Re: DW function

[Robert Holmgren holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to note from xywrite@xxxxxxxx Mon, 30 Nov 1998 9:51:52 -0500


> In Xy3 the DW (define word) function would highlight a word AND the
> character following it--no matter what that character was. But in Xy4
> there seems to be some additional processing going on--somebody or
> something has decided that I don't want to highlight the character
> following if it's terminal punctuation (. ! or ?) or a hard return. Thus,
> my oft-used little Xy3 hotkey programs for italicizing a single word
> (plus certain surrounding punctuation, per *CMS*) but not the space no
> longer work the want I want them to.

> Is there a way to turn off (or otherwise limit) this "feature"?

I'm one of several people who requested that change, and complained about
the capture of carriage returns and other line endings under Xy3. I
thought it was responsiveness! It's not a "feature", or a "non-feature" -- it's
simply behavior, and I fail to see a principled argument one way or the other. To
each his own, I guess -- but why complain about it? Just modify your "little
hotkey programs". If you simply want DW to always include the trailing character,
and the only ones DW excludes are .?! and , then, well, amongst other things,
you might do this:

DW >DM CR DZ 

And finished. Works like a charm. You could use Carl Distefano's XMACRO to stuff
it on a key in the KBD, like this:

nn=XHJM,2,.,P,r,s,K,b,d,A,r,g,Q2,x,m,
,D,W,[,i,f,",.,!,?,[three_byte_13],",{one_byte_240},[,v,a,$,r,s,],],
CO,D,M,C,R,D,Z,[,e,i,],NO

Or you could stick it in U2 -- probably easier. Try it, you'll like it.





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Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
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