Minor Enhancements

[nsivin@xxxxxxxx (Nathan Sivin)]

I want to report on a couple of recent customizations that other
people may find useful, although there is nothing sophisticated in the
programming.

First, I have finally changed the display modes (bold, italic, etc.)
so they use additive and subtractive modes (MD+IT, MD-IT), which among
other things makes it much easier to convert a file to HTML or another
format. I have assigned to the ctrl-number keys small XPL programs
like the following for italic. It puts the two deltas in the text
with the cursor between them. If text is defined, it puts them at the
beginning and end:

>>[XP_]==0>;*;
[CL_][CL_][CL_][CL_][CL_][CL_][CL_][DB_];*;
[DE_][CR_]==1>[WG_]==2>[SP_];*;
==4>[MK_][ES_]
; 82=display type, 83=0 if no block selected

As usual, the ";*;" is optional, and it can be placed anywhere you
want a line break.

Second, I just tried out something simple but handy, namely a pick
list. I am working on a report for which I often have to repeat
phrases in Chinese romanization that I would prefer not to retype.
What I did is write a mini-program to call a file named PICK from the
XY directory into a small window:

[BX_](window n,15,3,50,8)[BX_](call/1 \XY\pick)[GT_]

and assign it to the @P key. I can thus call it up instantly, and
keep it in a window next to the one I am working on. I copy terms to
it as I type them in the main file, and then copy them back when I
need them. Pick keeps the current list as long as it is wanted; then
I merely replace the terms with new ones.

I could obviously do the same thing with auto-replace, but that would
require keeping my PERS.SPL open and saving it after every addition.

By the way, if you aren't using Tim Baehr's ENHANCE package, you are
missing quite a number of very useful improved and enhanced commands.
Check out CATALOG.DOC.

--
Nathan Sivin
History and Sociology of Science
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia PA 19104-3325
(nsivin@xxxxxxxx)