mc/doc/mcedit.1.in

.TH mcedit 1 "30 January 1997"
.\"SKIP_SECTION"
.SH NAME
mcedit \- Full featured terminal text editor for Unix-like systems.
.\"SKIP_SECTION"
.SH USAGE
.B mcedit
[ file [\-bcCdfhstVx?]]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.LP
Mcedit is a link to 
.B mc,
the Midnight Commander, forcing it 
to immediately start its internal editor. The editor is a terminal 
version of the 
.B cooledit 
standalone X Window editor.
.\".\"DONT_SPLIT"
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
.I "\-b"
Forces black and white display.
.TP
.I "\-c"
Force color mode on terminals where 
.B mcedit 
defaults to black and white.
.TP
.I "\-C <keyword>=<FGcolor>,<BGcolor>:<keyword>= ..."
Used to specify a different color set, where 
.I keyword 
is one of normal, selected, marked, markselect, errors,
reverse menu, menusel, menuhot, menuhotsel and gauge. The colors
are optional and are one of black, gray, red, brightred, green,
brightgreen, brown, yellow, blue, brightblue, magenta,
brightmagenta, cyan, brightcyan, lightgray and white.
See the 
.B Colors 
section in 
.B mc.1 
for more information.
.TP
.I "\-d"
Disables mouse support.
.TP
.I "\-f"
Displays the compiled-in search paths for Midnight Commander files.
.TP
.I "\-t"
Used only if the code was compiled with Slang and terminfo: it makes
the Midnight Commander use the value of the 
.B TERMCAP
variable for the terminal information instead of the information on
the system wide terminal database
.TP
.I "\-V"
Displays the version of the program.
.TP
.I "\-x"
Forces xterm mode.  Used when running on xterm-capable terminals (two
screen modes, and able to send mouse escape sequences).
.PP
.SH Features
The internal file editor provides most of the features of
common full screen editors. It has an extensible file size
limit of sixteen megabytes and edits binary files
flawlessly. The features it presently supports are: Block
copy, move, delete, cut, paste; 
.I "key for key undo"; 
pull-down
menus; file insertion; macro definition; regular expression
search and replace (and our own scanf-printf search and
replace); shift-arrow MSW-MAC text highlighting (for the
linux console only); insert-overwrite toggle; word-wrap;
a variety of tabbing options; and an option
to pipe text blocks through shell commands like indent and
ispell.
.PP
.SH Keys
The editor is very easy to use and requires no tutoring.
To see what keys do what, just consult the appropriate
pull-down menu. Other keys are: Shift movement
keys do text highlighting (Linux console only). 
.B Ctrl-Ins 
copies to the file 
.BR "~/cedit/cooledit.clip",
and 
.B Shift-Ins 
pastes from 
.BR "~/cedit/cooledit.clip". 
.B Shift-Del 
cuts to 
.BR "~/cedit/cooledit.clip", 
and 
.B Ctrl-Del 
deletes highlighted text - all linux console only. 
The completion key (see 
.BR "mc.1") 
also does a hard return
without an automatic indent. Mouse highlighting also works, and you
can override the mouse as usual by holding down the shift key
while dragging the mouse to let normal terminal mouse highlighting
work.

To define a macro, press 
.B Ctrl-R 
and then type out the key
strokes you want to be executed. Press 
.B Ctrl-R 
again when finished. You can then assign the macro to any key you
like by pressing that key. The macro is executed when you press
.B Ctrl-A 
and then the assigned key. The macro is also executed if
you press Meta, Ctrl, or Esc and the assigned key, provided that the
key is not used for any other function. Once defined, the macro
commands go into the file 
.BR "~/cedit/cooledit.macros". 
Do NOT edit this file unless you are not going to use macros again
in the same editing session, because 
.B Mcedit 
caches macro key defines in memory. 
.B Mcedit 
now overwrites a macro if a macro with the same key already exists,
so you won't have to edit this file. You will also have to restart
other running editors for macros to take effect.

.B F19 
will format C code when it is highlighted. For this
to work, make an executable file called 
.B cedit/edit.indent.rc 
in your home directory containing the following:

