of your pedit is below 4.17, please do not embed
"ESC W" strictly inside a Palm shortcut since this
command generates an "EvtEnqueueKey ('W', 0, 0)" job and Palm shortcuts
generate "EvtEnqueueKey ()" jobs as well. The two "EvtEnqueueKey ()"
jobs may interefer with each other resulting in weird scenarios, as
Jerry has discovered. However, it is perfectly all right to define a
Palm shortcut ending with precisely "ESC W".
Under construction...
I guess, this is the right place to declare that you should install and
use all members of the pedit family of Palm text editors at your own
risk since neither I nor PaulComputing are responsible for any damage
and/or loss of data caused by pedit. Please keep in mind the three most
important actions one may, could, can, should, and must do on at least a
daily basis, are as follows:
HotSync, HotSync, and HotSync.
FOR LEGAL REASONS, LET ME STATE IT VERY EXPLICITLY AND VERY CLEARLY THAT
THE USE OF ALL MEMBERS OF THE PEDIT FAMILY OF PALM TEXT EDITORS,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO PEDIT AND/OR PEDIT32 AND/OR PEDIPRO AND/OR
PEDITLIGHT AND/OR PEDITFIXER, CONSTITUTES A CONTRACT BETWEEN THE USER
AND ME, AND THAT THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED AS IS, WITH NO WARRANTY OF
MERCHANTABILITY AND/OR FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR TASK. THE USER ASSUMES
ALL RESPONSIBILITY FOR ITS USE.
It was
Bozidar Benc
who started me on this project, and who helped me out while I was
learning the basics of Palm programming. I am sincerely grateful to
Bozidar. Let me confess that I offered Bozidar co-authorship of pedit
which he politely declined [I wonder if he knows something I don't]. I
use this opportunity to draw attention to his marvelous Palm programs.
I thank Margret Rosenberg, the Editor of this manual, who volunteered
for this project and who relentlessly kept advising me on how to make it
more readable, more informative, and more user friendly.
I am also grateful to
Alan Pinstein
for sharing with me the source code of a MagicText plug-in, and,
thereby, helping me to accelerate my original caseless search function.
Special thanks to
Roger Lawrence
for his RsrcEdit which is one of the handiest and greatest programming
tools available for the Palm platform.
I also thank Rick Bram, Steve C. Gilardi, Carl Osterwald, Ken Hancock,
Harry Konstas, Michael J. Rider, and Andrew Welch who allowed me to use
their fonts and/or font utilities.
I also thank the CodeWarrior and Palm guys at
Metrowerks
and
Palm OS
and the mac guys at
Apple
started it all, especially the creators of the NeXT OS.
In particular, I borrowed extensively from the source code of Palm's
Memo Pad, and I used the Palm SDK as well.
I am sincerely grateful to all the peditors who flooded me with bug
reports, suggestions and recommendations for improving pedit. I hope I
will not offend them if I mention by name a selected few only who for
one reason or another contributed more to pedit's development than the
others: Paolo Amoroso, Jennifer A. Brinn, Marshall Cline, Dafydd Gibbon,
Monika Goehmann, Peter R. Grierson, Michael D. Hensley, Rick Hopkins, Carl
Jacobsen, Jesse Jacobsen, Peter Korman, Casper Lassenius, Mark A.
Mandel, John Newell, Margret Rosenberg, Jerry Skelley, Dirk Spackman,
Howard Veit, and Jeff Wilder.
Finally, please feel free to inform me of your wish list, suggestions,
recommendations, [gentle] criticism, and so forth.
Under construction...
Under construction...
Under construction...
December 10, 1999.
Started work on pedit.
February 1, 2000.
Released version 1.00 of pedit.
February 2, 2000.
Started working on version 1.01 of pedit.
February 1, 2000.
Starting up
EditView
from
ListView
with a graffiti stroke or a letter typed from a keyboard places the
cursor after the just entered character [this was fixed one more time on
February 10, 2000]. Thanks Adrian and Mike for your bug report.
February 1, 2000.
Tapping the upper left corner of the title bar in
EditView
[a 5*5 pixel area] launches PocketC immediately [if it is installed]. I
deactivated this on February 9, 2000 [see the
Launcher
["»"] button in
EditView's
buttonPanel].
February 3, 2000.
Better interaction between
doubleTap
and text selection.
February 4, 2000.
Created two versions of pedit. The regular pedit and the
bigger [but not necessarily better] pedit32.
February 4, 2000.
The cursor no longer disappears after changing the underline mode of the
text field with the
"R"
button in
EditView's
buttonPanel].
Thanks, Carl, for your bug report.
February 4, 2000.
magiPad
can be entered either through both the
"M"
and
"A"
buttons in
EditView's
buttonPanel.
February 5, 2000.
If pedit is assigned to a hard key then in
EditView
that key switches to
ListView,
and, if in
ListView,
then it changes categories.
February 5, 2000.
Added smart selection of words [see the
Select...
command in
EditView's
Options
menu].
February 5, 2000.
Aligned some labels in the
Select...
dialog in
EditView's
Options
menu. Carl and Harry couldn't stand how it looked like.
February 5, 2000.
pedit.README was renamed pedit.txt. Phil wanted it since the ".txt"
extension was more convenient for non-Macintosh users, so I did it.
