SlickEdit User Guide

Quick Start
QUICK START
SlickEdit® is one of the most powerful programming editors available today, and one of the most flexible.
SlickEdit contains hundreds of options to let you work your way. Most people don't have time to read the
whole user guide. Take a few minutes to go through the Quick Start, and you’ll be up and running with
SlickEdit in no time.
The information is divided into the following steps:
1. Set Your Preferences
2. Set Up a Workspace and Project
3. Start Coding
Set Your Preferences
After installation, you may want to change some default options to match your own coding preferences.
This section contains a list of settings that are common in many code editors. This list is not
comprehensive, so we encourage you to browse all of the options screens to set preferences for
something that may not be mentioned here.
Options are changed using the Options dialog, which is displayed when you click Tools > Options from
the main menu.
Option settings are divided into two categories: General Options and Language-Specific Options.
General Options
General options affect all languages. All menu paths are relative to the Options dialog (Tools > Options).
• Changing the emulation - During the product installation, you are prompted to choose the editor
emulation. The default is CUA. To change the emulation at any time, in the Options dialog, select
Keyboard > Emulation.
• Maximizing the first window - By default, when an editor window is opened, it is displayed as
floating. To have editor windows maximized when they are first opened, select Editing > Editor
Windows, then set the option Maximize first window to True.
• Expanding/collapsing with a single click - Selective Display Plus and Minus bitmaps can be
expanded or collapsed with a single click rather than a double-click. To specify this option, select
Appearance > Advanced, then set the value of Expand/collapse to Expand on single click.
• Clicking past the end of a line - To have the ability to place the cursor past the end of a line,
select Editing > General, then set the option Click past end of line to True.
• Specifying cursor up/down behavior - By default, cursor_up and cursor_down commands go
to the same column of the next or previous line, unless that line is shorter than the current column,
in which case the cursor is placed at the end of the line. To have the cursor placed in virtual space
at the end of the line, click Keyboard > Redefine Common Keys, then set the option Cursor up/
down places cursor in virtual space to True.
• Changing the line insert style - In code, a line of text is a meaningful unit of functionality.
SlickEdit® treats line selections differently than character selections. Line selections are pasted
either above or below the current line, saving you from tediously positioning the cursor at the
beginning or end of a line prior to pasting. To specify where line selections are pasted, click
Editing > General, then set the Line insert style option to Before or After.
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