Automatic deletion of words after control chars (solved)

Automatic deletion of words after control chars (solved)

3

    Jan 02, 2015#1

    Hello,
    I'm new to this forum, as I had not any trouble with UltraEdit so long.
    However, my search didn't help with any clue.

    After converting some old .doc files into .html with WORD, I encounter problems with UltraEdit (version 18.10.0.1010 @ Win XP) as follows:
    If a word (regular text) is preceded by a control character (!"§$%&/()=) or a space, this whole word is automatically deleted completely (!) whenever the first letter is deleted, e.g. by 'backspace'. This happens after about 0.5 sec. Spell check, auto-complete and macros are all off.

    Example:
    - original Text: "This is a fine day!"
    - own editing: "This is a ine day!" - i.e. deletion of f in "fine"
    - UE result: "This is a  day!" - rest of "fine" deleted, two spaces between adjacent words.

    This gusty behavior only happens with .html or .htm extensions, not with .txt. Trying UE on another machine also does not show the problem!

    I'm not certain that it has to do with the WORD conversion or any (undocumented?) setting in UE. Could windows create the bug?

    Any help would be appreciated.

    Thank You
    globedriver

    P.S. As I'm on the road most of the time, I can only check for answers every now and then. Please be patient.

    6,606548
    Grand MasterGrand Master
    6,606548

      Re: automatic deletion of words after control chars (solved)

      Jan 04, 2015#2

      That is indeed a very interesting behavior. I could not reproduce this issue with UE v18.10.0.1010.

      It looks like this behavior has something to do with a feature based on syntax highlighting. Therefore I suggest first to open a *.html file and reproduce this issue. If it can be indeed reproduced, use File - Revert to Saved to restore original file contents, click on No Highlighting in submenu View as (Highlighting File Type) in menu View and try to reproduce this behavior again.

      Does this strange behavior not happen anymore with syntax highlighting and all associated features disabled for the file?

      I suppose the answer is: yes, it cannot be reproduced with syntax highlighting disabled.


      As for HTML files multi-language syntax highlighting is enabled by default, it would be interesting if this deletion of characters occurs in a HTML section or in another section. In the status bar at bottom of UltraEdit main window the string HTML indicates that at current position of caret in text the HTML syntax highlighting is active. The string CSS 1.0-2.1 would indicate that CSS highlighting is active, JavaScript indicates JavaScript syntax highlighting active, and so on.

      I can think of three features which change words and are based on syntax highlighting.

      The first one is auto-correction enabled with setting Auto-correct keywords at Advanced - Configuration - Editor Display - Miscellaneous. But I don't think this setting is responsible for that strange behavior as it just corrects the case of letters of a word and not delete characters. Further it changes a word always immediately and never on deletion of characters. However, verify if this setting is enabled and if this is the case, check behavior with this setting unchecked.

      The second one is the smart templates feature. I suggest to open Advanced - Configuration - Templates and uncheck setting Auto-suggest smart template when typing and try next to reproduce the unexpected behavior. Does disabling this feature disable also the unwanted behavior? Yes, I suppose something is wrong with language templates for HTML. Look what is configured on the other computer for templates in UltraEdit and compare %APPDATA%\IDMComp\UltraEdit\templates\language\html-tpl.xml of the two computers. The original HTML template file html-tpl.xml is located in subdirectory template\language in program files directory of UltraEdit. Therefore it is possible to compare also the used HTML template file %APPDATA%\IDMComp\UltraEdit\templates\language\html-tpl.xml with the original template file %ProgramFiles%\IDM Computer Solutions\UltraEdit\template\language\html-tpl.xml (on 32-bit Windows XP and standard installation).

      The third one is Automatically close XML/HTML tags located at Advanced - Configuration - Editor - XML/HTML. Verify if this setting is enabled and if this is the case, check behavior with this setting unchecked. I don't think that this feature is responsible for the deletion of the word on deletion of a character, but give it a try.

      Last but not least the syntax highlighting wordfile for HTML itself can be corrupt. Compare original HTML wordfile %ProgramFiles%\IDM Computer Solutions\UltraEdit\wordfiles\html.uew with used HTML wordfile %APPDATA%\IDMComp\UltraEdit\wordfiles\html.uew.


      You could also copy entire directory %APPDATA%\IDMComp\UltraEdit while UltraEdit is not running on computer where this problem does not occur to the other computer on which this directory is first renamed to UltraEdit_Backup before pasting the working configuration into directory %APPDATA%\IDMComp. If %APPDATA%\IDMComp\UltraEdit_Backup contains a subdirectory license with file uedit32.spl, this file should be copied over %APPDATA%\IDMComp\UltraEdit\license\uedit32.spl as the license file is unique for each computer.