February 7, 2000.
Fixed a minor bug in the
Security...
dialog in
ListView's
Options
menu when selecting text with no field focused.
February 7, 2000.
Improved the "SHOW|HIDE" process [see the
Security...
command in
ListView's
Options
menu].
February 9, 2000.
Added the
Launcher
["»"] button in
EditView's
buttonPanel.
Thanks to all who requested it.
February 9, 2000.
Streamlined the text selection procedure [see the
Select...
command in
EditView's
Options
menu].
February 9, 2000.
Cleaned up
EditView's
interface.
February 9, 2000.
Added the Cursor button in the
Jump to...
dialog in
EditView's
Options
menu.
February 10, 2000.
Fixed the alignment of some items in some dialogs.
February 10, 2000.
Optimization for saving the preferences [see the
Preferences...
dialog in
EditView's
Options
menu].
February 10, 2000.
Updated the
Help...
dialog in
EditView's
Edit
menu.
February 10, 2000.
pedit and pedit32 have their own individual icons.
February 10, 2000.
Fixed a cosmetic blemish in pedit32 when switching off the
stats
in the title bar in a memo with greater or equal than 10,000 characters.
February 10, 2000.
Starting up
EditView
from
ListView
with a graffiti stroke or a letter typed from a keyboard places the
cursor after the just entered character [fixed it the 2nd time, see
February, 1, 2000].
February 10, 2000.
It is possible to have a registered version of pedit without
the "added bonus" activated.
Note.
As of version 3.00, the "added bonus" has become obsolete.
February 10, 2000.
Enabled the encourager [nagger] to register pedit.
February 10, 2000.
Registration is confirmed in the
Register[ed]
button in the
About pedit...
window.
February 11, 2000.
Added the
Launcher
["»"] button in
EditView's
buttonPanel.
February 11, 2000.
Added the
Switcher
[">"] button in
EditView's
buttonPanel,
and removed the previous operational mode of tapping in the Graffiti
shift area.
February 11, 2000.
Reduced nagging: unregistered users are encouraged to register once out
of every three times only when they open up a new memo.
February 12, 2000.
The existence of a 2*2 pixel sized black square just below the title bar
in the upper right corner of the screen indicates that the current memo
is a pedit32 memo as opposed to a pedit04 memo [see
Which pedit is my pedit?].
February 12, 2000.
The user can enable/disable the escape character
usage, and the escape character itself is user defined [see the
Preferences...
dialog in
EditView's
Options
menu].. Great suggestion, Carl!
February 12, 2000.
The user can enable/disable the automatic capitalization of sentences
[see the
Preferences...
dialog in
EditView's
Options
menu]. Great suggestion, Carl!
February 14, 2000.
Fixed some incompatibility issues with MenuHack [see
Titlebar Statistics].
Thanks, Marshall, for your persistent bug reports!
February 14, 2000.
Fixed some incompatibility issues with ClearHack [see the
"R"
button in
EditView's
buttonPanel].
Thanks, Marshall, for your persistent bug reports!
February 15, 2000.
Invisible characters [space, tab, and, optionally, linefeed] can be
displayed or hidden via the
"V"
button in
EditView's
buttonPanel.
Great suggestion, Carl!
February 17, 2000.
Added support for Bozidar Benc's
PopFavorites.
February 17, 2000.
Added the Top Start[er] option to the
magiFind'n'Replace
dialog. Great suggestion, Carl!
February 17, 2000.
Released version 1.08 of pedit.
February 18, 2000.
Started working on version 1.09 of pedit.
February 19, 2000.
Added the
myNotes
button in
ListView's
buttonPanel.
with an optional date'n'time stamp feature.
February 22, 2000.
Added a full featured memo
Switcher
[">"] command in
EditView's
buttonPanel
This was requested by a large number of peditors. This is in addition
to the
quickSwitcher
which was already implemented in pedit.
February 23, 2000.
Entering
"ESC S"
in
EditView
selects the entire memo [as opposed to the
key sequence
"ESC s"
which opens up the
text selector window
in
EditView's
buttonPanel].
February 23, 2000.
Added support for
Stand Alone's
Clipper
[see the
buttonShifted
"P"
button in
EditView's
buttonPanel].
Great suggestion, Howard.
February 24, 2000.
Added the optional [very sexy]
inverted or black buttons
Great suggestion, Francois.
February 24, 2000.
Fixed a
Switcher
[see the ">" command in
EditView's
buttonPanel]
related harmless bug which caused a "fatal exception". Danke schön,
Monika, for finding the bug.
February 25, 2000.
Fixed a
Switcher
[see the ">" command in
EditView's
buttonPanel]
related harmless bug which caused to display incorrectly the number of
memos in the category in the title bar after a switcher job. Merci
beaocoup, Francois, for finding the bug.
February 26, 2000.
Introduced
buttonShifts
for the
"P",
">"
and
"»"
buttons in
EditView's
buttonPanel.
Clipper
and
PopFavorites
users should especially rejoice. Toda raba, Yaakov, for the idea.
February 27, 2000.
Released version 1.09 of pedit.
February 28, 2000.
Development of version 1.xx was frozen with version 1.09 except for bug
fixes.
