ASCII value of cursor position in status bar / customizing status bar?

abracadabra · Dec 13, 2009#12009-12-13T00:24+00:00

Hi, I am new to UE forum.

So, please, be patient if this has been asked before although I have done some research and could't find anything specific (forum and FAQ).

I have tried UE for a while now and this is sure one of the strongest and feature-laden editors I have met.

Having that said I recently had a problem that would have required the display of the ASCII-value of the character under the cursor position. So I looked in the status line where I would have expected to find it, then everywhere else, but... nothing! ..zip! ..nada!

So I went to the configuration menu and had a deep look in order to find where to turn it on. Again, in vain, I have to say.

Since this is a feature _so basic_ that most of the ancient DOS editors had it, I simply couldn't believe there should be no way to turn that on in UE. There is an ASCII-table but all you can do is scroll in there, it doesn't seem to be correlated to the character under the cursor at all. Also I have found how to customize toolbars but seemingly this is not possible for the status-bar that shows some information as cut off in my case. I am using WinXP_sp3 with 1920*1200 resolution and most status fields are cluttered_up in the lower right corner with the date/time-field cut off and 2/3 of the bar (on the left side) empty.

Q: can those status-fields be re-arranged somehow?

Q: is it really not possible to get the ASCII-value of the cursor position displayed somehow? (I managed to circumvent the problem in the meantime by switching to HEX-View and converting the HEX-Value to decimal, but I would prefer constant ASCII-Value-display of the cursor position in Text-mode).

Hope someone can help, greetings,
George

Mofi · Dec 13, 2009#22009-12-13T12:05+00:00

abracadabra wrote:Q: Can those status fields be re-arranged somehow?

The status bar can't be customized. The information you can see there are fixed and explained in UltraEdit help on page Status Bar.

abracadabra wrote:Q: Is it really not possible to get the ASCII value of the cursor position displayed somehow?

It is possible. Use command Search - Character Properties which you can also add to a toolbar or execute by hotkey as I do. The command has the name ShowCharacterValue in the key mapping dialog.

abracadabra · Dec 13, 2009#32009-12-13T13:09+00:00

Thank you, Mofi, for the quick and helpful reply.

Mofi wrote:The information you can see there are fixed and explained in UltraEdit help on page Status Bar.

I wasn't asking because the meaning of those fields are unclear. It is just that mainly the date/time_modified field and (for large files) the file_size field have their information cut off as the fields are too narrow when at the same time most of the status-line (app. 3/4) appear empty and the fields displayed are "crowded up" in the right corner.

Mofi wrote:It is possible. Use command Search - Character Properties which you can also add to a toolbar or execute by hotkey as I do. The command has the name ShowCharacterValue in the key mapping dialog.

Thank you, I really missed that one! But since this opens up a foreground window which disables interaction/entry with/in the main window as soon as <Alt+Enter> is pressed, I take it, continous display of the ASCII-value at cursor position while actively editing in the main window, is not possible then?

greetings
George

Mofi · Dec 14, 2009#42009-12-14T06:56+00:00

How much space is for the command prompt area on left side of the status bar is depending on the screen resolution and the width of the UltraEdit window. With a screen resolution of 800x600 or 1024x768 and UltraEdit window maximized there is not much space on left side of the status bar. Sure, starting with 1280x800 and UE window maximized the space on left side of the status is enough and with higher resolutions and UE window maximized you might think there could be more information in the status bar. But don't think now that nobody uses the smaller screen resolutions nowadays. Just think on the small "netbooks" with a 10" screen which have small screen resolutions. So the width of the status bar depends on the width of the window and the available screen width and small widths must be taken into account.

Sometimes text in the status bar is also cut off on my computer (large file size). But the reason is not that the IDM developers made the boxes by default too small. The reason is that I have configured in the Windows display settings to use Tahoma 10pt instead of default Tahoma 8pt for some items. Status bar fields are not auto-adjusted without coding a customized status bar. Many applications avoid that problem by using just a few boxes and show images in the boxes instead of text because the size of the images can be fixed by the developer.

And to answer your last question, there is no possibility to show you the decimal value of a character without opening the dialog. It's the first time that I have seen in the last 5 years that a user wants to see all the time the decimal value of the current character. You can nevertheless write a feature request email to IDM, but I doubt that you will see such an information in the status bar in one of the next versions of UltraEdit. Available space on status bar is limited, maybe not on your computer, but in general.

BTW: On Windows XP (for a Classic theme) the settings at Control Panel - Display - tab Appearance - button Advanced - item Selected Item (German: Markierte Elemente) control (normally) the font and font size of the status bar, most views (using internally the list control object) and other windows like main window of Microsoft Outlook (uses also the list control).

abracadabra · Dec 14, 2009#52009-12-14T08:37+00:00

Mofi wrote:But the reason is not that the IDM developers made the boxes by default too small. The reason is that I have configured in the Windows display settings to use Tahoma 10pt instead of default Tahoma 8pt for some items. Status bar fields are not auto-adjusted without coding a customized status bar.

