From: zfc@solair1.inter.NL.net (ZFC)
Subject: COMMERCIAL: Edith Pro V1.50 editor with syntax highlighting release
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 15:17:09 GMT

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Product: Edith Pro for X11
Manufacturer: ZFC, Amsterdam
Description: Plain text editor for X11
Available at: http://www.zfc.nl/
Platforms: IRIX5, Solaris, Linux
Further information: zfc@zfc.nl


If you are not familiar with Edith, please read the release notes
attached below the section ``what's new in V1.50''.  For an illustrated
version of these notes, see http://www.zfc.nl/releasenotes.html.


NEWS FROM ZFC/EDITH PRO

A new version, 1.50, is out.  This is a major release: the editor core
went through a great efficiency upgrade, but more importantly: EDITH now
includes a state-of-the-art SYNTAX HIGHLIGHTING feature that outperforms
what is currently on the market, because the underlying system is based
on deterministic bounded stack parsing.

Another important change is the licensing system.  Up to now, we were
proud to have one of the most tolerant licensing rules for commercial
software: free personal use was permitted.  We trusted that sufficiently
many users would eventually become customers, and would accept that
people make choices and are not prepared to pay for all software.

Sufficiency is in the eye of the beholder, but we need to guarantee
further development.  With pain in our hearts, we made download copies
revert to save-disabled mode when operated without a licence.  A free
evaluation license is granted once and works for two months.  However,
prices have now been reduced to as little as US$ 15 for an educational
rate single host or single user electronic licence.


WHAT'S NEW IN VERSION 1.50?

Text in the three predefined language modes HTML, LaTeX and C/C++ is
now highlighted using font and colour effects. New languages can be
defined via the language options panel; highlighting styles can be
redefined in a new panel called highlighting styles.

The three predefined modes are now protected. A limited selection of
default values for LaTeX, HTML and the binary editor will override your
current configuration of those modes to make sure that your upgrade to
version 1.50 is successful.

Bracket checking has been modified to take advantage of the language
definition used for highlighting. True tabs can now be placed at
arbitrary columns just like the editable tab stops. Some minor
modifications have been made to the client-server system. The syntax of
the expressions in the search panel has been extended.

Large parts of the editor core have been revised, resulting in a more
stable and above all, much faster system, especially at operations on
multiple selections, such as search and replace all. Progress is
reported on operations that take longer than a few seconds; you can now
also interrupt those with the Escape key.



EDITH PRO FOR X11 - A WINDOWING TEXT EDITOR

Edith Pro is a high quality user-friendly text editing system that 
combines a modern, colourful multi-window user interface with large 
basic editing flexibility. It is intended for those who want a 
powerful editing tool, but are not prepared to spend a wealth of 
energy into learning and configuring their applications. 

Edith is low-budget commercial software. Fully operational copies are
available for evaluation. Such an evaluation copy will work for one or
two months, depending on when it was downloaded.  When evaluation
copies expire, new copies will be made available on the www server.  An
evaluation copy will only bother you with ads in the editor's status
line---personal use of unlicenced copies is tolerated. Organizations,
commercial, educational or non-profit, are expected to buy a licence.

Licences are independent of the software, and frequent updates will be
available through the ZFC web pages. Binaries are now available for IRIX
5, Solaris 386/sparc and Linux i486/ELF.  As a limited introduction
offer, single host licences are now only NLG 100 (US$ 50), site licences
NLG 500 (US$ 250) including manual, p&p, and e-mail support.



WHY USE EDITH

Here's a diagram that helps getting a ROUGH idea of how Edith Pro 
compares to a number of popular text editors for UNIX/X11. 

Your current editor  Editing Capacity  Ease of use    Look and feel

VI                   higher            lot better     vi has none
Emacs                lower             lot better     lot better 
Nedit                a little better   equivalent     lot better 
Xedit                much higher       lot better     xedit has none
Jot/Zip              higher            better         better
CDE editor           much higher       equivalent     eye beholder 
Crisp                lower             better         lot better 


FEATURES

Edith Pro concentrates on editing features that are universal in 
applicability; as such it is not a programmable editor, but it has 
many well thought-out elementary features that allow efficient text 
editing for arbitrary types of text. 

Special features are:

 - A state-of-the-art text highlighting system

 - A multi-fragment selection/buffer system, including manipulation 
   of column selections. All operations make sensible use of 
   multiple selections. 

 - Split search and replace functions with or without wildcards, 
   based on the multiple selection facility. 

 - Separate incremental quick search function with target 
   completion. 

 - A trash buffer for retrieving previously deleted text 

 - A simple HTML-compatible info browser with full 
   context-sensitive on-line help and an interface to extern WWW 
   loaders such as lynx, to INFO, and to the system manual pages. 
   `http:', `ftp:' and `mailto:' are recognized (but `lynx' and 
   `mail' are required for these to work). 

 - Handling of floppy disk and remote files (through `mtools' and 
   `rcp/rsh'. 

 - Elaborate support for defining external shell commands; `make' 
   with `clickable error messages'. 

 - A continuously active line-macro (`dribble') recorder, with the 
   possibility to put small dribbles under a key combination. 
   Dribbles can be applied simultaneously to a selected set of 
   lines. 

 - Editing of binary files in C format 

 - A source tag facility (driven by standard tag files), including 
   manual creation of tags. 

 - A double true/edit tab system. 

 - Explicit display of tab, spaces and newlines; instant 
   compatibility with Macintosh and MS-DOS files. 

 - A versatile `text shortcut' system, with supplied shortcuts for 
   LaTeX, HTML and 7 ISO-Latin sets. 

 - Both editor parameters and appearance (colours, fonts) can be 
   specified for up to 8 different editing modes determined by the 
   extension of the edited file. 

 - 8 bit proof; access to accented characters and foreign character 
   sets. 

 - Cell-corrected display of proportional fonts 

 - (Optional) smart window management lets you work with a multiple 
   windows without frequent need to move the mouse. 

 - A client-server protocol: at most one Edith Pro server is 
   running on an X display, and subsequent calls will send a 
   message to the server. Edith starts quicker than e.g. XEmacs or 
   Nedit, and ensures that you are not editing the same file twice 
   on the same screen. 

 - A configurable `input queue' allowing large numbers of files on 
   the command line to be `put on hold'. 

 - An extra safety facility: `carbon copies' are written at regular 
   intervals and on unexpected termination. 

 - All properties are configurable from within the application; no 
   manual editing of configuration files necessary. 


Features likely to appear subsequent versions, but not in the 
first full release, are:

 - Regular editing of texts that contain 0 characters. 

 - Multi-stage Undo and arbitrary text macros. 

 - Enhanced font resolution (antialiasing) 

 - Keyword highlighting 

 - Table and form capabilities in the HTML browser 

 - Load/save hooks, possibly as a plug-in library facility 


- -- 
ZFC                             Annius V. Groenink            
P.O. Box 15813          Phone:  +31 20 4 208 248
1001 NH Amsterdam    Internet:  A.V.Groenink@zfc.nl 
The Netherlands           WWW:  http://www.zfc.nl/



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