My own way of using THE XEDIT

It is a pleasure to have discovered THE, the Hessling editor by Mark Hessling, a powerful public domain emulator of XEDIT for Unix (and not only ...).
It's a long time since I ceased using the original XEDIT on IBM VM/CMS. Therefore, although I have a very pleasant recall of it being the best editor I used, I am not sure to remember correctly its look and feel.
And in the meanwhile I got used to other editors, like dxnotepad and pico. I also used other editors, of which I never liked vi, I sort of liked but hardly remember Wordstar, I remember a bit more but not much of VMS EDT and EVE.

In the past I used xc (a XEDIT clone by Patrick Hurley) for occasional use when I needed XEDIT features. However such s/w is no longer actively supported. I need now a robust, supported editor for serious everyday use, and therefore I will try to give to THE a mixture of all "best" features of the three editors, which I will describe below.

P.S. : the HTML manual of THE is here. (local copy for local use : for the official site (updated!) see here).

Screen

Scrolling

Insert/Delete

Block operations

Split view

Colours

Mouse operations

Keys

Misc

Wishlist

• the filearea occupies most of the screen, where one wants to type one's text, edit it and be able to scroll it. I like to be able to set its colour. See below.
• the idline is one line with the filename and other info, present also on top of pico's screen, while dxnotepad uses the X11 decoration bar.
• the status line is one line with settings, where I find very useful to have for instance the toggle status of parameters like insert vs overtrace mode (this is one of the features missing in pico or dxnotepad, but present in EVE and XEDIT, which I like to have). A limited status/message line is present in pico, nothing in dxnotepad.

• the command line is where one types editing commands. This is one of the powerful features of XEDIT, although now I also got used to mouse and key commands. Pico has a transient command lines which appears instead of the status line for some commands which prompt the user for input. dxnotepad has none (uses X11 popups). I will implement a semi-permanent command line which can be toggled on/off (similar to EVE or EDIT/1000) by using a key.
  I could use control-L (mnemonic for control Line) in my .therc to bind to the togglecmdline macro.

• the reserved line is useful to keep a reminder of commands associated to keys. I actually can "stand" the usage of keys only if I have such reminder. Pico has a permanent set of 2 reserved lines (this is also similar to Wordstar which has an optional menu). Dxnotepad has none (but has the X11 menu bar). I plan to use a sequence of reserved line messages, of which two will be kept on the screen, and to cycle through them using a key (similar to the Other command in pine. I could use control-O (mnemonic for control Other).
  This is implemented at .therc profile level by macros resmessages and rescycle.

• the prefix area is used in XEDIT to issue special commands (this is for me an occasional nice feature, although I do not make regular use of it). I like it more because it contains the line numbers. Other editors have nothing like that, although the X11 scrollbar present in dxnotepad can have a similar role. I plan to use the prefix area also in such a way to emulate a scrollbar (at least clicking on the first and last line). This function is by default associated to mouse click-right.
  I also defined at .therc profile level a key to toggle the prefix area on and off.
  I could use control-P (mnemonic for control Prefix) in my .therc to bind to the toggleprefix macro.
  

However the XEDIT inheritance of the 327x terminals is such that when the cursor is at the top or bottom or the filearea there is no scroll, but one has to advance to the "next page" (or go back to the "previous page". Scrolling can be achieved from the command line with the UP and DOWN commands. I preserved this approach, and have multiple keys doing page advancement defined in my .therc profile (or defaulted) :

• I live with (but not use) the default (IBM-ish) usage of F7 and F8 for BACK and FORWARD
• I keep my (even more IBM-ish) traditional usage to assign two keys on the numeric keypad to perform the same functions (I use the NUM4 and NUM5 because they resemble the position of the PF7 and PF8 in a 3279 12-key functional keyboard !)
• I also assigned NUM7 and NUM8 (IBM PF4 and PF5 !) to scroll up and down by one line (continuous scrolling) as part of my traditional XEDIT usage.
• However I also assigned the BACK and FORWARD function to the Previous and Next page keys present on my standard LK keyboard, since I'm used to use such keys in dxnotepad as well as in Web browsers.
• Finally I also added the capability to scroll automatically when at top or bottom of filearea, redefining the up and down arrow keys using the Escreen capabilities.

