faq.txt

nedit 是一款linux下的开发源码的功能强大的编辑器

> I can't get the delete key to remap to a forward delete. I have re-bound it
> in my .Xdefaults file, and that doesn't help.

In your .Xdefaults file, add:

    nedit.remapDeleteKey: False

This is now the default, so you likely have an old resource file sitting
around somewhere with this setting. When remapDeleteKey is True), NEdit
forcibly maps the delete to backspace. This can be used when the X server
and the client machine have different expectations about whether the key in
the backspace position on the keyboard is a backspace key or a delete key.
It also saves users in very heterogeneous environments from having to
re-map keys on nearly every system they use just to be able to backspace.

> My X resource settings don't work.

It's harder to explain how to specify X resources than you might expect,
since how they are set is often configured by your local system manager.
They are either automatically attached to the server (your screen) by an X
startup or login script, or they are left unspecified, and read from the
.Xdefaults file whenever you run an X application. If they are attached to
the server, you should find out the "normal" method for setting them on
your system. If it's not the .Xdefaults file, then it is usually a file
called .Xresources (also in your home directory). To make a change, you
have to either run xrdb, or re-invoke the startup script that originally
attached them, usually by exiting and re-starting X, or logging out and
back in to your X session.

Since setting resources is tricky, it's usually better to start with
something simple, like:

    nedit*foreground:green

Then, once you have that working, try the more subtle or difficult ones.
You can also use the appres command to find out what resources nedit
actually sees ('appres NEdit nedit').

> I am setting some X defaults in my $HOME/.nedit file but some of them don't
> work.

The .nedit file holds the NEdit Preferences menu options and is
automatically overwritten whenever you select "Save Defaults". You really
shouldn't put X resource settings there. Also, as you may have discovered,
resources other than Preferences resources don't always work from there.

How you set X resources depends on local system conventions. You usually
put them in the .Xdefaults or .Xresources file in your home directory. You
may also need to run xrdb to install them in the server. It depends on how
your local system has been configured, so it's best to talk to the person
who configured your system. If you're not sure whether your resources are
set up correctly, the command:

    appres NEdit nedit

will tell you what settings NEdit will see when it runs.

> If I install an "app-defaults" file for NEdit (empty too), all default
> shortcuts are reset (only "Alt+B" and "Alt+Z" works). Without that file all
> works fine. Now, how can I customize nedit with this problem ? Or, how can
> I get a copy of all default shortcuts to add on my NEdit "app-defaults"
> file ?

NEdit uses the X fallback resources mechanism to provide default values for
user-settable resources. When you provide a system-wide app- defaults file,
it overrides the entire contents of the fallback resources, meaning all of
the program defaults are lost, except for those which are also represented
in the app-defaults file. To use an app-defaults file, therefore, you need
to start from a complete one which provides all of the necessary default
values. There is a complete app-defaults file in:

    ftp://ftp.nedit.org/pub/contrib/misc/nedit.app-defaults

We strongly discourage users from using system-wide app-defaults because
once you install the file, you have to keep it up to date with every new
release of the software. If you don't update it, users might not even
notice the difference, but things will be increasingly wrong with each new
release.

> Where can I get the complete list of nedit resources?

The way X is designed, there are a LOT of user settable resources in NEdit,
most of them quite useless. You can see them all using the editres tool,
which is available on most Unix systems. A more useful subset are the
application default resources, which you can look at either in the source
code (near the beginning of nedit.c, in the variable called
fallbackResources) or in the app-defaults file in:

    ftp://ftp.nedit.org/pub/contrib/misc/nedit.app-defaults

> Can I use 'ispell' with NEdit instead of the less capable Unix 'spell'
> command?

