XEDIT(1)

🎀 NAME 🎀

okay bestie, this is XEDIT(1) from the General Commands Manual — literally the page for xedit, the simple text editor for X. That’s the whole name-and-vibe situation. 💅

✨ SYNTAX ✨

The synopsis is exactly this:

xedit [ -toolkitoption ... ] [ filename ... ]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

Xedit gives you one window with these four areas, and yes, you’re gonna know all of them:

• Commands Section — a set of commands that allow you to exit xedit, save the file, or load a new file into the edit window.
• Message Window — displays xedit messages. In addition, this window can also be used as a scratch pad.
• Filename Display — displays the name of the file currently being edited, and whether this file is Read-Write or Read Only.
• Edit Window — displays the text of the file that you are editing or creating.

🌸 OPTIONS 🌸

xedit accepts all of the standard X Toolkit command line options (see X(7)). The order of the command line options is not important — cute, right? ✨

• filename — Specifies the file(s) that are to be loaded during start-up. This is the file which will be edited. If a file is not specified, xedit lets you load files or create new files after it has started up.

💖 EDITING 💖

The Athena Text widget is used for the three sections of this application that allow text input. The characters typed will go to the Text widget that has the input focus, or the Text widget that the pointer cursor is currently over. Focus era. ✨

The following keystroke combinations are defined:

• Ctrl-a — Beginning Of Line
• Meta-b — Backward Word
• Ctrl-b — Backward Character
• Meta-f — Forward Word
• Ctrl-d — Delete Next Character
• Meta-i — Insert File
• Ctrl-e — End Of Line
• Meta-k — Kill To End Of Paragraph
• Ctrl-f — Forward Character
• Meta-q — Form Paragraph
• Ctrl-g — Keyboard Reset
• Meta-v — Previous Page
• Ctrl-h — Delete Previous Character
• Meta-y — Insert Current Selection
• Ctrl-j — Newline And Indent
• Meta-z — Scroll One Line Down
• Ctrl-k — Kill To End Of Line
• Meta-d — Delete Next Word
• Ctrl-l — Redraw Display
• Meta-D — Kill Word
• Ctrl-m — Newline
• Meta-h — Delete Previous Word
• Ctrl-n — Next Line
• Meta-H — Backward Kill Word
• Ctrl-o — Newline And Backup
• Meta-< — Beginning Of File
• Ctrl-p — Previous Line
• Meta-> — End Of File
• Ctrl-r — Search/Replace Backward
• Meta-] — Forward Paragraph
• Ctrl-s — Search/Replace Forward
• Meta-[ — Backward Paragraph
• Ctrl-t — Transpose Characters
• Ctrl-u [number] — Multiply by 4 or number
• Meta-Delete — Delete Previous Word
• Ctrl-v — Next Page
• Meta-Shift Delete — Kill Previous Word
• Ctrl-w — Kill Selection
• Meta-Backspace — Delete Previous Word
• Ctrl-y — Unkill
• Meta-Shift Backspace — Kill Previous Word
• Ctrl-z — Scroll One Line Up
• Meta-z — Scroll One Line Down
• Ctrl-_ — Undo
• Escape — Line Edit Mode

Yes, Meta-z is listed twice in the original. I didn’t invent it; I’m just reporting the lore. 💀

In addition, the pointer may be used to cut and paste text:

• Button 1 Down — Start Selection
• Button 1 Motion — Adjust Selection
• Button 1 Up — End Selection (cut)
• Button 2 Down — Insert Current Selection (paste)
• Button 3 Down — Extend Current Selection
• Button 3 Motion — Adjust Selection
• Button 3 Up — End Selection (cut)

🧚 LINE EDIT MODE 🧚

Line edit mode enables several shortcut commands for searching and replacing text in a xedit buffer. Line edit mode commands have the format:

[line-number[,line-number]]command[parameters]

Line number may be specified as:

• . — The current text line.
• $ — The last line of the file.
• number — The literal line number.
• - or ^ — The previous line. Equivalent to -1.
• -number or ^number — The current line minus number.
• + — The next line. Equivalent to +1.
• +number — The current line plus number.
• , or % — From the first to the last line. Equivalent to 1,$.
• ; — From the current to the last line. Equivalent to .,$.

