SmallEd 1.45

A Programmer's Editor Shootout
Written by Andy Pitonyak

Introduction
Smalled is a powerful, yet small, 32 bit multithreaded PM editor. This is a shareware product that is constantly being upgraded.

Packaging and Installation
The packaging consists of a single zip file and the installation was painless; copy the help file into the OS/2 help file directory.

Features

 * Accelerator editor to assign any accelerator key combination to any menu item in Smalled
 * Configurable toolbar with bubble help
 * Configurable status bar
 * Multiple default directories
 * /H auto starts SMEHTM, an HTML editing tool
 * Open/New can be configured to Spawn a new Smalled session
 * Configuration options can be stored for each file in the extended attributes
 * Copy selected text to file
 * Print
 * File information dialog
 * Single level undo
 * Select all
 * Text wrap options
 * Uppercase / Lowercase menu options
 * Word count
 * Support for two default fonts
 * Auto save
 * Multithreaded
 * Backup preference page
 * Backup on auto save
 * Backup menu item
 * Last used preference page remembered.
 * 256 color drops in Merlin
 * Intelligent tabs which can be inserted as spaces
 * HTML stripper
 * File history
 * Find dialog stays open after fail.
 * Warp 4.0 style notebook for preferences
 * Right mouse click menu

It is easy to open a single file for editing; to open multiple files, you must use drag and drop. I like to specify multiple files from the command line or to use wild cards, but this is currently not supported. The menu commands for "File Open" and "File New" can be configured to either start a new session or use the existing session. Regardless, each session can edit only one file at a time, a job it does remarkably well. This does make it a bit cumbersome to move between multiple files, but this will be adressed at some point.

Feeling whimsical, I explored the limits of Smalled. I empirically determined that the maximum line length is about 32K and the clipboard about 64K. The largest file that I edited was about 4MB. I opened an executable file with no problems, but the file was radically changed after saving; use Smalled to view binary files, not for editing them.

For a small editor, Smalled sure has a lot of configuration options. When and where backups are made, colors, popup menus, fonts, directories, and the list goes on.

If you are interested in add-ons, or bolt-ons as the author or the software calls them, there is one with HTML extensions and one with clipboard extensions. The HTML bolt-on, SMEHTM11.ZIP, can be used to insert HTML tags into any editor. Smalled has a few special hooks to make this easier to use. There is also SMECLP10.ZIP which gives multiple OS/2 clipboards.

If you are interested in reading how Smalled was created, check back issues of EDM:
 * Issue 3-4 Building Custom Controls
 * Issue 3-6 Building an Editor - Part 2
 * Issue 3-8 Easy Buttonbars
 * Issue 3-9 Building an Editor - Part 3
 * Issue 3-10 Bubble Help

Things To Come
I managed to take a peek at the beta of the next version of Smalled. Here is a list of some of the things which I found.
 * Minor improvements with things such as reflowing text
 * Find and replace can now search backward
 * Many window functions, tall, wide, cascade, tile, next, previous, save position, close all, save and exit all
 * Multiple Undo/Redo
 * Unindent

The product is continually being updated and improved so be certain to check for the latest version.

Information
Smalled can be found in the usual shareware locations such as:
 * http://cd.textfiles.com/hobbesos29804/disk1/EDITORS/SMLED145.ZIP

Smalled 1.45
 * Price: $18 US


 * BMT Micro
 * PO Box 15016
 * Wilmington, NC 28408
 * U.S.A.


 * Bianchi Software
 * Tongelresestraat 61
 * 5613 DB
 * Eindhoven
 * The Netherlands

Ordering by fax or E-mail (credit card) can only be done by BMT Micro.

Email: (support) [Eric.Slaats@pi.net]