README.TXT for TextPad 1.28 =========================== Thank you for choosing to evaluate TextPad. It got the PC Plus Gold Award in the May '95 issue, and it's a finalist in the 1995 Ziff-Davis Shareware Awards competition. Have you got the latest release? Updates are available from CompuServe forums WINSHARE, WINUTIL and PCAPP as TPAD16.ZIP and TPAD32.ZIP. You can also get it using FTP from oak.oakland.edu and other SimTel mirror sites as /simtel/win3/editor/txpad???.zip. TABLE OF CONTENTS ----------------- INTRODUCTION MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS INSTALLATION BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY RESTRICTED FEATURES REGISTRATION SETTING COLORS TIPS ENHANCEMENTS KNOWN PROBLEMS INTRODUCTION: ------------- TextPad aims to provide the power and functionality to satisfy your most demanding text editing requirements. It is Windows hosted, and comes in 16 and 32-bit editions. Huge files can be edited by either - just choose the edition that works best with your PC. The 32-bit edition is only limited by virtual memory, and it will work with Win32s and Windows 95 (Beta 3 or later). TextPad has been implemented according to the Windows 95 user interface guidelines, so great attention has been paid to making it easy for both beginners and experienced users. In-context help is available for all commands, and in-context menus pop-up with the right mouse button. The multi-document interface allows multiple files to be edited simultaneously, with up to 2 views on each file. You can drag and drop text between files. In addition to the usual cut and paste capabilities, you can correct the most common typing errors with commands to change case, and transpose words, characters and lines. Other commands let you indent blocks of text, split or join lines, and insert whole files. Any change can be undone or redone, right back to the first one made. Visible bookmarks can be put on lines. It also has a customizable tools menu, and integral file compare and search commands, with hypertext jumps from the matched text to the corresponding line in the source file (ideal for integrating compilers). To find out more, install TextPad by referring to the instructions below, and then read the introduction in the on-line help file. MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS: --------------------- 16-bit Edition: 32-bit Edition: o 386SX with 4MB RAM o 486SX with 12MB RAM (only for NT) o 1MB free disk space o 1MB free disk space o Windows 3.1 in 386 o Windows NT 3.1 or enhanced mode Windows 3.1 with Win32s 1.2 (See Backwards Compatibility below) INSTALLATION: ------------- From a ZIP File: 1) Unzip into a new temporary directory, with PKUNZIP 2.04g. 2) Run SETUP.EXE using File Manager or Program Manager. 3) Follow the on-screen instructions, but install into a different directory from that in step 1 above. 4) Delete the files unzipped in step 1 above. From Floppy Disk: 1) From Program Manager, choose the Run command from the File menu. 2) Type "A:\SETUP" to run the TextPad setup program. 3) Follow the on-screen instructions. You can install both editions into the same directory. There is no need to modify your search path. You can associate various file extensions with TextPad, so that File Manager starts TextPad when you double click a file. To do this, you must enable TextPad's DDE capabilities. You can use REGEDIT to merge the corresponding TXTPAD16.REG or TXTPAD32.REG file (or double click the file with File Manager), but you must edit it first to give the correct path to the TextPad executable. It assumes that your installation directory is C:\TEXTPAD. See the on-line help for more information. BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY: ------------------------ The 32-bit edition needs NT 3.5, Win32s 1.25 or Windows 95 (Beta 3 or later). If you have NT 3.1 or an earlier release of Win32s, you must patch the Windows subsystem in TXTPAD32.EXE using PATCHSYS.EXE from the installation disk as follows: A:\PATCHSYS -3 TXTPAD32.EXE You can change it back again using "-4" instead of "-3". RESTRICTED FEATURES: -------------------- The following features are only available to registered users: 1) OLE2 drag and drop editing. Local drag and drop editing is always available, but scrolling has not been implemented. This means that you can drop text in the visible view, but you cannot scroll the view whilst dragging. 2) Searching of subdirectories with the Find in Files command. REGISTRATION: ------------- If you make use of TextPad you must register it. Registered users will receive a copy of the latest releases of both the 16 and 32-bit editions, along with the Win32s and OLE2 files necessary for running in 32-bit mode on Windows 3.1. Click the "How to Purchase" button in the About dialog box, or see the file REGISTER.TXT for details. SETTING COLORS: --------------- The foreground and background colors used by TextPad can be modified, but there is no user interface yet. To make changes, you must edit the [Colors] section in TEXTPAD.INI. Each color is specified by 6 hex digits in the form BBGGRR, so black is 000000, green is 00FF00, light gray is C0C0C0, and white is FFFFFF. You can only use the sixteen standard Windows colors, so the nearest color will be used if you specify anything else. The defaults are as specified in Control Panel. Note that if you use TextPad to edit TEXTPAD.INI, your changes will be overwritten when you exit, so use NotePad! TIPS: ----- - Ctrl+Left button in the left margin selects the whole file. - Double left click in the left margin selects the line. - Ctrl+Shift+O brings up a simple dialog box for file opening. - In the Replace dialog box, '\t' is interpreted as a tab in the replacement string, regardless of the Regular Expression check box setting. To replace with the literal characters '\' and 't', you must specify '\\t' as the replacement string. - When the File Open dialog box is enabled for multi-file opening, it does not show long file names (except on Windows 95). This setting can be changed on the Configure/Options dialog box. - After you have saved the Search or Command output results as an ordinary file, it loses its hypertext jump property, but you can always load an ordinary file into the Command output window by capturing the output from the DOS TYPE command. ENHANCEMENTS: ------------- In This Release: ---------------- The Edit menu, and right button context menus have been redesigned to offer more features in a concise form. Settings for Tabs, File Filters, and Hypertext expressions have been moved from the Configure menu to tabs on the Options dialog box. Settings for Document Properties have been moved to a tabbed dialog box, which includes a Statistics tab showing the word count, and when the file was last saved. The status bar is now "active". Double clicking a pane changes its setting, except for Caps lock, Scroll lock, and word-wrap mode. There's a new edit command to transpose adjacent words. In auto-indent mode, a closing '}' on a line on its own is automatically unindented. The Tools menu now supports up to 16 user-defined tools, including menu separators. The Find in Files Command scrolls its output faster. In The Last Release: -------------------- A Select All command has been added to the Edit menu. You can now print multiple copies to printers that don't support it in hardware. If a file containing null characters is edited, you get warned that they will be replaced with spaces, rather than getting a hex view of the file. You can now make TextPad stay on top of all other windows. This is set from the View tab of the Options dialog box. NB. It stays on top of online help as well! The maximum number of files on the Files menu has increased from 9 to 16. KNOWN PROBLEMS: --------------- The 32-bit edition cannot print to HP DeskJet 500 printers using the HP driver under Win32s. This is an HP/Win32s problem. The workaround is to install the Microsoft driver for this printer instead. Enjoy using TextPad! Please send any comments to us at: _______________________________ Helios Software Solutions Carr Brook House Chorley Old Road Brindle Chorley Lancs. PR6 7QZ England Phone/Fax: +44-(0)1772-324353 CompuServe: 100041,235 Internet: textpad@heliosof.demon.co.uk ________________________________________________________________________ Helios Software Solutions is an approved vendor and associate member of the Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP). ________________________________________________________________________