Vedit is a commercial

text editor A text editor is a type of computer program that edits plain text. Such programs are sometimes known as "notepad" software (e.g. Windows Notepad). Text editors are provided with operating systems and software development packages, and can be ...

for

8080 The Intel 8080 (''"eighty-eighty"'') is the second 8-bit microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel. It first appeared in April 1974 and is an extended and enhanced variant of the earlier 8008 design, although without binary compatibil ...

Z-80 The Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor introduced by Zilog as the startup company's first product. The Z80 was conceived by Federico Faggin in late 1974 and developed by him and his 11 employees starting in early 1975. The first working samples w ...

-based systems, Microsoft Windows and MS-DOS from Greenview Data, Inc. Vedit was one of the pioneers in visual editing. It used a command set resembling TECO.

History

Vedit (Visual Editor) was created by Ted Green in 1979. It was commercially published by CompuView in 1980 for

CP/M CP/M, originally standing for Control Program/Monitor and later Control Program for Microcomputers, is a mass-market operating system created in 1974 for Intel 8080/ 85-based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc. Initi ...

operating system running on

Z80 The Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor introduced by Zilog as the startup company's first product. The Z80 was conceived by Federico Faggin in late 1974 and developed by him and his 11 employees starting in early 1975. The first working samples were ...

based computers. When the

IBM-PC The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a team ...

was introduced, Vedit was one of the first applications available for it in 1982. Versions of Vedit were available for

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...

, CP/M-86 and CSP DOS. During the following years, versions were developed for

OS/2 OS/2 (Operating System/2) is a series of computer operating systems, initially created by Microsoft and IBM under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci. As a result of a feud between the two companies over how to position OS/2 r ...

Xenix Xenix is a discontinued version of the Unix operating system for various microcomputer platforms, licensed by Microsoft from AT&T Corporation in the late 1970s. The Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) later acquired exclusive rights to the software, and ...

SCO Unix Xinuos OpenServer, previously SCO UNIX and SCO Open Desktop (SCO ODT), is a closed source computer operating system developed by Santa Cruz Operation (SCO), later acquired by SCO Group, and now owned by Xinuos. Early versions of OpenServer were ...

and

QNX QNX ( or ) is a commercial Unix-like real-time operating system, aimed primarily at the embedded systems market. QNX was one of the first commercially successful microkernel operating systems. The product was originally developed in the early ...

. On QNX, Vedit was supplied as standard editor. Vedit was sold in three versions: Vedit Jr, Vedit and Vedit Plus. Later, the first two were dropped and Vedit Plus was renamed to just Vedit. CompuView was shut down in 1989, but a new company, Greenview Data, continued the development of Vedit starting from 1990. The first Windows version (Vedit Plus 5.0) was published in 1997. 32-bit Windows version (v5.1) was published in 1998. 64-bit Vedit Pro64 was published in 2003. It uses 64-bit addresses and data handling to support files larger than 2GB, but does not require a 64-bit processor or 64-bit OS. Development and marketing of Unix, QNX etc. versions were gradually stopped. DOS-version has still been developed in parallel with Windows version and both have the same functions (as much as possible). DOS version is no longer sold separately or supported, but it is still packaged with the Windows versions. On February 2008, Greenview Data announced that the old CP/M and CP/M-86 versions of Vedit can be freely shared. With version 6.20.1 (May 2011) the old

Windows Help Microsoft WinHelp is a proprietary format for online help files that can be displayed by the Microsoft Help browser ''winhelp.exe'' or ''winhlp32.exe''. The file format is based on Rich Text Format (RTF). It remained a popular Help platform from ...

system was replaced with

HTML Help Microsoft Compiled HTML Help is a Microsoft proprietary online help format, consisting of a collection of HTML pages, an index and other navigation tools. The files are compressed and deployed in a binary format with the extension .CHM, for Comp ...

system in to support 64-bit versions of Windows (Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8/8.1 and Windows 10). Greenview Data, Inc was purchased in March of 2017, by Zix Corp. The status of Vedit is unknown at this time, but there has not been an update since 2015.