I would also like to mantain a scrollbar-like capability. Apparently somehow clicking with the mouse right button in the topmost or bottommost line of the prefix area achieves this. Otherwise I suppose I can lose the scrollbar habit and go back to the old (and more accurate way) of using XEDIT absolute line targets (:n from command line)

One more desirable thing for modern habits, is the usage of arrow keys to retrieve commands. This is easily achieved with SET CMDARROWS RETRIEVE in .therc. However I also keep the traditional IBM-ish (or was it a personal usage ? can't recall) of using a couple of numeric keypad PF keys for the same function, and another one for the "=" function of repeating the last command.
This has some interference with the usage of the enter key for inserting.

With the above redefinition of the arrow keys, I lose in part the capability of moving around the different screen parts. Only the capability of going from the filearea to the command line is affected. This can be recovered with the CURSOR HOME SAVE function assigned to a key, which for my traditions is NUM3 aka PF12.

Another problem concerns horizontal scrolling when the file is wider than the screen. This is not a standard behaviour in the various editors. I've setup my .therc profile so that :

• I preferred to leave the arrow keys to their default behaviour, but at the same time assign to the shifted left and right arrow the capability to scroll left and right by half a screen.
• I preferred this to the Escreen capabilities of scrolling left and right one character at a time with infinite scrolling to the maximum width (these could be assigned to Alt-arrows) just in case.
• Slightly better is the possibility supplied by the larrow and rarrow macros in the "FW Move package" by F.J. Wirtz. which provide scrolling one character at a time wrapping at the line length (these could be assigned to the Control-arrows).
• These exotic setting will complement the usual arrows which do not scroll and wrap around at the physical screen width.
• I also added a definition associating to control-DEL (mnemonic for control-backspace) my macro backend.

  which moves as follows :

  • if cursor is past end of line, moves to end of line
  • if cursor is at end of line, moves to the last character
  • if cursor is in line moves to beginning of line
  • if cursor is at beginning of line in filearea scrolls down one line
  • if cursor is at beginning of line in prefix area does nothing
  • if cursor is at beginning of line in command line jumps to current line

Inserting and deleting

• modifying existing text is the easiest thing. Unlike most modern editors and like all old good well-behaved ones, XEDIT has the possibility to use insert or overstrike mode and toggle via a single keypress. It is natural for me to associate at .therc level such function to an INS key if present on my keyboard, and at the same time to the NUM-DOT key (this is vestigial of my keyboard arrangement when using tn3270). I do appreciate the fact that the insert mode is reported on the status line (I remember those HP terminals which had a LED for that !)
• Thus inserting characters in a line is done simply switching to insert mode.

• deleting characters in a line is more controversial. The various editors have conflicting habits. Those which delete at the right of the cursor, and those who delete at the left. XEDIT default is to use DELCHAR deleting to the right, although DELBACK deleting to the left is available. To ease my coexistence with dxnotepad and pico, I reverse the usage and map in .therc :
  • the DELETE and REMOVE keys (co-mapped in X11) to deletion to the left, as in pico and dxnotepad.
  • NUM0 also has the same mapping (part of my traditional PF key setting)
  • control-D deletes to the right as in pico (mnemonic for control Delete).
  • SHIFT DELETE also deletes to the right as in dxnotepad.

  Actually I replaced the above standard functions with the macros deletechar and backspace from the "FW delete package" by F.J. Wirtz, which allow automatic deletion of the newline when at end or beginning of line.

• inserting lines can be done in several ways :
  one is inserting blank lines
  another one is inserting a line feed at end of line
  and another one is breaking a line at a given place
  These functions are somehow mixed with the following XEDIT functions :
  • the INPUT command inserts a newline after the one where the cursor is and may move the current line.
  • the ENTER command inserts a newline after the one where the cursor is, leaving the current line alone.
  • the SPLIT or SPLITJOIN functions insert a new line at the cursor location, leaving the cursor where it was.

  Of course one would add to the above the other peculiar XEDIT modes (prefix area, etc.) but here I am mainly concerned with use of dedicated keys.
  Ideally one would like to be able to type a carriage return and generate a new line either at end of line or at the current cursor position. I have considered the "hspow" package (with ENTER, INPUT and REPLACE emulation) in the FW archive (by Homer Wilson Smith)and have adapted it to my likings, inserting appropriate initialization statements in .therc and modifying the relevant macros to use global variables instead of a local file, this way one uses the i and r macros as replacement for INPUT and REPLACE. They set a flag on the status line telling that input mode is on, and change temporarily the definition of the carriage return key associating it with the enter macro.
  In order to be able to go in insert mode from the file area, I have also associated the key control-I (mnemonic for control Input) to the macro ihere (a wrapper to i.the which acts on the line where the cursor is).
  See setup in the .therc profile.