      Start UltraEdit and try to reproduce the strange behavior. Can it still be reproduced or does the deletion of characters not occur anymore?

      In case of problem cannot be reproduced anymore, it would be interesting which files are different in the two application data directories of UltraEdit and investigate them to find out what caused this unwanted behavior of deletion of characters after deleting a single character.

      I stop here with my suggestions on determining the cause of this issue. Let us know if anything above has helped already and which suggestion has helped.
      Best regards from an UC/UE/UES for Windows user from Austria

      3

        Re: automatic deletion of words after control chars (solved)

        Jan 04, 2015#3

        Hallo, Mofi,

        first my best regards to Austria (I'm originally from Bavaria).

        You are a GrandMaster indeed!

        Problem actually is related to syntax highlighting (HTML section). Did as you suggested:
        - turn highlighting off >>> word still completely deleted as before
        - turn highlighting back on >>> proper behavior; word NOT deleted anymore!

        Tried this on a different file (first file still open and highlighting had been turned off and on for first file)
        >>> same sequence as above,
        i.e. highlighting must be switched off and back on again for each individual file to get rid of this bug.
        I suppose, UE got a little infection, when I imported the .html files which were converted with WORD.

        So problem solved for now. THANK YOU indeed for your help!

        Do you have any idea how to turn syntax highlighting off and on again automatically?

        Best regards
        globedriver

        6,606548
        Grand MasterGrand Master
        6,606548

          Re: automatic deletion of words after control chars (solved)

          Jan 05, 2015#4

          Best regards also to Bavaria.

          It is very, very strange that turning off syntax highlighting and enabling it again solves the problem on a file. I think, something is wrong with the *.uew files.

          I suggest to close project/workspace if there is one currently opened. Next close all files. Then open Advanced - Configuration - Toolbars / Menus - Miscellaneous, click on button Clear history, close configuration dialog with Cancel and exit UltraEdit.

          Now compress entire directory %APPDATA%\IDMComp\UltraEdit to a ZIP or RAR archive.

          Restart UltraEdit and check if the problem can be still reproduced with a *.html file which best does not contain confidential data.

          If the problem can be reproduced with that file after starting UltraEdit with clearing all history entries from uedit32.ini, add this *.html file also to the ZIP or RAR archive. Post a new reply with appending the ZIP or RAR file as attachment. I will download it and look on your configuration files what cause this strange behavior. As I wrote already, I think the reason can be found somewhere in the *.uew files and I would be really interested in what causes this strange behavior.
          Best regards from an UC/UE/UES for Windows user from Austria

          3

            Re: automatic deletion of words after control chars (solved)

            Jan 19, 2015#5

            Hello, Mofi.

            Thanks again for your reply. Please excuse the long delay to your last suggestions.

            Indeed, turn highlighting off and on again only helped until file was closed.
            Following your suggestions, I turned templates/auto-suggest off and this worked fine even for re-opening the file and re-opening UE.
            Thus I investigated on html-tpl.xml (in application data directory), restored the original file (in programs directory) and OOOPS: it worked also with templates/auto-suggest ON.
            Then I restored the old/bad html-tpl.xml and bug was on again.
            So: file html-tpl.xml (with own additions) positively was the troublemaker!

            Then I deleted one by one all own templates from file html-tpl.xml >> still bad behavior, then all original templates >> still bad behavior.
            So it seems, the file itself (although only containing one line) was corrupt!

            Now I took original file and added my own templates to this file - AND ALL WORKED VERY WELL!!!!
            So bug is solved, I hope for good!

            Thinking back on this matter, I remember that I had a template in the HTML list without a name (just showing as empty line between other templates).
            However, I cannot recall, how it got there and how I got rid of it. Might be, this was the original troublemaker, as it happened at about the same time. I only could not see any link to the bad behavior while editing.

            For now, the bug is solved.

            Thanks again for your professional help!

            Regards now from Mexico (Baja California), where it's warm and cosy.
            globedriver

            6,606548
            Grand MasterGrand Master
            6,606548

              Re: automatic deletion of words after control chars (solved)

              Jan 19, 2015#6

              Glad to read that the problem is solved and which file caused the bad behavior. Now we have a reference for looking up for other users in case seeing same strange behavior. Thanks for final report and which steps solved the problem.
              Best regards from an UC/UE/UES for Windows user from Austria