February 29, 2000.
Fixed a bug whereby all text selections made in the
Launcher
and the
Switcher
[see the ">" command in
EditView's
buttonPanel]
were saved in the preferences database, and, thereby, caused some errors
under certain circumstances.
February 29, 2000.
Released version 1.10 of pedit.
February 29, 2000.
Released version 1.11 of pedit.
March 1, 2000.
Fixed a bug when
magiPad
was entered via the
"A"
button instead of the
"M"
button, and then if
some text was selected in
magiPad,
then the vitals were saved in the preferences database.
This caused some errors under certain circumstances.
March 2, 2000.
Fixed a minor bug related to the array "myLauncherList[]".
March 2, 2000.
Released version 1.12 of pedit.
March 3, 2000.
Fixed a minor bug related to "EditViewInit ()".
March 3, 2000.
Fixed a minor bug related to the standard editing functions
"U",
"X",
and
"P"
in
magiPad's
buttonPanel
March 3, 2000.
After pedit's expiration date, the user is given a grace period to
install the latest version of pedit.
March 4, 2000.
pedit 1.13 passed two sets of all 1000 POSE gremlins 1000 times without
a single error. For the tests I used rom30dbg.rom and the Macintosh
version of the "Palm OS Emulator 3.0a4".
March 5, 2000.
Fixed minor bug related to text selection when entering
magiPad.
March 5, 2000.
From now on if
magiPad
is saved then even the contents of a blank
magiPad
is saved as opposed to previous behavior when only a non-empty
magiPad
was saved.
March 7, 2000.
pedit 1.13 passed one set of all 1000 POSE gremlins 2000 times without a
single error. For the tests I used PalmOS33-en-iii-dbg.rom and the
Macintosh version of the "Palm OS Emulator 3.0a4".
March 7, 2000.
Fixed a minor bug [a memory leak] when cancelling the
BackUp
["B"] command in
EditView's
buttonPanel
March 7, 2000.
Released version 1.14 of pedit.
February 28, 2000.
Started working on version 2.00 of pedit.
March 2, 2000.
Moved the entire pedit project from Palm SDK 3.1 to SDK 3.5.
March 5, 2000.
Added Memo Pad 3.5 updates to pedit.
March 5, 2000.
Implemented multi-segmented code in the pedit project.
March 9, 2000.
Implemented the
Security...
[a la OS 3.5] and
Password...
commands in
ListView's
Options
menu, and removed the "Security..." button from the "I" button in
EditView.
March 9, 2000.
Streamlined the registration validation.
March 9, 2000.
Implemented automatic indentation [see the
Auto Indent...
dialog in
EditView's
Edit+
menu].
March 10, 2000.
Implemented the
Clear History...
command in
ListView's
Options
menu.
March 10, 2000.
Fixed "Search ()" and "GoToItem ()" discrepancies between OS 3.3 and OS
3.5.
March 11, 2000.
Introduced extra incentives for registering pedit. Non-registered users
cannot save pedit's preferences.
March 13, 2000.
Beaming now works properly with all Palm OSs between 3.0 and 3.5.
March 13, 2000.
Implemented 4Mb [pedit] and 32Mb [pedit32] virtual memos
[see the
SkyIsLimit
command in
EditView's
Edit+
menu].
March 15, 2000.
Implemented left and right block shifts [see the
Shift Right
and
Shift Left
commands in
EditView's
Edit+
menu].
March 16, 2000.
Fixed some scrollbar related bugs if switching between memos via the
Switcher
[">"] command in
EditView's
buttonPanel.
Thanks, John, for being persistent in pointing out the bugs to me.
March 17, 2000.
Fixed a major bug inherited from Memo Pad 3.5 which crashed the Palm
under certain reproducible circumstances after using the new
Security...
command in
ListView's
Options
menu. Memo Pad 3.5, as shipped in 03/2000, is defective! Danke
schön, Monika, you did it again. You are an superb beta tester.
March 17, 2000.
The
FIND
SilkScreen button now finds any string via pedit unlike via Memo Pad
where it finds only beginnings of full words.
March 17, 2000.
Fixed a bug related to "ctlSelectEvent" when I forgot to set "Boolean
handled = true;" after doing a "CtlGetValue ()" job for a number of
"CheckBox" items [sorry for being so technical]. Carl and Monika, you
did it again.
March 18, 2000.
In order to avoid screen update conflicts, if the Palm OS is at least
3.5 then the buttons are always displayed in the default color.
March 20, 2000.
The greatly improved
FIND
SilkScreen button now can do a fancy searching job
using the modifiers '!', '.', '^', '+' and ':'.
March 20, 2000.
The
"Title Casing"
Button In
Editview's
Buttonpanel
Now Works Just Like It's Supposed To Work In
Emacs' Text Abbrev Mode.
March 21, 2000.
The
BackLight
can be invoked by "ESC L" in both
ListView
and
EditView
[see
Common ESC Commands].
March 21, 2000.
The
MENU
SilkScreen button can be invoked by "ESC C" in both
ListView
and
EditView
[see
Common ESC Commands].
March 21, 2000.
The
FIND
SilkScreen button can be invoked by "ESC F" in both
ListView
and
EditView
[see
Common ESC Commands].
