1 Minimum Profit Release Notes
2 ============================
8 - Added Version Control commands (bound by default to `ctrl-p').
9 The supported systems are (adding new ones is very easy):
13 - If any file being edited is modified externally, the situation
14 is detected and the user is prompted for file reloading.
15 - GTK library detection: Uses 3.x if available, then 2.x.
16 - Special information gathering on help: if the file being edited
17 is C/C++ and asking for help (by pressing `F1') do not return
18 a `man' page, a special routine inspects all source files and
19 headers looking for structures, variables and function prototypes
23 - The `build' action remembers the last Makefile target.
24 - The `section_list' action sets the list selector to the most
25 appropriate section regarding the current cursor position.
27 - Make `keep_eol' behaviour more intuitive (bug #1294).
33 - `indent_block': Indents the current line or the selected block.
34 - `unindent_block': Reverse of `indent_block'.
36 - ~/.mp_templates can be a directory. If it is, the `global' file
37 there is always read (and those templates put at the top) and it
38 will also read a file named like the current syntax highlight
39 definition (so different templates appear if your editing C, Perl,
41 - New configuration options:
42 - `mp.config.smart_bol': if set to nonzero, the `move_bol' action
43 now moves to the first non-blank character in the line instead of
44 to column 0 (unless the cursor is already on the first non-blank).
46 - The following actions accept additional arguments when called
47 as functions (and do not ask for them, if present):
57 - `filter_selection': to filter the selection (or the
58 full document if no selection is done) through a system command.
59 - `exec_action': that shows a list of actions to execute
60 on the current document.
61 - `cut_lines_with_string': that cuts to the clipboard all lines
62 in a document or block that matches a regular expression.
63 - `insert_real_tab': bound to `shift-tab', to insert a tab
64 character (\t) regardless of whatever is set in the
65 `tabs_as_spaces' configuration variable.
66 - `insert_next_item': to insert a new enumeration item in
69 - Fixed insert / overwrite mode.
70 - If a selection is invisible (incomplete or with the start and end
71 in the same character), a new keystroke does not jump to it.
72 - New configuration options:
73 - `mp.config.hw_cursor': to activate the hardware cursor in
74 text environments (disabled by default).
75 - Text user interface improvements:
76 - File opening list is fully navegable (directories up and down),
77 - Selection lists accept letter keys to jump to elements,
78 - If a text mode menu panel do not fit vertically on the screen,
79 menu items are scrolled as needed.
80 - New command line options:
81 - `-txt': force text mode (instead of GUI).
82 - General improvements:
83 - If a block is selected, actions `word_wrap_paragraph',
84 `join_paragraph' and `eval_doc' act only on it.
85 - The internal engine has been partly rewritten, so it requires
86 less memory and it's a bit faster.
91 * If a block is selected, any keystroke substitutes it.
92 * Support for Alt + keys (ASCII and movement) has been added,
93 and mostly left unbound to be used by the user for his own
95 * A new tab mode, which uses the previous line as a template
97 * Fixed action `open_under_cursor'.
98 * The `mp.paste()' function returns the clipboard content
99 as a string if called without arguments.
100 * New Grutatxt syntax highlighter.
102 * Fix a bug when calculating the drawing position in the
103 selected block, that were leading to crashes.
108 * A new Qt4 driver (adapted from the KDE4 driver).
109 * A new hexadecimal viewer.
110 * New action `open_dropped_files', to open files dropped from
111 the underlying system GUI.
112 * Improved file encoding autodetection by looking at the
114 * New configuration option `keep_eol', to keep the original
115 end of line sequence each document had.
116 * Fixed some clipboard issues, as replacing the selected block
117 when pasting and some crashes.
118 * win32 executable has been renamed to `mp-5.exe'.
119 * The status line format string can also include the %e token
120 to show the encoding used by the document.
121 * Fixed win32 input processing in non-latin environments.
122 * Setting an empty encoding (to fall back to system defaults)
128 * The `grep' action can now be recursive.
129 * New syntax color for special documentation blocks.
130 * Fix searching into empty selected blocks (this was bug #1269).
131 * New action `section_list', that shows a list of _sections_
132 in the current document to jump to. Sections are usually
133 function definitions and special marks in programming
135 * New action `seek_misspelled', to search the next
136 misspelled word. It has been assigned to keycode `f5'.
