Vic - A free text editor based on HiEdit control

Here is Vic
A free text editor based on HiEdit control

Overview:• Author: Normand Lamoureux
• System: Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7
• Languages: English/Français
• License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
• Current version: 1.5
• Last update: July 10th, 2011

Download .EXE (658 kb) | Source .ZIP (207 kb)

Caution: Backup your INI file to keep your old settings.

Features:• multi-tabs
• auto indentation
• syntax highlighting (AHK, HTML/CSS, etc.)
• regular expression Search and Replace
• Tab triggers for all HTML/XHTML official tags
• turn a cut and paste into HTML table
• transform a block selection into HTML list
• CSS code rewriting
• automatic replacementsOthers:• fully customizable
• natural language in 1 separated file
• no installation required
• complete documentation in HTML format
• accessible to assistive technologiesCredits:• Antonis Kaprianou for his HiEdit control
• Majkinetor for his: AHK Attach, Dlg Module and WrapperRelease notes

Version 1.5
- A set of commands based on CapsLock to insert HTML tags.
- Special dialog box to add HTML code of form controls.
- Automatic calculation of path, width and height when adding an HTML image.
- Possibility to Increase/Decrease Vic's window transparency.
- Now, after Save all command, you go back to the tab where you start from.
- The cursor still visible after any Win+Arrow command.
- Now, changing font size changes also tab width. Thanks to soggos for bug report and solution.
- Some other minor improvements and bug corrections. Thanks to Zaelia for his remark about process priority.

Version 1.4
- Possibility to comment/uncomment a block.
- A feature to find the other part of a pair (), {} or [].
- Rajat's IntelliSense is now integrated as a plugin.
- Now, save support hidden file and send alert when the file is read only. (Thanks to hugov for his bug report.)
- When noting is selected, Copy puts the path of the current file in the clipboard.
- A way to prevent automatic changes performed when pressing Tab.
- When someting is selected, adding a CSS or HTML comment puts the text within the comment.
- Add to clipboard, Comment/uncomment the block and Duplicate selection are added to context menu.
- Encrypt/Unencrypt features are removed.

Version 1.3
- Possibility to add plugins. Thanks to hugov for his suggestion and code.
- A way in the Help menu to check for the existence of a new version.
- In some cases RegEx replacement turned CR+LF to LF. Now, it works well.
- Correction of the "block move bug".
- Some other minor bug corrections. Thanks to hogov for his bug reports.

Version 1.2
- Commands to convert and compress HTML code.
- Possibility to place, remove and jump to markers.
- Ctrl+Shift+I to launch Rajat's Intellisense for AHK.
- Win+Arrow Windows 7-like commands to control Vic's window.
- A way to get the number of any ASCII/ANSI character and vice versa.
- Right to left mouse selection bug fixed. Thanks to sagoos for his code.
- Some other bugs fixed. Thanks to Buntoro for his bug reports.

Version 1.1b
- Installer is now available.
- Ctrl+Shift+C show a perpetual calendar.
- Ctrl+Ins add the selection to clipboard.
- Ctrl+Shift+Ins clear the clipboard.
- F11 show a useful guide on RegEx (French only).
- F12 show a characters map of Windows-1252 page code.
- Some bugs corrections.

Version 0.9.8
- Automatic replacements now support grave accent (`) and tab in their abbreviations.
- Possibility to extend automatic replacements to windows others than Vic's window.
- The status bar has now an indication for the number of opened files.
- "Show the list of opened files" and "Reload the current file" are now available in File menu.
- The inversion bug related to syntactic coloration files is now corrected.
- English and French Updated documentation files.

Version 0.9.7
- Supports opening files by drag and drop (an arsan suggestion).
- Each color set is related to its own independent syntactic coloration file.
- An easy to use interface to handle automatic replacements (a Zaelia suggestion).
- The shortcut in View menu for calling Colors dialog box is now correct (thanks to arsan).
- The bug of the two new lines instead of one when you press the Enter key is now fixed.
- The problems due to a lack of display refresh are now fixed (thanks to majkinetor).
- It is now possible to insert a Tab character in the edit control of the Sort window.

Version 0.9.6
- Redrawing problems are now fixed (thanks to majkinetor).
- The column maximum number is now automatically recalculated when you enter a line number.
- The overlapping status bar's problem on a 120dpi setting is now fixed.
- The missing slash in a HTML end tag is now present.

Version 0.9.5
- The dialog boxes are now extensible. They supports increased font up to 14px at 96 as well as 120 dpi.
- Em dash (—) and en dash (–) are now supported as bullet signs as well as dash (-), plus (+), star (*) and bullet (•).
- The Go to dialog box now display the last line and the last column numbers (a majkinetor suggestion).
- The status bar overlapping quirk at 120dpi is now fixed (thanks to majkinetor for his bug report).

Nice work

There are a buku number of features in this editor. It will take me a over an hour just to go through them all!

