Multiple document editor

Multiple document editor

The multiple document editor supplied with Concordance is a text editor which can display and edit multiple files of up to 16MB in size. It uses the standard Windows Multiple Document Interface (MDI). Each line may be up to 32767 characters long.

A concordance-aware version of the editor opens automatically for viewing and editing the source text when you click on any context line in the Context Views and when you have selected View text in Editor from the View Menu. The editor automatically displays the line in the source text which you click on in the Context View.

If you double-click (or press Control-Enter) on a word in the editor when it is displaying your source text, the Wordlist View will re-position itself to display that word, provided it exists in the Wordlist. In this way you can browse through your source text in the editor and immediately see the concordance for any word of interest. You can even edit the source text and then continue to view the concordance for any other word. Changes you make by editing the source text will be reflected in the concordance after you next choose Make a Concordance.

The editor window can be re-sized by dragging its bottom right-hand corner.

You can also start a stand-alone copy of the editor from the Tools Menu. See also File Viewer and Keyboard Commands.

Bookmarks

Bookmarks provide a means of moving quickly from place to place within a file. Assume that you are primarily interested in two sections of a text file that are widely separated, and want to be able to move between the two of them quickly. This can be accomplished by setting a bookmark at the beginning of each section, then jumping between them.

To set a bookmark using the default key assignments, press <ShiftCtrlN>, where N is a number in the range 0 to 9. The current position of the caret is marked as bookmark N. To return to that spot later, press <CtrlN>, where N is the number used to set the bookmark.

Tabs in the Multiple Document Editor

Tab characters in the text stream are expanded to spaces (visually). The number of spaces used is a function of the contents of the line and the current tab size, which can be changed using Options | Tabs | Tab Size. The default tab size is 8.

Using Options | Tabs you can choose between Fixed Tabs, Real Tabs, and Smart Tabs.

If the tab type is set to Real, pressing <Tab> inserts a "real" tab character into the text stream. If the tab type is set to Fixed, pressing <Tab> inserts enough spaces to move the caret to the next tab stop. (This is called "fixed tabs" because the position of existing text will not change if the tab size is later changed, as it does if real tabs are used.) If the tab type is set to Smart, spaces are also inserted into the text stream, but the positions of the tab stops are a function of the positions of the words in the previous line. The following illustrates the positions of the tab stops when the tab type is set to Smart:

previous line: This is a sample line demonstrating smart tabs.
current line: x x x x x x x x

The default setting is Real tabs.