137 * New action `ignore_last_misspell', to add the last misspelled
138 word found by `seek_misspelled' to a whitelist so it won't
140 * New action `seek_repeated_word', to search for words starting
141 or ending with the same number of letters up to a maximum
142 distance. It's controlled by the new configuration directives
143 `mp.config.rw_num_chars' and `mp.config.rw_max_dist'.
144 It has been assigned to keycode `f6' (this keycode was
145 previously assigned to `join_paragraph', which has no
147 * The action `open_templates_file' has been fixed.
148 * Several GTK interface updates by fellow developer Sebastian Vöcking.
149 * New command line option `-d', to change the working directory.
150 * Several fixes to the win32 driver; word wrapping, combobox
151 drop-down sizes, underlined text.
152 * Avoid hanging if the external ispell program is broken.
153 * The `dump()' function now dumps its argument as MPSL code.
158 * Internationalization works in all platforms (including KDE4,
159 were it was faulty, and win32, where it was non-existent since
161 * The status line format string can also include the %w token
162 to show the number of words in the current document or selection
164 * Search and replace is now limited to the selected block, if any.
169 Fixes to the KDE4 driver:
171 * Underlined text works.
172 * Text fields in forms now have history.
173 * If no xserver can be contacted, fall back to the curses interface.
179 * Rectangular block copy/paste support.
180 * New syntax highlight for the Euphoria language.
185 * New action `open_under_cursor', that picks the word in the
186 current document under the cursor, accepts it as a document
187 name and tries to open it. If it's in the format string:number,
188 is accepted as a file name and a line number. It's bound by
189 default to `ctrl-enter' (`alt-enter' under Curses).
190 * The `grep' action bevahaviour has changed; instead of in a form,
191 matches are shown in a read-only document that is only closed
192 explicitly. Each change can be moved to by using the new
193 `open_under_cursor' (`ctrl-enter' or `alt-enter') action shown above.
194 * In a similar way, the `build' action also shows its output in a
195 read-only document instead of a form that is not automatically closed,
196 making the browsing and editing of compilation errors more useful.
197 * Forms in the Curses driver have changed their look. All fields in a
198 form are shown simultaneously on screen. This is one step to close
200 * A set of character encoding converters have been natively implemented,
201 improving those platforms where the 'iconv' library is not available
202 (i.e. Windows and old Unix systems). The available encodings can be
205 dump(EMBEDDED_ENCODINGS);
210 * New option to mark end of line characters, with its associated
211 configuration directive (mp.config.mark_eol).
212 * The end of line string (mp.config.eol) is now system-dependent (so,
213 on win32, it's set by default to \r\n).
214 * Copy and paste on GTK has been fixed (this was bug #1205).
215 * Fixed some redrawing issues (bug #1236 and others).
216 * Ctrl-keys no longer fail on GTK (bug #1252).
217 * New document _Minimum Profit Action Reference_.
218 * New action `build', for building Makefile-based projects. See the
219 action reference for details.
224 * Improved line edition in the Curses interface (full edition plus file
225 expansion using the `tab' key in open / save file prompts).
226 * Auto-indenting is temporarily disabled while pasting (bug #1250).
227 * New document _Minimum Profit Function Reference_ (contributed by Lee Page).
232 * The search hit is highlighted.
233 * When invoked from the menu, the `record_macro' action dropped
234 the last key (bug #1245).
235 * A Curses configuration detection has been fixed that made
236 some things behave strangely, as the drop-down menu not
237 responding under some terminal configurations (bug #1247).
238 * The Curses menu no longer crashes if it doesn't fit on
239 the screen (bug #1195).
240 * The -f (execute script) command line argument really works
242 * New manual page (bug #1219) and README files (bug #1218).
243 * Updated documents, _MPSL Overview_ and _Minimum Profit Cookbook_.
244 * New documents, _Minimum Profit Data Model_ and
245 _Creating interactive dialog boxes_.
250 * New session support. All open documents and its current position
251 can be stored / retrieved with the new `save_session' and
252 `load_session' actions. Two new configuration flags has
253 been added: `mp.config.auto_sessions', to automatically load / save
254 sessions, and `mp.config.local_sessions', to save sessions in the
255 currently active directory instead of in the home directory.
256 * Multiple key sequences for invoking actions (ala Emacs) are
257 now possible. To create them, just assign a hash to a keycode
258 instead of an action. For example, to assign the key sequence
259 Ctrl-x Ctrl-f to `open' and Ctrl-x Ctrl-s to `save', you can use
261 mp.keycodes['ctrl-x'] = {
266 * In the curses version, confirmations now have default values
267 (shown in brackets), activated with the ENTER key.
