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XText 0.9 8/21/95 beta 3
Source code for NEXTSTEP 3
XText is a subclass of the NEXTSTEP Text Class that lets users and
developers use keyboard shortcuts (or "hotkeys") to execute complex editing
commands. XText 0.9 has been designed to work for all versions
of NEXTSTEP 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3.
Paul A. Griffin
pgriffin@tiac.net (Mime/text/NextMail welcome)
If mail bounces, try pgriffin@venezia.rockefeller.edu (text mail only)
or http://venezia.rockefeller.edu/pgriffin
This is Freeware.
Note: XText will become obsolete when NEXTSTEP 4 becomes standard
(late 1996 ?).
======================================================================
Introduction
I was unhappy to discover after switching from my NeXTStation to an
Intel P5 running NEXTSTEP that XText 0.8 broke. This is because version
0.8 uses keyboard specific "key codes".
XText 0.9 is a hardware independent version of XText, with a few extra
goodies thrown in for fun. It uses "character codes", which are
Adobe/NeXT's generalization of ASCII codes. XText reads character
codes from keyboard events and allows the user considerable flexibility
in redefining keystrokes. This is achieved by Mike Dixon's remarkable
"action parsing" code, where text strings are converted into XText method
calls.
XText 0.8 was written by Mike Dixon:
Mike Dixon
Xerox PARC
3333 Coyote Hill Rd.
Palo Alto, CA 94304
mdixon@parc.xerox.com
Much of the discussion below is based on the original XText0.8
README file. Major changes to XText are:
a. An expanded version of XTDemo saves keybinding files,
and XText reads keybinding files.
b. Hardware independent modifiers:
l = NX_ALPHASHIFTMASK
Alpha Lock is set and Shift key is NOT* down
s = NX_SHIFTMASK
Shift key is down
c = NX_CONTROLMASK
Control key is down
a = NX_ALTERNATEMASK
Alternate key is down
m = NX_COMMANDMASK
Command key is down
n = NX_NUMERICPADMASK
Key is on numeric keypad
h = NX_HELPMASK
Help Key
c. Keycodes can be entered by Capitalized HEX
numbers.
COPYRIGHT:
XText (version 0.9 beta3)
Paul A. Griffin, August 1995
No copyright. (An acknowledgement would be nice though.)
Use at your own discretion.
Based on XText 0.8
XText (version 0.8)
Mike Dixon, April 1992
Copyright (c) 1992 Xerox Corporation. All rights reserved.
Use and copying of this software and preparation of derivative works based
upon this software are permitted. This software is made available AS IS,
and Xerox Corporation makes no warranty about the software or its
performance.
Documentation:
a. This file
b. COPYRIGHT.txt
c. English.lproj/Help/XText0.8.rtf
d. English.lproj/Help/XText0.9.rtf
e. English.lproj/Help/XTDemo.rtfd
g. XText.subproj/XTAction.h (how to associate keybindings with text)
h. XText.subproj/XText.h (methods for keybindings)
i. XText.subproj/README.0.8.rtf (original 0.8 readme file)
Basic Concepts
XText lets users execute complex text editing and formating
commands by redefining keystrokes. It does this by letting the
user associate, for every key, text object methods. For example, to
associate the "control a" key with the method
[xtext replaceSel:"Hello World\n"];
The user or application programmer constructs a keybinding format
c'a = replaceSel: "Hello World\n"'
XText can parse, in this way, methods with at most two arguments, which
must be either integers or strings. XText has an expanded set of useful
methods, that give users "emacs like" control over their keystrokes.
The expanded list is given below.
XText enables programmers to easily incorporate this keyboard
functionality into their applications. Keybindings can be loaded at
run time, using an XText method which parses strings of keybindings, or
(new to version 0.9) a method which reads a file of keybinding strings.
The file reader method was added to work with the concept of an
application wrapper. (Programmers can save keybindings as a file
in their .app directory.)
XText 0.9 methods for keybindings
The following methods were written for easy keybinding
construction. All of the cursor-movement methods take a
`mode' argument, which may be
0 just move the point to new location
1 delete to new location
2 cut to new location
3 extend selection to new location
The methods for cursor-movement are:
goto:end:mode: implements all movement; second argument
specifies the other end of the selection when mode != 0
moveWord:mode: move n words forward from point (back if n<0)
moveChar:mode: move n chars forward from point (back if n<0)
moveLine:mode: move n lines down from point (up if n<0)
lineBegin: move to beginning of current line
lineEnd: move to end of current line
docBegin: move to beginning of document
docEnd: move to end of document
collapseSel: move to beginning of selection (dir<0), end of
selection (dir>0), or active end of sel (dir=0)
transChars transpose characters around point
openLine insert new line after point
scroll:: scroll window n pages + m lines
scrollIfRO:: scroll window n pages + m lines if doc is
read-only; returns nil if doc is editable
insertChar: inserts the character associated with a key event
insertNextChar sets nextAction so that the next key event will be
interpreted as a character
XText 0.9 Methods for c program formatting:
autoIndent
creates a new line with space and tab indentation
equal to the current line
match:"LR";
Finds previous correctly nested matched character L and
briefly displays it; then prints R. Useful for "()" "{}"
and "[]".
