Just read a nice post by Jeff Atwood (of the Coding Error blog) regarding programming fonts for use in IDE's/programmers editors.

Well worth a visit to see for yourself how each font Jeff selected looks like in an editor.

Block Selection

Block (rectangular) selections are available in Twistpad by pressing the [ALT] key on the keyboard and select the text with the mouse.

Alternatively you can make a block selection only using the keyboard. Press the [SHIFT] and the [ALT] key, and use the arrow keys to make the selection you wish.



Copying the block selection text to the clipboard, and pasting will make the pasted text be aware that the it must be pasted in block, aligning with the current text.

Formatting functions like uppercase, comment/uncomment and indent block will only be applied to the block selection and not to the line like a normal selection.

Please note that block selection is not available when the editor is in word wrap mode.

Searching in currently open files

Twistpad find dialog only allows search's in the active document.

To search in all open documents, use the the find in files command with the option "Search in current opened files" selected:



Twistpad will limit the search to the active document files (using the text buffer) and will include any non-saved files.

Likewise, the option "Search in current project" will only search in files that belong to the currently loaded project.

As you may or may not know, DeskTask works only in Windows Vista if the Windows Aero interface is turned off.

After some tests, I've found out that child windows have no ability to be transparent.

DeskTask attach's itself as a desktop window child so that it stays
"pinned" to the Desktop. However with Aero on, since the window is transparent, is not shown. Disabling the transparency it works OK.

So after a lot of tests, I've found out that either DeskTask is pinned to the desktop without transparency, or is transparent but acts as a normal window (it's not attached to the Desktop). Neither solution suits what I originally wanted for DeskTask, so as it is, a new version is postponed until a solution is found.

If you are a programmer and may have useful hints regarding this problem don't hesitate to contact me.

for Windows Vista and Outlook users, I recommend taking a look on
this Gadget for the Vista Side Bar

Sending your (formatted) code via e-mail

Twistpad allows you to copy the current contents of the editor using HTML in order to preserve the formatting (syntax highlight).

Simply select the text you want to copy and select, from the edit menu, Copy as HTML.

You can paste the copied block in an email client that supports HTML encoded messages like Microsoft Outlook.


Please note that in Microsoft Outlook, you have to select HTML as the
format. Also the editor font is important, if you use something like in the screenshot below (Consolas font is used), the person receiving the mail should have it installed.

Safely Replacing in files

Twistpad allows batch find replace operations in files. However replacing in files, if anything goes wrong, can be dangerous.
(a user mistake, replacing in the wrong place, etc)

Before starting any batch replace in files, make sure you have a backup of the folder(s) (does not have to be in a DVD or external disc, a simple copy to another location on the Hard disk should be safe)

However Twistpad does have a feature that does minimize the risk of replacing, which is the "Keep modified files opened after replace"



This feature, instead of silently opening the file, replacing and saving, opens the file in the editor, makes the replace(s), and does not save, leaving the file open and modified so that user can review the changes made and safely save or discard. This should not be practical for thousands of replaces in thousands of files, but should be useful (and safe) for most replace in files operations.

Opening your documents in other applications.

There are several ways to quickly open the current document in another application.
(An HTML document in the active browser for instance)

a) You can configure the open with command, simply point to the menu "Tools" - "open with" add a program (which will stay selected in the list for future sessions) and press open. Your file will be loaded in the specified program.

b) Click on the shell icon on the status bar, the shell menu will be shown, where you can open the document in one of the pre-defined windows applications for that file type, or choose open with.

c) For HTML previews, you can also download and install the preview in web browser plug-in , which places a new command to open the currently selected document in the default browser.

As you may or may not know, Delphi Applications have some problems when the new Aero interface is turned on in Windows Vista.

In the current version of Twistpad, when clicking with the keys WIN+Tab (Flip3D) no preview is shown just the application icon, the same goes with the new preview tooltip in the Windows Taskbar and the minimize effect.

Twistpad 1.59 address's this issues and is now displayed correctly on the new fancy Vista features


Preview of the wistpad window contents when Twistpad is minimized



Correct Maximize and minimize animations



Contents displayed in Flip3D

There are still some other minor issues with the tool windows, that will be addressed in future versions.

Hi,

A little talk about our method of versioning our applications.

Versioning applications sometimes might scare casual users, I mean, version 1.4.443.621 build 1493 of application X can cause confusion.

At Carthago and since Windows supports the standard x.x.x.x (Major.Minor.Release.Build) our approach was to make use of this numbers but on a different basis for release and build.

For Major and Minor, it's pretty much the same as the windows standard, Major for major changes and Minor when there are significant changes. As for the release, in our case, it's for new features, but not significative ones. Build is used to identify the service release number (a Service Release usually contains just bug fixes to the current version).

So to simplify identifying a version, instead of showing as 1.4.3.2 the version is displayed as 1.43 SR2

After recently annoucing that Twistpad would no longer be supported in the 9x Platforms, NT support have been dropped too.

Some changes would have to be made to support NT, particulary the data files location, and sincerly does anyone still uses Windows NT this days? Windows 9x I can understand since it runs some games better then 2000/XP , but Windows NT looks so outdated that it was not justified to keep support for it.