Bob Church: CMS Editor

[MarkShot]

Bob,

I could be wrong, but I got the impression that you are the developer of the CM application.

Someone asked for the ability to use an external editor for scripting. That would be nice ... I did a bit of that by just using the clipboard. However, I'll tell you what I think the editor is missing to make the use of another editor unnecessary:

(1) Indent/Outdent selected lines. For serious programmers, it's hard to write code without maintaining some representation of control structure nesting.

(2) Comment/uncomment selected lines. This would help in debugging.

(3) The ability to open multiple files. Let's face it ... after you have done a few programs you'll likely be wanting to cut and paste.

(4) Maybe a print command that would retain the colors on an ink jet.

---

Although this is not an editor feature, the would help a bit too.

The ability to perform output statements to a text file.

[Ding]

I use this very, very nice text editor called EditPlus2.

One day I got fed up with CM's built-in editor and sat down for an hour to put together an EditPlus syntax definition file for CMS. Now the highlighting looks exactly like CM's Editor, plus I can open multiple documents, print in color, etc...
To test the map, I have to click the Load button in CM, double-click the .map file, and click Download. Not that objectionable at all.

If you want the syntax file, I can upload it somewhere.

[Bob Church]

Hi Mark,

>> Someone asked for the ability to use an external editor for scripting. That would be nice ... I did a bit of that by just using the clipboard. However, I&#39;ll tell you what I think the editor is missing to make the use of another editor unnecessary... <<

Thanks for the suggestions, Mark! I&#39;ll add them to the list. I&#39;m not really sure what you&#39;re asking for on a couple of them, though. It does basic autoindent now and commenting a line is only a matter of adding/removing "//" in the first column. I&#39;m guessing I&#39;ve missed the point completely, so I&#39;ll just ask. Did I miss the point completely? :)

Thanks again

- Bob

The StickWorks
http://www.stickworks.com

[MarkShot]

I mean that you should be able to select 20 lines and get them commented in/out or indented in/out with one click or key press.

Thanks.

[wildwolf]

One feature that I&#39;ve found annoying with the editor...is my mouse scroll wheel doesn&#39;t scroll the editor&#39;s window. The one click indent/deindent would be nice...or at least highlight and tab->indent shift+tab->unindent like visual studio. :)

[Bob Church]

I&#39;ll have a look next time I&#39;m back into the editor and see what I can do. I&#39;m not sure how Visual Studio does it, I&#39;ve managed to avoid it so far except I used to use VS for VC4 to set version numbers. Every time I&#39;ve tried to do anything else with it, I end up with the Windows all undocked and it&#39;s completely useless. I tried going up to VC6, I have to use the compiler, but VS won&#39;t run on 98 Gold at all, at least in my house. I understand WordStar at the DOS prompt, Visual Studio is beyond me I&#39;m afraid. :) Is it a matter of highlighting the block of text that you want to indent/outdent first like Markshot mentioned?

I&#39;ve been looking at some of the available editors, too. Ding mentioned one, EditPlus2, that runs $30. There&#39;s another one that looks very similar, SourceEdit, and it&#39;s free. I&#39;ve played a little with that one and I could get the files to open with command line parameters. Maybe one of those would be a solution. Writing a full-blown editor is sort of a "reinventing the wheel" thing. If I could find one that would integrate relatively seamlessly via another button or some sort of option setting, that would certainly be the quickest way to get something out to you guys.

Has anyone here used SourceEdit? You can check it out/download it from:

http://www.brixoft.com

if you&#39;re interested in such things. If you have used it or do give it a try, let me know what you think!

- Bob

The StickWorks
http://www.stickworks.com