Command may be specified as:

• s — Substitute text in the specified lines.
• /re/ — Search forward for the regular expression pattern re.
• ?re? — Search backward for the regular expression pattern re.

Parameters may be specified as:

• /re/ — Works as a parameter to i or as a command.
• /re/text/ — Search forward for re and substitute by text.

Options may follow or be parameters, known values are:

• i — Case insensitive search.
• g — Global match when replacing text. Unless specified, only the nth match — and n defaults to 1 — will be replaced.
• c — Confirm before replacing text.
• number — Replace only the occurrence referenced by number.

Commands accept some variations, examples:

/pattern/i
i/pattern/
i/pattern

Search forward for pattern.

,sc/pattern/text
,sc/pattern/text/
,s/pattern/text/c

Search the entire buffer and ask confirmation to replace pattern with text.

,s/pattern/text/number

Replace the match number in the text line. If not specified, defaults to the first occurrence.

When searching for text, type <Return> to go to the next match. When interactively replacing text, type y or Y to accept the change, and n or N to ignore it and go to the next match. iykyk. 🫶

👑 COMMANDS 👑

• Quit — Quits the current editing session. If any changes have not been saved, xedit displays a warning message, allowing the user to save them.
• Save — If file backups are enabled (see RESOURCES, below) xedit stores a copy of the original, unedited file in <prefix>file<suffix>, then overwrites the file with the contents of the edit window. The filename is retrieved from the Text widget directly to the right of the Load button.
• Load — Loads the file named in the text widget immediately to the right of this button and displays it in the Edit window.

💖 RESOURCES 💖

okay bestie, for xedit the available resources are:

• tagsName (Class TagsName) — says what tags file to search when you load a new file. Default value is tags.
• loadTags (Class LoadTags) — boolean that enables or disables searching for tags files. Default is True.
• enableBackups (Class EnableBackups) — when edits to an existing file get saved, xedit copies the original version to <prefix>file<suffix> before saving the changes. The default value is on, stating that backups should be created. protective icon behavior 🫶
• backupNamePrefix (Class BackupNamePrefix) — a string to prepend to the backup filename. Default is that no string shall be prepended.
• backupNameSuffix (Class BackupNameSuffix) — a string to append to the backup filename. Default is to use ~ as the suffix.
• positionFormat (Class Format) — format string for displaying the cursor position. It uses printf(3)-like notation: %l prints the line number, %c prints the column number, %p prints the insert position offset, and %s prints the current file size. You can also specify field sizes with %-?[0-9]+. Default format string is L%l, which shows L followed by the line number.
• hints (Class Hints) — a list of strings, separated by new lines, displayed in the bc_label window. little rotating lore drops ✨
• hintsInterval (Class Interval) — interval in seconds at which the hint string in the bc_label window will be changed.
• changedBitmap (Class Bitmap) — name of the Bitmap displayed in the fileMenu when the file being edited is changed.
• autoReplace (Class Replace) — useful for automatically correcting common misspelling errors, but also usable for simple macros. Format is {non-blanks}{blanks}[{string}]. Fields are separated by newlines. Example of use:

nto    not\n\
/macro some long string with \\\n newlines \\\n

Will automatically replace the word nto by not, and /macro by some long string with newlines when you type that words. (Yes, that words — the page said it like that 🫶)

