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                                WINEDT 95
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                       Release 1.a:  October, 1995

                        --- Shareware Version ---

                 Copyright (C) 1995 by Aleksander Simonic


                 E-mail: alex@cs.dal.ca
                 Phone:  (902) 429-7897


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  This file contains some essential information on the shareware
  distribution of WINEDT, a state of the art text editor and
  project manager for Windows 95.


  All product names referenced herein are trademarks or registered
  trademarks of their respective holders.


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Contents:
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  1. What is WINEDT?

  2. More about WINEDT 95...

  3. Registration and Licensing Agreement

  4. Getting Started

  5. Running Applications from WINEDT

  6. TeX Mode and more

  7. Hints


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1. What is WINEDT?


WINEDT is a text editor and project manager for Windows 95.

WINEDT can be customized to run with different utilities and is
particularly suitable for writing TeX documents. WINEDT allows the user to
install DOS and Windows Applications and activate them by using a Menu
Command or a Tool Bar Button. Furthermore, WINEDT can pass currently
opened files as parameters, making sure that changes are automatically
saved before the files are compiled. After defining utilities (such as
TeX, LaTeX, BibTeX, DVI Driver, Spell Checker), most of the common tasks
while writing a TeX document or a project is reduced to clicking a Tool
Bar Button or selecting a Menu Command. WINEDT is suitable for writing
papers, theses or books, using a simple but efficient strategy to manage
projects.

As a text editor, WINEDT has all commonly-used commands and in many ways
resembles Borland's IDE (although it was written from scratch using
Borland's TPW Compiler). It can be used to edit huge text files. The user
can open many files at once and can switch between them using the Window
Menu or Ctrl+Tab switch. WINEDT is an MDI application and follows/extends
Windows' Standards in every respect. WINEDT comes with a comprehensive,
Context-Sensitive Help.


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2. More about WINEDT 95...


The idea behind the design of WINEDT was to create a tool that would
perform all routine tasks related to compiling, previewing and spell-
checking of ([La]TeX) documents, while the author can focus on the
contents.


WINEDT is rather flexible with line terminators and does not require any
conversion if the file is transferred from another system (any sequence of
CR or LF is considered a line terminator).

WINEDT 95 is not designed/tested to run with extended alphabets.
This release of WINEDT 95 does not support long file names.


This is the first release of WINEDT 95 and I hope you will find it useful.
If you have any questions or suggestions, please send me an e-mail:
alex@cs.dal.ca


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3. Registration and Licensing Agreement


WINEDT 95 is shareware and you are supposed to register your copy.
See Help: About WINEDT, Licensing Agreement, Registration...

An unregistered version always issues a Message Box reminding you to
register your copy.


The author will do his best to assist registered users if they encounter
problems. Future upgrades of WINEDT will be free of charge for registered
users. If you would like to register your copy you may contact the author
by e-mail: alex@cs.dal.ca


WINEDT has been extensively tested (while I was writing my thesis).
However, if you encounter a bug you can report it to the e-mail address
above and I'll try to fix the problem for the next release of WINEDT.


Depending on the number of registered users I will consider writing a
utility for maintaining the initialization files (making it easier to
install Utilities and Documents)...


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4. Getting Started


This is a good moment to browse through the Menu and see the WINEDT
commands. You may notice that some commands and Tool Bar Buttons are
Grayed (disabled). That means that they currently do not make sense (for
example due to the lack of the selected text e.t.c.). You can invoke a
context sensitive Help by pressing the "F1" button while browsing through
the Menu. You may also try different commands such as Documents/Text
Statistics and Text Status, Help/About e.t.c...

You are currently running WINEDT in Plain Mode and this mode does not
define any Utilities to run with the program. Don't Panic! You will soon
learn how to install the utilities and run WINEDT in TeX Mode.

You can open a new window and try to type something. Note that the names
of all opened windows are appended to the Window Menu making it easy to
switch between them (try also Ctrl+Tab "cool" switch - MDI Interface).
You can try to open another copy of this file and see what happens.
You may also want to Paste the Selected Text to/from another Application
using Edit Menu Commands referring to the Window's ClipBoard.

If you usually don't run more than one application with Windows 95 this
may be a good moment to change this habit. Press the "F1" key in order to
get Help on WINEDT. Help is a different application. Your WINEDT window is
(partially) covered by the Help Window but it is still there exactly as it
was before. You can press "Alt+Tab cool switch" to return back (now Help
Window is in the background). Windows 95 also provide the Task Bar for
easy switching between applications.


