/*man-start*********************************************************************
                      THE - The Hessling Editor
                            Version 3.0

========================================================================
INTRODUCTION
========================================================================

THE is a text editor that uses both command line commands and key bindings
to operate. It is intended to be similar to the VM/CMS System Product 
Editor, XEDIT and to KEDIT from Mansfield Software.

THE was originally written to be used by people already familiar with the 
above editors. For this reason, this document provides limited information 
on using THE, and concentrates more on reference material, such as command
syntax and configuration.

========================================================================
THE BASICS
========================================================================

The default screen displayed when THE starts consists of several areas:

- a window which displays the contents of the file being editted. This is
  the <filearea>,
- a <command line> from which commands may be issued,
- a <prefix area> which shows line numbers and from which prefix commands
  can be issued
- an <idline> which displays the file name, row/col etc. for the current 
  file and
- a <status line> which indicates global status info like number of files
  being editted, time etc.

When THE starts, the cursor is positioned on the <command line>. To move 
between the <command line> and the <filearea>, the <CURSOR> HOME command is
used. By default this command is bound to the HOME key (under DOS and OS/2),
the DO key (on vt220s) and HOME (on xterms).

To execute commands from the <command line> simply type the command and
press the ENTER (or RETURN) key.

To determine what keys are bound to what commands, execute the <SHOWKEY>
command from the <command line>. As you press each key, THE will respond
with the name of the key and any commands bound to that key.  To exit from
the <SHOWKEY> command, press the spacebar.

Key bindings may be changed for the current session by using the <DEFINE>
command.  To keep key bindings between sessions, the <DEFINE> commands can
be placed in a <profile> file, which is executed each time THE starts. For
more information on this, see the next section; PROFILE FILE.

It is possible to make THE look and behave more like either XEDIT or KEDIT.
See the <SET COMPAT> command for further information.

As mentioned before, this document provides little tutorial information. For
those users who have a <REXX> enabled version of THE, a self-running
demonstration <macro> is supplied which will provide a better explanation of
the capabilities of THE, than any documentation could.  To run this demonstration,
start THE as follows:

     +------------------------------
     the -p demo.the demo.txt
     +------------------------------

========================================================================
COMMAND-LINE SWITCHES
========================================================================

THE recognises many command-line switches when starting THE.  All switches are
specified with a single '-' followed by a single character. The case of this
character is relevant. Some switches take extra parameters; those that take
optional extra parameters are indicated by the extra parameter being stated
below in '[]'. The purpose of each of the switches is as follows:

- -n Run THE without any profile. Normally THE tries to find a profile
  file and execute this on startup. This switch suppresses that search
  and execute and runs THE in its default mode. This switch is useful for
  determining if a bug in THE occurs only with certain user-specific
  customisations.
- -m On ports of THE that support colour, this switch forces THE into
  monochrome mode. More a testing feature than a user feature.
- -r This switch enabls THE to be run in readonly mode.  In this mode
  commands that alter the contents of a file are invalid.
- -s On Unix platforms, this switch enables the writing of a core file if
  THE crashes.  Normally, THE traps any internal errors and exits gracefully.
  This switch is a testing feature rather than a user feature.
- -b When you want to use THE as a non-interactive tool for manipulating
  the contents of one or mode files, this switch will disable any display
  of file contents and disable keybord interaction. Normally used in
  conjunction with a specific profile; see -p option.
- -q Run quietly in batch mode. This will suppress the introductory
  informative message displayed when errors are encountered running in batch.
- -k[fmt]  Allows 'soft label keys'. This allows the display of one (or two)
  lines at the bottom of the screen with 'buttons' intended to be used to
  represent function keys. These 'soft label keys' can be manipulated with 
  the <SET SLK> command.  The 'fmt' optional extra argument is a single digit
  representing the format of the display of the 'buttons'.
  o 1 - displays 8 'buttons' in a 4-4 layout
  o 2 - displays 8 'buttons' in a 3-2-3 layout
  o 3 - displays 12 'buttons' in a 4-4-4 layout
  o 4 - displays 12 'buttons' in a 4-4-4 layout with an index line
  o 5 - displays 10 'buttons' in a 5-5 layout
  Not all platforms support all 5 format options.
  On those ports of THE that are mouse-aware, the mouse can be pressed
  on a 'button', and the command assigned the the coresponding function
  key is executed.
- -l line This switch specifies the line number to make current when THE 
  starts.
- -c col This switch specifies the column number to make current when THE 
  starts.
- -p profile Specifies the THE profile to run instead of the default
  profile. See next section for further details.
- -a profile_arg Specifies the arguments that are passed to the profile
  specified with the -p switch.
- -w width Specifies the maximum line width for a line in the current
  edit session. Can be overridded with the <SET WIDTH> command.
- -u display_width THE can run as a binary editor. Specifying this switch
  tells THE to read in the file and display it in 'lines' that are
  'display_width' long.  All end-of-line characters in the file are
  ignored and are treated as other characters in the file.
- -X X11_switches With the X11 port of THE, standard X11 switches can be
  specified with this switch to dynamically configure the way THE displays
  or behaves.  You can also specify XCurses-specific switches here as well.
  For more information on the XCurses switches available, consult the
  PDCurses documentation.

After all the above switches are stated on the command line, THE treats
the remainder of the command line as files or directories to edit.

========================================================================
PROFILE FILE
========================================================================

Various session defaults may be changed on startup for an individual by
using a <profile> file. This file contains various commands that set the
current environment, including key bindings. This <profile> file can also be
used to process commands in batch mode. 

THE will always execute a default profile. Appendix 1 defines the name of
the default profile on different platforms.

An example of a profile might be to change all occurrences of 'alligator' 
to 'crocodile' in the file 'file.ext' in batch mode, a <profile> file; 
'prf.prf' with the following commands would be used:

     +------------------------------
     'c/alligator/crocodile/ * *'
     'file'
     +------------------------------

and the command

     +------------------------------
     the -b -p prf.prf file.ext
     +------------------------------

would be issued.

This changes the first string enclosed in delimiters (generally any
non-alphabetic character not in the string itself) to
the second string for every line (*) starting at the current line
(0 initially) changing each occurrence on a line (*).

Maybe you only want to change a string after the first line that contains
the string 'donkey', but only change the second occurrence of that string.
The profile commands would then be:

     +------------------------------
     '/donkey/'
     'c/alligator/crocodile/ * 1 2'
     'file'
     +------------------------------

The change command uses a <target> specification as its first parameter
after the string details. A <target> can be a number of lines, an absolute
line number, BLANK, ALL or a string.

Number of line targets consist of either a positive integer, for
referencing lines toward the end of the file, negative for referencing
toward the start of the file or '*', which is all the remaining lines in
the file or '-*' which is all lines toward the start of the file.

An absolute line number in the form of ':n' is the line number in a file,
starting with line number 1.

**man-end**********************************************************************/