• ispell.dictionaries (Class ispell.Dictionary) — a list of dictionary names, separated by spaces, available to the ispell program. Default value is "american americamed+ english".
• ispell.dictionary (Class ispell.Dictionary) — the default dictionary to use.
• ispell*<DICTIONARY>.wordChars (Class ispell*Chars) — a set of characters that can be part of a legal word. The <DICTIONARY> field is one of the dictionaries specified in the dictionaries resource.
• ispell.ispellCommand (Class ispell.CommandLine) — path to the ispell program, and possibly additional arguments. You don't need to specify the -w option nor the -a= option. Refer to the ispell(1) manpage for more information on ispell options.
• ispell.formatting (Class ispell.TextFormat) — which text formatting to use while spell checking the file. Available formats are text and html.
• ispell*text.skipLines (Class ispell*text.Skip) — lines starting with one of the characters in this string will not be spell checked. This resource is only used in text mode.
• ispell.terseMode (Class ispell.Terse) — when enabled, runs ispell in terse mode, not asking user interaction for words generated through compound formation (when using the ispel -C option), or words generated through affix removal. Default value is False.
• ispell.lookCommand (Class ispell.CommandLine) — path to the program to search for alternate words, and possibly additional arguments. Default program used is /usr/bin/egrep.
• ispell.wordsFile (Class ispell.Words) — path to the file[s] to search for alternate words. Default file is /usr/share/dict/words.
• ispell.guessLabel (Class ispell.Status) — string displayed in the ispell status bar when ispell returns a guess list of one or more words. Default value is Guess.
• ispell.missLabel (Class ispell.Status) — string displayed in the ispell status bar when ispell returns a list of one or more words to match a misspelled one. Default value is Miss.
• ispell.rootLabel (Class ispell.Status) — string displayed in the ispell status bar when the word is not in the dictionary but can be formed through a root one. Default value is Root:, followed by a space and the root word.
• ispell.noneLabel (Class ispell.Status) — string displayed in the ispell status bar when there is no near misses. Default value is None.
• ispell.compoundLabel (Class ispell.Status) — string displayed in the ispell status bar when the word being checked is formed by concatenation of two words. Default value is Compound.
• ispell.okLabel (Class ispell.Status) — string displayed in the ispell status bar when the checked word is in the dictionary. This string is only displayed when using the check button in the xedit ispell interface. Default value is Ok.
• ispell.eofLabel (Class ispell.Status) — string displayed in the ispell status bar when the end of the file is reached. Default value is End Of File.
• ispell.repeatLabel (Class ispell.Status) — string displayed in the ispell status bar when two identical words are found together in the file. Default value is Repeat.
• ispell.lookLabel (Class ispell.Status) — string displayed in the ispell status bar after displaying the results of the Look command. If no results are found, the value of the ispell.noneLabel resource is shown.
• ispell.workingLabel (Class ispell.Status) — string displayed in the ispell status bar while xedit is communicating with ispell. Default value is .....

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🧚 WIDGETS 🧚

To specify resources, it is useful to know the hierarchy of the widgets which compose xedit. In the notation below, indentation indicates hierarchical structure. The widget class name is given first, followed by the widget instance name.

Xedit  xedit
        Paned  paned
                Paned  buttons
                        Command  quit
                        Command  save
                        Command  load
                        Text     filename
                Label  bc_label
                Text   messageWindow
                Label  labelWindow
                Text   editWindow

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🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

• DISPLAY — to get the default host and display number.
• XENVIRONMENT — to get the name of a resource file that overrides the global resources stored in the RESOURCE_MANAGER property.

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🍓 FILES 🍓

• /usr/share/X11/app-defaults/Xedit — specifies required resources.

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🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

• xrdb(1)
• X(7)
• Athena Widget Set

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💀 RESTRICTIONS 💀

Xedit is not a replacement to Emacs. Periodt. No cap. 💀

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👑 AUTHORS 👑

• Chris D. Peterson, MIT X Consortium
• Paulo Cesar Pereira de Andrade, The XFree86 Project

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That's the whole page, bestie. The footer wraps it with X Version 11, xedit 1.2.5, and the XEDIT(1) page — official source/version + date energy, iconic and done 💅✨🎀