Technology

The CP/M and DOS versions of Vedit were written entirely in Assembly language. The Windows version was written mostly in Assembly, but the user interface has been written in C. Vedit uses its own file buffering which is faster than the virtual memory of Windows. When editing large files, only part of the file is loaded in the memory at a time and temporary files are created only as needed. Thus, dozens of gigabyte files can be open simultaneously on 32-bit Windows.

Features

* Vedit can edit any readable file, including database, binary and

EBCDIC Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code (EBCDIC; ) is an eight- bit character encoding used mainly on IBM mainframe and IBM midrange computer operating systems. It descended from the code used with punched cards and the corresponding ...

files and huge files. The largest file size for standard version of Vedit is 2 GB. * DOS, Unix and Mac files can be edited and are automatically detected. *

FTP The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard communication protocol used for the transfer of computer files from a server to a client on a computer network. FTP is built on a client–server model architecture using separate control and data ...

editing allows editing files on remote computer. * Multiple files can be edited using

tabbed document interface In interface design, a tab is a graphical user interface object that allows multiple documents or panels to be contained within a single window, using tabs as a navigational widget for switching between sets of documents. It is an interface s ...

Multiple document interface A multiple-document interface (MDI) is a graphical user interface in which multiple windows reside under a single parent window. Such systems often allow child windows to embed other windows inside them as well, creating complex nested hierarchies ...

or any mixture of them. * Vedit has project support. Opening a project automatically loads all the files, file list, settings and session details. * Vedit's search function supports both

regular expression A regular expression (shortened as regex or regexp; sometimes referred to as rational expression) is a sequence of characters that specifies a search pattern in text. Usually such patterns are used by string-searching algorithms for "find" ...

s and its own pattern matching codes. * ''Wildfile'' function allows you to perform searches, search/replace operations, filtering, run commands or macros on a set of files on disk recursively. * Block operations can be performed using Windows Clipboard or one of Vedit's 100 internal text registers. Columnar blocks are supported. * For

programmers A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software. A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...

, Vedit has features such as

syntax highlighting Syntax highlighting is a feature of text editors that are used for programming, scripting, or markup languages, such as HTML. The feature displays text, especially source code, in different colours and fonts according to the category of terms ...

, bracket matching, template editing, auto indent, compiler support, function select and

Ctags Ctags is a programming tool that generates an index (or tag) file of names found in source and header files of various programming languages to aid code comprehension. Depending on the language, functions, variables, class members, macros a ...

support. Language support can be extended. * Vedit features an interpreted C-like macro language used to write a part of its built-in functions. It can be used for extending the editor's functionality. * Event macros * Vedit can be installed on and run directly from

USB flash drive Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply ( interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A bro ...

or CD-ROM.

Documentation

Vedit comes with

online help Online help is topic-oriented, procedural or reference information delivered through computer software. It is a form of user assistance. The purpose of most online help is to assist in using a software application, web application or operating sys ...

and interactive

tutorial A tutorial, in education, is a method of transferring knowledge and may be used as a part of a learning process. More interactive and specific than a book or a lecture, a tutorial seeks to teach by example and supply the information to complete ...

.
In addition, there are two PDF manuals: User's Manual (449 pages) and Macro Language Manual (305 pages). The manuals are, in addition, available as printed books. More support can be found on the User Forum.

Limitations

* Current version of Vedit does not support Unicode editing. However, Vedit can convert Unicode files to Windows or

OEM An original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is generally perceived as a company that produces non-aftermarket parts and equipment that may be marketed by another manufacturer. It is a common industry term recognized and used by many professional or ...

(DOS) character set and vice versa.

References

External links

* {{Official website, www.vedit.com
QNX man page for Vedit
Windows text editors CP/M software Portable software Hex editors