the "1" "June 2013" "THE Manual" "THE Manual"
NAME
the - The Hessling Editor
SYNTAX
the [
options ] [
filename [
directory ]]
DESCRIPTION
THE is a text editor that uses both command line commands and key bindings
to operate. It is intended to be similar to the VM/CMS System Product
Editor, XEDIT and to KEDIT from Mansfield Software.
THE was originally written to be used by people already familiar with the
above editors. For this reason, the documentation provides limited information
on using THE, and concentrates more on reference material, such as command
syntax and configuration.
OPTIONS
.
-n
Run THE without any profile. Normally THE tries to find a profile
file and execute this on startup. This switch suppresses that search
and execute and runs THE in its default mode. This switch is useful for
determining if a bug in THE occurs only with certain user-specific
customisations.
-m
On ports of THE that support colour, this switch forces THE into
monochrome mode. More a testing feature than a user feature.
-r
This switch enables THE to be run in readonly mode. In this mode
commands that alter the contents of a file are invalid.
-s
On Unix platforms, this switch enables the writing of a core file if
THE crashes. Normally, THE traps any internal errors and exits gracefully.
This switch is a testing feature rather than a user feature.
-b
When you want to use THE as a non-interactive tool for manipulating
the contents of one or more files, this switch will disable any display
of file contents and disable keyboard interaction. Normally used in
conjunction with a specific profile; see -p option.
-q
Run quietly in batch mode. This will suppress the introductory
informative message displayed when errors are encountered running in batch.
-k[fmt]
Allows 'soft label keys'. This allows the display of one (or two)
lines at the bottom of the screen with 'buttons' intended to be used to
represent function keys. These 'soft label keys' can be manipulated with
the <SET SLK> command. The 'fmt' optional extra argument is a single digit
representing the format of the display of the 'buttons'.
1 - displays 8 'buttons' in a 4-4 layout
2 - displays 8 'buttons' in a 3-2-3 layout
3 - displays 12 'buttons' in a 4-4-4 layout
4 - displays 12 'buttons' in a 4-4-4 layout with an index line
5 - displays 10 'buttons' in a 5-5 layout
Not all platforms support all 5 format options.
On those ports of THE that are mouse-aware, the mouse can be pressed
on a 'button', and the command assigned the the corresponding function
key is executed.
-l line
This switch specifies the line number to make current when THE starts.
-c col
This switch specifies the column number to make current when THE starts.
-p profile
Specifies the THE profile to run instead of the default profile.
-a profile_arg
Specifies the arguments that are passed to the profile specified with the -p switch.
-w width
Specifies the maximum line width for a line in the current
edit session. Can be overridden with the <SET WIDTH> command.
-u display_width
THE can run as a binary editor. Specifying this switch
tells THE to read in the file and display it in 'lines' that are
'display_width' long. All end-of-line characters in the file are
ignored and are treated as other characters in the file.
-X X11_switches
With the X11 port of THE, standard X11 switches can be
specified with this switch to dynamically configure the way THE displays
or behaves. You can also specify XCurses-specific switches here as well.
For more information on the XCurses switches available, consult the
PDCurses documentation.
-1
Tells THE to run in 'Single Instance Mode'. The first time THE is run with
the -1 switch, it starts as normal. Subsequent executions of THE with the -1
command-line switch will not start a new instance of THE, rather it will edit
the file(s) specified on the command-line in the currently running instance
of THE. This feature is currently only available with the X11 port of the
using XCurses 2.5 and greater. If the first instance of THE with the -1
switch crashes for any reason, subsequent attempts to run THE with the -1
switch will hang. To fix this remove the file (really a FIFO); $HOME/.thefifo
and then run THE with the -1 switch again.
AUTHOR
Mark Hessling, <mark@rexx.org>
COPYRIGHT
Copyright \(co 1991-2013 Mark Hessling.
The Hessling Editor is distributed under the GNU General Public License,
See the file `COPYING-LIB' in the source code distribution.
WWW
http://hessling-editor.sourceforge.net
REPORTING BUGS
Report bugs to http://hessling-editor.sourceforge.net/bugs