2 .\" $FreeBSD: src/usr.bin/ee/ee.1,v 1.8.2.6 2002/06/20 23:45:45 charnier Exp $
23 is a simple screen oriented text editor. It is always in text insertion
24 mode unless there is a prompt at the bottom of the terminal, or a
25 menu present (in a box in the middle of the terminal). The
27 utility is the same as
29 but restricted to editing the named
30 file (no file operations, or shell escapes are allowed).
34 to work properly, the environment variable
36 must be set to indicate the type of terminal being used. For
41 variable should be set to "70092". See your System Administrator if
42 you need more information.
44 The following options are available:
45 .Bl -tag -width indent
47 Turn off expansion of tab character to spaces.
49 Turn off display of information window at top of terminal.
51 Turn off highlighting of borders of windows and menus (improves
52 performance on some terminals).
54 Move the cursor to line '#' at startup.
57 To do anything other than insert text, the user must use the control
60 key, represented by a "^", pressed in conjunction with an
61 alphabetic key, e.g., ^a) and function keys available on the keyboard
67 Since not all terminals have function keys,
69 has the basic cursor movement functions assigned to control keys as
70 well as more intuitive keys on the keyboard when available. For
71 instance, to move the cursor up, the user can use the up arrow key,
74 .Bl -tag -width indent
76 Prompt for the decimal value of a character to insert.
78 Move to the bottom of the text.
80 Get the prompt for a command.
84 Prompt for the string to search for.
86 Undelete the last deleted character.
88 Move to the beginning of the line.
96 Delete the character the cursor is sitting on.
102 Move to the next page.
104 Move to the end of the line.
106 Move to the previous page.
108 Move the cursor to the right.
110 Move to the top of the text.
114 Undelete the last deleted word.
116 Delete the word beginning at the cursor position.
120 Delete from the cursor position to the end of line.
122 Undelete the last deleted line.
126 .Ss "EMACS keys mode"
127 Since many shells provide an Emacs mode (for cursor movement and other editing
128 operations), some bindings that may be more useful for people familiar with
129 those bindings have been provided. These are accessible via the
131 menu, or via the initialization file (see below). The mappings are as follows:
132 .Bl -tag -width indent
134 Move to the beginning of the line.
140 Delete character the cursor is sitting on.
152 Undelete last deleted character.
156 Undelete last deleted line.
160 Move to the next line.
162 Prompt for the decimal value of a character to insert.
166 Restore last deleted word.
168 Move to the top of the text.
170 Move to the bottom of the text.
172 Move to the next page.
174 Delete the word beginning at the cursor position.
176 Prompt for the string to search for.
183 .Bl -tag -width indent
185 Move to the next page.
187 Move to the previous page.
189 Delete the character the cursor is on.
191 Delete from the cursor to the end of line.
193 Insert a newline at the cursor position.
195 Move the cursor in the direction indicated.
198 Some operations require more information than a single keystroke can
199 provide. For the most basic operations, there is a menu that can be
200 obtained by pressing the
202 key. The same operations, and more can be performed by obtaining the
203 command prompt (^c) and typing in one of the commands below.
204 .Bl -tag -width indent
210 Move to the line indicated.
212 Make searches case sensitive.
214 Display the ASCII value of the character at the cursor.
216 Save the edited text, and leave the editor.
218 Expand tabs to spaces.
220 Print the name of the file.
224 Display the current line number.
226 Make searches insensitive to case (the default).
228 Don't expand tab to spaces when the TAB key is pressed.
230 Leave the editor without saving changes.
235 Write the text to the named
238 .Ss "Menu Operations"
239 Pop-up menus can be obtained by pressing the
245 key is present). When in the menu, the escape key can be
246 used to leave the menu without performing any operations. Use the up and
251 for moving down to move to the desired items in the menu, then press
253 to perform the indicated task.
255 To the left of each menu item is a letter, which if the corresponding
256 letter is pressed on the keyboard selects that menu entry.
