TED - Advanced Text Editor for UNIX
This page is devoted to the free version of TED for Linux. See
history for details.
Beta version of TED for Windows NT is available here.
What's New
The current version number of TED for Linux is 2.1.2 (formerly 2.1b).
The list of changes from previous version(s) is available
here.
Download Ted for Linux on Intel platform:
Version without X Window system support (868632 bytes).
Version with X Window system support (905515 bytes).
Download Ted for RedHat 7.0:
Version without X Window system support (891499 bytes).
Version with X Window system support (933585 bytes).
General description
TED is a multi-purpose text editor with IDE (integrated
development environment) features for UNIX-like operating systems.
It is not a word processor although it does provide some word
processing facilities. TED has no internal restrictions on file length
or line length.
TED works:
- on conventional text terminals (e.g. vt100, wyse60),
including the terminal emulators (e.g. xterm). Under Linux it uses
termcap as a database of terminal capabilities;
- on IBM PC with the full support of mouse, multi-color, various video-modes and scan-codes;
- as a native Xlib application under X Window system.
TED for Linux is available on Intel platform in two versions:
- The version without X Window system support - works on
text terminals, emulators (including "xterm") and IBM PC;
- The versions with X Window system support - works
on text terminals, IBM PC and under X Window system.
Executable file automatically recognizes the execution
environment or you can explicitly specify it from the command
line.
TED requires approximately 2.5 Mb of disk space and runs on any
IBM PC-compatible computer with 386 processor or higher under Linux
operating system (tested on kernels greater than 1.3.70).
Features
TED provides the following features and capabilities:
- Intuitive user-friendly interface. It will speed
up your work with automatic command and file name completion,
default inputs, input history lists, automatic saving/restoring
editor configuration feature. Depending on terminal type the editor can
support mouse with graphic mouse cursor emulation, multi-color mode,
scan-codes, various video-modes and screen font downloading.
- Powerful multi-window system. You can use
movable and resizable windows to view and edit different parts of
the same document or several documents at a time.
- Customizable multi-level menu system with
hot-keys and shortcuts.
- Multiple window search and replace operations,
incremental search, full support of regular expressions.
- Various text region operations: copying, moving,
deleting, wrapping, formatting, filtering through UNIX commands.
TED automatically remembers last 10 text regions in the
clipboard. TED supports stream and rectangular text regions.
- Simple formatting facilities: word wrapping and
justifying with left and right text margins, automatic word
wrapping mode, automatic paragraphs and sentences recognitions,
character case conversions.
- C programming language support: construct
matching (parentheses, comments, #if/#endif), smart indentation,
use of tag files for fast search of function definitions,
compilation errors processing, support for full-screen debugging,
syntax templates using abbreviations. Construct matching is available
and useful with other languages like Java, Perl, Awk, etc.
- Automatic file type recognition. Currently UNIX, MAC
and DOS types are supported. You can manually set or change the type of
the current file.
- File manager: a powerful tool that can help you
organize your files and directories. It implements the basic file
operations like copying, renaming, removing, file mode setting,
searching for files.
- Interface with UNIX: ability to run any UNIX
command and get its results in editor's window. You may also run
shell from within editor's window and interact with it, run most
of UNIX commands, view and edit their output, send signals to
them.
- Standard spell checking program support (spell
and ispell). You can check spelling of a single word or whole
text. With ispell which is included in all major Linux
distributions TED can give you a list of
suggestions for each incorrect word.
- On-line context-sensitive hypertext help system
available at any time.
- Working with abbreviations, which can be automatically
expanded to their full value. You can use abbreviations to store and insert
pieces of text you often use. Abbreviations in TED are case-smart.
- Keyboard macros. You can record a sequence of
any keystrokes and run it with a single key, save it in file for
later use, or bind a macro to any abbreviation.
- Undo/Redo facility. You can define the size of
undo buffer yourself.
- Fully redefinable keyboard. You can bind editor's commands and macros
to any key sequence to meet your requirements.
- The editor is binary-clean and 8-bit clean.
- Session information recovery after software or hardware failure.
- Bilingual support: if you are using two languages while working
in the editor, you can easily switch between them and customize the keyboard
layout to your needs.