March 23, 2000.
The
Launcher
and
Switcher
commands in
EditView's
buttonPanel
work in conjunction with a search via
magiFind [see
here]
and then entering a carriage return [linefeed].
March 23, 2000.
The fancy features of the
FIND
SilkScreen button can be
turned off via the
Preferences...
command in
ListView's
Options
menu.
March 24, 2000.
Major improvements in displaying the
stats
in the title bar.
March 24, 2000.
Fixed a bug whereby if in
magiPad
the selection exceeded the clipboard's limit then there was no warning
and the
Qopy'n'Paste
operation resulted in error.
March 24, 2000.
One step closer to 100% Palm OS 3.5 compatibility [in terms of
proper display of various graphical elements].
March 25, 2000.
Fixed a bug whereby after a
right-shift
the text selection was incorrect if the shifting operation did not
succeed because the shifted memo ran out of real-estate.
March 25, 2000.
Fixed a bug where the
stats
did not update if deleting more than undoBufferSize
characters [as of August 31, 2000, undoBufferSize is equal to 100].
Thanks, Paolo, for finding this bug.
March 26, 2000.
Fixed a minor display glitch involving the
buttonShift
indicator rectangle.
March 26, 2000.
One more step towards a mature
buttonShift
concept.
March 26, 2000.
New navigation commands in
ListView
and
EditView
[see
Navigating ListView
and
Navigating EditView].
March 26, 2000.
magiFind [see
here]
works in context now in the sense that the found string shows up in the
middle of the text field.
March 26, 2000.
The jump to cursor feature in the
Jump to...
command in
EditView's
Options
menu works in context now in the sense that the cursor and/or the start
of the text selection shows up in the middle of the text field. Thanks,
John, for being persistent in demanding this.
March 27, 2000.
The
Switcher
[">"] command in
EditView's
buttonPanel
works in context now in the sense that the cursor and/or the start of
the text selection shows up in the middle of the text field. Thanks,
John, for being persistent in demanding this.
March 27, 2000.
The speed of the search via the SilkScreen
FIND
is improved.
March 29, 2000.
A
myNotes
related bug was fixed. This bug caused a crash if the memo "titled"
000.myNotes was hidden and the
myNotes
button in
ListView's
buttonPanel.
was tapped.
March 29, 2000.
Fixed a bug which consisted of the following. If in
EditView
a left-arrow, or a right-arrow, or an up-arrow, or a down-arrow were
entered while the cursor was invisible, then the scrollbar did not
update correctly. This is a bug in Memo Pad too. Thanks, John, for
noticing it.
March 29, 2000.
Completed the transition to SDK 3.5 and incorporated the new features of
Memo Pad 3.5 into pedit.
March 29, 2000.
Improved handling the built-in expiration date of pedit.
April 1, 2000.
Implemented the
Clear Preferences...
command in
ListView's
Options
menu.
April 1, 2000.
Released versions 2.00 of pedit and pedit32.
April 1, 2000.
Started working on version 2.01 of all pedits.
April 1, 2000.
If pedit is registered, then the
About pedit...
dialog shows "Registered" instead of "Register".
April 1, 2000.
The fonts in recently visited memos are now sticky. Thanks, Nick,
for the idea.
April 2, 2000.
If there is no text selected, then the
"L"
and
"K"
buttons in
EditView's
buttonPanel
do the appropriate caser job for the character right after the current
cursor position. Thanks, Yaakov, for the idea.
April 2, 2000.
Fixed a minor bug where if pedit was terminated while in
magiPad
then the appropriate memo vitals were not properly remembered.
April 3, 2000.
Fixed a minor bug whereby if there was no MemoDB present, then pedit had
to be launched twice.
April 3, 2000.
Nag reduction for un-registered users.
April 7, 2000.
Added the feature that the GoType! ALT upArrow and
ALT downArrow keys work the same way as the
PageUp or PageDown buttons.
April 9, 2000.
Full interaction between pedit and pedit32 via the
Export Memo...
command in
EditView's
Record
menu, and the
Export Category...
command in
ListView's
Record
menu.
April 10, 2000.
Iimplemented the
Clear Deleted Records...
command in
ListView's
Options
menu.
April 19, 2000.
Fixed a GoType! bug which activates invisible buttons
[e.g., "Command-Alt-b" activated "B" while in
magiPad].
Thanks, Monika, for finding this bug.
April 27, 2000.
Fixed an "index out of range" bug related to the
Clear Deleted Records...
command in
ListView's
Options
menu.
April 30, 2000.
Fixed a bug whereby if one entered
magiPad
from a blank memo, then upon leaving
magiPad
one could face a situation where pedit wanted to select text in a blank
memo resulting in a crash.
May 2, 2000.
Fixed a
SkyIsLimit
[see
EditView's
Edit+
menu] related bug whereby in pedit32 the memo splitting took place too
soon. Thanks, Margret, for finding this one.
May 4, 2000.
Fixed a bug where the screen occasionally froze when quitting the
Auto Indent...
dialog in
EditView's
Edit+
menu. Thanks to Carl, Paolo, and yours truly for finding this one.
May 4, 2000.
Added the
quickLauncher
["»" aka "«" or
"<<"] button in
EditView's
buttonPanel].
