Most people should find that routine editing of text files with MultiEd is pretty obvious and similar to other Windows programs. We would like to introduce you to some special features that you may not expect. Taking the tour will also help you ensure than the program is installed properly.
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navigating to the Examples subdirectory in MultiEd folder. Pick some example files of interest and
check out the colorings. You can change the colors using "Options | Coloring Setup".
. It has a flashlight and curly brackets. This should move you to the matching
curly bracket. Click the bracket again it will move the cursor back to the original bracket. This action
also works for [ ], < >, and ( ) pairs in several languages. as above.
MultiEd will move the cursor to the corresponding </body> tag. Click the button again and cursor
moves back to the first tag.
in the MultiEd directory to select different tools or rearrange
existing tools. You can use the "Option | Tool Button Setup" to modify or create tools. There
are tools especially designed to load the current file into a browser when you are working with a
hypertext file. Some other tools are designed to compile with Sun's Java SDK. Tools can
automatically run Java programs and applets. Because the buttons are programmable, they can be
used for a great variety of tasks. Try out your buttons to see what they can do for you.
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You should see a list of appropriate templates stored in
the MultiEd\Templates directory. Pick one and watch MultiEd "type" the boiler plate text for you in the editor
window.
The templates files, supplied with MultiEd are intended to be customized to meet your needs. You can just load the template file into MultiEd (they are stored in the MultiEd\Templates folder) and make the desired changes and then save it. Many of the template files include macros instructions such as "{autoindent off}" that turns the autoindent option off. "{literal on}" says to type the text literally, exactly as shown. That is useful because MultiEd's macro language treats { }, [ ], < >, ( ) and ~ as meta characters with special meanings. For example, (unless literal has been turned on) "<" says to press the control key, ">" says to release it. "~" says press the Enter key.
Hint: If you are using a lab machine and the template files are read only, you may be able to copy them to another folder where you can save the customized file for future use.
Very powerful templates are possible. The files "template-ConvertTextToHtml.txt" and "template-ConvertHtmlToTxt.html" can actually convert an unformatted text file into a web page and convert a web page into a text file.
Tools with menus: Some tool buttons show menus. This often occurs with buttons that look
like 
. Such a button appears when
you have a .html or .java file open.
Lets suppose that you are editing a .html file and want to add an unordered list. Move the cursor to
the proper location and click the "HTML tools"
programmable tool and the menu shown on the left appears. Click "List Menu" and smaller "List Menu"
shown on the right appears. Now we click "Unordered list". MultiEd writes the tags for an unordered
list and moves the cursor to location where the first list item should appear. Repeat the process this time
picking "List item" in the List menu and the tags for a list item appear and the cursor is moved to the location
where text should be added. MultiEd has done a lot of typing with just a few clicks. Tags for common items
such as paragraphs, hyperlinks, and images can be entered directly from the .html tool menu and require only
2 clicks!
This tool is even more powerful when you are editing a .java file. Suppose you need to add a class for a
mouse listener. After moving the cursor to the desired location, click the
button, then the "Event Listeners" menu item, and then "Mouse Listener". MultiEd types the template for
the class and moves the cursor to the location where you should type the class name. Mouse listeners
require importing "java.awt.event.*". As an added bonus, MultiEd checks to see if the required import already
exists. If not, it warns you that it is missing and adds the required statement to the beginning of the program.
Like templates, these buttons and menus are programmable. They reside in .macro or "templates" files stored in MultiEd's template folder. These files can also be edited. Unfortunately files with menus tend to be more complicated that the "template" files and editing may be more difficult. The tutorials about macros are recommended.
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Click the project tool button  . It has 3 red and blue pages and is between the spell check
button and the first programmable tool button. Click "Open" in the pop up menu. Navigate to the
MultiEd\ExampleProjects directory and select Example-Project2.proj. Several things happen. The project file shows up on the right with a yellow background. (You may need to adjust the width of this file window so you can read all of it.) If you double click on a file name it will load the file (if necessary) and make it the active file. On the left you will see a tree structure which works much like a directory tree. Notice that some files have a little plus in the box left of the file name. Clicking on a plus will expand the entry and show you the classes or methods/functions in those classes. Click on a class or function name and the cursor will move to the corresponding line in the file. (This works in some of the other languages as well.) |
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Hopefully the tour has helped you see some potential uses for MultiEd. Please explore the other menu items, tool buttons, and "help" to learn more about its capabilities. You can visit its webpage http://www.cs.plu.edu/~brink/multied/version2/MultiEdHomePage.html for some more uses, hints or find updates.
Please contact brinkje@plu.edu if you have questions, comments, suggestions, or discover a bug.
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Revised: 10/4/2011