ì0ò80ô0ð0â0ï ZEESCRIPT Speedscript, by Randy Thompson Enhanced by Peter Zicari What it is: A full-featured basic word processor with help screens, including -- Unadorned ASCII files that are easy to transfer. -- An easy-to-remember keyboard layout; -- Fifteen help screens; -- A choice of case-sensitive and case-insensitive searches; -- Cut and paste by marking the beginning and end of a block in addition to using S,W,P. -- Collecting multiple blocks in the "cut" buffer -- An enhanced directory that displays extracts from the files listed. -- 5-character printer macros. Default macros are set up for Epson printer commands. -- Formfeed (essential to laser printers) and underlining with printer commands. -- Save buffer to disk. -- Access to all 101 keys.* -- A separate file of text-deformatting utilities. What's included: ZS.EXE ... The program itself. HELPTXT.TXT ... The help file. NEWKEYS.COM ... A TSR patch that resolves problems with the keyboard. NEWKEYS is by Charles Petzold and was distributed by PC Magazine (Ziff Davis). You may never need it. Details appear at bottom. READTHIS.TXT ... This file. TEXTUTIL.EXE ... Utility program for shortening and de-formatting text files, and for re-indexing the help file if need be. HOW TO READ THIS: Throughout this document, keys are named in capital letters. Key combinations are described so: ALT-F1. This means "hold down the ALT (CTRL or SHIFT) key and press the second key. This document can be printed out with ZeeScript. Don't try it with HELPTXT.TXT. Some of the help file has been reproduced here. Information on HOW TO BEGIN If ZS and HELPTXT are in your default directory or in a directory listed in your system's PATH string ... Type ZS. Press . If you wish to edit a document immediately, add its filename: ZS Myletter or ZS \letters\myletter Otherwise, type the drive name (A:, B:, etc.) if relevant and the path: \pathname\ZS In this case, the message line at the top of the screen will say FILE NOT FOUND, and you will be unable to access the Help screens, because ZeeScript couldn't find them. If you want Help, you will have to specify what directory it's in, using SET HELP DIRECTORY in the Alt-F1 menu. Start writing. HOW TO QUIT Use Alt-F9. To "Escape" from almost any prompt or function, press the ESC key. When printing, hold the key down and wait. HOW TO PRINT YOUR WORK ON A PRINTER: The very simplest thing to do is to press F6. ZeeScript will print the document with 1" side margins, starting where you set the paper. For more on printing, see below. TO SAVE YOUR WORK: Press F10. Enter a filename for the document to be saved on disk. Press enter. Your work will remain on the screen until you quit ZeeScript or clear it away. ALT-F7 is the key for clearing the screen. TO CALL A FILE BACK AND EDIT IT: Press F9. Enter a filename. If the document you want isn't in your default directory, you must include the path to the directory it is in. For example: \peter\letters\readthis.txt finds this document in my \letters directory, a subdirectory of \peter. You may also load a document immediately when you start ZeeScript, by entering the name on the command line: ZS filename or ZS \path\filename. EDITING KEYS: All but three of the editing functions are on either the gray keys or the function keys. All you really need to remember is that F1 is the help key. If it helps you to remember principles, the keys are loosely organized according to these: -- Letter and number keys are for entering data. -- Cursor keys move the cursor. -- Control plus a key produces a bigger movement. -- Alt combinations are less-often-used "alternate" functions. -- The function keys go from "smaller" to "larger" functions. Marked keys move the cursor up, down, left, right. In combination with other keys they do the following. Move cursor to: Home: Top of screen/top of file End: End of screen/End of file Ctrl-left: Prev word Alt-left: Left end of line Ctrl-right: Next word Alt-right: Right end of line Ctrl-PgUp: Prev Para Alt-PgUp: Prev. Sentence Ctrl-PgDn: Next Para Alt-PgDn: Next Sentence Deleting characters: Ctrl-backspace: Delete word to left Alt-F7: Clear screen Ctrl-delete: Delete word to right Alt-delete: Delete paragraph* -- Note: What's deleted with these keys cannot be restored. Esc: Exit most features. Shift-Esc: Search for printer code In text, make printer code Tab: Insert X spaces. (Default is 5) Shift-Enter: End paragraph & indent C-Tab: Set new tab size (X) next line Control + letter keys: Ctrl-a: Swap case (up becomes down, etc.) Ctrl-x: Swap character with the one on the right. Ctrl-y: Delete line. (An exception to the principles above. Included for entirely arbitrary reasons.) Shift-Ctrl-y: Restore last deleted line. FUNCTION KEYS: Here is a list of the functions of function keys, used