May 11, 2000.
Segment
enumeration is incremented by multiples of 10 so that intermediate
segments could easily be added.
May 18, 2000.
Added the
segmentSwitcher
["V" aka "$"] button in
EditView's
buttonPanel.
May 18, 2000.
Added
batch
deletion of segments in
EditView
[see the
Delete Memo...
command in
EditView's
Record
menu and the
"D"
button in
EditView's
buttonPanel].
May 18, 2000.
Added full interaction between pedit or pedit32 and
DOC
files via the
Export Memo...
command in
EditView's
Record
menu, and the
Export Category...
and
Import Doc File...
commands in
ListView's
Record
menu.
May 20, 2000.
Added the
New Chapter
command in
EditView's
Edit+
menu with fully automated segment enumeration.
May 21, 2000.
Added
batch
changing of attributes [category name and
private] of segmented memos
via the
"D"
button in
EditView's
buttonPanel.
May 21, 2000.
The PageUp or PageDown buttons at the
beginning or at the end of a segmented memo, respectively, activates the
segmentSwitcher
["V" aka "$"] button in
EditView's
buttonPanel
[deactivated on 06/17/2000, see below].
May 23, 2000.
Added the
Reindex Chaps
command in
EditView's
Edit+
menu.
May 24, 2000.
Added the
Navigate
menu in
ListView.
May 25, 2000.
The default buttons [the ones surrounded by bold framed] can be
activated by RETURN or "ESC RETURN"
[see
pedit and External Keyboards].
May 30, 2000.
Introduced new help via the
"H" button in
EditView's
buttonPanel
May 27, 2000.
Added many new ESC commands.
May 28, 2000.
Fixed a bug related to graffiti shifts when opening a memo via entering
its first letter. This bug was present only if the OS is below 3.5.
Thanks, Jirka, for noticing it.
May 30, 2000.
Added
batch
deletion of segments, and change of
categories and private attributes via
ListView.
June 1, 2000.
Added
batch
beaming and preview of memos in
ListView.
June 4, 2000.
Unofficially released version 3.00.
June 4, 2000.
Started working on version 3.01 of all pedits.
June 5, 2000.
Fixed a minor display bug in
ListView
when using the menu command to activate
batch
processing of memos [added a "MenuEraseStatus (CurrentMenu)" command].
June 5, 2000.
Fixed a bug related to importing
DOC
files when the RAM is low. Thanks, Maxime, for finding it and for
helping me with testing the fix.
June 6, 2000.
Running out of code real estate - started segment #3.
June 6, 2000.
Added the
Go to Memo...
command to
ListView's
Record
menu.
June 6, 2000.
Open the most recently visited memo via "ESC }" from
ListView.
June 6, 2000.
Fixed a bug related to entering
magiPad
when low on memory. Thanks, Maxime, for finding it.
June 7, 2000.
Fixed a minor inconsistency when entering the
Switcher
via the
Recent...
command in
ListView's
Navigate
menu or via the
Recent
button in
ListView's
buttonPanel,
and then exiting it via the
".C"
button. Thanks, Dafydd, for finding it.
June 7, 2000.
Fixed a bug related to
DOC
files which had been visited by AportisDoc and/or TakeNote! prior to
being imported to pedit.
June 7, 2000.
Introduced a simplified registration of trial and expired versions of pedit.
June 8, 2000.
Released version 3.02 of pedit and pedit32.
June 8, 2000.
Started working on version 3.03 of all pedits.
June 8, 2000.
Save and restore memos via the
Save Memo
and
Restore Memo...
commands, respectively, in
EditView's
Record
menu. These commands are 100% optional to use. It is not necessary at
all to save a memo since it is done automatically both when entering and
when exiting
EditView.
However,
Restore Memo...
can always bring back the last saved state of the current memo.
June 8, 2000.
If no selection is made and the
"T"
button in
EditView's
buttonPanel.
is activated then the word surrounding the cursor is
Titlecased. Thanks, Steve, for this great suggestion.
June 8, 2000.
EditView's
buttonPanel
can be removed [see the
Buttons on|off
command in
EditView's
Edit+
menu].
June 10, 2000.
Started to add printing capabilities to pedit [see the
Print Memo
command in
ListView's
Record
menu].
June 10, 2000.
Brand new
ListView
for
segmented
memos.
June 15, 2000.
The
"?"
button in
EditView's
buttonPanel
is displayed in bold when your memo is a pedit32 memo.
June 17, 2000.
The PageUp or PageDown buttons at the
beginning or at the end of a segmented memo, respectively, opens up the
previous or next segment, respectively [see the
Go to Prev Chap
and
Go to Next Chap
commands in
EditView's
Edit+
menu].
June 17, 2000.
Added an optional top starting feature to the
myNotes
button in
ListView's
buttonPanel.
Thanks, Doc, for the idea.
June 18, 2000.
The
Switcher
[">"] command in
EditView's
buttonPanel
no longer shows the titles of hidden private memos. Thanks, Doc, for
noticing this security breach.
June 24, 2000.
If text is selected in a memo then the
BackUp
["B"] command in
EditView's
buttonPanel
backs up the selected text. Thanks, Dafydd, for the suggestion.
