MLEditor User's Guide

2. Switching Text Display Languages  Contents  4. Find and Replace


3. Editing Text/Text Files


3.1 Editing Text
3.2 Editing Text Files

3.3 Preview - Open Current Document in Another Application

3.4 Control-editing - Editing Two Blocks of Text One Against Another

3.1 Editing Text

 

Text Editing Commands

You can find common editing commands (cut, copy, paste, delete, undo, find/replace and select all) in several methods:

1) from under the two Edit submenus.

2) by buttons on the source toolbar or the destination toolbar.

3) from menu item from the popup menu which will appear when you right-click in an edit area. Commands in the menu are just related to current edit area.
4) Accelerator keys as attached to the context sensitive menu commands.
 

 

Pic UG-3-1 Text editing commands and statistics display by MLEditor. The upper commands in the context menu are text editing commands, other commands in this menu are related to file or view. There are accelerator keys at the right of most commands in the context menu. There are some text editing related buttons on the source and destination toolbar. Left of these buttons are file-related function buttons.


Find and Replace

The find and replace function of MLEditor is powerful, more about this topic will be discussed in 4. Find and Replace.

Drag and Drop

Drag and drop for text is supported. You can drag text from some other program, and drop it to either of the two edit areas to read or edit.
 

Editing Statistics

MLEditor provides several methods for you to get statistics information in editing:

1) You can read path for current file in the Title Bar of MLEditor (Pic UG-3-1).

2) You can read text editing related information in the status bar (Pic UG-3-1).

3) You can read file-related statistics information by the file properties dialog box (Pic UG-3-3).
 

3.2 Editing Text Files


File Editing Commands

Same as text edit commands, you can find all commands related to file operations from the two File submenus, from the button commands in the source or destination toolbar, as well as from the popup context menu.

 

 

Pic UG-3-2 Most file related commands can be found from the two File submenus. You can see some special features provided by MLEditor here. You can read properties of a file with the "Properties" command; You can open from many recent files from either File menu (at most 30, default is 20, you can change this count in Options dialog which can be opened from the "Options" command under Tools menu); And you can exit from all opening MLEditor programs in current operating system.

 

Several Ways to Open a File in MLEditor

There are many methods you can use to open a file into MLEditor. Besides the traditional way of opening file with the "Open" command in a File menu or a toolbar, or opening a recently opened file from the most recent file list at the bottom of the source or destination File menu, you can also drag a file directly from Windows Explorer into MLEditor, or open a file or a group of files easily with the "Edit with MLEditor" command in the context menu of Windows Explorer. More about the last method can be found in Reading/Editing Text File from Windows Explorer

 

Drag and Drop

Drag and drop for file is supported. You can drag text file from Windows Explorer, and drop it to either of the two text editors to read or edit.

 

Integration with Windows Explorer

Another great feature of MLEditor is this product can be integrated into Windows Explorer, so you can open a file or a group of files with a command in the context menu of the Windows Explorer, just in the way you open a zip file with WinZip. More about this topic can be found in Reading/Editing Text File(s) from Windows Explorer.

 

Intelligent Code-Recognition

MLEditor has integrated some code-recognition mechanism during the procedure of file opening. When you open a file in Simplified Chinese or Traditional Chinese, MLEditor will automatically switch text display language to corresponding language. Anasoft will extend the number of code recognition to other major languages in the future step by step.
 

 

Pic UG-3-3 Check file properties.

 

 

Pic UG-3-4 You can drag a file to either of the two edit areas in MLEditor. In the above example, a file in Simplified Chinese was dragged into the source edit area. The text display language of source edit area was automatically switched to Simplified Chinese. Another file in Traditional Chinese was dragged into the destination edit area. Text display language of the destination area was automatically switched to Traditional Chinese.

 

3.3 Preview - Open Current Document in Another Application


(Pic UG-3-2) You may edit text file in a file type usually related to another application. An example is web pages (*.htm, *.html, *.shtml. etc.). After you have finished editing, you can press F5 to open this document by its default application, or press Ctrl+F5 to specify an application to open it.
When you are editing a web page or a script file run by another application, such as a macro file by Anasoft Helena, the preview function can be very useful.

 

3.4 Control-editing - Editing Two Blocks of Text One Against Another


MLEditor is designed to help editing text files one against another. This will be of great help if you are translating text or text files into another language, or editing a document to a newer version, or writing an article against some reference materials, or converting code between Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese text. Some great features are provided so you can compare text precisely and edit text one against another easily.

 

MLEditor has two edit areas, so you can edit or read two text files together. If there is no need for you to use the two edit areas at the same time, you can just switch either of them off with corresponding commands in the menu or toolbars. Language and font size can be adjusted separately in the two edit areas. You can view details of some text in a larger font size in another edit area, or easily read the original text or some references when you are translating or writing some thing.

 

The "Verify by Lines" system profile (View->Profiles->Verify by Lines) can reform MLEditor so you can check differences between text in upper and lower areas line by line. The command "Text Difference Check" (Tools->Text Difference Check) can check all different lines between the upper and lower areas. You can get difference count and all different lines with line number. 

 

You can find many commands in the view menu for you to control the relation of the two edit areas, or modify the properties of the two edit areas separately. The two highlighted icons on the source and destination toolbar are just the top two commands in the View submenu. You can control which edit area will appear or disappear with these two commands. More about how to control layout can be found in the section 9. Changing Layout for MLEditor with the Help of Profile Manager of this User's Guide.