alone or with Control, Alt or Shift: F1: Help Ctrl-F1: Function keys help Alt-F1: Special funct. menu F2: Enter search Ctrl-F2: Enter replace Alt-F2: Toggle case in search F3: Search Ctrl-F3: Search/Replace Alt-F3: Replace 1 by 1 F4: Cut S/W/P Ctrl-F4: Mark, Mark & cut Alt-F4: Block options F5: Paste Ctrl-F5: Kill buffer Alt-F5: View paste buffer F6: Print Ctrl-F6: Print to screen Alt-F6: Print alternatives F7: Rename file Ctrl-F7: Erase file Alt-F7: Clear screen F8: Dir Ctrl-F8: Long directory Alt-F8: Change directory F9: Load file Ctrl-F9: Insert file Alt-F9: Quit program F10: Save file Ctrl-F10: Save with same name Alt-F10: Save buffer to disk F1: Using Help. If nothing happens when you press the key, ZeeScript either did not find enough memory to store help screens or it could not find the help files on disk. See below for how to specify the help files' directory. You can also read the help file by opening HELPTXT.TXT with ZeeScript. The index at the top may give you some trouble. If you do this: -- DO NOT SAVE IT. Use Alt-F7 to clear the screen. -- Don't try to print it. -- You're better off reading this file anyway. This file can be printed. F1 Gives you a menu of other help screens. Press the letter of the page you want to see. C-F1 gives you the above list of function keys. A-F1 is a menu of special functions such as changing screen color. A. SET SCREEN COLOR. Repeat until you have what you want. B. SET LETTER COLOR. Ditto. C. SET SCREEN 40. Sets double-wide characters on color screens. Good with portable computers. D. SET SCREEN 80. E. DELETE EXCESS SPACES. On the same line to the right of the cursor only. F. SHOW WORD COUNT... G. SHOW CHARACTER COUNT... H. SHOW FREE SPACE. All three apply to text currently in memory. I. SET HELP DIRECTORY. If ZeeScript beeps and says "file not found" as it is starting, select I for "Set help directory." Enter the correct directory as follows: \DOS\Utils -- enter backslash at beginning but not end. Press Enter. A full "Path" and filename of the help file appears next. If it is correct, press Y. If not, press N. J. Resets margins and printer commands to those built into the software. Otherwise, the last settings you used remain in effect. Press ESC to clear the menu from the screen. F2: Enter search. Type the word or words you want to hunt for. -- To search for a carriage return, use Shift-Enter. -- To search for a printer-command character created by using the ESC key, press Shift-Esc, then the character. -- Use Alt-F7 to clear the search or replace strings. C-F2: Enter replace. Enter a word or words, or nothing, to replace the search entry. A-F2: Case. Use Alt-F2 to switch back and forth between searching for inexact matches, where capitalization does not matter, and exact ones. A case-insensitive search will find Dog and dog and doG. A case- sensitive search for, say, Dog, will find only one of the three. F3: Search. Repeat again and again. C-F3: Automatically search and replace all instances of the search entry. A-F3: Replace the search entry one by one. (Hold your left hand over F3, your right over an ALT key. Press F3, hold down ALT, press F3, release ALT, and so on.) F4: Cut. Copy text to a separate area of memory, a "buffer." Remove it from the screen -- or, optionally, keep it. You may cut forward or backward from the cursor, and you may opt to combine the text with something cut before. Cut by sentence, word, or paragraph by pressing the appropriate letter. Copy you cut remains available if you clear the screen with A-F7 and open another file, but not if you quit ZeeScript. -- There is a roughly 16,000 character limit, about 8 screens, on the amount of text you can cut at once. C-F4: Instead of cutting by sentence, word, or paragraph, use C-F4 to mark the beginning of a "block" to cut. Press C-F4 again to mark the end and cut the block. A-F4: Press A or D to change two settings. -- A controls adding to the cut text instead of clearing the buffer, the storage area, first. -- D controls whether the cut text is removed from the screen as well as being copied. F5: Paste. Inserts cut text back into the main memory. C-F5: Clears the cut-text storage area, or buffer. A-F5: Displays what is in the buffer. Use Page Up and Page Down to see more. -- You can save the contents of the buffer to disk with A-F10. See below. F6: Print. See below for more about printing. C-F6: Print to screen. A handy way of checking where your pages will end. Also useful for setting up a list of printer commands to avoid cluttering up documents with them. See below. A-F6: Print to something else. A second printer. A disk file. A printer on a serial port. F7: Rename a file on disk. Enter the old name first, then the new name. The file in question must be in the current directory. C-F7: Kill a file on disk. A-F7: Erase what's on the screen and in the main memory, the "text buffer." F8: See a directory, with filenames, sizes, times and dates. You may select a directory other than the current one by entering its name at the top of the screen. Begin and end directory names with a single backslash. See your DOS manual for information about directory names and using partial filenames. Clear the entry line with A-F7. -- If enough memory is available, ZeeScript will allow you to page back and forth in the directory and use F7 and F9 to rename, kill and load files. Otherwise, the directory is merely put on the screen. C-F8: In addition to a list of files, see a 4-line extract from each file. Extracts of programs and text with printer commands will show you some gibberish. A-F8: Change the current directory, the one the operating system checks first when reading and writing to disk. F9: Load a file. Type the filename and optionally the disk or directory it's in, thus: A:Mytext ... on the A: drive. \PETER\MYTEXT ... in the \PETER directory of the current drive. Mytext ... in the current directory. Mytext.doc ... A different file with ".doc" as its extension. Press enter. -- If the file is too big for the text buffer, the work area in memory (about 64K characters), you will be asked if you want to open it anyway. If you do, it will be chopped off at the end. IF YOU DO THIS, DO NOT SAVE THE COPY. USE A-F7 TO CLEAR THE SCREEN. -- ZeeScript will start the new text at the cursor and replace anything below as it reads the new file. C-F9: Insert text at cursor. Gets new text as above, but doesn't overwrite the old. A-F9: Quits ZeeScript. On exiting, you will be asked if you want to save your work if you have typed anything. F10: Save file. To change the filename, delete the old one, if any, and replace it on the command line. C-F10: Save file but don't confirm filename. Two keys are required to keep you from accidentally saving garbled text. A-F10: Save the contents of the cut/paste buffer. See above. -- BE CAREFUL. THE PROMPT WILL SHOW YOU THE NAME OF THE LAST FILE YOU SAVED. YOU SHOULD CHANGE IT TO AVOID RUINING OTHER WORK! F11 and F12 are reserved for future functions. PRINTING: To print with the default settings provided by ZeeScript, make sure the printer is ready and just press F6. How to change the default settings: Press Esc and release it, then type a LOWER CASE letter. Here is the list of commands. In the list, "x" stands for a 1-digit number, "xx" for a 2-digit one. -- In the notes that follow, press Esc before typing any of the letter commands. -- You can search for and replace the commands. As you enter the search or replace entry on the command line, hold down shift before you press Esc. -- Commands remain in effect from document to document until you change them. Therefore, you could create a file of your favorite settings and commands for your brand of printer and change all the settings at once by printing that file to the screen with C-F6. To reset all the settings to their original state, use the A-F1 menu. lxx Left margin (10) m Margin release (off) rxx Right margin (70) w Page wait for cut sheets (off) txx top (0) n Print flush-left (on) bxx bottom line (58) e Print flush right (off) pxx Page length (66) c Print centered (off) xxx Page width for centering (80) j Print justified (off) sx Space lines (1) See `Printing with Epson codes:' z Force a page break o Formfeeds toggle (on) k Linefeeds toggle (off) a Toggle Epson underline (on) Notes: l, r and x: Numbers left and right count spaces. If the type size changes, then the space size does, too: In "Pica" type, there are 10 spaces per inch. In Elite, there are 12. Some printers provide many other possibilities. -- The right margin may not exceed the page width setting. Therefore, Elite-size printing, with margins at, say, 8 and 96, must have both r96 and x96. t, p, and b: t Sets the number of blank lines above the text. b Sets the number of lines to print before going to the next page. p Sets the number of lines on a full page. While ordinarily, a printer can eject a page on its own, ZeeScript needs the figure for use when the formfeeds option is off. s Sets the number of line-feeds per line; in typewriter terms, 1 is single-spaced; 2 is double-spaced, and so on. z Forces the rest of the text onto the next page. e, j, c, n Print flush right (e), justified (j), centered (c), normal flush left (n). Place these only at the top of a document: w Wait for cut sheets. m releases the right margin the same way as on a typewriter, to keep a word on a single line. o turns off formfeeds. Needful if it causes a problem for your printer or you are creating a disk file. a turns off the Epson code for underlining, which is sent to the printer when the "u" command (see below) is found. When "a" is used, text is underlined by printing a letter, backing up the printer and printing an underline. This method won't work on a laser printer. For printers not in the Epson FX- LQ series, substitute the correct underline (and other) codes using instruc- tions below. Examples l6r88x96t5b56wE ... Elite printing w/ 1/2 inch side margins on cut sheets. l0r75t0b0p0o ... Format text with line endings and no page breaks for transfer to a BBS or some other word processors. Headers and footers: These are titles that appear on every page after they are defined in text. Use the commands with those above commands to print center, left or right. f defines one-line footer. Prints after 1 blank line at end of page. h defines one-line header. To define at top, but start on Pge. 2, put 1 carriage return above definition. # Use in place of a page number. ZeeScript will supply the appropriate one. @xx If you don't print from the beginning, set the page number with this. ?xx Skip over pages. Processes file until required number is reached before printing anything. If there are type-style and underlining printer commands in the text, there may be unpredictable results, as the commands that should have been sent to the printer will not be, either. Linked files: To get around the 64K limit on files, this feature permits you to tie files together daisy-chain fashion. Use this command only at the end of a file, as it will dump the original text out of memory and replace it with the new. g Goto next file. Accepts drive/directory names with filename. Examples: hcZicari/# Centered header with page number. g\letters\boilrplt adds "boilerplt" to letter. Character & text codes u toggles underlining. Put it at both ends of the text to be underlined. i begins non-printed notes in text. Notes end with Enter. User-defined printer commands: -- Escape and capital letters may be used for control commands for printers. Press Esc, then a capital letter, then add = (equals) and up to 5 letters or numbers as described below. Numbers must be in the range 0 to 255. For example: (esc)E=27 sets E to the ASCII value for Escape, 27. -- Enter up to 5 codes. Commas must separate numbers. Put letters in quotes: E=27,"M" sets E to (Escape)M E=27,"D",10,15,0 sets E to (escape)D10150 (sets tabs on Epson printer) -- Some Epson commands are predefined. If your printer doesn't recognize them, define the ones your printer needs. See `Printing with Epson codes.' -- Printer codes do not affect the layout of text. You will need to adjust margins when using extra-wide or small text. -- Printer codes remain in effect as long as you are using ZeeScript. This allows you to set up a group of one-letter commands for your printer, then call it up and print it just once to establish the rules for all the other documents you will print. 5 characters will do for most printers, and laser printers usually have a "macro" feature of their own that you could combine with this one. Tips on finding the bottom and other printer notes: Many people find their printer runs out of paper before the computer runs out of text or vice versa. t sets the number of the top line and b sets the number of lines to print before going to the next page. Most printers recognize the form-feed command to skip to the next page. If you cancel formfeeds with o, you must define the page length with p to eject pages from the printer properly. If you use single-sheet paper, you may find your printer will not grip the paper adequately to print near the bottom or that it stops printing before the bottom. The only recourse you have is to set b to a number that WILL print. Use the z command to force text onto the next page, if you don't want a paragraph broken. Headers print with 2 blank lines above the text. The top margin is inserted first. Footers print after 1 blank line under the bottom line set by b. Saving and formatting documents: ZeeScript saves documents in disk files without line endings. Some word processors can't read them that way. Uploads to bulletin boards and online services often require line endings, as well. To make the transfer, print your work to a disk file using this command at the top: l0r75t0b0p0o l0 for no left margin; r75 for a 75-character line; t0 for no top margin; b0 and p0 to defeat spacing at the bottom; o defeats the form-feed command. WHAT TO DO IF YOU HAVE PROBLEMS WITH THE KEYBOARD Quit ZeeScript. (A-F9). Type: Newkeys (Newkeys ) Restart ZeeScript (ZS ). ZeeScript relies on a DOS interrupt that normally picks up officially unsupported keystrokes like C-DEL and A-left arrow. Many TSRs and other software tinker with the interrupt. Newkeys corrects the problem. HOW TO USE THE TEXT UTILITY What it does: It can separate a long file into