CRiSP comes as two executables – native GUI application and a simpler character mode application (i.e. like vi). The simpler character mode version can be used across a remote login session and can be useful when wanting to switch quickly between shell commands and editing. Use the GUI version for full power editing. Both versions are available on all platforms, i.e. Windows, Unix and MAC.

Graphical Interface

CRiSP is an editor for editing plain text files. These could be program source files, scripts, or data files. The uses are entirely up to you. So how do you start CRiSP? The first thing to do is know which version of CRiSP to start, as the standard distribution includes two copies of the editor – a GUI version and a character based version. The GUI version is a full featured product and includes the normal GUI elements, such as toolbars, menus and point and click operation.

CRiSP is an editor for editing plain text files. These could be program source files, scripts, or data files. The uses are entirely up to you. So how do you start CRiSP? The first thing to do is know which version of CRiSP to start, as the standard distribution includes two copies of the editor – a GUI version and a character based version. The GUI version is a full featured product and includes the normal GUI elements, such as toolbars, menus and point and click operation.

CRiSP is an editor for editing plain text files. These could be program source files, scripts, or data files. The uses are entirely up to you. So how do you start CRiSP? The first thing to do is know which version of CRiSP to start, as the standard distribution includes two copies of the editor – a GUI version and a character based version. The GUI version is a full featured product and includes the normal GUI elements, such as toolbars, menus and point and click operation.

CRiSP is an editor for editing plain text files. These could be program source files, scripts, or data files. The uses are entirely up to you. So how do you start CRiSP? The first thing to do is know which version of CRiSP to start, as the standard distribution includes two copies of the editor – a GUI version and a character based version. The GUI version is a full featured product and includes the normal GUI elements, such as toolbars, menus and point and click operation.

Character Interface

images/stories/screenshots/advanced/Interfaces/character_version-th.jpg

CRiSP is an editor for editing plain text files. These could be program source files, scripts, or data files. The uses are entirely up to you. So how do you start CRiSP? The first thing to do is know which version of CRiSP to start, as the standard distribution includes two copies of the editor – a GUI version and a character based version.

The character mode version is cut down version of the main product. The prime advantage of cr is that it can be more convenient to use if you spend a lot of time using the systems command line window application (e.g.COMMAND.COM or CMD.EXE under Windows, or xterm under Unix). The simpler character mode version can also be used across a remote login session and can be useful when wanting to switch quickly between shell commands and editing. Use the GUI version for full power editing. Both versions are available on all platforms, i.e. Windows and Unix.

The character mode version does not support the normal GUI features such as the menu bar, scrollbars or the toolbar, but is compatible with the full version as far as keystroke operation is performed. Which you use will depend on your needs and system set up.

Mac, Apple GUI

CRiSP is an editor for editing plain text files. These could be program source files, scripts, or data files. The uses are entirely up to you. So how do you start CRiSP? The first thing to do is know which version of CRiSP to start, as the standard distribution includes two copies of the editor – a GUI version and a character based version. The GUI version is a full featured product and includes the normal GUI elements, such as toolbars, menus and point and click operation.

CRiSP is an editor for editing plain text files. These could be program source files, scripts, or data files. The uses are entirely up to you. So how do you start CRiSP? The first thing to do is know which version of CRiSP to start, as the standard distribution includes two copies of the editor – a GUI version and a character based version. The GUI version is a full featured product and includes the normal GUI elements, such as toolbars, menus and point and click operation.

CRiSP is an editor for editing plain text files. These could be program source files, scripts, or data files. The uses are entirely up to you. So how do you start CRiSP? The first thing to do is know which version of CRiSP to start, as the standard distribution includes two copies of the editor – a GUI version and a character based version. The GUI version is a full featured product and includes the normal GUI elements, such as toolbars, menus and point and click operation.

CRiSP is an editor for editing plain text files. These could be program source files, scripts, or data files. The uses are entirely up to you. So how do you start CRiSP? The first thing to do is know which version of CRiSP to start, as the standard distribution includes two copies of the editor – a GUI version and a character based version. The GUI version is a full featured product and includes the normal GUI elements, such as toolbars, menus and point and click operation.

CRiSP is an editor for editing plain text files. These could be program source files, scripts, or data files. The uses are entirely up to you. So how do you start CRiSP? The first thing to do is know which version of CRiSP to start, as the standard distribution includes two copies of the editor – a GUI version and a character based version. The GUI version is a full featured product and includes the normal GUI elements, such as toolbars, menus and point and click operation.

CRiSP is an editor for editing plain text files. These could be program source files, scripts, or data files. The uses are entirely up to you. So how do you start CRiSP? The first thing to do is know which version of CRiSP to start, as the standard distribution includes two copies of the editor – a GUI version and a character based version. The GUI version is a full featured product and includes the normal GUI elements, such as toolbars, menus and point and click operation.

CRiSP is an editor for editing plain text files. These could be program source files, scripts, or data files. The uses are entirely up to you. So how do you start CRiSP? The first thing to do is know which version of CRiSP to start, as the standard distribution includes two copies of the editor – a GUI version and a character based version. The GUI version is a full featured product and includes the normal GUI elements, such as toolbars, menus and point and click operation.

