Customization

1. I can't get the delete key to remap to a forward delete
2. My X resource settings don't work.
3. I am setting some X defaults in my $HOME/.nedit file but some of them don't work.
4. If I install an "app-defaults" file for NEdit (empty too), all default shortcuts are reset
5. Where can I get the complete list of nedit resources?
6. Can I use ispell with NEdit instead of the less capable Unix spell command?
7. How can the display of hidden (eg .login) files in dialog boxes be suppressed
8. Why, in the 'open file' dialog, there is no text field where to type in the file name?
9. I would like to change NEdit's cursor from a bar to a block
10. I'd like to see more than 8 files in the file selection dialogs (Open, Save As, etc.)
11. I am trying to do key bindings such that, for example, Find is Alt+F rather than Ctrl+F, but this clashes with the find menu mnemonic
12. I have a PC-style 2-button mouse and I would like to switch the 2nd and 3rd (emulated) mouse buttons
13. How can I make a shell command prompt me for input?
14. How I can set the foreground color for selected text when syntax highlighting is applied?

In your .Xdefaults file, add:

nedit.remapDeleteKey: False

This is now the default, so you likely have an old resource file sitting around somewhere with this setting. When remapDeleteKey is True), NEdit forcibly maps the delete to backspace. This can be used when the X server and the client machine have different expectations about whether the key in the backspace position on the keyboard is a backspace key or a delete key. It also saves users in very heterogeneous environments from having to re-map keys on nearly every system they use just to be able to backspace.

It's harder to explain how to specify X resources than you might expect, since how they are set is often configured by your local system manager. They are either automatically attached to the server (your screen) by an X startup or login script, or they are left unspecified, and read from the .Xdefaults file whenever you run an X application. If they are attached to the server, you should find out the "normal" method for setting them on your system. If it's not the .Xdefaults file, then it is usually a file called .Xresources (also in your home directory). To make a change, you have to either run xrdb, or re-invoke the startup script that originally attached them, usually by exiting and re-starting X, or logging out and back in to your X session.

Since setting resources is tricky, it's usually better to start with something simple, like:

nedit*foreground:green

Then, once you have that working, try the more subtle or difficult ones. You can also use the appres command to find out what resources nedit actually sees (appres NEdit nedit).

The .nedit file holds the NEdit Preferences menu options and is automatically overwritten whenever you select "Save Defaults". You really shouldn't put X resource settings there. Also, as you may have discovered, resources other than Preferences resources don't always work from there.

How you set X resources depends on local system conventions. You usually put them in the .Xdefaults or .Xresources file in your home directory. You may also need to run xrdb to install them in the server. It depends on how your local system has been configured, so it's best to talk to the person who configured your system. If you're not sure whether your resources are set up correctly, the command:

    appres NEdit nedit

will tell you what settings NEdit will see when it runs.

NEdit uses the X fallback resources mechanism to provide default values for user-settable resources. When you provide a system-wide app- defaults file, it overrides the entire contents of the fallback resources, meaning all of the program defaults are lost, except for those which are also represented in the app-defaults file. To use an app-defaults file, therefore, you need to start from a complete one which provides all of the necessary default values. There is a complete app-defaults file in:

ftp://ftp.nedit.org/pub/contrib/misc/nedit.app-defaults

We strongly discourage users from using system-wide app-defaults because once you install the file, you have to keep it up to date with every new release of the software. If you don't update it, users might not even notice the difference, but things will be increasingly wrong with each new release.

The way X is designed, there are a LOT of user settable resources in NEdit, most of them quite useless. You can see them all using the editres tool, which is available on most Unix systems. A more useful subset are the application default resources, which you can look at either in the source code (near the beginning of nedit.c, in the variable called fallbackResources) or in the app-defaults file in:

ftp://ftp.nedit.org/pub/contrib/misc/nedit.app-defaults

ispell is actually the default spell checker for NEdit on Linux systems where spell is not available. On other systems, enter the following in the Shell Commands dialog:

  Command Input: Either
  Command Output: Same Window
  Output Replaces Input: ON
  Shell Command: cat>spellTmp; xterm -e ispell -x spellTmp; cat spellTmp; rm spellTmp

