Some questions about functions

[Esoturio]

Hello,

first of all: I love this program! I tested a few but this is most amazing! I use it for HTML, CSS, PHP and JavaScript.
Anyway, I miss a few things, because I work really a lot with UltraEdit (about 12 hours a day), hopefully it is possible and I just don't know how it works.

1a. How can I change bigger text parts than one line? If I use the exchange function I can only change inline text, not block-text (like in the search function).
1b. If I used "change" oder "search", which key is for "go on searching"?

2. How is it possible to (fast) mark a whole tag including content (like <p>here is the content</p>, not just <p>here is the content</p> ? It should be possible in some (easy) way, because the program marks the end-tag if I select the start tag, it knows where a tag ends.

3. How can I give own HTML symbols keyboard shortcuts? (klick-combi), without this they are useless for me, I need to get things fast, not with moving the mouse to a symbol and than move it back again.
In the "shortcut" menu (in options) I didn't find them.

4a. About the auto-completion (shows words while typing): How is it possible to not always show it (on "auto") but see it if needed? Do I need to press a key to see it?
4b. Is it possible to save words in the auto-completion?

Excuse my broken English!
Thanks for the help.

- Esoturio

[Mofi]

1a) Don't know what the "exchange" function is. However, you can replace also blocks. See my last post at Search and replace over multiple lines? and my small tutorial for ^s and ^c.


1b) First you should play a little with the Search settings at Configuration - Search - Miscellaneous to find the settings which are for best practice for you. See also help about those settings and read it carefully.
Find Next (downwards) is executed with F3, Find Previous (upwards) with Ctrl+F3. The keys can be configured by you in the key mapping configuration dialog, if you don't like the defaults. For all keys see Default & Custom Key Mappings for UltraEdit-32.


2) With the Find comand while holding the Shift key at the moment when you press the Find button. Everything from the current cursor position till end of the found string is selected when you hold the Shift key while pressing the Find button. Leave the Shift key shortly and press it again when you want to continue to modify the selection with the cursor keys or an additional find with selection.

You can also use following macro assigned to a hotkey with macro property Continue if a Find with Replace not found set.

InsertMode
ColumnModeOff
HexOff
IfCharIs "<"
Key RIGHT ARROW
IfCharIs "/"
Key LEFT ARROW
EndIf
Else
IfCharIs "/"
Key LEFT ARROW
EndIf
EndIf
Find Up "<"
IfNotFound
Find "<"
IfNotFound
ExitMacro
EndIf
EndIf
EndSelect
Key LEFT ARROW
Key RIGHT ARROW
IfCharIs "/"
Key LEFT ARROW
Find Up "<"
EndSelect
Key LEFT ARROW
Key RIGHT ARROW
EndIf
SelectWord
Clipboard 9
Copy
EndSelect
Key Ctrl+LEFT ARROW
Key LEFT ARROW
Find Select "</^c>"
IfNotFound
Find Select ">"
EndIf
ClearClipboard
Clipboard 0

But this macro is not perfect. It does not find the matching closing tag if you have nested tags, for example a table inside a table and you want select the outer table. And it fails also on block tags like <p></p> if you have a tag like <br> inside the paragraph and the cursor is currently below or right the <br> element. And it fails also on paragraphs started with <p> but have no </p>. But give it a try.

The select feature works also with Goto Bookmark and Goto Page.


3) Correct, the user HTML "strings" cannot be mapped to a key. But you can use templates which can be assigned to keys. Up to 50 templates are possible - see Advanced - Display/Modify Templates and the help about it. You can also use an auto-loaded macro set with macros with hotkeys. Don't forget the tag list and the tag file and last you can also specify an auto-complete file for HTML, JavaScript, ... and use auto-completion. Help of UE/UES will explain all these features for fast editing.


4a) As explained in the help of UE/UES at topic "Auto Completion" if you have disabled the option Show auto-complete dialog automatically use CTRL+Space to pop up the auto-completion dialog.


