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# Using a Text Editor in TADS Workbench

Even though TADS Workbench has a full-featured built-in text editor, some people might still prefer to use their own external editor application. Programmers tend to become very attached to their favorite editor, because the little details in how an editor operates can make such a difference in comfort and convenience.

(Note that Workbench has extensive customization options that might make it possible to make the Workbench editor behave a lot like your favorite editor. The number one priority for most people is the keyboard layout, and Workbench provides very good control over the keyboard. Even if you have another editor you're happy with, you might want to take a look at the built-in editor; you might find that the benefits of working in an integrated environment outweight the differences between editors, particularly if you take a little time to map the keyboard to your liking.)

Workbench has a feature that lets you send a file you're viewing in Workbench directly to your external editor. This feature comes from the days when Workbench didn't have an integrated editor of its own, but the feature is still useful for people who want to stick to their own separate editor applications.

Before you can use this feature, you must first tell Workbench how to access your editor program. Once you've configured this, you can use the command "Open File in External Editor," which is on the Tools menu - this will send the file that you're currently viewing with Workbench to your editor program. You can then make changes and save the file; when you switch back to Workbench, Workbench will automatically re-load the file so that it has the updated copy.

## Configuring your External Editor

The default external editor is Notepad - not because you'd actually want to use Notepad to edit a source file, but simply because that's the only thing we can count on being installed on every Windows machine. If Notepad is the only editor you have installed, you probably won't be interested in the rest of this section - you'll almost certainly want to use the much-superior built-in editor in Workbench instad.

To configure a different text editor, open the "Tools" menu and select "Options." This will display the TADS Workbench preferences dialog. Go to the "External Editor" page.

In the "Editor Program" text field, type in the full filename (with drive and directory path) of your text editor's application program; this will usually be a .EXE file. You can use the "Browse" button to select the application using a standard Windows file selector dialog if you prefer.

In the "Command Line" text field, type the command line arguments for your text editor.

Use a percent sign followed by a lower-case "f" (`%f`) as a placeholder for the filename to open. For most editors, you should put the `%f` in double quotes, so that the program interprets a filename that contains a space as a single parameter rather than as two or more space-delimited tokens; however, this is up to the editor to interpret, and some editors don't use this syntax. Notepad, for example, considers the entire command line to be the filename, so no quotes are necessary.

Use a percent sign followed by a lower-case "n" (`%n`) as a placeholder for the line number to go to. Many programmer's text editors accept a command line option that specifies a line to jump to when first displaying a file; if your editor accepts such an option, you can use `%n` to specify it. If your editor doesn't accept a starting line option (Notepad doesn't, for example), you don't need to use `%n` anywhere in your command line.

Use a percent sign followed by a lower-case "c" (`%c`) as a placeholder for the column number. Many programmer's editors let you specify both the line and column number to jump to on loading the file.

The "%n" and "%c" parameters can both be qualified by an inserted "0" (hence "%0n" and "%0c"). This indicates that the line or column number should be passed with a 0 base - that is, with 0 representing the first line (or column), 1 representing the second, and so on. By default, a 1 base is used (so the first line is number 1, the second number 2, etc). Some editors use a 0 base for one or both of the initial line/column parameters.

Use a double percent sign (`%%`) if you need a single literal percent sign in your command line.

For example, if you use Programmer's File Editor (PFE), a popular freeware text editor that many TADS game authors like, you can configure your editor like this:

Editor Program | c:\pfe\pfe32.exe
Command Line | /g %n "%f"

## Using DDE

Some text editors use DDE ("Dynamic Data Exchange," a mechanism in Windows that applications can use to communicate with each other) to interact with other programs. The main reason that DDE might be of interest is that some editors will start an entirely new application instance (hence a whole new main editor window) each time the editor application is launched, but can be made to share a single instance among several different files using DDE.

Check your editor's documentation to determine if this is of any interest to you; if your editor's documentation doesn't mention DDE, you can ignore this section.

> If you're using PFE (see above), you probably don't need to worry about using DDE, even though PFE supports it. PFE always looks for an existing editor instance whenever you launch it, so you don't need to use DDE in order to share a single PFE instance.

In order to use DDE, you need to find three pieces of information in your editor's documentation: the DDE server name; the DDE topic name; and the DDE command string to open a file. This information varies by application; the only way to find it is to consult your editor's documentation.

Once you learn the DDE server, topic, and command string, you can set up TADS Workbench to use DDE to control your editor. Open the Editor preferences dialog as normal. Rather than entering an application name in the "Editor Program" field, click the "Advanced" button. This will bring up a dialog asking you for the DDE server and topic names. Check the "Use DDE" checkbox and enter the server and topic information, then click OK. This will take you back to the main Editor dialog, with the "Editor Program" field set to "DDE:", followed by the server and topic names you entered. Finally, enter the command string for opening a file in the "Command Line" text field; as usual, use `%f` as a placeholder for the name of the file to open, `%n` as a placeholder for the line number to go to, and `%%` for a literal single percent sign.

If you're using Lugaru's Epsilon, you should configure the Editor using DDE, as follows:

Use DDE | yes
DDE Server | Epsilon
DDE Topic | open
Command Line | +%n "%f"

## Keyboard Command Binding

After you set up your editor, you can use the "Open File in External Editor" command to send a file that you're viewing in Workbench directly to your external editor. If you use this feature, you might want to bind a key to the External Editor command (which is called "File.SendToExternalEditor" in the key binding system), so that you can send a file to your editor with a single keystroke.

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Copyright ©1999, 2007 by Michael J. Roberts.