Zeus beats them all !

[wilsondevo]

Hi,

I just wanted to say that being another one of the older generation of
original BRIEF users and after having used CRISP and ULTRAEDIT for
years, I have finally found an editor that takes me back to my happy
BRIEF days - i.e ZEUS.

And all I had to do was click the mouse 5 times in Zeus to set it all up -
i.e "Options|Editor Options|Keyboard Mapping|BriefEx|OK" - and I am
back in BRIEF land again. Tried an "ALT-A" - it works ! Tried an "ALT-C" -
it works ! Tried a "KEYPAD +" - it works ! Brilliant. I'm sold and will be
purchasing the editor when the trial is up.

I would absolutely love Zeus to also do this as well :

Read Only Mode
Have a "read only mode" command line option (e.g " zeus.exe -r file.txt").

Replace in Files
Be able to "Replace in Files..." as well i.e just like the "Find in Files...",
but go out and find all the files with text "ABC" and replace it with text "DEF"
i.e the files would be automatically opened up, edited, saved and closed
down with a small status display window saying what files were edited and
how many replaces were done. I know you can open all of the files up
manually within the editor and then do a "Replace" across "All open
documents" but it would be nice to save this step and have Zeus
do it for you automatically especially where you have many
many files to perform a very simple replace on e.g replace "2010" with "2011" etc....

Long Line Edit Mode
Be able to put the editor into a special mode where it "soft line wraps" at
say column 100. This mode would not insert a carriage return/line feed at
line 100 but it would allow you to edit a long line over multiple lines. And
you could toggle back and forwards between the native mode and this
special "soft line wrap mode". Then when the file was saved and looked at
in say, notepad or another text editor/viewer, the long lines are still there
and have not been hard broken at column 100.

This is different to the Zeus "Options|Properties|Line Wrap" option which
puts in hard carriage return/line feed or the "Macros|Linewrap Paragraph"
macro which also puts hard carriage return/linefeed but in the current
paragraph.

The whole point is to make editing files with really really long lines easy
(by "bending/breaking" them at say, column 100, over multiple lines) but
not actually modifying their long nature by putting in hard fixed carriage
return/linefeeds at column 100.

File Info Window
i.e "File|File Info" which would pop up a window that would show, for the
current file, the following stats :

File Size on Disk
File date, time etc
Number of Characters (no spaces)
Number of Characters (with spaces)
Number of Words

And this info could also be added to new columns in the :

"View|Document List"

window for each document within Zeus.

Sorry, for the very long explanation but it always takes longer to write it
instead of saying it.

I love Zeus !

Wilson.
P.S I edited this in Zeus and copied it to this Forum !

[jussij]

Hi Wilson,

Thanks for taking the time to post your feedback and thank you for your kind words regarding Zeus

Read Only Mode

This feature is current Zeus bete found here: http://www.zeusedit.com/z300/ze397f-beta.zip

Also, have an additional column in the "View|Document List" window which shows if a document is read only or read/write.

The Status column already holds these two states. Blank or '*' indicates the file is R/W otherwise it is marked as R/O.

I know the "*" in the status column kind of says its read/write but only if it has already had an edit.

If the value is blank it also means it is R/W. The '*' indicates changed but not saved.

Replace in Files

This can be easily implemented using something like SED and a simple Zeus macro:

http://www.zeusedit.com/zforum/viewtopic.php?t=1286

The forum contains many examples of running tools from macros and capturing the output.

I know you can open all of the files up manually within the editor and then do a "Replace" across "All open documents" but it would be nice to save this step

The step to load all these files is generally fairly easy.

What I do is run the Find in Files using the 'Only list first match found' option, then highlight all the files in the output window and then use the View, Open File menu (Ctrl + E) to load all the files.

Now I can use the Find and Replace to do the change to all the files in one hit

Long Line Edit Mode

This has been asked for several times. Unfortunately the thought of trying to implement something like this does not appeal to me as I suspect it would require a considerable amount of coding and debugging effort

File Info Window

Again, I am not sure why this could not be implemented as a Zeus macro that takes the current file name and dumps the results for this file to the macro output window

In the early days I made the big mistake of adding nearly every new feature suggested and the end result is there are now so many features in Zeus that only add to it's complexity. What is worse most of those suggest features are never used.

These days the general policy on new Zeus features is to only consider the new feature if it can't be implemented using macro or some other external tool.

I love Zeus !

Cheers Jussi

[wilsondevo]

Hi Jussij,

Thanks for the response and I understand what you are saying in terms of
adding too many features.

Thanks for the "3.97f" beta version with the new "-r" read only command line argument.

I have noticed the following however with the new beta version :

If I execute :

"C:\Program Files\Zeus\zeus.exe" -n -r FILE1.txt

the file comes into the editor in read only mode.

If I then execute another read only mode execute of Zues :

"C:\Program Files\Zeus\zeus.exe" -n -r FILE2.txt

then FILE2.txt comes into the same instantiation of Zues i.e so that
FILE1.txt and FILE2.txt are in the editor, but FILE2.txt is not read only
and can be edited.

So, FILE1.txt remains read only, but FILE2.txt is R/W and this is reported
in the Status column of the Document List window.

The way I noticed this was using Zues as a "Viewer" for Total Commander
where I can open a file into Zues using the "-r" read only option, but
when I then try and "View" another file using the "-r" option again, that
second file and any subsequent files are brought into the editor, but are
not in read only mode.

Regards - Wilson

[jussij]

Hi Wilson,

then FILE2.txt comes into the same instantiation of Zeus i.e so that FILE1.txt and FILE2.txt are in the editor, but FILE2.txt is not read only and can be edited.

I will look to fix this. In the mean time if you always start a second copy it should work fine.

So in other words uses this command line instead:

Code: Select all

"C:\Program Files\Zeus\zeus.exe" -s -n -r FILE2.txt

Cheers Jussi

[jussij]

The latest beta found from the link below now correctly implements this read only feature:

http://www.zeusedit.com/zforum/viewforum.php?f=6

Cheers Jussi

[wilsondevo]

Hi Jussij,

Thanks for the new beta version. I have installed it and the read-only fix works well now.

I think your response times are fantastic as it is not always like this with other software products around today.

Thanks mate,

Wilson

[jussij]

I have installed it and the read-only fix works well now.

Excellent. Thanks for taking the time to post your feedback

I think your response times are fantastic as it is not always like this with other software products around today.

Just for your information, the general rules for Zeus are as follows:

1. Bugs that can be replicated will generally be fixed ASAP.
2. Easy to implement enhancements, like this one will in general be implemented fairly quickly.
3. More complex enhancements will be considered and where possible, will be implemented when time permits.

Cheers Jussi

[jussij]

Further on this request:

And this info could also be added to new columns in the :

"View|Document List"

window for each document within Zeus.

In the View|Document List dialog there is a Run Trigger button.

This button fires the macro defined in the Editor Options menu, Trigger panel, Document Listing entry field.

There is also the event_window_list.lua macro in the zScript folder that gives an example on how to write a macro for this trigger

Cheers Jussi