261 .Bl -tag -width indent
263 If changes have been made, the user will get a menu prompting whether or
264 not the changes should be saved.
266 Display a help screen, with all of the keyboard operations and commands.
268 Pop up a menu for selecting whether to read a file, write to a file, or
269 save the current contents of the editor, as well as send the contents of
270 the editor to a print command (see the section
271 .Sx "Initializing ee from a file" ) .
273 Provide a means to repaint the screen if the screen has been corrupted.
275 Show the current values of the operating modes, and right margin. By
276 pressing return when the cursor is on a particular item, the value can be
277 changed. To leave this menu, press the
283 Pop up a menu in which the user may choose to enter a string to search
284 for, or search for a string already entered.
286 Pop up a menu that allows the user to format the current paragraph,
287 execute a shell command, or check the spelling of the text in the editor.
289 .Ss "Paragraph Formatting"
290 Paragraphs are defined for
292 by a block of text bounded by:
293 .Bl -bullet -width indent
295 Begin or end of file.
297 Line with no characters, or only spaces and/or tabs.
299 Line starting with a period ('.') or right angle bracket ('>').
302 A paragraph may be formatted two ways: explicitly by choosing the
304 menu item, or by setting
307 format paragraphs. The automatic mode may be set via a menu, or via the
310 There are three states for text operation in
313 and automatic formatting.
315 "Free-form" is best used for things like programming. There are no
316 restrictions on the length of lines, and no formatting takes place.
318 "Margins" allows the user to type in text without having to worry about going
319 beyond the right margin (the right margin may be set in the
321 menu, the default is for the margin to be the right edge of the
322 terminal). This is the mode that allows the
326 "Automatic formatting" provides word-processor-like behavior. The user
327 may type in text, while
329 will make sure the entire paragraph fits
330 within the width of the terminal every time the user inserts a space after
331 typing or deleting text. Margin observation must also be enabled in order for
332 automatic formatting to occur.
336 is a 'modeless' editor (it is in text insertion mode all the
337 time), there are modes in some of the things it does. These include:
338 .Bl -tag -width indent
340 Tabs may be inserted as a single tab character, or replaced with spaces.
342 The search operation can be sensitive to whether characters are upper- or
343 lower-case, or ignore case completely.
345 Lines can either be truncated at the right margin, or extend on forever.
346 .It auto paragraph formatting
347 While typing in text, the editor can try to keep it looking reasonably well
348 within the width of the screen.
349 .It eightbit characters
350 Toggle whether eight bit characters are displayed as their value in angle
351 brackets (e.g. "<220>") or as a character.
353 A window showing the keyboard operations that can be performed can be
356 Control keys may be given bindings similar to emacs, or not.
357 .It 16 bit characters
358 Toggles whether sixteen bit characters are handled as one 16-bit quantities or
359 two 8-bit quantities. This works primarily with the Chinese Big 5 code set.
362 You may set these modes via the initialization file (see below), or with a
365 There are two ways to have the spelling in the text checked from
367 One is by the traditional
369 command, the other is with the
376 the words that are not recognized will be placed at the top
379 option, the file is written to disk,
382 run on the file, and the file read back in once
384 has completed making changes to the file.
385 .Ss "Printing the contents of the editor"
386 The user may select a menu item which prints the contents of the editor.
389 utility pipes the text in the editor to the command specified by the
390 initialization command
393 .Sx Initializing ee from a file
394 below). The default is to send the contents to
397 Whatever the user assigns to
400 standard input. See your system administrator for more details.
401 .Ss "Shell operations"
402 Shell commands can be executed from within
408 menu, or by placing an exclamation mark ("!") before the command to
411 prompt. Additionally, the user may direct the contents of the edit buffer
412 out to a shell operation (via a pipe) by using the left angle bracket
413 (">"), followed by a "!" and the shell command to execute. The output of
414 a shell operation can also be directed into the edit buffer by using a
415 right angle bracket ("<") before the exclamation mark. These can even be
416 used together to send output to a shell operation and read back the
417 results into the editor. So, if the editor contained a list of words
418 to be sorted, they could be sorted by typing the following at the command
421 This would send the contents of the editor to be piped into the
423 utility and the result would be placed into the edit buffer at the current
424 cursor location. The old information would have to be deleted by the user.
