Ubuntu Manpage: the - The Hessling Editor.

NAME

       the - The Hessling Editor.

SYNOPSIS

       the  [-h?nmrsbk]  [-p  profile] [-a profile_arg] [-l line_num] [-c col_num] [-w width] [-u
       display_length] [-k[fmt]] [[dir] [file [...]]]

DESCRIPTION

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, the documentation provides limited information on using THE, and
concentrates more on reference material, such as command syntax and configuration.

OPTIONS
-h, -? Print a usage message on standard error and exit successfully.

-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 customizations.

-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 enables THE to be run in read-only 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 more files, this switch will disable any display of file contents and
disable keyboard 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'.

1 - displays 8 'buttons' in a 4-4 layout
2 - displays 8 'buttons' in a 3-2-3 layout
3 - displays 12 'buttons' in a 4-4-4 layout
4 - displays 12 'buttons' in a 4-4-4 layout with an index line
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 corresponding function key is executed.

-l line_num
This switch specifies the line number to make current when THE starts.

-c column_num
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.

-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
overridden with the <SET WIDTH> command.

-u display_length
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_length´ 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.

-1 Tells THE to run in 'Single Instance Mode'. The first time THE is run with the -1
switch, it starts as normal. Subsequent executions of THE with the -1 command-line
switch will not start a new instance of THE, rather it will edit the file(s)
specified on the command-line in the currently running instance of THE. This
feature is currently only available with the X11 port of the using XCurses 2.5 and
greater. If the first instance of THE with the -1 switch crashes for any reason,
subsequent attempts to run THE with the -1 switch will hang. To fix this remove
the file (really a FIFO); $HOME/.thefifo and then run THE with the -1 switch again.

[dir [file [...]]]
File(s) and/or directory to be edited.

FILES

       /etc/therc
              Global profile file for THE.

       $HOME/.therc
              Local profile file for THE.

       /usr/share/THE/THE_Help.txt
              THE help file name.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       THE uses the following environment variables:

       THE_HOME_DIR
              The directory in which THE looks for its help file(s) and macro(s).

       THE_HELP_FILE
              The fully qualified file name containing help information.

       THE_PROFILE_FILE
              The fully qualified file name for the local profile file.

       THE_MACRO_PATH
              A list of all directories in which THE is to look for <macro> files.

AUTHOR

       Mark Hessling <mark@rexx.org>.

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright  1991-2010  Mark  Hessling.  All  rights reserved.  THE is distributed under the
       terms of the GNU General Public License and comes with NO WARRANTY. See the  file  COPYING
       for details.

       On  Debian  systems,  the complete text of the GNU General Public License version 2 can be
       found in `/usr/share/common-licenses/GPL-2'.

WWW

       http://hessling-editor.sourceforge.net

REPORTING BUGS

       Report bugs to <thelist@uiuc.edu>.

MANUAL AUTHORS

       Mark Hessling <mark@rexx.org>.
       Alen Zekulic <alen@nms.hr>.