268 * New action `close_all', that closes all documents.
273 * New `complete' action, that asks for completion on the current
274 word using any of the words found in the same document.
275 * New `redo' action, to revert undo operations.
276 * The global configuration file `/etc/mp.mpsl' is also executed.
277 * In the `replace' action, the substitution string can contain
278 the special character &, that will be replaced by the matched
279 string (as in the `sed' command line tool).
284 * New support for translating key sequences into MP keycodes, mainly
285 for redefining ANSI sequences not supported by current terminfo /
286 termcap. For example, if your terminal sends the ANSI sequence [6;5~
287 whenever you press Ctrl+page down, you can add to your config file
290 mp.add_keyseq("[6;5~", 'ctrl-page-down');
292 * A new `system_command' action, to pipe from and to system commands
294 * A new `word_count' action, to count the number of lines and words
295 in a document (or in the selected block).
296 * Incorrect word wrapping has been fixed (Closed bug #1137).
297 * Search and replace expand backslashed characters like \n and \t
299 * New timer functionality has been added; a user function can be called
300 each time a specified period of milliseconds have elapsed. If, for
301 example, you want to print a string on standard output each two
304 mp.timer(2000, sub { print("Hi, world!\n"); });
309 * Password-protected files fully work.
310 * Moving to next / previous instance of character (bound to ctrl-page-down
311 and ctrl-page-up) works (Closed bug #1131).
312 * Files open MUCH faster.
313 * Selection can be done by pressing shift + any movement key (Closed bug #1182).
314 * Dialog boxes work under Windows 98 (Closed bugs #1196, #1197).
315 * Block selection can be done by dragging the mouse (Closed bugs #1200, #1201).
316 * New `grep' functionality (Closed bug #1116).
317 * New action `sync' (save all modified documents, closed bug #1206).
318 * New action `document_list' (show a box with all open documents, allowing
319 the selection of the active one; closed bug #1211).
320 * Translations ported from mp 3.x (closed bug #1169).
321 * Most syntax highlight definitions ported from mp 3.x (closed bug #1168).
326 * The menu in the Curses interface has been (finally) implemented.
327 * Interfaces have changed internally; a new driver function, mp.drv.form()
328 serves as a dialog box generic generator, resulting in more useful queries
329 for data (for example, all data required for a `replace' operation is
330 queried in only one dialog box). The Curses implementation, though
331 functional, is still just a wrapper to the old interface functions
332 and fields are queried one-by-one (which is annoying). This is an example
333 of a call to mp.drv.form(); the r variable will contain an array of 5
334 elements (one per widget) containing the values, or NULL if user cancelled:
336 local r = mp.drv.form( [
338 /* a 'text' widget */
339 { 'label' => "Replace this:",
341 'history' => 'search',
345 { 'label' => "With:",
347 'history' => 'replace',
350 /* a 'password' widget */
351 { 'label' => 'Password:',
352 'type' => 'password' },
354 /* a 'checkbox' widget */
355 { 'label' => "Case sensitive:",
356 'type' => 'checkbox',
357 'value' => mp.config.case_sensitive_search },
359 /* a 'list' widget */
360 { 'label' => 'All C files:',
362 'list' => glob('*.c'),
366 * Password protecting files works (but they cannot be opened yet, so this
367 is far from useful, unless you use mp 3.x to open them).
368 * Case sensitivity in searches can be controlled with the new
369 config flag mp.config.case_sensitive_search.
370 * Replace (and global replace by use of the new config flag
371 `mp.config.global_replace') works.
376 * Syntax highlight definition have changed (again, hopefully for the last
377 time). Definitions are now an array of attribute name / regexes in which
378 the order is significative.
379 * Template insertion works.
380 * Tag selection (open the file where a symbol is defined) works.
381 * Symbol completion (using tags) works.
382 * Closed bugs #1159, #1158, #1153, #1161.
387 * A big advance in the Curses interface; alerts, confirmations, and open
388 file, save file, search and generic prompts are working. Still lacking
389 the selection lists (as the rest of interfaces) and the menu.