June 27, 2000.
Added autoMagic magiFind'n'Replace
[see here
for more details]. Thanks, David, Kevin, and Peter, for the many subtle
suggestions.
June 27, 2000.
Addded visual feedback of most "ESC" commands via
inverted buttons.
June 29, 2000.
Support for "Forth" style word definition in selecting text [see the
Select...
command in
EditView's
Edit
menu].
June 29, 2000.
"ESC N" places the cursor to the top of the current
screen [see the
Jump to...
command in
EditView's
Options
menu].
June 29, 2000.
"ESC W" selects word surrounding the cursor see the
Select...
command in
EditView's
Edit
menu].
June 29, 2000.
Added "ESC return" = "OK" button in EditView. Also,
"ESC ." = "OK" button in EditView if the current memo
is empty [see the
"OK" & ".C" buttons
command in
EditView's
Record
menu]. Thanks, Duncan, for the suggestion.
July 5, 2000.
Implemented set marker, select from
marker, and jump to marker [see the
Set Marker
command in
EditView's
Edit
menu].
July 7, 2000.
Fixed a bug which did not allow to turn on the Palm with the
pedit-assigned hard button and then to remain in EditView. Thanks,
Dafydd and Margret, for noticing it.
July 7, 2000.
In peditPro, the
Switch
command in
ListView's
Navigate
menu can be activated by tapping in the left 1/8th of the title bar [to
the left from the small pixel visible just under the title bar].
July 7, 2000.
Printing up-to 9 copies is allowed [see the
Print Memo
command in
ListView's
Record
menu]. Thanks, Jim, for the idea.
July 9, 2000.
Fixed a stats display bug which happened while switching from magiPad
back to EditView . Thanks, Bodo, for finding it.
July 11, 2000.
Added printing info to pedit's manual with links to PalmPrint and TealPrint
[see the
Print Memo
command in
ListView's
Record
menu].
August 22, 2000.
Fixed a bug whereas exporting to a
DOC
file crashed if the memo was segmented and one of the segments was
empty.
August 22, 2000.
Released version 4.05 of all pedits and released peditPro "officially".
August 22, 2000.
Started working on version 4.06 of all pedits.
August 25, 2000.
Added the
Visit Marker
command in
EditView's
Edit
menu.
August 26, 2000.
Updated the recognized battery types in the
Palm System Info...
command in
ListView's
Options
menu. Thanks, Norbert, for suggesting this.
August 30, 2000.
Added the
Insert Memo...
command in
EditView's
Record
menu.
August 30, 2000.
Added the
New Memo
command in
ListView's
Record
menu.
August 30, 2000.
Released beta version 4.06 of all pedits.
August 30, 2000.
Started working on version 4.07 of all pedits.
September 2, 2000.
Fixed a bug in the
Insert Memo...
command [see
EditView's
Record
menu] whereby if the current memo was empty then the insertion operation
took place in the most recently visited memo instead. Thanks, Dirk, for
finding it.
September 4, 2000.
Fixed a bug in selecting sentences when the cursor was
at the end of the sentence right before the sentence ending
character [see the
Select...
command in
EditView's
Edit
menu]. Thanks, Steven, for finding this bug.
September 5, 2000.
Fixed a
Switcher
[see the ">" command in
EditView's
buttonPanel]
related scrollbar bug in
ListView
whereby the scrollbar was not properly updated when switching between
different categories. Amazingly, this bug went unnoticed for such a long
time and it was I who found it.
September 5, 2000.
Started working on the brand new
Jump to...
command in
EditView's
Options
menu.
Note.
Entering
"ESC A"
in
EditView
jumps the cursor to the beginning of the
ScreenLine,
whereas
"ESC E"
in
EditView
jumps the cursor to the end of the
ScreenLine
[still beta!!!].
September 5, 2000.
Released beta version 4.07 of all pedits.
September 5, 2000.
Started working on version 4.08 of all pedits.
September 6, 2000.
Continued working on the brand new
Jump to...
command in
EditView's
Options
menu.
September 10, 2000.
The Palm version of the Profont family has been fixed by Michael J.
Rider
[see EditView's Fonts].
September 12, 2000.
Released beta version 4.09 of all pedits.
September 12, 2000.
Started working on version 4.10 of all pedits.
September 14, 2000.
Released beta version 4.10 of all pedits.
September 14, 2000.
Started working on version 4.11 of all pedits.
September 16, 2000.
Michael J. Rider completed version 1.02 of his
Palm version of the Profont family
[see EditView's Fonts].
September 18, 2000.
Added paragraph jumps to the
Jump to...
command in
EditView's
Options
menu. Thanks, Jesse, for suggesting it.
September 18, 2000.
Released beta version 4.11 of all pedits.
September 18, 2000.
Started working on version 4.12 of all pedits.
September 19, 2000.
Added brackets to the date'n'time stamp in
myNotes.
Thanks, John, for the idea.
September 20, 2000.
The
Jump to...
command in
EditView's
Options
menu was made sticky. Thanks, Jerry, for suggesting it.
September 20, 2000.
The role of "ESC J" was changed from initiating a
jump to the marker [see the
Set Marker
command in
EditView's
Edit
menu] to repeating the last jump [see
here
and the
Jump to...
command in
EditView's
Options].