'ispell' is actually the default spell checker for NEdit on Linux systems
where 'spell' is not available. On other systems, enter the following in
the Shell Commands dialog:

  Command Input: Either
  Command Output: Same Window
  Output Replaces Input: ON
  Shell Command: cat>spellTmp; xterm -e ispell -x spellTmp; cat spellTmp; rm spellTmp

If you want to get fancy, the following puts the temporary file in the /tmp
directory, and uses $$ (the process ID of the shell) in the file name so
you don't have to worry about clashes between simultaneous ispell sessions:

  cat > /tmp/ispell.$$; xterm -title "Spell Check" -e
  ispell -S /tmp/ispell.$$; cat /tmp/ispell.$$; rm /tmp/ispell.$$

> How can the display of hidden (eg .login) files in dialog boxes be
> suppressed? We use nedit with for teaching programming with very naive and
> inexperienced students. The display of these in dialogs such as the "Save
> as..." one encourages them to screw up important login stuff, state files
> etc.

It depends on the system you are running how easy this is to do. Under
Motif 2.0, which I think is still only found on Linux and Free-BSD systems,
it's a simple resource setting:

    nedit*XmFileSelectionBox.fileFilterStyle: FILTER_HIDDEN_FILES

On other systems, unfortunately, it's a rather difficult source code
change, involving creating a replacement file searching procedure to be
spliced in to the file selection box widget.

> Most Motif applications allow you to type in the file name in a separate
> text field (as in the 'open file' dialog). Why doesn't NEdit? Can I make it
> do that?

Set the X resource nedit.stdOpenDialog to True. The field is disabled by
default to get new users accustomed to typing the file name directly in to
the list widget, which is not standard Motif behavior.

> I would like to change NEdit's cursor from a bar to a block. I seem to lose
> it sometimes in my text.

The block cursor in NEdit is used to indicate overstrike mode, but you can
turn on a resource to make the cursor thicker:

    nedit*text.heavyCursor: true

The only way to get a permanent block cursor, though is to hack the source
code. This shouldn't be too difficult, since the code for drawing a block
cursor is already there.

> I'd like to see more than 8 files in the file selection dialogs (Open, Save
> As, Include, etc.). I've tried to set the X-resources like
> nedit*XmList.visibleItemCount: 20, but this did not work.

The only effective way I've found to control the number of items in the
highly temperamental Motif FileSelectionBox widget is through the height
resource:

    nedit*FileSelect.height: 900

The X resource line above will make the file selection box 900 pixels tall.

> I am trying to do key bindings such that, for example, Find is Alt+F rather
> than Ctrl+F. However, this clashes with the find menu mnemonic. I realize
> that the menu mnemonics can be changed to any letter, but they are always
> bound to Alt-letter. I would like to just remove all menu mneumonics. Is
> there any way to do this in an .Xdefaults file?

You can turn mnemonics off by setting them to the ascii null character, for
example:

    nedit*fileMenu.mnemonic: \0

> I have a PC-style 2-button mouse. Can I switch the 2nd and 3rd mouse
> buttons so the more important functions like secondary selection are on the
> right button instead of the middle (which is emulated by pressing 1+3
> buttons simultaneously under Linux), like they were in version 4?

It's somewhat involved and hard to figure out from the documentation, but
yes you can. You have to reverse the translation table bindings for mouse
buttons 2 and 3, AND reset the bgMenuButton resource. The translation table
bindings can either be found in the source file source/text.c, or by adding
and activating a temporary translation to the text widget for dumping the
translation table itself (XtDisplayTranslations()).

What it boils down to, though, is just add the following lines to your X
resource file (.Xdefaults or .Xresources depending on your system):

  NEdit*text.Translations: #override \n\
     <Btn3Down>: secondary_or_drag_start()\n\
     Shift Ctrl Button3<MotionNotify>: \
         secondary_or_drag_adjust("rect", "copy", "overlay")\n\
     Shift Button3<MotionNotify>: secondary_or_drag_adjust("copy")\n\
     Ctrl Button3<MotionNotify>: secondary_or_drag_adjust("rect", "overlay")\n\
     Button3<MotionNotify>: secondary_or_drag_adjust()\n\
     Shift Ctrl<Btn3Up>: move_to_or_end_drag("copy", "overlay")\n\
     Shift <Btn3Up>: move_to_or_end_drag("copy")\n\
     Alt<Btn3Up>: exchange()\n\
     Meta<Btn3Up>: exchange()\n\
     Ctrl<Btn3Up>: copy_to_or_end_drag("overlay")\n\
     <Btn3Up>: copy_to_or_end_drag()\n\
     Ctrl~Meta~Alt<Btn2Down>: mouse_pan()\n\
     Ctrl~Meta~Alt Button2<MotionNotify>: mouse_pan()\n\
     <Btn2Up>: end_drag()
  nedit.bgMenuButton: ~Shift~Ctrl~Meta~Alt<Btn2Down>

