Programmable Function Keys

Usually, keyboards have the F keys F1 to F12. Regardless of how many such keys there are, pressing any of them has to be registered as an action and sent to the program exaEdit to make them available for exaEdit. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. You can test whether the F keys are available. The keys F7, F8, F10, and F11 have to result in one of the exaEdit commands to browse half of or a full page (e.g. -7 for F7 in a window with 24 lines). The remaining F keys result in the message:

F-key is not defined

First, a simple example: You want to change in a workfile in every tenth line the digit 3 to a 7. For this purpose you could give the command line

next 10; change /3/7/

as often as you need it. A facilitation for this are the command storages X and Y (compare the previous section or The Commands in Detail). But it is even more easy to reserve one of the F keys for the command sequence, for example the key F1. To do this, you have to type the line

n10;c/3/7

and press the F1 key afterwards, instead of the return key. As a result of your success, you receive the message

F-key now defined

Every time you press the key F1, the stored command line is executed.

The contents of F keys are not particularly protected. This means that a F key receives a new content if you enter something and press the F key again.

The contents of the F keys are the same for any workfile of your exaEdit session. When you leave exaEdit, they are lost.

Besides the easy usage of the F keys described above, there are more possibilities, for which you need the command PFK (`program function key'). PFK is explained in detail in section The Commands in Detail; here there is only the most essential information.

With

pfk n ?

you see the content of the F key n. If you omit the number n, you see the content of any F key with some content. The question mark is also dispensable.

With

pfk n lock

you protect the content of the F key n. This means that it will not be definable by entering commands and pressing this key. This protects the F key from involuntary setting. You can set it back to the unprotected state with

pfk n unlock

You can also set the F key n with the command PFK.

pfk n set /.../

Between the dashes, which may be replaced by any other separator, as usual, there is the content of the key. When you use PFK SET, the key is put into the protected mode automatically.

The defining of F keys with PFK SET is the only possibility to combine exaEdit functions (compare section exaEdit Functions) with F keys. For example, if the Entf or Del key is missing on your keyboard or it is not handed over to exaEdit or it has another function, then you can define its original function, namely to delete the character behind the cursor, by using

pfk 1 set /'del'/

to the key F1.