Thanks again,Mofi, for these elaborations.

As I see it, a user is fully entitled to change the Win-standard-layout, including font sizes, according to his liking and, in the first place, fitting his screen resolution. And it is the duty of properly programmed software to cope with that. Information is cut off not because you and I chose Tahoma or something else, we did that for a good reason, I suppose, information is cut off because IDM failed to make those status-fields auto-adaptive.

Also what you said of UE working in very different environments is true and has to be taken into account. So it all IMHO boils down to the implementation of customizable, if not auto-adaptive status-fields. This way it should be easy to turn on HEX/ASCII-value_of_character-display as well, should the screen resolution be large enough to permit such "luxury". Others could only enlarge the date/time-field to make the information readable in their preferred Win-font_setting.

Perhaps you could give a corresponding hint to IDM as I agree that a feature-request by a trial-user would be utterly useless.

Oh yes, and greetings from Vienna, Austria, too.
George

Mofi · Dec 14, 2009#62009-12-14T09:45+00:00

abracadabra wrote:Perhaps you could give a corresponding hint to IDM as I agree that a feature-request by a trial-user would be utterly useless.

I will not do that because I'm not interested in. If you are a registered or trial user does not make a difference. Every bug report or feature request is welcome and answered by IDM support team. But that does not mean that every feature request is immediately implemented. I have sent some feature requests which are still not realized until now because I guess nobody else wanted the same. Some of those feature requests were sent years ago. (I resend those feature requests from time to time and hope to see them in the next version. I will never give up.)

I suppose that making the status bar customizable is on a very low priority. Why? Well, I guess 99% of all Windows users do not know that application windows have a status bar and that useful information are displayed there. That is my estimation based on my experience with the user questions here in the forum, the support I give for the Windows applications I programmed, and from many other webpages I have read. It looks like you and I belong to the 1% using the status bar.

Coding an auto-adjustable, customized status bar is possible, but very tricky. That is really not easy. I know that because I spent for the Windows application I wrote more than 80 hours to just get the status bar auto-adjustable by the application itseslf without user customizations, but with user interactions (click in a box opens context menu) and it is still not working perfect in my application because on window resize the clickable areas are not updated accordingly. Is this "update clickable areas on resize" bug a problem? Yes, for me - the developer/user - it is, but it looks like for nobody else because nobody has ever reported that after resizing the main window of my application the mouse button clicks on the various status bar areas are sometimes not opening the correct context menus. So after 2 years that I detected that problem I have still not fixed it because it would cost time and no user of the application has ever reported this problem. So improving the status bar of my application is on low priority and I suppose for the UltraEdit status bar IDM is thinking the same. Time is money. Well, when you would buy let's say 5000 licences and that feature would be a criteria for you buying the licenses, I'm quite sure IDM would spent the time (money) to fulfil your wishes.

abracadabra · Dec 14, 2009#72009-12-14T12:14+00:00

That is understood, Mofi.

And I appreciate the complexity of effort and time that would go into an auto-adaptive bar. But exactly this is why a simple solution, where the user himself could select the fields to be displayed as well as their position and width would have its charm.

I think we must clearly differentiate here, an ASCII-display_field would be a lone feature request from me, maybe, but the cut-off date/time info by all means has to be considered a bug. Not to fix it falls well short of an acceptable solution, taking into account every possible font/size combination may be too tricky - but would it really be such a major effort to let the user set/alter the field width himself. And if we could set field-width already, it should be a breeze to add a checkbox whether a certain field should be displayed at all. What about the clipboard-statusfield, for instance? From what you tell me it should rather be confusing for most users as they will hardly be aware that more than one clipboard even exists in UE.

But, come on, this is meant to be a professional Programmer's Editor, after all! Who would pay $50 extra for another lame Wordpad substitute with proportional fonts and cut-off status fields? Are people without knowledge of status fields and unaware of the difference between an editor and a petty-word-processor really the target audience here?

If you feel like further disagreeing with my views and since my questions are answered you are also free to delete this thread, should you see that fit.

Thanks again for your assistance and greetings from Vienna
George

Mofi · Dec 14, 2009#82009-12-14T14:34+00:00

Hm, user adjustable widths for the boxes and the possibility to choose from a list of information boxes would be nice, especially when these settings are stored in the workspace files (*.in?) and not in the INI file to be able to adjust it for different environments - UltraEdit environments as well as Windows / hardware environments (laptop used with its own display or connected to desktop display - same computer, different screen resolutions). I agree with you on this point. That would be really fine and I would make use of it. I formulated this idea on 20th Dec. 2009 and sent it by email to IDM, see below.