Now is the moment to read the On-Line Help. After appropriately resizing
or maximizing the Help Window each topics should fit on one screen.
It is well worth to invest an hour or so (depending on your experience
with Windows 95 Applications) to read the information and try different
WINEDT features described there. Learning how to use Windows Help will
make you a survivor and (if you don't already know it) you are NOT wasting
your time getting familiar with it.


Hint: Leave the Program Setup Help Topic for the end!

 You may want to leave certain details for later. That's fine. At this
 stage it is important to remember that certain features exist and you can
 return to them later. The more you know about WINEDT the more likely
 you'll be able to use it efficiently, allowing you to focus on your work,
 while WINEDT is performing routine tasks for you.


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5. Running Applications from WINEDT


You should first install any utility that you plan to use on your system.
Most of the TeX related software and packages are available on CTAN
servers (such as ftp.shsu.edu) and you can select from a variety of
[La]TeX(s), DVI Drivers and Spell Checkers. After you install the
utilities that you would like to use you can define them in the WINEDT's
initialization file in order to run them from WINEDT.

WINEDT does much more than just starting an application. It can also pass
the appropriate parameters and make sure that all the modified files get
saved before invoking the application. WINEDT also detects if the file
was modified by another Application (for example by Spell Checker) and
asks you whether to update the file from the disk or not (as long as the
Update Files Option is enabled). WINEDT can also put the (selected)
contents of the current window into the ClipBoard and thus make it
available to the application that is about to be started.
The user has many options to choose from.

For details concerning the installation of Utilities and Documents
See: Help / Program Setup... and a sample file "winedt.dat".


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6. TeX Mode and more


WINEDT's behaviour is (to big extend) determined by the initialization
file. By default WINEDT assumes the file "winedt.ini" on the PATH
directory to be the initialization file. However, if the FIRST parameter
invoking winedt is "-E=myfile.ini" then the file "myfile.ini" is read as
the initialization file.


This distribution contains a file "wedtex.ini" that defines WINEDT
to run in TeX Mode. You will probably only make minor changes regarding
the installation of the utilities and documents on your system and leave
the default values of other parameters. In the case when your utility is
not properly installed you'll likely encounter the message:
 "Cannot find the file.
  Ensure that the path and the filename are correct."
You should modify the line containing the definition of the
utility and then restart WINEDT.


You can create more initialization files suitable for Text Input/Output
applications on you system. Note that WINEDT's ability to pass parameters
and take care of modifications is likely going to prove sufficient in
almost any situation.


The file "wedtxt.ini" contains a suggested Text Mode and the file
"winedt.dat" contains examples and comments on how to customize WINEDT 95.


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7. Hints


If you are writing papers or thesis using TeX you may create a folder
containing the documents you are currently working on. Windows 95 also
lets you create SHORTCUTS to a utility. Using this Windows Explorer's
feature you can add WINEDT to your TeX (or any other Start Menu group).
When defining a shortcut you can also change an ICON for different modes
of WINEDT.

Examples:
=========

    winedt.exe -E=wedtex.ini -C=WINEDT_-_TEX:_Thesis  thesis.tex
    winedt.exe -E=wedtex.ini -C=WINEDT_-_TEX:_Article paper.tex
    winedt.exe -E=wedtex.ini -C=WINEDT_-_TEX
    winedt.exe


If you decide to use WINEDT as a text editor it is useful to associate it
with the files having certain extension. This way WINEDT can be activated
by double-clicking the associated file while browsing your computer.
Windows Explorer lets you associate WINEDT with certain file types through
the View / Options... /File Type Command (an improved equivalent of File
Manager's Associate Command in Windows 3.1).

First decide which file types should be opened with WINEDT and define
"winedt.exe" as the application to perform the action (for example INI,
TXT, TEX, LTX, SLI, ELM...). Then edit the file types that should be
opened in a special mode (for files of type TEX add the following
qualifiers: " -E=wedtex.ini -P -C=WINEDT_-_TEX" following "winedt.exe" in
order to ensure TeX Mode for documents of this type). You can also change
the ICON that will be displayed with such a file when browsing your
computer. Unfortunately, Windows 95 does not accept a SHORTCUT as a
definition of the application.


Observe that -G and -S qualifiers enable the Inverse Search. This way
WINEDT can be invoked and positioned to a particular line in the text that
can be selected by any other application (such as TeX when it encounters
an error or DVI Driver supplied with "src specials"). The -C=<caption>
qualifier can be used to prevent more than one instance of WINEDT editing
the same file...

See: Help / Command Line Parameters


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