"Brief" keyboard flaw with Alt-C and Ins

[paulw]

In Brief, if you mark a columnar chunk of text using Alt-C, copy it to the clipboard with +, then insert it in the file using Ins, the cursor ends up at the columnar "end" of the inserted chunk, at the same column number, which is very useful behavior if you want to repeatedly insert the same column in a file.

Zeus leaves the cursor at the beginning of the new insertion, so you cannot repeatedly insert without repositioning the cursor. Columnar insertion is one of the strong & unique features of the Brief command set, so this behavior is difficult to deal with. Any way to change/fix?

[Mae Cobol]

Hi,
I am a Brief user who is now using Zeus to. I love Zeus it is so much like Breif. Do I understand your question correctly?:?: Here is a example

1001
02
03
You want to copy the "10" by pressing Alt-c and highlighting "10" then pressing "+" key. The place you cursor in front of the "02" and press the Insert key and have it insert the 10 in front of the 02 to make it 1002 and then place the cusor in front the 03 so you can repeat the procedure? If this is correct Zeus currently does do this function. I use it all the time.

Mike

[paulw]

Huh. Not for me it doesn't. Maybe there's a setting somewhere...are you using Brief or BriefEx? Both do the same (wrong) thing for me. If I start with:

1234
34
34

Then Alt-C and mark the "12", put the cursor in front of the 2nd line "34", and press Ins, my cursor ends up still on the 2nd line, between the 2 & 3, display as (showing the cursor location with a period):

1234
12.34
12

It sounds like yours is working "correctly" for Brief...I wonder what the difference is? Mine is the latest download, version 3.94a.

[jussij]

Use the Options, Editor Options menu and in the General section check the Brief column paste mode option

Cheers Jussi

[paulw]

Nice! Thanks. Should have looked harder I guess.

Is there a "make F5 and Shift-F5 work like Brief" checkbox somewhere too? I'm used to being able to search and then search again without onerous checkboxes and dialogs popping up. :-)

It would basically default to "Entire file" checkbox, and no popup.

Thanks for a great editor, Zeus folks, I've been dying for a decent Brief replacement...

[Guest]

Is there a "make F5 and Shift-F5 work like Brief" checkbox somewhere too? I'm used to being able to search and then search again without onerous checkboxes and dialogs popping up.

Unfortunately the constraints of Windows dialogs boxes and message handling make this particular Brief feature very hard to emulate. This is one area where Zeus fails in it's emulate of Brief

The only work around is to pre-prime the search and/or replace prior to recording the macro, so that the dialogs are never part of the recording process.

Cheers Jussi

[paulw]

*Almost* perfect on the Alt-C and Ins, that works, but in that mode, if you Alt-M to mark, and then Ins, it *also* acts in columnar fashion!!

The original Brief would leave the cursor at the end of the insertion (same line, to the right of inserted text) if the insertion derived from Alt-M, and put it on the next line at the beginning column, if derived from Alt-C.

Turns out Brief was even trickier than we all thought. Sad it doesn't exist anymore in original form.

I'll survive, though. :-)

Thanks,

-- Paul