/usr/share/doc/nedit/html/start.html

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE> Getting Started </TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<A NAME="Getting_Started"></A>
<H2> Getting Started </H2>
<P>
Welcome to NEdit!
</P><P>
NEdit is a standard GUI (Graphical User Interface) style text editor for
programs and plain-text files.  Users of Macintosh and MS Windows based text
editors should find NEdit a familiar and comfortable environment.  NEdit
provides all of the standard menu, dialog, editing, and mouse support, as
well as all of the standard shortcuts to which the users of modern GUI based
environments are accustomed.  For users of older style Unix editors, welcome
to the world of mouse-based editing!
</P><P>
Help sections of interest to new users are listed under the "Basic Operation"
heading in the top-level Help menu:
</P><P>
<PRE>
      <A HREF="select.html#Selecting_Text">Selecting Text</A>
      <A HREF="search.html#Finding_and_Replacing_Text">Finding and Replacing Text</A>
      <A HREF="clipboard.html#Cut_and_Paste">Cut and Paste</A>
      <A HREF="mouse.html#Using_the_Mouse">Using the Mouse</A>
      <A HREF="keyboard.html#Keyboard_Shortcuts">Keyboard Shortcuts</A>
      <A HREF="fill.html#Shifting_and_Filling">Shifting and Filling</A>
</PRE>
</P><P>
Programmers should also read the introductory section under the "Features for
Programming" section:
</P><P>
<PRE>
      <A HREF="programmer.html#Programming_with_NEdit">Programming with NEdit</A>
</PRE>
</P><P>
If you get into trouble, the Undo command in the Edit menu can reverse any
modifications that you make.  NEdit does not change the file you are editing
until you tell it to Save.
</P><P>
<H3>Editing an Existing File</H3>
</P><P>
To open an existing file, choose Open... from the file menu. Select the file
that you want to open in the pop-up dialog that appears and click on OK.  You
may open any number of files at the same time.  Depending on your settings
(cf. "<A HREF="interface.html#Tabbed_Editing">Tabbed Editing</A>") each file can appear in its own editor window, or it
can appear under a tab in the same editor window.  Using Open... rather than
re-typing the NEdit command and running additional copies of NEdit, will give
you quick access to all of the files you have open via the Windows menu, and
ensure that you don't accidentally open the same file twice.  NEdit has no
"main" window.  It remains running as long as at least one editor window is
open.
</P><P>
<H3>Creating a New File</H3>
</P><P>
If you already have an empty (Untitled) window displayed, just begin typing
in the window.  To create a new Untitled window, choose New Window or New Tab
from the File menu.   To give the file a name and save its contents to the
disk, choose Save or Save As... from the File menu.
</P><P>
<H3>Backup Files</H3>
</P><P>
NEdit maintains periodic backups of the file you are editing so that you can
recover the file in the event of a problem such as a system crash, network
failure, or X server crash.  These files are saved under the name `~filename`
(on Unix) or `_filename` (on VMS), where filename is the name of the file you
were editing.  If an NEdit process is killed, some of these backup files may
remain in your directory.  (To remove one of these files on Unix, you may
have to prefix the `~' (tilde) character with a (backslash) to prevent the
shell from interpreting it as a special character.)
</P><P>
<H3>Shortcuts</H3>
</P><P>
As you become more familiar with NEdit, substitute the control and function
keys shown on the right side of the menus for pulling down menus with the
mouse.
</P><P>
Dialogs are also streamlined so you can enter information quickly and without
using the mouse*.  To move the keyboard focus around a dialog, use the tab
and arrow keys.  One of the buttons in a dialog is usually drawn with a
thick, indented, outline.  This button can be activated by pressing Return or
Enter.  The Cancel or Dismiss button can be activated by pressing escape.
For example, to replace the string "thing" with "things" type:
</P><P>
<PRE>
      &#60;ctrl-r&#62;thing&#60;tab&#62;things&#60;return&#62;
</PRE>
</P><P>
To open a file named "whole_earth.c", type:
</P><P>
<PRE>
      &#60;ctrl-o&#62;who&#60;return&#62;
</PRE>
</P><P>
(how much of the filename you need to type depends on the other files in the
directory).  See the section called "<A HREF="keyboard.html#Keyboard_Shortcuts">Keyboard Shortcuts</A>" for more details.
</P><P>
* Users who have set their keyboard focus mode to "pointer" should set
"Popups Under Pointer" in the Default Settings menu to avoid the additional
step of moving the mouse into the dialog.
<P><HR>
</P><P>
</P><P>
</P>
</BODY>
</HTML>
nedit 1:5.6a-3 / usr / share / doc / nedit / html / start.html
