Starting NEdit

You can either start NEdit by clicking on Nedit: Text Editor button at the RCS Applications Menu or by typing

     nedit

in a Unix window. You can specify a file or several files to edit on the command line, but you can also open them from inside NEdit. If you don't specify a file name to edit, NEdit will open a window titled Untitled. You can create a new file by typing into this window and choosing Save or Save As... from the File menu. There is no "main window" in NEdit, all editor windows are equivalent, and NEdit remains running as long as at least one window is open.

Most editor commands are available from the pulldown menus (File, Edit, Search). If you make a mistake, any editing operation can be undone by selecting Undo from the Edit menu. Online help is also available through the Help menu on the right hand side of the menu bar

To open an existing file once nedit is running, choose Open... from the File menu. Select the file that you want to open in the pop-up dialog that appears, and click on OK. You may open any number of files at the same time. Each file will appear in its own editor window. Using Open... rather than re-typing the nedit command and running additional copies of NEdit, will give you quick access to all of the files you have open via the Windows menu, and ensure that you don't accidentally open the same file twice.

As you become more familiar with NEdit, you can substitute the control and function keys shown on the right side of the menus for pulling down menus with the mouse.

Dialogs are also streamlined so you can enter information quickly and without using the mouse (Users who have set their keyboard focus mode to "pointer" can set Popups Under Pointer in the Default Settings menu to avoid having to move the mouse into the dialog). To move the keyboard focus around a dialog, use the tab and arrow keys. One of the buttons in a dialog is usually drawn with a thick, indented outline. This button can be activated by pressing return or enter. For example, to replace the string "thing" with "widget" type:

     [ctrl-r]thing[tab]widget[return]

[crtl-r] means to press the Control key and the "r" key simultaneously, [tab] means to press the Tab key, and [return] means to press the Return key. To open a file named whole_earth.c, type:

     [ctrl-o]whole[return]

(how much of the filename you need to type depends on the other files in the directory). See the section titled Keyboard Shortcuts for more information.

Starting NEdit

Other NEdit Topics