September 20, 2000.
Released beta version 4.12 of all pedits.
September 20, 2000.
Started working on version 4.13 of all pedits.
September 20, 2000.
Added double blinking to buttons invoked by ESC
equivalents of their
buttonShifted
versions.
September 20, 2000.
Released beta version 4.13 of all pedits.
September 20, 2000.
Started working on version 4.14 of all pedits.
September 21, 2000.
Fixed a bug which caused the destruction of the current memo if a
right shift
[see
EditView's
Edit+
menu] was performed while in
magiPad.
September 21, 2000.
Released version 4.14 of all pedits.
September 21, 2000.
Started working on version 4.15 of all pedits.
September 22, 2000.
Started working on the brand new
Select...
command in
EditView's
Options
menu.
Note.
While under construction, the new
selection
window will be invoked via
"ESC G".
September 28, 2000.
Released version 4.15 of all pedits.
September 28, 2000.
Started working on version 4.16 of all pedits.
October 1, 2000.
Entering
myNotes
via
ListView's
buttonPanel
capitalizes the first graffiti character if the capitalization
is automatic box is checked in the
Preferences...
dialog in
EditView's
Options
menu. Thanks, Dan, for the idea.
October 2, 2000.
Released version 4.16 of all pedits.
October 2, 2000.
Started working on version 4.17 of all pedits.
October 5, 2000.
Fixed a bug whereby there was a crash on POSE if the Palm OS was 3.5
(debug) and pedit was started up via a sysAppLaunchCmdGoTo launch code.
The reason for the crash was that in OS 3.5 the function FldScrollField
() should not be used prior to FrmDrawForm (). Needless to say that this
is undocumented in the Palm SDK. Thanks, Fred, for helping me to find
this bug.
October 5, 2000.
Released version 4.17 of all pedits.
October 5, 2000.
Started working on version 4.18 of all pedits.
October 7, 2000.
Removed the Palm Operating System's clipboard limitation of a maximum
1000 characters when using either the
"C"
button in
EditView's
buttonPanel,
or the
Copy
command in
EditView's
Edit
menu, or the
Qopy'n'Paste
button in
magiPad.
Thanks, Jesse, for the suggestion.
October 7, 2000.
Released version 4.18 of all pedits.
October 7, 2000.
Started working on version 4.19 of all pedits.
October 9, 2000.
Fixed a bug whereby, if (i) a
marker
was selected in a memo, (ii) a
new memo
was created, and (iii) one tried to use the marker set in the previous
memo, then it resulted in a crash.
October 10, 2000.
The
marker
is deselected automatically if the text of the memo changes.
October 13, 2000.
Fixed a bug whereby pedit crashed if "ESC i" was
invoked during a memo insert
process [see
EditView's
Record
menu] while
EditView's
buttonPanel
was off [see the
Buttons on|off
command in
EditView's
Edit+
menu]. Thanks, Jesse, for the bug report.
October 17, 2000.
The entry fields in all dialogs can be controlled by
PageDown = down-arrow = decreases the number in the field which is focused
as long as the focused field expects a number input.
October 18, 2000.
Released version 4.20 of all pedits.
October 18, 2000.
Started working on version 4.21 of all pedits.
October 20, 2000.
Added an optional fixed category feature to the
myNotes
button in
ListView's
buttonPanel.
Thanks, Jennifer, for insisting on this feature.
October 21, 2000.
Added a date'n'time stamper
[see the
Add a DateStamp
command in
EditView's
Edit+
menu]. Thanks, Rick, for the idea.
October 21, 2000.
Released versions 4.21 and 4.22 of all pedits.
October 21, 2000.
Started working on version 4.23 of all pedits.
October 21, 2000.
Switching between the last two fonts in
EditView
via the
buttonShifted
"U"
button in
EditView's
buttonPanel
or by "ESC U".
Thanks, ???, for the idea.
October 23, 2000.
Found and fixed three bugs in conjunction with the fancy feature of the
FIND
SilkScreen button.
October 23, 2000.
Released versions 4.23 of all pedits.
October 23, 2000.
Started working on version 4.24 of all pedits.
October 30, 2000.
Either SPACE or TAB can be picked as
ESC character
[see the
Preferences...
dialog in
EditView's
Options
menu].
October 30, 2000.
Released versions 5.00 of all pedits.
October 30, 2000.
Started working on version 5.01 of all pedits.
October 31, 2000.
Fixed a bug in the
right shift
command [see
EditView's
Edit+
menu] which caused improper screen display refreshment if no shifting
took place. In addition, I also did a minor optimization of the
shifting process. Thanks, Kim, for discovering this really odd bug.
November 10, 2000.
Released versions 5.01 of all pedits.
November 10, 2000.
Started working on version 5.02 of all pedits.
December 7, 2000.
The "ESC" character can be any character of the extended 256 character
ASCII coode with a few exceptions in the "a-z" and "A-Z" range [I am not
sure that this will work on all international Palms]. Thanks, Mark, for
the suggestion.
New Memo
Open Memo
Go to Memo...
The Batchers Modes
Preview Memo
Delete Memo
Categorize Memo
Privatize Memo
Beam Memo
Print Memo
Beam Category
Export Category...
