faq.xml

nedit 是一款linux下的开发源码的功能强大的编辑器

cursor is already there.</p>

</a>
</qna>

<qna id="N474">
<q>I'd like to see more than 8 files in the file selection dialogs (Open,
Save As, etc.)</q>

<long-q>
<p>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.</p>
</long-q>

<a>

<p>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:</p>

<blockquote>
<p><tt>nedit*FileSelect.height: 900</tt></p>
</blockquote>

<p>The X resource line above will make the file selection box 900 pixels
tall.</p>

</a>
</qna>

<qna id="N496">

<q>I am trying to do key bindings such that, for example, Find is Alt+F rather
than Ctrl+F, but this clashes with the find menu mnemonic</q>

<long-q>
<p>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?</p>
</long-q>

<a>

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

<blockquote>
  <p><tt>nedit*fileMenu.mnemonic: \0</tt></p>
</blockquote>

</a>
</qna>

<qna id="N515">

<q>I have a PC-style 2-button mouse and I would like to switch the 2nd and 3rd
(emulated) mouse buttons</q>

<long-q>
<p>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?</p>
</long-q>

<a>

<p>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()).</p>

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

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

</a>
</qna>

<qna id="N537">
<q>How can I make a shell command prompt me for input?</q>

<long-q>
<p>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).</p>
</long-q>

<a>

<p>Use a macro command instead to do the prompting:</p>

<pre>
  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)
</pre>

</a>
</qna>

<qna id="N556">
<q>How I can set the foreground color for selected
text when syntax highlighting is applied?</q>

<long-q>
<p>How I can set the foreground color for selected
text to be always say grey1 even when syntax highlighting is applied?</p>
</long-q>

<a>

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

</a>
</qna>

</section>












<section id="sect_features">

<title>Features</title>

<qna id="N578">
<q>Why NEdit does not support drag and drop?</q>

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

<a>

<p>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.</p>

</a>
</qna>

<qna id="N593">
<q>Why don't you integrate Max Vohlken's / Yunliang Yu's versions into the
official release of NEdit</q>

<a>

<p>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.  </p>

<p>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)</p>

<p><strong>Update as of NEdit version 5.2RC1:</strong> The forthcoming
NEdit version 5.2 contains several functionalities of Max's patches.</p>

</a>
</qna>

<qna id="N611">

<q>Is it possible to use NEdit on windows 95 or NT?</q>

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

<a>

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

</a>
</qna>

<qna id="N644">
<q>Why aren't there pre-entered default values in text fields of dialogs?</q>

<long-q>
<p>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.</p>
</long-q>

<a>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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 Replace dialogs via the up-arrow and
down-arrow keys.</p>

</a>
</qna>

<qna id="N662">
<q>I would like to use (multiple fonts, special symbols) in my file, but
NEdit seems to allow just one single font.</q>

<a>

<p>NEdit is a plain text editor, not a word processor.  Plain text files have
no font or formatting information contained in them, they are just a string
of ascii characters.  While you might find a font with limited symbols and
greek letters, your troubles would just be beginning.  You'd still have
trouble getting the printer to agree and print out the characters as they
appeared in NEdit.  For anything involving font changes or special symbols,
you need a word processor, such as Microsoft Word, or a text
formatting program like LaTEX.</p>

</a>
</qna>

<qna id="N677">
<q>Auto-wrap doesn't work well</q>

<long-q>
<p>Auto-wrap doesn't work very well.  When I type in the middle of a line, I
can push the end of the line beyond the right margin, and when I delete,
It doesn't keep the right edge of the text lined up.</p>
</long-q>

<a>

<p>You probably want continuous wrap mode (Preferences -&gt; Wrap
-&gt; Continuous).</p>

<p>Because NEdit is not a word processor, it is stuck with the limits
of the plain text format. In the default, auto-newline, wrapping
mode, nedit does wrapping by inserting newline characters.  Because
there is only one newline character, NEdit can't distinguish a
newline which can be "unwrapped" from one which the user intended to
be permanent.  While it might be possible for NEdit to temporarily
make that distinction, for example while the cursor is on a
particular line that the user is typing, ultimately, NEdit will have
to forget this information, because there is no way to save it in the
file. Users who work in auto-newline wrap mode tend to make liberal
use of the Fill paragraph command.</p>

<p>In continuous wrapping mode, you can intentionally leave out the
newlines within paragraphs, and lines will be wrapped as needed to
fit within the page.  When you edit in the middle of a paragraph, the
text will be continuously adjusted.  However, continuous wrap mode
has it's limitations too.  All paragraphs must be lined up against
the right margin to take advantage of continuous wrapping, and Unix
systems have limited support for files of that format.  You may have
trouble printing and viewing the files outside of NEdit.</p>

</a>
</qna>

<qna id="N698">
<q>NEdit scrolls too fast when I extend a selection by dragging the mouse
outside of the window.</q>

<a>

<p>NEdit features proportional auto-scrolling, where the
speed is controlled by how far your mouse is beyond the edge of the
window.  If you want it to scroll slower, bring the mouse back closer
to the text.</p>

</a>
</qna>

<qna id="N713">
<q>Is there a special symbol that represents the selected text,
usable in shell commands?</q>

<long-q>
<p>Is there a special symbol (as % for filename in the shell commands)
that can be used to represent the text that is selected, which can then
be used as an argument to a command? For instance, I want to feed the
selection to a script so that it can be used as the expression to a
'grep' command. Is there any other way that I can accomplish this goal?</p>
</long-q>

<a>

<p>Below is an example from the NEdit discussion list (from David L. Paterline)
of a "Find All" command implemented by using the selection as an argument to
the grep command:</p>

<blockquote>
   <p>I set up a command to list all lines in a file which contain the
   highlighted selection as follows, using the Preferences -&gt; Shell
   Commands menu:</p>

<pre>
        Menu Entry:           all &lt;selection&gt;
        Command Input:        selection
        Command Output:       new window
        Save file before:     yes
        Shell Command:        grep -n -- "`cat -`" %
</pre>

   <p>The <code>cat -</code> portion of the command echoes the selected text to the
   <code>grep -n</code> command, which lists the lines containing the selection
   with line numbers.  The output of the command appears in a new
   window; I can then highlight a line number in the new window and
   use the Search -&gt; Goto Selected menu in the original window to jump
   to the line in the original file.</p>
</blockquote>

</a>
</qna>

<qna id="N741">
<q>How can I print highlighted text on my printer as it appears in NEdit.</q>

<a>

<p>In the current version, that's not possible, but there are external tools
for highlighting, which are specifically designed for printing, including
a2ps, enscript, and genscript.</p>

</a>
</qna>


</section>













<section id="sect_server_mode">

<title>Server mode and nc</title>

<qna id="N763">
<q>I want to use <code>nc</code> as an external
editor from my mailer, but my mailer doesn't wait for the editor
to finish</q>

<long-q>
<p>I use a mailer
which can invoke an external editor, but if I use nc, the mailer process