Anybody else out there interested in a customized status bar? Please post your ideas here.

Mofi wrote:Hello!

This is a feature request and not a bug report proposed by the forum thread URL of this thread.

The item "Selected Item" in the Windows XP Classic desktop theme controls the font and font size for the status bar in most applications and also the entries in lists using the list control. Many applications use the list control in views. That is the reason why I have increased the standard font size for "Selected Item" from 8 pt to 10 pt. The Windows XP default Tahoma 8 pt is too small for me.

The result of this change is that some information in the status bar of UltraEdit is truncated, see the attached image. (Not attached to this post.) Well, in the last years that has not bother me because those data which are truncated are not of interest for me. Now a user testing UltraEdit came up with the idea to make the status bar user customizable. His idea has some charm.

What could be made customizable?

-) Which information boxes are displayed in the status bar, chosen from a predefined list.
-) The widths of the information boxes.

I think the format of the data in the information boxes must not be made configurable and also not which data are shown in the information boxes. So the user can't create its own information boxes. The user can only select from a predefined list of information boxes which of them should be displayed in the status bar.

The idea is to have for example a dialog in the configuration where all available information boxes are listed and a user can select which of them should be displayed in the status bar. I think the order must not be customizable just what should be displayed and what is of no interest. For current version of UltraEdit the available information boxes would be:

1) Macro recording indication
2) File position (line, column) and clipboard number
3) File type (encoding, line ending type)
4) Read only status / active syntax highlighting type
5) Last modification file date / time
6) File size or number of selected bytes
7) Insert / overstrike indication
8) Caps Lock indication

I make use of 1) to 4), 6) and 7). 5) and 8) are of no interest for me.

With such a configuration option for the status bar you could offer also additional information boxes which show indications currently not available for the status bar which I requested many years ago. As Ian explained on his reply and I completely understood, the space in the status bar is limited especially taking into account the various main window widths depending on screen resolutions and the personal preference of every user.

Most of those additional useful indications I get currently by taking the appropriate command into my customized toolbar although I execute the commands always by hotkey. Examples are word-wrap on/off, column mode on/off, OEM character set on/off, file polling on/off and always on top on/off. I don't use the last 2 features, but the indications for the first 3 modes are very important for me. With a customized status bar the indications for these commands/modes could be also displayed in the status bar because every user could decide what to show in the status bar depending on the available width. You would only need to define that indications and made them selectable in the configuration.

Further it would be great if the user can in the same dialog specify also the width of every enabled information box of the status bar. That would solve the problem with too small or too large information boxes depending on the current font and font size. The user can simply adjust the widths by entering the width of a box in pixels for example right the name of the information box in the configuration dialog. So the configuration dialog would have several lines with on left side the checkbox to enable/disable a box, in the middle the name of the information box and on right side a field where the user can enter the width in pixels.

Best would be to store the widths of the information box in the current instance (uedit32.in?) respectively environment INI files (*.in0) to be able to adjust the widths for different displays / environments.

Additionally there should be in the configuration dialog the buttons "Defaults" and "Standard". Pressing button "Defaults" restores the built-in defaults of UltraEdit for the status bar. Pressing button "Standard" saves the current status bar settings (widths and what is enabled) into uedit32.ini. The settings in uedit32.ini are used when in the current instance / environment INI file no status bar settings are stored and therefore the standard settings of the user (or when missing the built-in settings of UE) must become active.

I know this feature request is not easy to implement. Status bar programming is difficult and many applications avoid nowadays status bars and if at all use only a toolbar at bottom of the main window which users often mix with the status bar. Also with a customized status bar it is more difficult to define when it must be updated because the data in the enabled information boxes decide when the status bar must be updated and when no update of the status bar is necessary.

And I also know that probably most users of UltraEdit don't have realized until now what useful information are displayed in the status bar and so a feature for status bar customization has a very low priority for you. But nevertheless I hope you take this feature request into account.

Thanks, Mofi

abracadabra · Dec 23, 2009#92009-12-23T02:05+00:00

Many thanks, Mofi, for your initiative!

And I concur, especially "word-wrap on/off" and "column mode on/off" would be very helpful additional status indications.

greetings and "Mele Kalikimaka" - or "Happy X-mas" from Vienna
George

hugov · Aug 09, 2011#102011-08-09T12:11+00:00

abracadabra wrote:Having that said I recently had a problem that would have required the display of the ASCII-value of the character under the cursor position.

I've also send a request to IDM for this feature, of course the Unicode hex value of current character might be more useful compared to Ascii, but still. Editplus to name but one editor has this. I would find it very helpful, especially with 'special' characters like vertical tabs, zero width chars.