HTML Support

CRiSP provides extensive support for HTML programming. It is one of the most powerful HTML editors out there. The HTML Toolbar is preconfigured for popular functions. HTML Template Set can be used to insert commonly used HTML tags.

HTML editing sub-menu
The HTML sub menu provides options for applying edits which are useful when manually creating HTML documents.

Convert to Text glyphs
Use this option after selecting a region of text (or the entire buffer if nothing is selected). This will convert the text from HTML format to plain text. This involves converting any HTML character commands into their plain text equivalents, for example &lt; is HTML for ‘<’.

Convert to HTML glyphs
This command is similar to the convert to text option but works in reverse, converting characters which cannot be used literally to their HTML equivalents. This is particularly useful, for example to take a piece of program code and to convert it into HTML reading for viewing in a document. For example, using raw C or C++ code is bound to cause display problems because of the use of characters such as & and <.

Convert text to HTML
This option is similar to the prior but is used to create a pure HTML file out of the current buffer. A new file is created (with a .html extension) and the file is loaded. For example, you can use this to quickly convert a syntax colored file into something immediately viewable from a web browser.

Text Formatting

These menu entries are mostly to do with text processing and reformatting.

abcd -> Abcd
This option is used for changing the initial case of each word. The first letter is capitalized and the remaining letters are changed to lower case. Select the region to affect and then use this command.

Center line
Centers the current selected area. Lines are indented so that they are in the middle of the line. If no region is selected then the current line only is centred.

Comment & Comment box
These two commands are used for inserting comments into program source code. The comment box command intelligently reformats the selected region and encloses the comment in a box. The comment characters and box style are configurable. If the comment is already in a box then CRiSP will avoid reboxing the comment.

The comment command is designed for commenting out source code. It adds an open comment to the start of each line of the selected area, and appends a close comment sequence (if defined) to the end of each line. These comments can then be removed with the Uncomment option (see below). You will need to be careful if the selected lines are already commented as many languages do not allow for nested comments.

Comments are configurable on a per file type basis. CRiSP comes supplied for various languages. Refer to the Language Editing Modes dialog for comment settings.

Format
This command is used to reformat a selected region. Each line is reformatted so that as many words as possible are fitted on to each line (within the constraints of the right hand margin). This option is typically used to reformat one or more paragraphs. (A paragraph is one or more lines with a blank line used to delimit the end of one paragraph and the start of the next).

You can use the <Ctrl-F>shortcut for this option for plain text files. If you use <Ctrl-F> on a program file then this will produce the same effect as Comment box.

Uncomment
This command is used to strip off comments from a previously commented out section of code, e.g. after using the Comment command above. It strips off comments at the start and end of line.

Lower & Upper case
Converts the currently selected area to lower or upper case text.

File Operations

This menu contains entries for manipulating files, printing and terminating CRiSP. The following entries are available:

New
This creates a new buffer with no name. When you come to save the buffer you will be prompted for a file name. If the buffer isn’t saved before exiting from CRiSP then you will be prompted before CRiSP terminates.

Open
Pops up a dialog to allow you to select an existing file to edit.

Open include file
This is designed to be used to load a file, where the filename is specified in the current buffer. Typically this is used to load a file referenced in a #include directive. If a region has been selected, then CRiSP will examine the name in the region and attempt to load it. Otherwise it will use the whole line, stripping off leading #include and removing and <..> or “” quotes.
CRiSP will use a variety of search paths to attempt to find the files. It will use the INCLUDEPATH environment variable to search (used by Microsoft Visual C++) and will also check standard Unix locations: /usr/include, /usr/openwin/include, /usr/X11/include.

You can specify your own search path environment variable: USER_INCLUDE_PATH as a colon separated list of directories to search.
If the file is not found in any of these locations, then CRiSP will search the list of project files to find a suitable match.
CRiSP attempts to honor the rules for system and user include files where possible, but in the absence of the actual compiler directives, can fail to load the file.

This function should be usable even by non-program files, e.g. by simply specifying a filename on a line on its own.

Close
Closes the current buffer. If you have made any changes, you are prompted to save them before the buffer is closed.
You can achieve the same effect by using the <Ctrl-Minus>(Ctrl and the ‘minus’ key on the main part of the keyboard, not the minus key on the keypad).

Close all
Closes all the loaded buffers. Modified buffers which have not been saved will not be closed, and will remain loaded inside CRiSP. In this case, a message at the bottom of the screen will be displayed telling you how many buffers were not closed.

Insert file
Pops up a dialog allowing you to select a file to include in the current buffer. The dialog box is similar to the FileOpen dialog, allowing you to select a file to include.
You can use the <Alt-R>keyboard short cut to invoke the same command.

Save
Saves (writes) the currently modified buffer to disk.
You can use the <Alt-W>keyboard short cut to invoke the same command.