- Built-in line-mode calculator which supports a lot of
mathematical functions.
- Lines, borders, boxes: there is a convenient facility for
bordering tables, drawing boxes and lines anywhere in your document.
- Flexible printer support. You can use either
standard UNIX print services or direct output to the printer with
customizable page formatting and optional font downloading.
- X Window system support. You can operate with mouse,
choose any fixed-width font, setup colors in resource file.
Installation
In order to start installation you have to download one of the available
variants (which are ZIP-ped self-extracting archives),
unzip the downloaded file into a temporary directory,
make the unzipped file executable (chmod +x ted.exe)
and run it as superuser (root).
The installation program will:
- Create the directories /usr/local/bin and /usr/local/lib/ted, if
necessary.
- Put all TED auxiliary files (startup, menu, help, readme, etc) into
/usr/local/lib/ted.
- Put TED executable file (ted or tedx11, depending on selected variant)
into /usr/local/bin.
- Create symbolic link to TED executable in /usr/bin.
- Set "set user ID" bit in file mode of an executable file.
In order to access video memory and IO ports of
IBM PC video adapter TED must internally switch
between priviledged and non-priviledged mode.
It doesn't create any security problems.
TED can work without superuser privileges but
all IBM PC-related features will be disabled.
- Run "setup" program. You will be able to choose your language (for now,
only English and Russian languages are available) and character set,
mouse and print settings through simple menu system.
Use may also want to install TED into another directory.
To do that you have to set the environment variable TEDLIB to
the name of destination directory before you run the installation program:
export TEDLIB=<your_directory_here>
for CSH, TCSH users:
setenv TEDLIB <your_directory_here>
If the installation ends with the message
"Invalid activation key or violation of the installation procedure",
it means that you've got a partially downloaded file. Please repeat the download.
De-installation
- Delete TEDLIB directory:
rm -rf /usr/local/lib/ted
- Delete the executables:
rm -f /usr/local/bin/ted /usr/local/bin/tedx11
- Delete symbolic or hard links to the executables (if any):
rm -f /usr/bin/ted /usr/bin/tedx11
- Delete the personal startup files:
rm -f ~/.ted*
FAQ
For the full list of Q&A please read file
/usr/local/lib/ted/FAQ.english. The following list contains
Linux-specific Q&A only.
Q: If I hold ALT and sequentally press F1, F2, etc. I can switch
between virtual consoles, but when I come to TED screen
it behaves as if ALT is not pressed. Why?
A: Because (at least for current version of Linux) there is no way
to find out the current set of pressed modifier keys (SHIFT, ALT, CTRL)
when program's virtual console is being activated. Workaround: You have to release
ALT and press it again.
Q: Why does my mouse behave erratically or doesn't work at all?
A: Either you selected an incorrect mouse type (say, Microsoft instead of
Mouse Systems) or TED cannot open the mouse device (usually /dev/mouse)
because you do not have an access to it
or another program like "gpm" runs. Workaround: You may disable
mouse support in TED if you run it with option "-mouse".
Additionally, if you're running "gpm" you may use the following
shell script in order to start TED:
gpm -k
ted $*
gpm
Unfortunately, it requires "root" privileges.
Q: How to "compile" perl scripts and parse error messages ?
A:
set-variable compile-command perl -cw !f
set-variable error-format at \([^ ]+\) line \([^ ]+\)\|had compilation errors
Screen Shots
Click here to view a couple of TED screenshots taken
from IBM PC screen.
History
TED has been developed in 1993-1994 while I was working in
the Russian software company Eagle Dynamics Ltd.
The editor has a status of commercial
product available for various UNIX platforms.
In 1996 I've got a permission from the company to
maintain a free version of TED for
Linux operating system. This fully functional version is distributed in
binary-only form and without printed documentation.
E-mail
If you have any questions or comments regarding TED for Linux,
please send e-mail to kpdus@yahoo.com.
Disclaimer
Copyright Eagle Dynamics Ltd. 1995, P. Kouznetsov 1997. All rights reserved.
This program is free for commercial and non-commercial use.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY EAGLE DYNAMICS LTD AND PAVEL KOUZNETSOV
``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING,
BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
SUCH DAMAGE.
This page has been visited many times since July, 1997