chapters less than 64K to get around the memory limit in ZeeScript. This is useful for long files of documentation; long, downloaded articles and long threads from bulletin boards and info services, for example. It can de-format text, to make it shorter or more usable in ZeeScript: -- By stripping out the high-bit characters Wordstar and some other word- processors (older Leading Edge versions) use. -- By removing excess spaces documents found in documents printed to disk with margins. -- By stripping out Carriage-return/line-feed codes included in such doc- uments. It can re-index the ZeeScript help file, if you really feel you have to re-edit it. The original document is never affected by any of these procedures. HOW TO RUN TEXTUTIL: Quit ZeeScript. Type TEXTUTIL on the DOS command line and specify the files you will work with: textutil sourcefile outputfile and press . Note there is a space between each word and that case doesn't matter. If you don't specify the files you want to work with, you'll be prompted to provide the filenames later. A menu appears: Press the appropriate letter to select "Split file into chapters," "De-format files" or "Make a help file index." Typing a letter other than A, B or C will end the program. Press enter. SPLITTING A FILE: Select A or a. Press enter. If you did not specify a source filename on the command line, you will be asked to provide one now. TEXTUTIL does not need an output filename for this process. It will add a numeral from 1 to 999 to the input filename, so that when it is finished, you will have: PROCOMM1.LOG PROCOMM2.LOG PROCOMM3.LOG ... etc. You will be prompted for the desired length, in thousands of bytes, of each chapter. 64 is the maximum for TEXTUTIL and ZeeScript. If you plan to work with the documents extensively, you may want something shorter. The program will report its progress as it works. The original document is not affected. DE-FORMATTING A FILE: Type b or B. Press Enter. A second menu asks for another choice. a: Strip Wordstar characters b: Remove excess spaces c: Remove line endings and excess spaces. If you did not specify source and output filenames on the command line, you will be prompted to provide them now. Be sure the output filename is not in use anywhere else in the current directory: TEXTUTIL will not check before rewriting it, and you might lose something you wanted to save. If you selected: A: Remove Wordstar characters TEXTUTIL will process the source file with no further ado. Print, margin, and other commands in some documents will leave a few characters of gibberish behind as they are converted to ASCII characters with code numbers less than 128. B: Strip out excess spaces You will next be prompted for the width of tab indents if you want to preserve the paragraphing in the original. If you don't know, you can quit TEXTUTIL by pressing C-C (control-c). The easiest way to check is to view the document with the DOS command TYPE filename Press control-C again after a couple of paragraphs appear on your screen. Then count and start TEXTUTIL over again. C: Strip out excess spaces and line endings After following the steps in B, TEXTUTIL removes line endings except those it can recognize as paragraphs. The program recognizes both indented and block paragraphs. Block paragraphs are the style with no indent but a blank line between them. Remaking the index: OK, OK, you don't like the help screens. So rewrite them. The 17-screen limit is built into ZeeScript, but the screens are otherwise accessible to change. Step 1: Rename the original HELPTXT.TXT. It will be your source file. Then make a copy of it to save, just in case. Step 2: Call up the new source file in ZeeScript. Delete the spaces and odd characters before the beginning of the text. That's the index; you don't want to make it part of a help screen. Step 3: Make your editing changes. Step 4: Each screen must begin with a caret: ^. Put an additional one at the end of the last screen. Step 5: Save your work. Quit ZeeScript. Step 6: Run TEXTUTIL, specifying your edited file as the source file and HELPTXT.TXT as the output file: textutil myhelp helptxt.txt Step 7: Select C from the initial menu. The program will do the rest. -- TEXTUTIL searches the text for ^ characters and records their position in the file. When it finishes processing, it writes the positions into a space it provides at the top of HELPTXT.TXT. The help feature of ZeeScript reads the index and is then able to skip directly to the appropriate page in the file when you press F1 and choose a topic. -- The ^ characters are not saved. -- Pages are limited to 2,000 characters, approximately a screenful. WHOM TO CALL I am Peter Zicari; leave messages for me at Compuserve 71760,2575 or on the PC-OHIO BBS, 216-381-3320.