Category : Word Processors
Archive   : BBE14.ZIP
Filename : BBE.DOC

Bit Bucket Editor (TM) -- Revision 1.4 -- July 1, 1990

Copyright by Bit Bucket Software (TM), 1990. All rights reserved.

Copyright is not claimed as to any part of an original work
not prepared by, or on behalf of, or upon the direction of
Bit Bucket Software (BBSW).

This product is shareware. Development of BBSW (TM)
shareware is financed entirely by user contributions. You
are granted a limited license to use this program on a trial
basis. If you find this program useful and wish to continue
using it, please register by sending a $10 registration fee
to the address below. Registered users will receive
notification of the next major revision. Your contribution
will also help to support further shareware products from
BBSW.

Bit Bucket Software
9318 Farewell Road
Columbia, MD 21045

Please include the program name and revision number in all
correspondence. Constructive comments or suggestions are
welcomed.

BBE was written in Pascal and compiled using Turbo Pascal,
version 5.5.


BIT BUCKET EDITOR

WHAT IS BBE?

BBE is a screen-oriented editor intended for editing batch
files and other text files that require no special formatting.
It's designed to load quickly and allow fast, easy editing. I
use it constantly to tweak batch files, CONFIG.SYS, etc. The
editor holds up to 500 lines of 120 characters, and provides a
variety of editing features, including manipulation of blocks of
lines.


STARTING AND EXITING BBE

BBE is invoked with

BBE [filename.ext]

at the command line. The user will be prompted for a file name
if one is not given on the command line. If the file exists it
is loaded, otherwise, the file is created when the work is saved
at the end of the edit session. BBE will abort with an error
message if the file specified is longer than 500 lines or if any
line in the file is longer than 120 characters.




Once in the editor, help is displayed by pressing the F1 key.
Two help screens are available, one for general commands, and one
for block operations. F1 switches between the two screens, any
other key returns you to the editing screen.

BBE is exited by typing . The program saves the edit file
only if it has been updated. There is no 'save and continue'
option. Each line is stripped of trailing spaces and the file is
stripped of trailing blank lines when the it is saved. The ^Q
key can be used to abort editing changes and reread the orignal
file from the disk. If the file is not saved, or if the program
aborts due to the file being too long, the DOS error level is set
to 1 upon exit.

BBE is rather literal about the filename text, so if you type
"BBE TEXTFILE.*", it'll attempt to load a file named TEXTFILE.*,
not find one, and present you an empty file to edit. A run-time
error (102) will occur if you try to save such a file with a name
containing a wild-card character. If you do type such a
filename, you'll have to ESCAPE out, and start over, as there's
currently no way to rename the edit file. Also, if you attempt
to edit a read-only file, BBE will find and load the file, but a
run-time error (105) will occur when you try to save it.



CURSOR MOVEMENT IN BBE

BBE uses the keypad arrow keys to move the cursor up, down,
left and right in the usual fashion. Control left-arrow and
control right-arrow move the cursor by words. PgUp and PgDn move
by screens. ^Home and ^End move to the beginning and end of the
text in the buffer respectively.

The tab key moves the cursor right to the nearest even
5-character spaced column. The tab key does not insert spaces
into an existing line, even in insert mode, but can be used to
start text away from the left margin on a blank line. The ^Z and
^W keys scroll the text up and down one line, respectively.


ENTERING AND DELETING TEXT

The default typing mode is insert; the Insert key toggles the
typing mode between insert (push-right) and replace (overtype).
The current mode is displayed, along with the status of the
CapsLock key and the filename, in the lower left corner. The
cursor size also reflects the current mode: a block cursor
indicates insert mode, and underscore indicates replace mode.

A carriage return splits the line at the current cursor
position (in both insert and replace modes). A line can be
inserted before the line the cursor is on by using ^N. This
moves the entire current line down regardless of the horizontal
cursor position.




DEL and backspace delete the character at, and prior to the
cursor, respectively. The characters from the cursor forward to
the end of the current word, including any trailing spaces are
deleted with ^T. The ^E deletes all characters from the cursor
to the end of the line. The ^Y key deletes the current line.
The backspace and delete keys will join lines backward and
forward if used at the end of a line of text. The ^E and ^T also
act like the DEL key when used at the end of a line.


