Options – Text Editor

Select menu: Tools | Options (Text Editor Tab)

This controls different aspects of the Genstat text editor.

From the menu select Tools | Options then select the Text Editor tab.

Automatic indentation

When selected, new lines of text are automatically indented. For example, if a line contains a TAB space, the next line is automatically indented to match this TAB space.

Block indentation

When selected, multiple line selections can be indented simultaneously using the TAB key. Similarly, Shift+TAB will move lines of text back one TAB space.

Tabs

These options to control how the TAB key is interpreted when editing text within a text window.

Insert spaces	Lets you specify that spaces should be inserted instead of TAB characters
Size of tab Stop	Lets you specify the number of spaces to represent one TAB

Width of Genstat output

Lets you specify the width, in characters, of the text that is displayed in the Output window. You can specify any value between 40 and 200; the default setting of 80 characters is recommended for printing output in 12-point Courier.

Detect when a file has changed outside Genstat

When selected, a message notifies you of changes to an open file that have been made by an application outside Genstat. The message lets you reload the file containing the changes.

Save window and cursor position

When selected, the window and cursor position will be saved when a text window is closed.

Maximum number of windows	Specifies the maximum number of windows that the details are saved for
Reset positions	Resets the window and cursor positions to the default settings
Save bookmarks	Any bookmarks active when the window is closed will be restored when reopening it

New window position

These options control where text windows opened for the first time are located. First time windows are either new text windows (e.g. created with Ctrl+N) or text files opened with File | Open that do not have a remembered position (as above). There are four options for locating these text windows.

Top left – staggered	The text window is located at the top left of the client area, staggered across and down by 20 pixels for each first time text window that has been already opened. When the window location hits the bottom of the client it reverts to the top left position again.
Last used position	The text window is located where the last saved window position is. To use this setting you must also select Save window and cursor position.
Unused area	The text window is located to avoid the input and output windows. If not enough used space exists for a reasonable sized window, this reverts to the Top left – staggered behaviour.
Given position	The text window is located at the coordinates given by the Top, Left, Bottom and Right fields (in pixels). If an edit window is open, clicking the Use current position button will fill the location fields with the current position of the last opened text edit window.

Stagger position if already used

For the settings Last used position, Unused area and Given position, if this option is selected, then the window positions are staggered across and down by 20 pixels if a text edit window is already at that position, otherwise all first time text windows are opened at the same position. If four windows are already opened at the staggered positions, the positions will be recycled.

Command syntax

These settings control the behaviour of the Build Command dialog.

Load

If the If available option is selected and the file Syntax.GWB exists in either the user or system Addins folder, this will be loaded when the Insert Command menu is first used. Otherwise the syntax file will be loaded only If required. Initially, there is no copy of Syntax.GWB distributed with Genstat, and you will need to build a copy of this with the Update definition file button.

Update definition file

Clicking this opens a prompt that lets you build a syntax definition file in either the user or system Addins folder. If you do not have write access to the system Addins folder, use the user Addins folder. The server will then build a file Syntax.GWB in the selected folder, which will contain all the syntax details for every directive and procedure (including user procedures) available in the current session. This will then be loaded once to speed up building multiple commands, if the Load if available option has been selected. If both user and system versions of Syntax.GWB are available, the user version will be used. Note this file can take 2-10 minutes to build, depending on the speed of your computer. If this file is not loaded, an SPSYNTAX command will be sent to the server the first time any command is selected.

Abbreviate command names

When a command is inserted into a text window, if this option is ticked, the command name will be abbreviated to the specified number of characters, otherwise the full command name will be used. The number of characters must be between 4 and 32.

Abbreviate option/parameter names

When a command is inserted into a text window and this option is ticked, the option and parameter names will be abbreviated to the specified number of characters. Otherwise the full name will be used. The number of characters must be between 4 and 32.

Maximum line length for text

When a command longer than this length is inserted, it will be wrapped to that the resulting lines are no longer than this length. The length must be between 60 and 200.

Indent wrapped lines

When long commands are wrapped, an indent of the specified number of spaces will be added to the start of the second and all subsequent lines. The number of spaces must be between 0 (no indentation) and 8.