Nice work. 8)

good job! I have try it!
Tests show that it does't support Unicode (like Chinese), a little disappointing! do you have a plan to add support for the Unicode?

I tried using it by I am getting the following error when I execute Vic.ahk:



I am using the latest version of AHK. Any idea on what can be causing that error?

Thanks!

very nice work, clean and useful

- gwarble

I tried using it by I am getting the following error when I execute Vic.ahk:



I am using the latest version of AHK. Any idea on what can be causing that error?

Thanks!

Nevermind... I had a ahk script running which prevented the new version to be completely installed. It is now working perfectly. As others already said, this is a very nice piece of work!

Hello.

Thx for testing and using my modules. Your editor is extremely fast, it starts like Notepad

I noticed one minor quirk - HiEdit is a bit overlapping with statusbar on my 125% font size. I guess you will have to measure its size and determine appropriate size of HiEdit. The same goes for some other stuff like View->Language (I can't see what is other lang). The best would be to switch to 125% font size yourself and see what parts of GUI are affected.

One other minor quirk is that context menu of HiEdit is not shown on mouse pos.

Also, I noticed Search & Replace have big edits but are not multilines (I prefer multiline S&R).


Some suggestions:
1. GoTo should have displayed max num of lines.
2. Delete menu should have additional options like delete line, word...
3. Plugins and custom tools.
4. You might want to have toolbar


Great work, great documentation and interface.
Thank you.

Thanks to all for your good words and feedback.
I really appreciate.
Regards.

@gongchao6330
Basically, Unicode support relies upon HiEdit possibilities, not Vic's ones.
Unfortunately, Unicode support doesn't seems to be on the todo list of the developer of HiEdit.

@majkinetor

HiEdit is a bit overlapping with status bar on my 125% font size. (...) The same goes for some other stuff like View->Language (I can't see what is other lang).

Good point. I redesigned the dialog boxes and they now work well with medium (125%) and large (150%) font display on Windows 7. [Not released yet.] [Now, it is. See the first post.]

context menu of HiEdit is not shown on mouse pos

I am not sure to understand.

On my computer, I can open the Vic's context menu by pressing the Application key, by doing Shift+F10 and by clicking on the mouse right button.

But there is no way to open the built-in HiEdit context menu. Is that the problem?

Also, I noticed Search & Replace have big edits but are not multilines (I prefer multiline S&R).

Edit controls in the Search and S&R dialog boxes are multi-lines.

As the documentation says: "Striking Enter activates the Next button. To have a new line in the edit field, press Ctrl+Enter."

Two reasons for this choice: 1) Having multi-lines edit control in a dialog box is an exception. But having a default button is a standard. And activating the default button by pressing Enter is also a standard. 2) Most part of the time, we use S&R to find a word or a little sentence. Not to make a multi-lines research.

GoTo should have displayed max num of lines.

Are you agree with the following solution?



Thanks for for your constructive comments and suggestions, majkinetor.

New version available.
See the first post for the details.
Release notes are at the end of the first post.

Are you agree with the following solution?

I find it a bit misleading. Since you are not recalculating column max when you enter line number it happens that you finish in another line if you enter col > max.

Also, it still find overlaping by huge amount (almost 30 pixels). The bottom tab is not visible at all.


When I realigned it, I noticed one small quirk. The tabs of HiEdit are prone to redrawing problems during Attaching. This fixes it:

Attach(hEdit,"w h[color=green] r[/color]")

BTW, its French by default and I wasnt able to switch to english setting p43=1 in ini file.


Cheers.

@majkinetor

Its French by default

You are right. A little error of my own. The available ZIP file is now in English by default.

I wasnt able to switch to English setting p43=1 in ini file

Caution: The proper way to switch the default natural language is the following: 1) open the Language dialog box; 2) choose the language you want; 3) restart Vic. Otherwise the Vic.lang file will not be updated correctly. I will add a note in the next INI file's version to say that.

The tabs of HiEdit are prone to redrawing problems during Attaching. This fixes it: Attach(hEdit,"w h r")

Great! I updated my file consequently. This is online yet.

Also, it still find overlaping by huge amount (almost 30 pixels). The bottom tab is not visible at all.

Sorry, I am not able to reproduce the bug. Here is the way I tried to do: 1) I changed the font size of my Window's theme to Large - no problem; 2) I changed it to Extra large - no problem; 3) I switched 96dpi to 120dpi and restart the computer - still no problem. May be a problematic value in your INI file. [RESOLVED A border width problem depending the Windows theme chosen. Will be fixed in the next version.]

Since you are not recalculating column max when you enter line number it happens that you finish in another line if you enter col > max.

That's right. It is clearly explained in the documentation. I will implement the recalculating method you suggest in the next version.

Regards.

thanks again for a nice little app

color bug i noticed:
using first color set, (or second with white background and black text) and otherwise all default settings... (including syntax highlighting)

opening a .ahk script with that white background makes paranthesis (()) white-on-white

and i see no solution thru the interface

- gwarble