.IP
.nf
#!/bin/sh
# Use $HOME instead of ~ if this doesn't work.
# You may also have to use a different redirection
# syntax for some machines.
/usr/bin/indent -kr -pcs ~/cedit/cooledit.block >& /dev/null
cat /dev/null > ~/cedit/cooledit.error
.fi
.PP
.B C-p 
will run ispell on a block of text in a similar way. The file
is 
.B cedit/edit.spell.rc 
.IP
.nf
#!/bin/sh
# Use $HOME instead of ~ if this doesn't work.
# You may also have to use a different redirection
# syntax for some machines.
/usr/local/bin/ispell ~/cedit/cooledit.block >& /dev/null
cat /dev/null > ~/cedit/cooledit.error
.fi
.PP
.SH Redefining Keys
Keys may be redefined from the Midnight Commander options
menu.
.PP
.SH OPTIONS
The following options are defined in 
.B ".mc.ini". 
You can modifiy them to change the editor behaviour, by editing the file. 
An options dialog box is presently not supported, but will be in the
future. Unless specified, a 1 sets the option to on, and a 0 sets it to
off, as is usual.
.TP
.I use_internal_edit
This option is ignored when envoking 
.B mcedit.
.TP
.I editor_word_wrap_line_length
Sets the maximum length of the line before a newline
is inserted automatically; 0 means off.
.TP
.I editor_key_emulation
1 for 
.B Emacs 
keys, and 0 for normal 
.B Cooledit 
keys.
.TP
.I editor_tab_spacing
Interpret the tab character as being of this length.
Default is 8. You should avoid using
other than 8 since most other editors and text viewers
assume a tab spacing of 8. Use 
.B editor_fake_half_tabs 
to simulate a smaller tab spacing.
.TP
.I editor_fill_tabs_with_spaces
Never insert a tab space. Rather insert spaces (ascii 20h) to fill to the
desired tab size.
.TP
.I editor_return_does_auto_indent
Pressing return will tab across to match the indentation
of the first line above that has text on it.
.TP
.I editor_backspace_through_tabs
Make a single backspace delete all the space to the left
margin if there is no text between the cursor and the left
margin.
.TP
.I editor_fake_half_tabs
This will emulate a half tab for those who want to program
with a tab spacing of 4, but do not want the tab size changed
from 8 (so that the code will be formatted the same when displayed
by other programs). When editing between text and the left 
margin, moving and tabbing will be as though a tab space were
4, while actually using spaces and normal tabs for an optimal fill.
When editing anywhere else, a normal tab is inserted.
.TP
.I editor_option_save_mode
(0, 1 or 2.) The save mode (see the options menu also)
allows you to change the method
of saving a file. Quick save (0) saves the file by immediately,
truncating the disk file to zero length (i.e. erasing it)
and the writing the editor contents to the file. This method
is fast, but dangerous, since a system error during a file
save will leave the file only partially written, possibly
rendering the data irretrievable. When saving, the safe save (1)
option enables creation of a temporary file into which the
file contents are first written. In the event of an problem,
the original file is untouched. When the temporary file is
successfully written, it is renamed to the name of the original
file, thus replacing it. The safest method is create
backups (2). Where a backup file is created before any changes
are made. You can specify your own backup file extension in
the dialog. Note that saving twice will replace your backup
as well as your original file.
.PP
.SH Miscellaneous

(Scanf search and replace have previously not worked properly.
With this release, problems with search and replace have been
fixed.)

You can use scanf search and replace to search and replace
a C format string. First take a look at the 
.B sscanf 
and 
.B sprintf 
man pages to see what a format string
is and how it works. An example is as follows: Suppose you want
to replace all occurances of say, an open bracket, three
comma seperated numbers, and a close bracket, with the
word 
.I apples, 
the third number, the word 
.I oranges
and then the second number, you would fill in the Replace dialog
box as follows:

.nf
.B Enter search string
(%d,%d,%d)
.B Enter replace string
apples %d oranges %d
.B Enter replacement argument order
3,2
.fi

The last line specifies that the third and then the second
number are to be used in place of the first and second.

It is advisable to use this feature with Prompt On Replace on, because
a match is thought to be found whenever the number of arguments found
matches the number given, which is not always a real match. Scanf also
treats whitespace as being elastic.  Note that the scanf format %[ is
very useful for scanning strings, and whitespace.

The editor also displays non-us characters (160+). When editing
binary files, you should set 
.B display bits 
to 7 bits in the Midnight Commander options menu to keep the
spacing clean.

.PP
.SH FILES
@prefix@/lib/mc.hlp
.IP
The help file for the program.
.PP
@prefix@/lib/mc/mc.ini
.IP
The default system-wide setup for the Midnight Commander, used only if
the user lacks his own ~/.mc.ini file.
.PP
@prefix@/lib/mc/mc.lib
.IP
Global settings for the Midnight Commander.  Settings in this file are
global to any Midnight Commander, it is useful to define site-global
.\"LINK2
terminal settings.
.\"Terminal databases"
.PP
$HOME/.mc.ini
.IP
User's own setup. If this file is present then the setup is loaded
from here instead of the system-wide startup file.
.PP
$HOME/cedit/
.IP
User's own temporary directory where block commands are processed
and saved.
.PP
.\"SKIP_SECTION"
.SH LICENSE
This program is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public
License as published by the Free Software Foundation. See the built-in
help of the Midnight Commander for details on the License and the lack
of warranty.
.SH AVAILABILITY
The latest version of this program can be found at ftp.nuclecu.unam.mx
in the directory /linux/local and from Europe at sunsite.mff.cuni.cz in the
directory /GNU/mc and at ftp.teuto.de in the directory /lmb/mc. 
The X Window version can be found at sunsite.unc.edu 
in /pub/Linux/apps/editors/X or at argeas.argos.hol.gr in
/pub/unix/cooledit.
.SH SEE ALSO
cooledit(1), mc(1), gpm(1), terminfo(1), scanf(3).
.PP
.SH AUTHORS
Paul Sheer (psheer@icon.co.za) is the developer of
the Midnight Commander's internal editor.
.PP
.SH BUGS
See the file 
.B README.edit 
in the distribution for more information.