• deleting lines
  Besides the XEDIT specific modes (prefix area or command line) one definitely wants a way to delete the line where the cursor is. This can be handled by the SOS DELLINE function. A preliminary way would be to assign such function to a key like control-K (mnemonic for control Kill for analogy with pico). A full emulation of pico would require however to have also an undelete key control-U (mnemonic for control Undelete) (similar to using PUTD and GET), and also to be able to use the same key for handling marked blocks.

  These have been implemented by macros cutcopyblock and pasteblock described below under block operations.

  For convenience I have also equated the numeric keypad MINUS to the SOS DELLINE plain function, to have a way of deleting lines without recovery.

• the carriage return is another tricky thing. 3270 terminals had separate carriage return and enter keys, and I'm still a bit confused about the better way to assign ENTER and SOS DOPREFIX EXECUTE at .therc profile level.
  See input considerations and modified "hspow" above I prefer to leave things alone except during execution of the input macros.)This way one gets by default :
  • a carriage return in input mode inserts a new line after the one where the cursor is, does not split such line and moves to the inserted line which becomes the current line
  • a SPLIT in input mode inserts a new line after the one where the cursor is (eventually splitting the line and moving down the text after the cursor) but does not move the cursor nor the current line
  • an ENTER in input mode inserts a new line after the one where the cursor is, does not split such line, moves to the inserted line, but does not make it current !
  • a carriage return outside of input mode jumps to the command line
  • a SPLIT outside of input mode behaves as in input mode (the concept of current line is irrelevant)
  • an ENTER outside of input mode behaves as in input mode (and again the concept of current line is irrelevant)

  The only worth change is possibly to equate the enter key with SPLIT in input mode and revert to the default outside. This is achieved modifying the macros described above.

• what happens at end of line, or when one wants to insert a new line
  One would like that a return at end line could either insert a new line, or go the beginning of the next line according to the fact insert is on or off.
  At the same time a shift-delete (or delete-to-the-right key) pressed while at end of line should join the line with the previous (and a delete-to-the-left at beginning of line should join with the line above).
  This is achieved with the macros deletechar and backspace from the "FW delete package" by F.J. Wirtz (see above).

• inserting more than one line is also useful. I am not referring here to the many prefix or command line commands to do this, but to the way FULL INPUT mode was arranged in XEDIT. The closest approach is to use the "pow" package in the FW archive (by J.Beach), although it is more properly an emulation of XEDIT POWERINPUT. Since I'm more interested in in writing code than justified text, I will normally use the modified "hspow" package described above.
  Concerning the "pow" package I have wrapped it into a mypow macro adding a call to my fullmargin macro (which adjusts the margins to the physical width of the X window), and to add on the status line an indicator reminding I am in "power" mode.
  The question of inserting more lines is particulary important when one talks of cut and paste, or insertion of multiline blocks (to overcame the XEDIT style that a newline terminates input mode).

• inserting or deleting blocks : for this see also mouse operation.
  While for some particular operations (e.g. on columns) one could use XEDIT commandline commands (like MARK COLUMN or MARK BOX) one might want to be able to operate with accelerator keys. Most likely one should use macros to be able to recognize different types of blocks (the type may appear on the status line).

  A possible implementation at .therc profile level is to associate a macro like blockcycle to a key control-B (mnemonic for control Block) to cycle a global variable through the possible block types.
  Another key, provisionally SELECT, is used to invoke the MARK command appropriate for the type of block, via a macro markblock. One can also use the control-^ key for pico-compatibility
  One also needs a key to issue RESET BLOCK : since it cannot be assigned to shift-SELECT, I have chosen control-R (mnemonic for control Reset

  The status line will display the status as :

  • None=NONE : no block type (and no block) selected
  • Box=NONE : block type BOX selected, but no block selected
  • Box=BOX : block type and block actually selected
  • in case of contradictory messages e.g. Box=STREAM this means manual commands have been used.

  Block operations have been implemented at .therc profile level as follows by two macros associated to five keys. The macros are cutcopyblock and pasteblock and are based in part on the macros deleteline, deleteblock, undelline and undelblock from the "FW delete package" by F.J. Wirtz (see above).

  with a number of changes (noteworthy is the fact they use a single file buffer for everything).

