Moreorless
About moreorless
moreorless is a text viewer and editor for the Foenix F256K and F256 Jr. modern retro computers. It was written by Martin Grap (@mgr42 on the Foenix Discord server) in 2024. Its source code and prebuilt binaries can be found on my GitHub page.
moreorless allows to view and edit files which are much larger than the 64K base memory of the Foenix machines, because it dynamically manages all of the RAM of the computers. The largest file I have successfully loaded had a size of 286KB. But be aware that in order to edit files of that size a RAM expansion is needed. On an unexpanded machine the largest file I have tested had a size of 124KB.
Apart from writing text files like this one, moreorless also offers some features for the BASIC programmer: If you refrain from using goto and gosub you can create SuperBASIC programs without using the screen editor. moreorless allows you to write your programs without line numbers and adds these either when you save the program or when you write the program to RAM from where it can be loaded by xload or run by xgo.
moreorless can either be used in 80x60 or in 80x30 characters text mode and it provides four different colour schemes which in addition to the usual Foenix white on blue aim to emulate monochrome monitors of the 80's and 90's, i.e. green on black, white on black and amber on black. For good measure there is also a black on white mode.
moreorless began as a simple text viewer and developed into an editor later. The name moreorless has its roots in that time. I also hope that it turned out to be a more or less usable editor.
This document (in its original form) has been created using moreorless.
Starting moreorless
moreorless is primarily distributed as a .pgz file (mless.pgz) which can be executed from the BASIC screen or from DOS by typing /- mless after you have saved it to the internal SD card. Alternatively it is possible to store moreorless in the non volatile flash memory of your Fonix machine. More information about how to do that can be found on my github page. In this case you can omit the - from the command, i.e. you can use /mless to start the program from flash.
After starting the program you have to select the drive number(0, 1 or 2), which will be used to load and save the current document.
After that you can select the line ending character which is to be used when loading or saving a file. The default is a single line feed (LF) character but you can change that to a single carriage return (CR) character. In my experience there are some SuperBASIC programs which use CR as their line ending character. So if a file can not be loaded with LF as a line ending character try to use CR and vice versa.
Finally you have to enter the name of a file to load. If you want to create a new document, leave the file name empty and simply press return. You will be prompted for a file name when you save the new document for the first time.
Issuing commands, entering and deleting characters
moreorless currently offers 44 commands, which range from simply moving the cursor on the screen to stuff like search and replace. All commands are bound to certain key combinations and knowing these combinations is unfortunately neccessary to use moreorless, but one could say this is in line with the retro theme of the Foenix F256 platform ;-). If you press a key which is not bound to a command then the character representing this key on the Foenix is printed to the screen even if it is a graphics character.
inst del or left arrow always delete the character left of the cursor. This leads to an edge case in lines with 80 (or more) characters as the last charac- ter can not be deleted directly using these keys. In lines with 79 characters or less the cursor can be placed one column beyond the last character in order to make deletion of this character possible.
Inserting and deleting lines
In order to insert a new line simply press return. This command splits the current line at the column in which return was pressed and creates a new line. This line contains the text that was under and to the right of the cursor when return was pressed. This command preserves the current indentation level, i.e. if the line that is split is indented n characters the new line will also be indented to the same level.
A line can be merged with the line above when inst del or left arrow is pressed in the first column of a line. This command does nothing if the merged line would contain more than 80 characters. Due to the merging of two lines the overall number of lines in the document decreases, so in essence this command can be used to delete one line at a time. Blocks of lines can also be cut from the document as explained below.
When editing text moving the cursor in all four directions is the most basic function of an editor. As one would expect these commands are bound to the cursor keys. The movement of the cursor in the document is limited by the length of the current line and the overall size of the document. This means you can not move the cursor beyond the last line of the document and the cursor is moved to the next line if you press crsr-right at the end of the current line. The current line and column number are shown on the bottom left of the screen.
As one would expect pressing crsr up or crsr down at the top or the bottom of the screen scrolls the contents of the currently visible section up or down.
When moving the cursor vertically moreorless attempts to keep the column number constant. This may not be possible if the line above or below the current line has fewer characters than the current line but moreorless remembers this column number and places the cursor on that column again if a line is reached which has enough characters. This feature allows to keep the cursor on a certain indentation level when navigating the document even if there are lines which are shorter than this indentation level.
When pressing clr home the cursor is placed at the beginning of the current line and if you press Shift+clr home it is moved to the end of the current line.
Another possibility to move the cursor is to use Ctrl+crsr left and Ctrl+crsr right. The commands bound to these keys move the cursor one word to the left or the right, where a word is defined to be any string which does not contain a space character.
The cursor can be moved a whole screen width up or down by pressing Foenix+crsr up or Foenix+crsr down.
Finally the cursor can be moved to a specific line number by pressing Foenix+g. The user is then prompted for a line number and after pressing return the cursor is moved to the entered line number in such a way that this line appears in the first line on the screen. This command can be aborted by pressing return without entering a number or by entering an invalid line number.
