Entering and editing text
Entering text
- Click in the working area of the editor and begin typing.
- To type on the command line, click in the command line area or press the
Esc key and then begin typing.
Replacing and inserting text
The status line indicates which mode the editor is in.
When the editor is in replace mode, the cursor appears as a solid block,
one character width in size.
Text overlaid by this block will be replaced by any new text that you type.
When the editor is in insert mode, the cursor appears as a thin vertical line.
Any new text that you type is inserted into the document at the cursor position, and
existing text after the cursor is shifted.
- To toggle back and forth between the two modes, press the Insert key.
Deleting text
There are several ways to delete text.
- To delete single characters, do one of the following:
- Press Delete.
If you are in insert mode, the character at the cursor is deleted;
if you are in replace mode, the character that is overlaid by
the cursor is deleted.
Text after the cursor is shifted to fill the resulting gap.
- Press Backspace.
The character before the cursor is deleted.
Text after the cursor is shifted to fill the resulting gap.
- To delete all the text between the cursor and the end of the current line,
press Ctrl+Delete.
- To delete a complete line, move the cursor to the unwanted line and press
Ctrl+Backspace.
Moving the cursor
There are several way to position the cursor in the document, for example:
- Position the mouse pointer where you want the cursor to be, and click
mouse button 1.
- Press Up, Down, Left, or Right.
- Press Home to move the cursor to the beginning of a line,
or End to move it to the end of a line.
- Press Ctrl+Left to move the cursor one word left, or
Ctrl+Right to move it one word right.
- Press Page Up or Page Down to move the cursor up or down one
window at a time.
- Press Ctrl+Home to move the cursor to the beginning of the document, or
Ctrl+End to move it to the end of the document.
- Press Ctrl+J to return the cursor to the place in the document where
you last entered text.
Tip! If you inadvertently select text, for example by
dragging the mouse, deselect it by pressing Alt+U, or click the right
mouse button and choose Deselect from the pop-up menu.
Inserting a blank line
Splitting and joining lines of text
To split a line:
- Place the cursor where you want the break to occur, and press either
Alt+S or Enter.
Pressing Alt+S leaves the cursor at its current position;
pressing Enter moves the cursor to the new line.
When you split a line, all the text after the cursor is moved
down to a new line.
To join two lines, do one of the following:
- If the cursor is at the end of a line, press Delete to join the
current line with the next line.
- If the cursor is at the beginning of a line, press Backspace to join
the current line with the previous line.
- With the cursor anywhere on a line, press Alt+J to join the current
line with the next line together.
Note: The availability of the menu items indicated above
depends on the application implementing the editor.
The keyboard and mouse operations indicated are effective only in certain
editor profiles.
Copyright IBM Corporation 1992, 2007. All Rights Reserved.