  • key control-C (mnemonic for control Copy) is the usual accelerator to copy the current selection to a buffer (overwriting any previous content). The block (if any) remains selected.
  • key control-X (mnemonic for control Xross) is the usual accelerator to cut the current selection to a buffer (overwriting any previous content).
  • key control-K (mnemonic for control Kill) is a pico style function, which cuts the current selection to a buffer, selectively appending its content to the buffer. Selectively means that it is appended to a previous control-K selection only, and is appended only if the file was not altered by other means since the last control-K.
  • the three functions are managed by the cutcopyblock macro passing to it an extra argument, respectively copy, cut or append.
  • keys control-U (mnemonic for control Undelete) and control-V (no mnemonic but usual accelerator) are both equated to the pasteblock macro and are used to paste the saved block. If a cut and paste operations are issued without intervening cursor movement the block shall be restored at the original position. Otherwise the block is inserted before or after the cursor as either convenient for pico emulation or customary for THE.
  • the concept of current selection is as follows : if no block of any type is selected, the current line is selected, otherwise the block is taken. This may give unexpected (and unsupported) results for control-K (since the block is appended as a new set of lines). On the other hand when pasting a block, this is recovered as the same block type as it was saved, which means it is inserted in the file appropriately.
  • A problem is that on exit the buffer file is in the file ring. I have written a macro trueexit which can be invoked with an argument (trueexit quit or truexit file) to close the buffer file automatically, but, due to the lack of SYNONYM support it cannot be used to alias all FILE, QUIT etc. but just those assigned to keys.

• deleting part of a line : I traditionally had the control-E (mnemonic for control End) for the "delete to end of line" function, and will stick to it (in pine one can toggle control-K to behave that way, but I'm not used to it).

Using multiple (split) screens

Using colours

This is relatively easy to emulate with an alias like this
alias edit1 'xrdb -load edit1.x ; the -a edit1 \!*'
where the -a argument is used by the .therc profile to invoke a macro arg(1) which does as a minimum the setting of the colour of the filearea, while the Xresource file is used to set things like the window size and the fonts used (I currently use a choice similar to my default dxnotepad arrangement).
In addition, since THE knows only a few fundamental colours (like black, cyan etc.) which are sometimes too bright, I also redefine my filearea background colour in the Xresource file (to mimic closely my dxnotepad colours), with a resource like :
the.colorCyan: #00fafa

These are example of 4 resource files ( 0, 1, 2, 3) and of the corresponding colour macros ( 0, 1, 2, 3)

The definition of the other colours is a matter of taste (I leave a black background for the other screen areas with a different choice for the foreground).

However a conflict can exist with the new THE facility of syntax colouring, which assumes for all its colours a black background. What one should do is either disable syntax colouring, or reset the background from black to the current value ... and of course avoid to have the same background and foreground. This should be dealt with by a macro. This is resetsyntaxcolor. At the same time I'd like a flag on the status line telling whether syntax colouring is on or off. This can be done at .therc profile level using STATOPT.

Cutting and pasting with the mouse

• to move the mouse one has to press and release the left button (clicking is not enough).
• click and drag makes the usual X11 selection
• click of button 2 is not programmable
• using the button 2 of the mouse (one click) for quick copy of the X11 selection to an external X application works but ... a new line is inserted after the block. Also if the prefix area is on, it will be inserted in the selection.
• using the button 2 of the mouse (one click) for quick copy of a block selected by an external X application into a file being edited by XEDIT also works but ... one has problems with multi-line blocks unless one is in "pow" mode. Multi-line blocks are accepted also in the input mode simulated by macros but shall not contain empty lines (an empty line will bomb out of input mode).
• using the button 2 of the mouse (one click) for quick copy inside the same file being edited by THE also works but ... one must be sure to have positioned the destination cursor before doing the selection. Apparently there are less problems with multiline selections in "pow" or simulated input mode (blank lines inside the file are recognised) while there are still problems pasting over the filearea.

• If the X11 clipboard has been populated in an external application with cut/copy, it is accessible for pasting into THE with the GET CLIP: command.
• one can of course use the CLIP: target for copying (PUT) inside the same file, and also between different THE instances running in separate windows !
• but apparently one cannot use THE to PUT in the CLIP: target and access it with usual paste accelerators form external X applications.

• pressing the right button makes the line current (could be of some use)
• in particular pressing the right button in the prefix area emulates a scrollbar

This is instead the wishlist :

• using the (button 1) of the mouse to select a block. This could be a multiline stream (by default it will be a multiline stream inclusive of the prefix area) or a XEDIT multiline block, multiline stream or box in the filearea
• having the usual accelerators control-C, control-X and control-V (defined for block operations) to copy, cut and paste such blocks to and from the X11 clipboard (as explained above there are problems to use the CLIP: target to communicate with the X11 clipboard.
• one would also to be able to use the usual paradigm : one click locates the mouse, double click selects a word, triple click selects a line, quadruple click selects all.

Usage of keys

An overview is reported in these maps.

Other features