There are two other commands which do not move the cursor in the document but the section of text which is visible on the screen. Ctrl+crsr up changes the view in such a way that the current line is moved one line up in the visible section. Correspondingly Ctrl+crsr down changes the view in such a way that the current line is moved one line down. These commands do nothing if changing the view would move the current line out of the visible section or if the view already displays the first (in case of Ctrl+crsr down) or the last (in case of Ctrl+crsr up) line of the document.
Saving a document, restarting and exiting moreorless
If you want to save your document to SD card or an IEC drive press Foenix+s. If this is the first time you save a new document you are prompted for a file name. If you want to abort this command simply press return. If the document has been saved before or has been loaded at program start Foenix+s simply saves the document without any further interaction by the user using the previously established name.
If you want to save a document under a new name press Alt+s. You will then be prompted for a new name. As described above you can abort this command by entering an empty string.
moreorless can be exited by pressing Alt+x. If the document has unsaved changes the user is prompted for a confirmation. Please enter a non empty string to confirm quitting without saving or an empty string to continue to edit the dcocument. The fact that the document has unsaved changes is visualized by a * in the top right corner.
If you want to stop editing a document and load or create a new one you can use Alt+r. If it is detected that the current document has unsaved changes you are prompted to confirm that these will be lost by this action in the same fashion as described above.
Features for SuperBASIC programmers
If you refrain from using goto and gosub moreorless can be used to make crea- ting SuperBASIC programs more convenient. The idea is that you write your BASIC program and format it to your liking, for instance using proper identation in if, while, repeat or other blocks but without using line numbers. moreorless then auto generates the line numbers for you when you instruct it to either save a BASIC program to disk or to RAM (at location $028000).
The command Alt+b can be used to save a version of your document as a BASIC program with auto generated line numbers. After issuing the command you are prompted for a file name. If you want to abort the command you can enter an empty string by simply pressing return.
While you can load and edit the created BASIC program in moreorless it is recommended that you treat the document without line numbers as the source code of the program and the generated BASIC program as a sort of .exe file which can be recreated from the source code at any time.
Another way to create a SuperBASIC program from a document in moreorless is the command F8. When pressing this key moreorless creates an auto generated BASIC program in RAM from where it can be "loaded" via the BASIC statement xload or started via the statement xgo after moreorless has been exited.
Using moreorless with a PS/2 keyboard
This document assumes that you use moreorless on a F256K which has a builtin keyboard, but moreorless also runs on the F256 Jr. which has to be used with a PS/2 keyboard. If your Foenix is used with a PS/2 keyboard the key bindings are subtely different.
The first reason is obvious: A standard keyboard has no Foenix key. The solution to this problem is simple: Use the Windows key instead of the Foenix key.
Another problem arises with all command keys that require you to press the shift key on the F256K but not on a PS/2 keyboard. These are
- F2, i.e. Shift+F1 on F256K but simply F2 on a PS/2 keyboard
- F4, i.e. Shift+F3 on F256K but simply F4 on a PS/2 keyboard
- F8, i.e. Shift+F7 on F256K but simply F8 on a PS/2 keyboard
- Shift+clr home on F256K but simply Pos1 on a PS/2 keyboard
One solution to this problem would be to build a version of moreorless which detects if it is running on a Jr. and modifies its key bindings accordingly. This would only put F256K users with PS/2 keyboards at a disadvantage. The other solution would be to build a version with PS/2 specific key bindings. But this would make distribution somewhat confusing.
As a maybe temporary workaround you should use the Shift key with the above key bindings when using a PS/2 keyboard. I.e. you should use Shift+F2, Shift+F4, Shift+F8 and Shift+Pos1 instead of simply pressing the corresponding keys.
Changing the appearance of moreorless
When you press F4 you can change the colour scheme used by moreorless by cycling through five alternatives:
- White on blue
- Green on black
- Black on white
- White on black
- Amber on black
Pressing F1 or F2 redraws the whole screen in either 80x60 (F1) or 80x30 (F2) text mode and returns the view to the start of the document. You can also use these commands to put the screen state management of moreorless in a known good state when you are experiencing corresponding problems due to potential bugs in the pogram.
Add indentation
If you press the Tab key two spaces are inserted and if you press Ctrl+Tab four spaces are inserted. In many cases it is not neccessary to indent lines manually as moreorless supports auto indentation, i.e. if a new line is inserted it is indented to the same level as the preceeding line.
Copying, cutting and pasting simple text data
As a (mental) cost saving measure (for its programmer) moreorless differenti- ates between a clipboard for simple text strings and a clipboard for blocks of full lines. The clipboard for simple strings can be controlled via the key bindings Ctrl+c, Ctrl+x and Ctrl+v.
These commands make use of a so called mark which can be set by Foenix+space or Foenix+m. If a mark is set this is visualized in the top right corner by an M character. A mark is invalidated by any change to the document or at the end of an operation which made use of that mark.