Import Doc File...
Font...
Security...
Password...
Clear History...
Clear Preferences...
Clear Deleted Records...
Total Cleaner Upper...
Palm System Info...
Preferences...
About pedit...
Visit Top
Jump To...
Visit Bottom
Find...
Recent...
Switch
The New Button
The myNotes Button
The Export Button
The Docs Button
The Recent Button
123456... #segment.0020#
2000/04/08 11:54:42 00DB2152
Title: [and here come the first 64 letters of the first line of your memo].
Category: [here is the category of your memo]
!DO NOT TOUCH THIS LINE OR ABOVE!
___________
| <header1> |
| |
| sister #1 |
| ......... |
| ..text... |
|___________|
___________
| <header2> |
| |
| sister #2 |
| ......... |
| ..text... |
|___________|
.
.
.
___________
| <headerN> |
| |
| sister #N |
| ......... |
| ..text... |
|___________|
New Memo
Delete Memo...
Beam Memo
Print Memo...
Print Selection
Export Memo...
Save Memo
Restore Memo...
Insert Memo...
"OK" & ".C" buttons
Undo
Cut
Copy
Paste
Select All
Select...
The original version of "Select..."
Set Marker
Visit Marker
Keyboard
Graffiti Help
Help...
magiPad in|out
Auto Indent...
# comment
# comment
# pedit
Shift Left
Shift Right
SkyIsLimit on|off
and
and
123456... #segment.0020#
2000/04/08 11:54:42 00DB2152
Title: [and here come the first 64 letters of the first line of your memo].
Category: [here is the category of your memo]
!DO NOT TOUCH THIS LINE OR ABOVE!
New Chapter
Go to Prev Chap
Go to Next Chap
Reindex Chaps
Add a Header
Add a DateStamp
Buttons on|off
Font...
Visit Top
Jump to...
The original version of "Jump to..."
Visit Bottom
magiFind...
Find More
Case yes|no
Wrap yes|no
Stats on|off
Phone Lookup
Preferences...
About pedit...
The "U" Button
The "X" Button
The "C" Button
The "P" Button
The buttonShifted "P" Button
The "S" Button
The buttonShifted "S" [aka "s"] Button
The "J" Button
The buttonShifted "J" [aka "j"] Button
The "F" Button
The "G" Button
The "Q" Button
The "H" Button
The "OK" Button
The "D" Button
The "WC" Button
The "R" Button
The "L" Button
The buttonShifted "L" [aka "["] Button
The "T" Button
The "K" Button
The buttonShifted "K" [aka "]"] Button
The "?" Button
The "M" Button
The "A" Button
The "B" Button
The "V" Button
The buttonShifted "V" [aka "$"] Button
The ">" Button
The buttonShifted ">" [aka "<"] Button
The "»" or ">>" Button
The buttonShifted "»" or ">>" [aka "«" or "<<"] Button
The ".C" Button
The "Qopy'n'Paste" Button
[Note. ClipHack has a couple of bugs when ran on systems newer than 3.0,
see
here.]
[Note.Some users reported a few crashes when Clipper was installed.]
[Note. I have no personal experience with it.]
[Note. Make sure you have the latest version.]
-rw-r--r-- 1 nevai 110539 Sun Mar 03 02:00:26 1996 pedit.prc
xx32
xxxxxxx|1xxx
and the cursor is at "|", then hitting the up-arrow
from an attached keyboard moves the cursor to the end of the previous
line like this.
xx32|
xxxxxxx1xxx
So far so good. However, when you use the left-arrow then nothing
happens. In fact, you have to hit the left-arrow several times to move
the cursor backward like this
xx3|2
xxxxxxx1xxx
EXPLANATION.
As of version 3.5, this is a bug in the Palm OS, and it can be reproduced
reliably both inside and outside pedit. I bet you can easily find out
the reason for the bug if you count the number left-arrows you have to
enter so that the cursor started to move.
Sincerely,
Paul Nevai
peditor-in-Chief
Paul Nevai
E-mail: 2me@PaulComputing.com
Web: http://www.PaulComputing.com
### Gremlin_Search_Progress.dat ####
gCurrentDepth=9
gCurrentGremlin=999
gGremlinHaltedInError=0 [1000 times]
gGremlinSaveFrequency=0
gGremlinStartNumber=0
gGremlinStopNumber=999
gMaxDepth=1000
gStartTime=313929
gStopTime=34803697
gSwitchDepth=100
### EOF Gremlin_Search_Progress.dat ###
### Gremlin_Search_Progress.dat ###
gCurrentDepth=0
gCurrentGremlin=999
gGremlinHaltedInError=0 [1000 times]
gGremlinSaveFrequency=0
gGremlinStartNumber=0
gGremlinStopNumber=999
gMaxDepth=2000
gStartTime=196141418
gStopTime=302766727
gSwitchDepth=2000
### EOF Gremlin_Search_Progress.dat ###
Note.
Neither Memo Pad 3.5 nor its older versions cooperate with GoType! in
this matter.
Note.
If the replacement string is defined as "\0" then the
matched string will be deleted from the memo.
Note.
Memo Pad in Palm OS at least up-to 3.5 still has this bug.