Save as
Pops up a dialog allowing you to select a directory and filename where the current buffer is to be saved rather than saving under the default name.
A dialog box similar to the FileOpen dialog is displayed allowing you to select a directory and name to save the file as.
You can specify the file type, which is useful if you are on a Windows platform and want to save the file in Unix format, or vice versa. The Normal option is the default which is the mode in which the file was loaded in.

You can also append to an existing file by selecting the Append toggle option.

Save all
Saves all modified buffers. It is quite convenient if you are making a lot of changes to a variety of buffers, and are delaying saving until all the files are synchronised.

Filter region
Pops up a dialog box allowing you to type in the name of an external command. The current buffer is passed to the command and the result of executing that command is read back into the buffer.

File operations
Submenu containing a command which allows you to reload the current buffer from disk. This allows you to discard any changes you have made (you are prompted before the file is reloaded).

Find files
Pops up the Find Files dialog which allows you to search for files which match a filename (similar to the Windows Find Files applet and the Unix find command)..

Change Directory
Pops up a dialog which allows you to change the current working directory.

Print
Dialog allowing you to print the current buffer.

Command line
Displays a command line prompt where you can enter commands not directly accessible from the keyboard or menus.

Exit
Closes the current top-level window. If this is the last top-level window then CRiSP will exit. Prompts you to save any unchanged buffers.

FTP
This sub-menu provides access to the FTP Site manager used for opening files and defining sites, and for uploading files.

Most recently edit files list 
Allows you to reload a recently edited file. These entries display the most-recently edited file list. The default set up allows room for up to the last six files to be displayed. You can change the number of items which will be displayed here by accessing the OptionsScreen settings menu option.

To avoid a menu which is too wide, CRiSP abbreviates the file names by putting in … in the middle of the path name to a file.

Help Menu

The on-line help system is hypertext based and supports full graphics. The help system ion UNIX systems is an implementation which mimics the industry standard help system under Microsoft Windows. Under Microsoft Windows, the same help information is provided but the native help viewer is used. The help menu provides a convenient starting point for browsing the on-line help manuals. The recommended starting point is the User Guide which explains how to use CRiSP.

Search

The Find menu includes various commands and dialogs to perform searching and finding text. The following commands are available:

Search for
Displays a dialog box allowing you to search for a string.

Search next
Repeats the last search command. You can use <Keypad-5>or <Shift-F5>as a shortcut.

Proximity search
Allows you to perform a search of one word which is near another word.

Replace
Displays a dialog box allowing you to perform an interface search and replace operation.

Search buffers
Lets you search all the currently loaded buffers for every occurrence of a string.

Search files
Search files on disk for all occurrences of a string.

File search and replace
Lets you perform a global search and replace operation on files.

Find matching brace
Move cursor to corresponding brace or bracket.

Find matching element
This function is similar to the Find Matching Brace command, but can be used on HTML/XML files to find a matching entity (either the close element, or opening element). For example, <PRE> … </PRE>.

Goto bookmark
Allows you to jump to a previously saved bookmark.

Goto line
Dialog that lets you specify a line and/or column position to jump to.

Goto tag
Jump to definition of a function. To configure the tags, use the Options Tag Manager dialog.

Pop tag
Return to previous position before the last jump to tag command.

Intelligent search
Allows you to search for a string dynamically as you are typing it in.

Projects

This menu contains entries for managing your projects and for invoking custom commands to build, execute, etc commands within the project. A project is a way of describing a set of files that normally go to make up a complete application.

Tools – Functions call

The Tools menu provides access to a variety of more sophisticated editing facilities.
ASCII Chart
Displays a character set chart. This is most useful for programmers. Options are provided for viewing the character codes in decimal, octal and hexadecimal. You can invoke the same command by running the ascii macro at the Command: prompt (<F10>).

Change Log
Utility macro to aid in creating edit histories for projects.

File compare
Dialog box supporting commands to compare two versions of a file, or two directories showing which files have been modified or added.

File merge
Displays dialog box, similar to the File difference dialog, which allows you to compare two files and output the results to a new file showing all the lines which have been added/deleted.

Function calls
Invoke dialog for viewing function call graphs. Requires a tag database to be functional.

Mail
GUI mail reading macro – only applicable to Unix machines.

Operator hierarchy
Dialog showing operator precedence chart for a variety of programming languages including, C/C++, Perl, TCL.

Sort
Dialog box allowing you to sort parts of the buffer, including columns.

Spell check
Perform a spell check on the current document, and/or set spell checker options.

Telephone directory
Simple telephone database.

Check in, … RCS History
Commands for checking files into and out of a source code control database.

Compile
Compile current file based on previously defined setup options.

Execute
Executes the current file or program derived from the file. This is useful when testing scripts or small projects which consist of a single source file. For example, under Windows, you might be editing a source file such as test.ada, in which case the defualt is to execute the program test.exe. 

Make
Build project using the make facility.

Shell buffer
Create a shell buffer, which can be used to capture output of a shell-process.

Tools – View

Use these menu to select actions which affect the way you see the current buffer, or to see extended dialogs showing you information about buffers, files, keystroke macros, etc.