If you want to get fancy, the following puts the temporary file in the /tmp directory, and uses $$ (the process ID of the shell) in the file name so you don't have to worry about clashes between simultaneous ispell sessions:

  cat > /tmp/ispell.$$; xterm -title "Spell Check" -e
  ispell -S /tmp/ispell.$$; cat /tmp/ispell.$$; rm /tmp/ispell.$$

It depends on the system you are running how easy this is to do. Under Motif 2.0, which I think is still only found on Linux and Free-BSD systems, it's a simple resource setting:

nedit*XmFileSelectionBox.fileFilterStyle: FILTER_HIDDEN_FILES

On other systems, unfortunately, it's a rather difficult source code change, involving creating a replacement file searching procedure to be spliced in to the file selection box widget.

Set the X resource nedit.stdOpenDialog to True. The field is disabled by default to get new users accustomed to typing the file name directly in to the list widget, which is not standard Motif behavior.

The block cursor in NEdit is used to indicate overstrike mode, but you can turn on a resource to make the cursor thicker:

nedit*text.heavyCursor: true

The only way to get a permanent block cursor, though is to hack the source code. This shouldn't be too difficult, since the code for drawing a block cursor is already there.

The only effective way I've found to control the number of items in the highly temperamental Motif FileSelectionBox widget is through the height resource:

nedit*FileSelect.height: 900

The X resource line above will make the file selection box 900 pixels tall.

You can turn mnemonics off by setting them to the ascii null character, for example:

nedit*fileMenu.mnemonic: \0

It's somewhat involved and hard to figure out from the documentation, but yes you can. You have to reverse the translation table bindings for mouse buttons 2 and 3, AND reset the bgMenuButton resource. The translation table bindings can either be found in the source file source/text.c, or by adding and activating a temporary translation to the text widget for dumping the translation table itself (XtDisplayTranslations()).

What it boils down to, though, is just add the following lines to your X resource file (.Xdefaults or .Xresources depending on your system):

  NEdit*text.Translations: #override \n\
     <Btn3Down>: secondary_or_drag_start()\n\
     Shift Ctrl Button3<MotionNotify>: \
         secondary_or_drag_adjust("rect", "copy", "overlay")\n\
     Shift Button3<MotionNotify>: secondary_or_drag_adjust("copy")\n\
     Ctrl Button3<MotionNotify>: secondary_or_drag_adjust("rect", "overlay")\n\
     Button3<MotionNotify>: secondary_or_drag_adjust()\n\
     Shift Ctrl<Btn3Up>: move_to_or_end_drag("copy", "overlay")\n\
     Shift <Btn3Up>: move_to_or_end_drag("copy")\n\
     Alt<Btn3Up>: exchange()\n\
     Meta<Btn3Up>: exchange()\n\
     Ctrl<Btn3Up>: copy_to_or_end_drag("overlay")\n\
     <Btn3Up>: copy_to_or_end_drag()\n\
     Ctrl~Meta~Alt<Btn2Down>: mouse_pan()\n\
     Ctrl~Meta~Alt Button2<MotionNotify>: mouse_pan()\n\
     <Btn2Up>: end_drag()
  nedit.bgMenuButton: ~Shift~Ctrl~Meta~Alt<Btn2Down>

Use a macro command instead to do the prompting:

  to = string_dialog("Send mail to: (enter name below, along with any\n" \
      "additional Unix Mail command parameters, -s for subject)", \
      "Send", "Cancel")
  if ($string_dialog_button == 2 || $string_dialog_button == 0)
      return
  if ($selection_start == -1)
      body = get_range(0, $text_length)
  else
      body = get_selection()
  cmdOutput = shell_command("Mail " to, body)
  if ($shell_cmd_status != 0)
      dialog("mail command returned failed exit status\n" cmdOutput)
  else if (cmdOutput != "")
      dialog(cmdOutput)

There's no equivalent to the nedit*text.selectForeground resource when you turn on syntax highlighting. You just have to choose a selection color that is compatible with all of your highlighting colors.