Is anyone using PSpad for NFO editing?

[AndersI]

I just took a quick look at the free PSpad text editor (http://www.pspad.com/en/) and it seems there are quite a lot of possibilities in that editor.

The syntax coloring plus the Clips, Interactive Clips and Scripts seems like a good foundation for a specialized NFO text editor. It also seems quite possible to start grfcodec (and other programs, like NFOrenum) from inside the editor, in effect creating an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for NFO.

Is anyone already using it for NFO editing? Has anyone created any macros/clips/scripts to ease NFO editing?

[Zephyris]

I havn't had any experience with PSPad, but what you are suggesting is very promising, especially features like 1 click renumbering/encoding and syntax highlighting.
I have tried a similar thing with Notepad++, but didn't get very far. I (just about) got it recognising some different actions, but I really struggled with more useful features like highlighting the vehicle ID in each action - does PSPad have good support for contextual highlighting?

[minime]

I use it - the highlighting and autocompletion are handy, but I didn't bother trying to integrate other apps into it... running make from a shell is just as convenient.

[AndersI]

but I really struggled with more useful features like highlighting the vehicle ID in each action - does PSPad have good support for contextual highlighting?

Yes and no. It has built in parsers for a lot of languages, but there's no plugin system for new parsers. So forget the highlighting of vehicle ID. You can configure colors for the 'standard' parser (four categories of reserved words, numbers, comments, special chars and 'the rest'). Doesn't really work for hex numbers without special markers, though.

I've got the external programs working now, so I can edit the NFO, one click runs NFORenum on the current file, one click more reloads the fixed file. Grfcodec is set up as the compiler, and that part works one-click too.

Took a look at the Interactive Clips - I can set up a macro that shows a dialog with edit boxes, combo boxes, image file dialogs etc. that ends up generating the beginning of an Action1.

But... The clips macros have no support for variables or conditionals, so the combo boxes and edit boxes can only show/enter the exact text that should be put in the NFO - not much gained, unfortunately.

Next I will study the scripting a bit, but it really looks like it would be easier to write something directly in Delphi, rather than try to work around limitations in PSPad macros and scripts. There is a free editor control - SynEdit - available for Delphi (actually, PSPad is built around it) so getting something equal to Notepad up and running should only take ten minutes, then I could start thinking about the coloring parser...

[michael blunck]

I´m using it (besides notepad++ and some other editors/tools).

IMO, best thing in PSpad is the possibility to have "projects", i.e. sets of data files which you may organize and edit as a whole, e.g. text search & exchange in all project files in one click. All in all, it´s a powerful tool, but a little bit cluttered, IMO.

Well, colouring ... Except from highlighting comments, that´s more or less useless for .nfo, don´t you think?

regards
Michael

[minime]

Well, my code uses a lot of macros, and it comes in handy with that (see picture).

The projects part is really handy, since I can organize all the files that the source code consists of.

[AndersI]

What macro pre-processor are you using?

[minime]

Custom one, that I've cobbled together some time ago for just this purpose. There's also an accompanying library of macros.