6.12.3 The Editor

Several aspects of the editor window behaviour can be set in this dialog. The editor preferences dialog is shown in gure (6.34).

The following elements can be set in the editor preferences dialog:

Create backup les

Whenever an editor le is saved, a backup is made of the old le. On by default.

Auto indent mode

Smart indenting is on. This means that pressing Enter will position the cursor on the next line in the same column where text starts on the current line. On by default.

Use tab characters

When the tab key is pressed, use a tab character. Normally, when the tab key is pressed, spaces are inserted. When this option is checked, tab characters will be inserted instead. O by default.

Backspace unindents

Pressing the Bksp key will unindent if the beginning of the text on the current line is reached, instead of deleting just the previous character. On by default.

Persistent blocks

When a selection is made, and the cursor is moved, the selection is not destroyed, i.e. the selected block stays selected. On by default.

Syntax highlight

Use syntax highlighting on the les that have an extension which appears in the list of highlight extensions. On by default.

Block insert cursor

The insert cursor is a block instead of an underscore character. By default the overwrite cursor is a block. This option reverses that behaviour. O by default.

Vertical blocks

When selecting blocks over several lines, the block doesn't select the whole lines in the block, it selects the lines till the column on which the cursor is located. O by default.

Highlight column

When checked, the current column (i.e. the column where the cursor is) is highlighted. O by default.

Highlight row

When checked, the current row (i.e. the row where the cursor is) is highlighted. O by default.

Auto closing brackets

When an opening bracket character is typed, the closing bracket is also inserted at once. O by default.

Keep trailing spaces

When saving a le, the spaces at the end of lines are stripped o. This behaviour disables that behaviour, i.e. any trailing spaces are also saved to le. O by default.

Codecomplete enabled

Enable code completion. On by default.

enable folds

???. O by default.

Tab size

The number of spaces that are inserted when the Tab key is pressed. The default value is 8.

Indent size

The number of spaces a block is indented when calling the block indent function. The default value is 2.

Highlight extensions

When syntax highlighting is on, the list of le masks entered here will be used to determine which les are highlighted. File masks should be separated with semicolon (;) characters. The default is *.pas;*.pp;*.inc.

File patterns needing tabs

Some les (such as makeles) need actual tab characters instead of spaces. Here a series of le masks can be entered for which tab characters will always be used. Default is make*;make*.*.

Remark: These options will not be applied to already opened windows, only newly opened windows will have these options.