_____________________________ WinGREP Readme File Version 1.50 Hurricane Software, Inc. _____________________________ WinGREP is a shareware program intended to make searching for strings quick and painless. Regular Expressions are simple and fast to create with no characters to memorize or confuse. GREP History ------------ In the "grand old days", UNIX had a handy utility called GREP (it still does for those of you using UNIX of some form). GREP would use Regular Expression syntax to help you quickly find pieces of text embedded in a text file. Its output was simply redirected to the CRT. This utility eventually made its way to the DOS world and worked in a very similar fashion. Then along came Windows with it GUI (gooey) interface. Many GREP-like utilities have been created for the windows enviroment. But most of these utilities don't take advantage of the rich user interface features available in Windows. This is where WinGREP comes in. WinGREP has an interface that does away with the old notion of command line GREP utilities. It contains the features that you have come to expect in quality professional software : Hint lines and fly-over help, 3-D dialogs and controls, easy to use controls to minimize your typing, and integrated on-line help. Why WinGREP ----------- WinGREP was built with the way that a programmer works in mind. Programmer's often need to find a very specific piece of text in a sea of source code. The only practical way of doing this is to have a utility sift through all of the files for you. This is where most utilities stop. You simply see the results of the search. Some even let you view/edit the file. This is where WinGREP goes the extra step to save you an extra step. When you have found the piece of text that you were looking for, you obviously want to do something with it. You may want to change it or move it somewhere or simply look at the context in which it is used. It would make sense that the best place to do this is in your standard working enviroment. Your enviroment has the colors customized the way you like, the keys are set-up just right, and you know that if you save a file in your enviroment that you don't have it open somewhere else. WinGREP gives you the option to your IDE to view the results of a search. After a search has completed, WinGREP displays the results in a heirarchial listbox of the names of the files that contain a match and each match. When you choose "Open" (either by double-clicking or the Open Button) while on a match, WinGREP will open that file for you. How it is opened is up to you. 1 - You can have it opened in the Hurricane Editor - a full features text editor supplied with WinGREP. (Unregistered users need to download this file seperatley - HEDIT150.ZIP). The file is opened and it is postitioned on the line number of the match. 2 - You can open it in the editor of your choosing (like NOTEPAD.EXE or CodeWright). Paramaters can be supplied for both the filename and line number 3 - You can have WinGREP syncronize your IDE automatically! If the file is not already open in your IDE, then it is opened, otherwise the open copy is brought to the front. Then the IDE is positioned on the match. At this point you can simply return to work without any further delays. WinGREP Features ---------------- WinGREP has many features that make it a useful addition to any users tool belt. New featires in version 1.50 : * Resizable main window * History lists for File Masks and Search Expressions * Preview Window - See several lines of text for each search match. * Standalone text editor - Hurricane Editor. The internal editor has been made it's own executable. It is still tightly integrated with WinGREP. * Load and Save search results sets Features : * Integration in many IDE's. * Full online help file with regular expression examples. * Full featured multi-file text editor included. * Easy directory navigation. * Search multiple filemasks at the same time. * Regular expression search support. * Regular expression button bar assistant with quick hints and examples. Creating regular expressions is simple with WinGREP! * Good status indicator for long searches. It tells you the file currently processing, the total files processed and the number of matches found so far. * Fly-over hints for all controls and right-click menus for quick access. * Can automatically become a "Stay-on-Top" window. * Very fast searching. WinGREP can process a long search as fast or faster than many command line GREP utilities. * The search results list is updated as the search progresses enabling you to stop the search when you see the file of interest (Searches can be cancelled). * Only $29.00 to register. WinGREP is intended to aid you in your quest to create great software. It can enable you to quickly find the information you are looking for and then helps you return to your favorite enviroment sooner so you can be more productive. 1.5.12.95