Basic Editor Functions

When you are working in the Code Editor, you can access all of the standard Windows editing functions through the Edit menu, the Standard toolbar, the Editor toolbar, a right-click pop-up menu, and keyboard shortcuts.

The first group of Standard toolbar buttons let you create a new file, open an existing file, save a single file, or save all files. Other buttons (highlighted in the illustration), allow you to print a file; preview print output; cut, copy, and paste selected text; and undo or redo previous editor actions.

The Editor toolbar provides access to a combination of basic and advanced Code Editor functions.

The first group of Editor toolbar controls lets you enter a search string, find the next instance of a search string, search multiple files for a string, replace a string, or replace a string in multiple files. See Looking for Something?: Search and Replace for more information. Other buttons let you place and navigate between bookmarks (Using Bookmarks), change the indentation of lines of text (Changing Case and Indenting Lines), view lists of paragraphs, variables, and constants declared in the program (Using Paragraph, Variable, and Constant Lists), open a COPY file (Working with COPY Files), and determine the scope of a selected code statement (Using Code Insight Functions).

Edit menu commands let you undo or redo previous actions; cut, copy, paste, and delete text; select all text in a file; search for a text string and replace that string, if desired; jump to the a specific point in the file (Edit > Go To); add, remove, and navigate between bookmarks (Edit > Bookmarks); and access a sub-menu of advanced Code Editor functions (Edit > Advanced).

By default, the editor uses the standard Windows keyboard shortcuts for basic functions, such as cut (Ctrl+X), copy (Ctrl+C), paste (Ctrl+V), and select all (Ctrl+A). You can modify these shortcuts, if desired, in the Tools > Options interface, as described in Establishing Keyboard Shortcuts.

The Code Editor also uses the same navigation keystrokes as many other Windows editors. The arrow keys, for example, can be used to move left or right one character at a time, or up or down one line at a time. The End key moves the cursor to the end of the current line, while the Home key moves you to the beginning of the current line.

Useful navigation keystrokes include:

To move (to):	Default keyboard command
Forward one word	Ctrl+Right arrow
Back one word	Ctrl+Left arrow
Top of the file	Ctrl+Home
Bottom of the file	Ctrl+End

Keyboard shortcuts also make it easy to select text without using the mouse. These shortcuts include the following:

Desired Selection	Keyboard Command
Next character	Shift+Right arrow
Previous character	Shift+Left arrow
Entire preceding line	Shift+Up arrow
Entire following line	Shift+Down arrow
Preceding multi-line entry	Shift+Up arrow until the desired multi-line entry is selected
Following multi-line entry	Shift+Down arrow until the desired multi-line entry is selected