390 * Improved menus; if an invalid action is added to a menu, it's shown
391 followed by a ?; if a key is bound to that action, it's shown between
393 * For systems lacking iconv support (MS Windows), a crappy, ad-hoc utf-8
394 converter has been added. This means that hitting `escape' and typing
395 `encoding('utf-8');' makes reading and writing utf-8 encoded files
396 possible on every system.
397 * New action `join_paragraph', to join current paragraph all in one line.
398 * New action `word_wrap_paragraph', that re-word-wraps current paragraph.
399 Word wrapping must be set ('mp.config.word_wrap = number;') for this to
405 * The GTK and win32 drivers now include a native open/save file dialog.
406 * Interactive help (help for the word under the cursor, triggered by
407 pressing `f1') works.
408 * The menu in GTK and win32 works.
410 * Some bugs that caused random crashes has been fixed.
411 * New action `exec-doc', that executes the active open document as
417 * New configuration option `mp.config.tabs_as_spaces', to store tabs
419 * Each syntax highlight definition can contain an optional function
420 called detect() that receives the document as argument and can be used
421 to tailor special detection rules.
422 * A big part of the internal storage of colors and attributes have
423 been rewritten to make it more dynamic.
424 * Tag target for the word over the cursor is shown in the status line.
425 * Move word left works.
426 * Opening an already open file makes it the active one instead of
428 * The `execute code' action has been remapped from `ctrl-f1' to escape.
429 * Spellchecking via ispell works (though it's SLOW!). Activate it by
430 hitting escape and typing:
434 * By default, files are now unlinked before (re)written. File permissions
435 and ownership are restored if available. This behaviour can be disabled
436 by setting `mp.config.unlink' to zero.
437 * The GTK driver drawing code has been optimized, so it's much more
443 * The `modified' flag of documents is maintained, so now closing files
444 with pending modifications ask for confirmation. Also, the %m status
445 line directive works (marking modified files with an asterisk).
446 * Flex and bison are no longer needed to build.
447 * The `close window' button in GUIs (win32 and GTK) now generate the
448 special keycode `close-window'.
449 * The `exit' action now closes all open documents, asking for saving
450 confirmation on those modified.
451 * Temporary versions of the `open' ans `save' actions (using
452 mp.drv.readline() instead of an ad-hoc open file dialog) have
454 * The GUI interfaces now can have their font preferences configured
455 by using mp.config.font_face and mp.config.font_size.
456 * The actions `zoom-in' and `zoom-out' (font size rescaling, bound to
457 `f11/f12' and `ctrl-kp-minus/ctrl-kp-plus') have been implemented.
458 * New mouse-related actions; `move-to-mouse-position', `move-mouse-wheel-up'
459 and `move-mouse-wheel-down'.
464 This is an EXPERIMENTAL version for evaluation purposes only. There are
465 many things that aren't implemented, others fail miserably and many more
466 do it incorrectly. Basically, what is known to work is:
468 * Basic text editing fully works. I've been using it for six months or so
469 to maintain itself, and there has not been a crash in three months,
471 * Scripting works fine (90% of Minimum Profit 5.x itself is implemented
472 in MPSL, its internal scripting language).
473 * Undo works fine. It's bound to ctrl-z.
474 * Works cleanly in an UTF-8 environment.
476 I do development on the GTK version, so it's where it works best. The
477 curses version lacks many of the interface (alerts, confirmations,
478 asking for text, etc.), so it's barely usable. The win32 version seem
479 to work, but it needs to be manually installed and probably need some
482 What it doesn't work:
484 * The dialogs to open or save a file by its name aren't implemented.
485 There are workarounds for this: files can be opened from the command
486 line and save works correctly if the edited file has a name. Also,
487 files can be opened by hitting `ctrl-f1' (execute script code) and
490 mp.open("file-to-be-opened");
494 * No password protected files.
496 * No external commands (so no support for help, tags, etc.).
497 * Some movement commands as moving a word left, moving to matching
498 brackets, etc. are still not implemented.
499 * Only a few syntax highlight definitions are implemented.
500 * Many other things I cannot remember.
502 Documentation is still scarce: the more interesting bits are inside the
503 mpsl/doc directory. This is where the scripting language is documented,
504 with some basic overviews and implementation notes (there is even an
505 embryo of a PostScript quick reference guide).
507 Customizing can be done by writing MPSL commands in the ~/.mp.mpsl file,
508 which is read on startup.
510 I have not tried to optimize the internal engine, so it's probably some
511 magnitudes slower than the 3.x version.