Using EditPad Pro to edit Xy files

[Kari Eveli lexitec@xxxxxxxx]

This is a sequel of my experiences with EditPad Pro as a substitute for
editing Xy files. As I reported earlier, you can achieve colored and
even Wysiwyg formatting display of Xy files with EditPad. If you have
the paid version, there is a ready-made coloring scheme for Xy3:

http://www.editpadpro.com/cgi-bin/cscslist4.pl?focus=259

By associating file types (extensions) with EditPad, you can have the
program open files with the correct encoding automatically each time. If
you want to use a special font with a certain file type, it is also
possible. (Menu option: Options, Configure File Types, Editor Options,
Edit button next to Default text layout, then choose font in the dialog
that opens). You could use this to select a proportional typeface, or a
special font with a non-standard encoding.


Then there is the task of inputting MODE and other embedded commands in
the text file. At first I tried the Clip collection feature. It works
quite well. You drag existing formatting commands to the Clip collection
window. Then you select the Clip and choose Edit Clip and give it
descriptive name, e.g. Bold for «MDBO». Unless you do this, it just
shows the contents, namely «MDBO». To input the code into text, you
doubleclick the Clip. This works ok, but requires a bit too much mousing
around. Fortunately, there is another way. You can record the inputting
of the Clip as a macro and assign it a shortcut key, e.g. Ctrl+B. You
must first unassign the required shortcut if it is already taken, but
all shortcuts can be customized. All this keyboard customization is a
bit tedious, and worse than comparable features in some other editors
like TextPad. But on the whole it is well worth the effort, as EditPad
Pro is one of the best editors around.


Pros: coloring that works very well and can be customized and extended,
encoding support is excellent, you can make keyboard shortcuts for
inputting codes, superb performance; if you want only one modern editor
and work with different encodings (ascii, ansi, utf-8, etc.), this might
be it


Cons: keyboard customization is complicated and somewhat limited as
editor primitives are not as exposed as in Xy (or TextPad for that
matter), XPL programs do not show very well (Notepad++ is better in this
respect).


Best regards,

Kari Eveli
LEXITEC Book Publishing (Finland)
lexitec@xxxxxxxx

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