In order to copy or cut a simple string you first have to set a mark at the first character you want to select. You then move the cursor to the last character you want to copy or cut and either press Ctrl+c or Ctrl+x. Both of these characters have to be in the same line and are part of the selection. This allows for copying or cutting a single character.
In lines which are shorter than 80 characters you can move the cursor beyond the last character. It has to be noted that this position is not a valid position for copying and cutting of simple strings. After setting the mark it is possibe to move the cursor either left or right to determine the last character of the selection.
Ctrl+v can be used to insert a previously copied or cut text string into the current line. It has to be noted that this command will do nothing if the string which is currently in the clipboard would make the line longer than 80 characters.
Copying, cutting, pasting blocks of full lines
Copying and pasting simple strings is one way to make use of a mark. The second way is to cut, copy and paste blocks of full lines. In order to select a block of lines you have to set a mark as described above in the first line which you want to select. After that you move the cursor to the last line of the block which you intend to select and press either Foenix+c or Foenix+x to copy or cut the block. The block includes the line where the mark has been set and the line where Foenix+c or Foenix+x was pressed. It is therefore possible to select a single line.
In order to paste the previously copied or cut part of the document you have to press Foenix+v at a position of your choice. The current contents of the clipboard is then inserted after the current line.
In contrast to the selection of simple strings any column in a line is valid when copying or cutting blocks. It is not allowed to cut all lines in a document as a document has to contain at least one line even if that line has a length of zero characters.
When you copy a block the selected part of the document is copied, which uses up additional memory. When you cut a part of the document no additional memory is used but no memory is freed either even though the corresponding lines have vanished from the document. The memory used for storing the clipboard contents is freed when the clipboard contents is either replaced by a different block or explicitly cleared by pressing Alt+k.
When copying or pasting a block it is possible that the additonal memory needed exceeds the amount of memory still available. moreoreless detects this situation and if it is detected allows you to save the current file contents in a file called mless~.
Transforming blocks of full lines
You also can use a mark for selecting a block of full lines which you want to transform in some way. moreorless currently implements three types of transfor- mations:
- Indent a block by two space characters (Press Foenix+Tab)
- Unindent a block by two space characters (Press Alt+Tab)
- reformat a block (Press Alt+f)
In order to apply these transformations to a block of full lines you first set a mark in one line and then press one of the key combinations shown above on another line. After that all lines which are are part of the selection are indented one level, unindented a level or transformed to be justified as far as is possible on a fixed width text screen using a fixed width font.
The reformat transformation is especially useful for writing texts like this one (in contrast to writing source code). It allows to reformat a section in such a way that it appears as justified as possible. This simplifies working on documents which have been formatted to be justified but have to be changed afterwards in such a way that the justification is destroyed. Alt+f can then be used to automatically reformat the document again. Lines created by the reformatting transformation are at most 79 characters long.
Search ...
In order to search in a document a search string has to be defined. This can be done in two ways. Either by pressing Foenix+f or by pressing Foenix+t. In the first case the user is prompted for a string and in the second case the current contents of the simple string clipboard is set as a search string. That a search string has been defined is visualized in the bottom right corner by the text SRCH. When Foenix+f is used to enter a search string then a search for this string in forward direction is immediately started after the user has entered return. Searching is always performed in a case insensitive fashion.
After setting a search string, pressing F3 searches for the previous occurrance of the search string in the text and F7 searches for the next occurrance. I.e. F3 searches in backwards direction and F7 in forwards direction.
While a search is in progress a * character is shown in the upper left corner. If the search string is found then the text view is updated in such a way that the line where the string was found is the first line shown and the cursor is placed at the beginning of that occurance.
If the search string is not found, then the text view is left unchanged after the * character disappears. The search string can be cleared by entering an empty string after typing Foenix+f or by typing Foenix+u. If the search string is cleared the text SRCH in the bottom right corner disappears.
... and replace
The command bound to F5 first checks if the search string is found at the current cursor position and if it is found it replaces it with the value of the replace string. The replace string can be set by pressing Foenix+r. As usual this command can be aborted by entering an empty string when prompted. As the default replace string is the empty string you should make sure that a proper replace string is set before using the F5 command. The command does nothing when no search string is set.
To sum it up: In case you want to perform a search and replace operation you should first set the search string and after that the replace string. You then can then use F3 and F7 to search and if you want to replace a found occurrance you press F5.
Lines longer than 80 characters
I have stated above that moreorless will not create lines which are longer than 80 characters, so why is this section here? The answer is that even though moreorless does not allow to create new lines which are longer than 80 charac- ters it allows to load documents prepared by other means, maybe on your PC, which have lines that are longer than that limit. In fact it can load documents which have lines with a maximum length of up to 224 characters.
If you browse such a document lines which are longer than 80 characters are visualized by a * after the Col xxx text in the bottom line. Such lines can only be edited in limited ways. To be more precise such lines can be reformatted using Alt+f, they can be split by pressing return and they can be shortened by pressing Inst del.
All other edit operations are not allowed. On top of that search operations will not find strings in those parts of the text which are not visible in moreorless.