> I'd like to send mail directly from my nedit window, but there's no good
> way to make a shell command prompt me for input (for entering the recipient
> and subject).

Use a macro command instead to do the prompting:

  to = string_dialog("Send mail to: (enter name below, along with any\n" \
      "additional Unix Mail command parameters, -s for subject)", \
      "Send", "Cancel")
  if ($string_dialog_button == 2 || $string_dialog_button == 0)
      return
  if ($selection_start == -1)
      body = get_range(0, $text_length)
  else
      body = get_selection()
  cmdOutput = shell_command("Mail " to, body)
  if ($shell_cmd_status != 0)
      dialog("mail command returned failed exit status\n" cmdOutput)
  else if (cmdOutput != "")
      dialog(cmdOutput)

> How I can set the foreground color for selected text to be always say grey1
> even when syntax highlighting is applied?

There's no equivalent to the nedit*text.selectForeground resource when you
turn on syntax highlighting. You just have to choose a selection color that
is compatible with all of your highlighting colors.



FEATURES
--------


> I'm a little confused about what happend to drag and drop. I thought
> drag-N-drop was supported by the Motif library.

NEdit no longer uses the Motif text widget, so all of the functionality had
to be duplicated in the new widget. Drag and drop between windows got left
off due to time pressure of getting out the new release, but it will be
back some day.

> Why don't you integrate Max Vohlken's / Yunliang Yu's versions into the
> official release of NEdit

Many of their changes will eventually find their way in to the "official"
version, but some will not. Max has really done quite a lot of stuff. I
appreciate it, and I think it's kind of neat to have a "bleeding edge"
version of NEdit around to try out new features.

I can't just apply Max's patches to our version and release it. Some of
them break the VMS version, some interfere with existing commands that are
important to other users, and some are just customizations that I don't
particularly agree with. Mostly, I want to do a lot of testing to make sure
the changes are safe on all platforms, and I just don't have time right
now. (Mark Edel)

Update as of NEdit version 5.2RC1: The forthcoming NEdit version 5.2
contains several functionalities of Max's patches.

> I really like nedit and it would be nice to use on windows 95 or NT instead
> of word or notepad. Is this possible?

There is an NT version of NEdit, available at
http://nedit.org/download/win32.shtml. A mini-FAQ is also available.

> A feature which is found in in some Macintosh and PC programs, which I
> like, is to provide pre-entered default values in text fields. For example,
> the find and replace dialogs could show the last search/replace string, or
> the currently selected text. These programs select the text, so simply
> typing in the field automatically replaces the default without any extra
> work from the user.

X has a strict convention that there can be only one selection at a time on
the whole display. This means that some of the tricks used in PC and
Macintosh programs don't work in X. On PCs and Macs, programs can fill in
default values in text fields, and select the text that they have inserted
such that If the user types over the selection, it will automatically be
erased. Under X, there is a price to pay for making an automatic selection.
The selection must be "stolen" from some other window, maybe some other
program. If the user's intent was to paste a selection that existed before
the dialog popped up, once the automatic selection is made, they are out of
luck.

If NEdit automatically transferred the selection to the Find or Replace
dialog, it would either have to steal the selection, or users would have to
click or drag the mouse over the text to delete it before they could type
anything different. Instead, NEdit has a "Find Selection" command, as well
as various methods of pasting and copying the selection into dialog fields.
It also allows you to recall of previous search strings in the Find and