Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!pasteur!agate!saturn!ucscb.UCSC.EDU!funkstr
From: funkstr@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (-=/ Larry Hastings /=-)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Sprint
Keywords: editor macros, and 3 neato tips (well, I like them)
Message-ID: <5773@saturn.ucsc.edu>
Date: 15 Dec 88 10:17:03 GMT
References: <3878@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Sender: usenet@saturn.ucsc.edu
Reply-To: funkstr@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (-=/ Larry Hastings /=-)
Organization: MetaWare, Incorporated
Lines: 61

+-In article <3878@pt.cs.cmu.edu>, ralf@b.gp.cs.cmu.edu (Ralf Brown) wrote:-
+----------
| 
| I've found one place where Borland's Sprint word-processor works BETTER than
| documented: Shf-Alt-X (Utilities/Macros/Enter).  This function is documented
| as allowing you to invoke any macro by name.  In fact, it will let you execute
| anything you could put on a single 80-character line in a .SPM macro file,
| except defining a new macro.
|
|{harvard,uunet,ucbvax}!b.gp.cs.cmu.edu!ralf -=-=- AT&T: (412)268-3053 (school) 
+----------

  Yep.  I believe you can't use the fake preprocessor functions either
(i.e. #define or #include)... it would only make sense.
  You can also type out silly little macros on the [U]tilities/[M]acro/[E]nter
line, and EVEN assign them to a key for ever and ever.

  Just for grins, here's three tips for Sprint:

1) On any menu, if you type Ctrl-Enter (instead of Enter) to select something
   off a menu, you can assign that function to a key (Sprint will ask you for
   the key to assign, rather than performing the function).  From then on,
   that key will perform that function... even if what you selected was
   another menu.

2) Take a look at [U]tilities/[G]lossary.  It's very overlooked, and very
   useful.  Dan Klaussen of Sprint Tech Support calls this menu "one of the
   'hidden' features of Sprint" (not an exact quote...).

3) Except for a few special cases (^F, ^L, ^K, and others), control-character
   environments (the ones that change the color/attributes of the text on
   the screen) just invoke the one-letter environment that they are the
   control character of.  (My, how obtuse!)  For instance, ^Bbold text^N works
   because @B(bold text) makes it bold, not because of magic fairy dust.
   For the same reason, ^Eitalic text^N calls @E(italic text), and so on.
   This means that all the other control characters that fell through the
   cracks -- ^R, ^T, ^P -- will ALSO work, making the text default, typewriter,
   and bold/italic respectively.  (Note that these are pretty much unsupported,
   as ^R and ^T are mentioned only ONCE in the Sprint manuals (under Control
   Codes in the Sprint Reference Guide.. page 34 or so, in the chart) and ^P
   is NEVER mentioned.  I would advise pretty much to NOT use ^P... @P is
   currently defined as bold/italic only for compatibility with Final Word II,
   and that both @P and the current behaviour of ^P may change in the future...)
   This also means that you can _change_around_ what the control-character
   environments DO... for instance, I never use word underline, so I redefined
   @W to do the same thing that @Word() does.

As for this last one, I'll be posting some SPM files that let you take advantage
of this more readily to SIMTEL20, maybe this weekend (it's finals right now,
folks).  The new SPM (pronounced "spam"... ahAHaAHaH) files will include
macros to change your Typefaces menu and your [C]ustomize/[C]olors menu
so that they both include R, T, and P.

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