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From: andy@cbmvax.UUCP (Andy Finkel)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Notepad help request
Message-ID: <2137@cbmvax.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 17-Jul-87 16:19:55 EDT
Article-I.D.: cbmvax.2137
Posted: Fri Jul 17 16:19:55 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 22-Jul-87 02:32:13 EDT
References: <1421@xanth.UUCP>
Reply-To: andy@cbmvax.UUCP (Andy Finkel)
Distribution: world
Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA
Lines: 74
Keywords: using big plain text files with Notepad

In article <1421@xanth.UUCP> kent@xanth.UUCP (Kent Paul Dolan) writes:
>
>I have a plain text file of about 23 Kbytes size I want to browse from
>workbench.  I'd like to be able to use Notepad, because it lets me flip
>pages, it has a pretty, crisp display format, it is smart enough to
>count wrapped lines when deciding how much to display on a page, unlike
>the version of "more" I have, and it dynamically reformats the lines
>when I change the window size.  Kudos to Commodore staff for all of these
>nice features.
>
>When I use the workbench menu "info" entry to attach a .info file from
>an existing Notepad file to the plain text file I want to display, and
>then double click the icon, the plain text file comes up just fine, and
>displays with properly wrapped lines and dynamic redisplay, just like I
>want it to.
>
>But, page flipping doesn't work at all, and when I scroll down about 36 lines,
>the scrolling stops.  When I leaned on the scroll down gadget for a while,
>the text reformatted into the alternate character set and was crunched into
>two lines, one across the window drag bar, and the other about mid window.
>
>A while after I quit trying to move the display, the monitor speaker burst
>into a random memory trash version of music, the power light shortly
>thereafter began to cycle, and soon Mr. Guru paid a call.
>
>I guess I did something wrong.  ;-)
>
>So, a few questions not covered by the Amiga manual.
>
>1) Is that file unrealistically large to expect to use with Notepad V1.2?

By popular demand (not my idea, in other words) notepad was limited to the size
of files it could handle to 9800 characters.  On the other hand, I'm 
disappointed it Gurued with your file, rather than doing nothing.  Guess
some error code has an error.  Well, things are different now, so
next release, I'll let it handle bigger files.

>2) Do Notepad files have embedded control characters missing from my file?

Notepad uses a CONTROL-L (form feed ) to divide pages.  You may be missing
those.

>
>3) If so, are they documented somewhere so that I could add them in as
>   quoted characters with emacs?  Could someone give me a brief gloss, if
>   that's not unreasonable?

Aside from the formfeeds, it uses ANSI standard codes for its functions,
it the SGR series, like [1m for bold face.  (The  is there
so I can find the suckers on a reverse search more quickly).  Fonts
are specified by [;;<...param n>"f  the 
are the name of the font reduced to the numeric values of
their ASCII codes, and the size of the font.  So, for example,
topaz 8 would become
[116;111;112;97;122;8"F
The  only appears once per group of commands, at the end.
>
>4) Alternately (and nicer) is there a utility floating around to allow
>   plain text files to be converted to Notepad format

Easiest thing would be to load it into MicroEmacs (on the Extras disk),
and install the formfeeds.  MicroEmacs has a Quote character function
to enter control characters into a file.

			andy
-- 
andy finkel		{ihnp4|seismo|allegra}!cbmvax!andy 
Commodore-Amiga, Inc.

"The goal of Computer Science is to build something that will last at
least until we've finished building it."

Any expressed opinions are mine; but feel free to share.
I disclaim all responsibilities, all shapes, all sizes, all colors.