Character Codes
Keyboard independent character codes which XText 0.9 uses
are constructed using simple rules. They can be found in the
insertKeyCombination: method of XText (in the file
XText.subproj/XText.m).
a. Type the following characters to denote modifier keys:
c control key down,
s shift key down,
a alt key down,
m command key down,
n a numeric keypad character, on my `101' keyboard, the
arrow keys and the keypad,
l caps-lock key down, and shift key NOT pressed,
h help key down
Note: Use "l" if you want a character code to
be active only if the caps-lock key is down. Other
character codes work with the caps-lock key
down or up.
b. Add the ' (right quote) key to denote the beginning of the
actual key.
c. If the key will print, type it.
Note: Alt characters are generally mapped to the
upper 127 characters of the Adobe/NeXT extended character
set. Being non-ASCII characters, they look unusual.
d. If it is a non-printing character like space, tab, or return, type
its hexadecimal character code. Character codes are found
in Appendix C of the AppKit Documentation (Figure C1).
e. Hexadecimal codes are denoted by the characters 1-9, A-F.
(The uppercase in the hex numbering is important.)
f. If it is a control character, type the key of the character; i.e.
"control a" = c'a, "control shift A" = cs'A etc.
Binding Specifications (Putting it all together)
A binding spec is a comma separated list of key codes,
followed by an equal sign, followed by an action (a method
above with input data). For example,
c'w, a'© = moveWord:-1 mode:1
(control w and alt h = delete last word)
Note: If you are testing keys with Edit.app, turn off
Global Options/Emacs Keybindings to print this character. Otherwise,
you will delete the last word.
Another example:
c'b=moveChar:-1 mode:0; c'B=moveChar:-1 mode:3
Examples
Comment lines in the example files below begin with `#'.
The files are in the directory "KeybindingFiles".
arrow.keys
emacs.keys
keypad.keys
programmer.keys
readonly.keys
Program Implementation
1. Copy the XText subproject into your application.
Include the line:
#import "XText.subproj/XText.h" ,
In files that create XText and XTScroller objects.
2. Occurrences of [Text alloc] must be replaced with [XText alloc].
If you're using IB to construct your Text objects it currently
provides no clean way to make a ScrollView containing something
other than a Text, so there is a support class XTScroller that
provides just that -- simply replace your ScrollViews with
XTScroller custom views and the XTexts will be constructed automatically
These newly-created XText objects will behave just like Text objects; in
particular, they will have no key bindings..
3a. Initialize an "action", which stores and parses
(interprets strings into method calls) keybindings:
demoAction = [[XTDispatchAction alloc] init];
3b. Or initialize using a default keybinding table:
action = [[XTDispatchAction alloc]
initBase:NXGetDefaultValue("myApp",
"KeyBase") estream:nil];
(NOTE: in XText0.9, the emacs table
has been removed. The advent of
".app" wrappers in NS 3.0 makes
storage of keybindings as files
in application directories a much
more elegant approach. See 4b below.)
4a. Add any dwrite type user-defined bindings
[action addBindings:
NXGetDefaultValue("myApp", "KeyString")
estream:nil];
4b. Or add any file of user-defined bindings.
[action loadFromFile:
NXGetDefaultValue("myApp", "KeyFile") estream:errs];
loads bindings from a file. Comments are lines in the
file beginning with `#'. This method enables developers
to load keybinding files from their .app wrapper directories, via
[[NXBundle mainBundle]
getPath:path
forResource:"KeyBindingFiles"
ofType:""];
5. Attach the action to the text object.
[myXText setInitalAction:action];
6. See XTDemo.app for more example code.
The Format of Binding Specifications
The format used to specify bindings is:
A binding spec is a sequence of zero or more bindings,
separated by `;'s
A binding is a key spec, followed by an `=', followed by an
action
A key spec is a sequence of one or more key combinations,
separated by `,'s
A key combination is a sequence of zero or more modifiers,
followed by a key
A modifier is
c (control),
s (shift),
a (alt),
m (command),
n (numeric keypad),
l (caps-lock),
h (help key)
A key is a `'' followed by any character (designates the key
that generates that character), or a 2-digit hex key code, as
documented in
NextLibrary/Documentation/NextDev/GeneralRef/
_ApC_KeyboardEvents/KeyInfo.rtfd
An action is a message, or a sequence of actions separated by
`;'s and enclosed in `{}'s
A message is something like `moveWord:-1 mode:1' or
`replaceSel: "hi there\n"' (at most two arguments, which must
be either integers or strings)
Paul Griffin, 8/95
These are the contents of the former NiCE NeXT User Group NeXTSTEP/OpenStep software archive, currently hosted by Netfuture.ch.