4b) Yes! First read in help about "Auto Completion". Create a text file with your strings and assign it at Configuration - Editor - Word Wrap/Tab Settings for files with the currently selected file extensions listed in the drop down list. See the download section of the website. There are already some auto-complete files which you can modify or use as example.

Well, I just saw that the help topic "Auto Completion" was not updated according to where the auto-complete file can be specified. The EDIT tab does not exist anymore. I will report this little help mistake to IDM.

[Esoturio]

Hi Mofi,
you're great, thank you for your help!

I see that I should have read the help first, as I see this can be really helpfull

1a. nice function with ^c and ^s!, still, there could be a text area for blocktext to search/replace (yes, I ment replace when I said "(ex)change", sorry).

1b. that was indeed a stupid question from me

2. that doesn't help me at this point, I was hoping to find a function like in "Adobe GoLive", which I used to use for text edit some time ago - of course its crap against UE. In this case GoLive has a plus, because there I only needed to doubleklick on the "<" of a start-tag and it selected the whole tag including content (this I call "fast"), almost like in UE with klicking on the line-number to select the whole line.
This should be integrated in UE, shouldn't it? At least as an option.
To get the selection with the search can be helpful if I cant find the end-tag, else its faster to select "from -> to" with shift + mouse.

3. I like the HTML-Symbols because its possible to include a "|" which sets the cursor. For example I can select a word, klick my combi (I overwrote the existing HTML-tags) and get the tag with the selected word as content). I tried it with templates but its not possible as far as I know.
I use templates for tags without content like <br>, or bigger text etc.

4. Thats just amazing! I love UE, didn't I already say that?...
/Edit: the help says, that I find the place where I can load a autocomp-file at "Options | Edit" but its on "Options | Editor", well my version is German and here its totally wrong, because the German words for "editor" and "edit" are different ("Editor" and "Bearbeiten"), almost impossible to find it at "tabulator-settings" like that.
Thanks to you I found it (after about one hour searching) anyway.

Thanks again,
- Esoturio

[Mofi]

1a. You can enter a block in both fields of the replace dialog. If you have selected a block and press Ctrl+F the selected block is automatically loaded into the find field. The characters displayed with a rectangle are tabs, CR and LF.

But it's not possible (and necessary because of ^s and ^c) to paste a block into the replace field. Nevertheless you can also enter a block if you use ^r for CR, ^n for LF or ^p for CRLF. Up to 1000 bytes can then have the replace block.

Note: You can combine ^s and ^c also with other characters in both fields for a non regex search. "Hello!^sRegards Mofi!" is also possible in both fields for example.


2. Sorry, but UE is a general text editor and not specialized on HTML like GoLive. Although since v11 there are many features extra for HTML, UE is still a general text editor for programmers. There are enough good specialized HTML editors available. Although I use UE also for HTML editing, I personally hope IDM is not adding too many HTML specific features which slows down start of UE and working with other languages. Most of the time I use UE as general text editor or as EDE for my 'C' and 'ASM' projects and not as HTML editor.


3. What can be done as you described with the user HTML strings can be also done with templates because the user HTML strings are only templates stored in the INI and not in the template file. That's the only difference. See help of UE topic "Display/Modify Templates command". From help:

^ ... This indicates the position at which to place the cursor after the template has been inserted.

[$REPLACE$] ... Is replaced with selected text in the active document. The selection will be converted to uppercase text when inserted with the template.

[$replace$] ... Is replaced with selected text in the active document. The selection's current case will be maintained when it is inserted with the template.


4. You should more carefully read what I have written. In the last paragraph at my first post I have written that the help is not correct anymore for where the auto completion file has to be specified. I also have emailed already this help mistake to IDM and got the answer that they will correct it in the next release of the help.
Before v11.20 of UE (I think, I can't remember the exact version number) there was an EDIT tab which has contained all the settings now at Editor - Word Wrap/Tab Settings. The design of the configuration dialog has changed dramatically from v11.10c to v11.20.