UTF-8 is a character encoding that can represent the whole ISO 10646
character set—two billion characters! ne can load and
manipulate UTF-8 files transparently, in particular on systems that
provide UTF-8 I/O. See UTF-8 Support.
It often happens that you have to browse through a file, switching
frequently between a small number of positions. In this case, you can use
bookmarks. There are up to ten bookmarks per document, each
designated by a single digit, with the default being ‘0’. You can set
them with the SetBookmark command, and you can return to any set
bookmark with the GotoBookmark command. Also, ne sets an
automatic bookmark (designated by ‘-’) to your current position in a
document whenever you use the GotoBookmark command. You can use
this automatic bookmark to return to that previous location with a
GotoBookmark - command. Doing so will reset the automatic bookmark,
so that subsequent GotoBookmark - commands will switch between
those two locations. The special parameters ‘+1’ and ‘-1’
indicate the next or previous set bookmark in conjunction with
GotoBookmark and UnsetBookmark, but reference the next or
previous unset bookmark when used with SetBookmark. A sequence of
GotoBookmark +1 commands lets you easily cycle through all your set
bookmarks. See SetBookmark, GotoBookmark, and
UnsetBookmark. Note that in the default configuration no key binding
is assigned to these commands. If you use them frequently, you may want to
change the key bindings. See Key Bindings.
The AutoComplete command helps you extend a given prefix with matching
words from your open documents. You can specify the AutoCompete command
and prefix on the command line, or you can enter the prefix directly into your
document and activate the AutoComplete command. With the cursor at the
right end of your prefix, activate the AutoComplete command by entering
either the <Escape>-<Tab> or the <Escape>-<I> key sequence, or
the <Control>-<META>-<I> key combination, or by selecting
AutoComplete from the Extras menu.
If the prefix can be extended
unambiguously, the extension will be immediately inserted into your
document (this is the case, for instance, if only one word matches the
prefix), and a message will tell you whether the extension is an actual word
or just the longest possible extension (for instance, if you expand
‘fo’ and your document contains ‘foobar’ and ‘foofoo’ then the
partial match will be ‘foo’). Otherwise, ne presents you with
a list of all matching words: choose the one you want and press
<Return>, to select it; otherwise, press <f1>, <Escape> or
<Escape>-<Escape> to cancel the completion operation.
The current
state of the CaseSearch flag determines whether the prefix match is
case sensitive. Any matching words which only exist in other open
documents but not the current one are displayed in bold with an asterisk;
think of that as a warning that if you select one of these bold words you
will introduce a new word into your current document. Plain words already
exist somewhere in your current document. See AutoComplete, and
CaseSearch.
Unless you tell it not to (with the AutoMatchBracket command),
ne will highlight any recognized bracket that matches the
bracket your cursor is on if that matching bracket is currently visible on
your screen. Recognized brackets are ‘{}’, ‘()’, ‘[]’ and
‘<>’. See AutoMatchBracket.
ne will detect automagically the presence of MS-DOS line terminators
(CR/LFs) and set the CR/LF flag. When the file will be saved, the
terminators will be restored correctly. You can change this behaviour
using the PreserveCR and CRLF commands. See PreserveCR,
and CRLF.
ne allows a simplified form of binary editing. If the
binary flag is set, only NULLs are considered newlines when loading or
saving. Thus, binary files can be safely loaded, modified and saved.
Inserting a new line or joining two lines has the effect of inserting or
deleting a NULL. Be careful not to mismatch the state of the binary flag
when loading and saving the same file.
The NoFileReq command deactivates the file requester. It is
intended for “tough guys” who always remember the names of their files and can
type them at the speed of light (maybe with the help of the completer,
which is activated by the <Tab> key; see The Input Line).
There are three ways to execute un*x commands from within ne.
The System command can run any un*x command; you
will get back into ne as soon as the command execution terminates.
See System. The Through (<Meta>-T) command (which can be found in the
‘Edit’ menu), however, is much more powerful; it cuts the current
block, passes it as standard input to any un*x command, and pastes the
command's output at the current cursor position. This provides a neat
way to pass a part of your document through one of un*x's many
filter commands (commands that read from standard input and write
to standard output, e.g., sort). See Through. Finally, you can use the
Suspend (<Control>-Z) command to temporarily stop ne and
return to your command shell. See Suspend.
For an exhaustive list of the remaining features of ne, see
Reference.