Re: "Wild cards"

[Robert Holmgren holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to note from xywrite@xxxxxxxx Tue, O1 Sep 1998 14:45:48 -0400

> As for wild cards, I wonder how many people use the Boolean
> so-called wild cards (actually separators in searches)?
> These are "O" for "either" and "-" for "not"...
> For example, I have assigned a single key to move to either
> the next colon OR semicolon, whichever comes first, with
> dx,cr,bc,s,e, ,|,;,nn,O,:,|,xc,cl,ch,do
> since "nn,o" executes the "or" wild card.

I use them, a lot. But trying to find sufficient available KBD file keys
to accept all the dedicated commands I'd like to have readily available
can be exhausting -- not to mention trying to remember their disparate
locations/keystrokes. An alternative is to pre-load, via STARTUP.INT, many
such commands in my command history Stack. In the case of the Boolean
"wild cards", I pre-load two templates:
 $S ;*;
 >$S ;*;
When I need them, I pluck the commands from the Stack with a hint like
"fn". That throws the following on the CMline:
 se fn[,fn]|${OR}$|
or
 se || (with a PRompt that says "se filemask[,fn,...]|$O$|")
In the case of the first command, three consecutive PreviousWord funcs PW
embedded in the Stacked command locate the initial cursor on the first "fn"
(filename spec). Then I fill in the template, e.g.:
 se G:\XY4\*.TMP,I:\DOCS\*|Post{OR}Times|
(Note that this particular command needs to be executed in an empty
window.) It's handy.


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Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
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