425 .Ss "Initializing ee from a file"
426 Since different users have different preferences,
429 slight configurability. There are three possible locations for an
430 initialization file for
433 .Pa /usr/share/misc/init.ee ,
436 in the user's home directory, or the file
438 in the current directory (if different from the home
439 directory). This allows system administrators to set some preferences for
440 the users on a system-wide basis (for example, the
443 and the user to customize settings for particular directories (like one
444 for correspondence, and a different directory for programming).
447 .Pa /usr/share/misc/init.ee
452 with the settings specified by the
453 most recent file read taking precedence.
455 The following items may be entered in the initialization file:
456 .Bl -tag -width indent
458 Set searches to be case sensitive.
460 Set searches to be insensitive to case (default).
464 to expand tabs to spaces (default).
468 to insert tabs as a single character.
470 A small information window is displayed at the top of the terminal
473 Turn off the display of the information window.
477 to truncate lines at the right margin when the
478 cursor passes beyond the right margin as set by the user
479 while text is being inserted
482 Allow lines to extend beyond the right margin.
486 to automatically try to format the current paragraph while
487 text insertion is occurring.
489 Turn off automatic paragraph formatting (default).
491 Allow the setting of the print command (default: "lp").
493 The user can select a value for the right margin (the first column on the
496 Turn on highlighting of border of information window and menus (default).
498 Turn off highlighting of border of information window and menus.
500 Turn on display of eight bit characters.
502 Turn off display of eight bit characters (they are displayed as their decimal
503 value inside angle brackets, e.g., "<220>").
505 Turns on handling of 16-bit characters.
507 Turns off handling of 16-bit characters.
509 Turns on emacs key bindings.
511 Turns off emacs key bindings.
513 .Ss "Save Editor Configuration"
514 When using this entry from the
516 menu, the user may choose to save the current configuration of
518 .Sx Initializing ee from a file
519 above) to a file named
521 in the current directory or the user's home directory. If a file named
523 already exists, it will be renamed
526 THIS MATERIAL IS PROVIDED "AS IS". THERE ARE
527 NO WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND WITH REGARD TO THIS
528 MATERIAL, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
529 IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND
530 FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Neither
531 Hewlett-Packard nor Hugh Mahon shall be liable
532 for errors contained herein, nor for
533 incidental or consequential damages in
534 connection with the furnishing, performance or
535 use of this material. Neither Hewlett-Packard
536 nor Hugh Mahon assumes any responsibility for
537 the use or reliability of this software or
538 documentation. This software and
539 documentation is totally UNSUPPORTED. There
540 is no support contract available. Hewlett-Packard
541 has done NO Quality Assurance on ANY
542 of the program or documentation. You may find
543 the quality of the materials inferior to
546 Always make a copy of files that cannot be easily reproduced before
547 editing. Save files early, and save often.
548 .Ss "International Code Set Support"
551 utility supports single-byte character code sets (eight-bit clean), or the
552 Chinese Big-5 code set. (Other multi-byte code sets may function, but the
553 reason Big-5 works is that a two-byte character also takes up two columns on
556 The automatic paragraph formatting operation
557 may be too slow for slower systems.
559 .Bl -tag -width /usr/share/misc/init.ee -compact
560 .It Pa /usr/share/misc/init.ee
561 .It Pa $HOME/.init.ee
565 .Xr ispell 1 Pq Pa textproc/ispell ,
577 This software and documentation contains
578 proprietary information which is protected by
579 copyright. All rights are reserved.
581 Copyright (c) 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1995, 1996 Hugh Mahon.