DEALING WITH LONG LINES

BBE handles lines longer than 80 characters using a five
position offset system. When the file is loaded, the first
screen full of data (24 lines by 80 characters) is displayed,
with an offset of zero (the left-most characters are shown).
Pressing the F9 key increases the offset, and pans the display 10
characters to the right. Pressing F10 has the opposite affect,
panning 10 characters to the left. Any cursor movement that
takes the cursor off the screen to the left or right adjusts the
offset by the smallest multiple of 10 characters that will
maintain the cursor on the screen, and rewrites the screen. The
cursor stays at its current place in the line of text (visually,
the cursor will move 10 characters left or right). Adding or
deleting enough characters at the end or beginning of a line to
cause the curor to move off the display will also adjust the
offset. Moving to the top of the file (^Home) resets the offset
to zero, showing the leftmost portion of the line. Moving to the
bottom of the file (^End) places the cursor after the last
character of the last line and adjusts the offset, if necessary.


WORKING WITH BLOCKS OF LINES

BBE provides line-oriented block copy, move and delete
functions. The keyboard sequences for these operations emulate
those used by PC-Write (TM), but unlike PC-Write (or most other
editors) BBE only places block boundaries at line boundaries; it
isn't possible to start a block in the middle of a line.

BBE has three "marking states": unmarked, marking and
marked. Unmarked is the normal state. Marking occurs when one
block boundary has been set, but not the other. The Marked state
is when both boundaries have been set. The text involved in a
block is distinguished visually by changing its screen attribute:

-------- Video Attribute -----------
State Monochrome Color
-------- ------------ ---------------
Unmarked no highlight yellow on black
Marking bright yellow on blue
Marked inverse white on red

Four function keys are assigned to the block manipulation
process: F3, F4, F5 and F6. These keys are assigned as follows:





F3 : begin marking, or copy marked block before current line
F4 : begin marking, or delete marking or marked block
F5 : clear all marks
F6 : begin marking, or move marked block before current line

F3 and F6 will only copy or move blocks that are completely
marked. This means that three function key presses are needed to
copy or move a block: mark the first (last) line, move the
cursor and mark the last (first) line, move the cursor again and
copy or move the block. The F4 key will delete a block with two
function key presses: mark one line, move the cursor and
mark/delete the block with the second key press. Other editing
can be done while a block is marked or being marked.


SPECIAL FEATURES

The edit changes to the current file can be abandonded by
typing ^Q. This command causes the file updated flag to be
reset, and the edit file to be reloaded from disk. Typing ^Q
immediately followed by allows you to abandon any changes
and exit BBE without altering the original disk file.

BBE allows entering form-feed characters, to insert page
breaks in a text file, using the Alt-F key. Many print utilitys
recognize the form-feed as a page break.

BBE also supports editing PC-Write definition files. The
Alt-G character inserts the male" symbol used as a prefix for
format lines in PC-Write (versions 2.6 and later).

SUMMARY of BBE Commands:
up arrow.........line up
dn arrow line down
rt arrow.........char right
left arrow char left
^rt arrow........word right
^left arrow word left
^home............start of first line in file
^end end of last line in file
PgUp.............screen up
PgDn screen down
Home.............left end of line
End right end of line
Backspace key....delete char left
Del key delete char under cursor
^Y...............delete line
^E delete to end of current line
^T...............delete word forward
^Q abandon changes, reload edit file
Insert key.......toggles insert mode
Escape quit, save file if changed
Return...........split line at current character, move
remaining text to next line





F1...............Display help screens
F3 Begin marking/mark block/copy block
F4...............Begin marking/mark and delete block
F5 Clear all marks
F6...............Begin marking/mark block/move block
F9 Pan display right 10 characters
F10..............Pan display left 10 characters

Alt-F Form-feed character (male symbol)
Alt-G............Format line prefix character for
PC-Write format files (female symbol)