This post is to let you know that there is a NEW text editor available for DOS, or for the WFWG 3.11 DOS box. That editor is VE (Visual Editor).

VE is a feature-rich text editor which includes all the usual text editor functions plus many capabilities not found in many text DOS text editors, such as support for rectangular text regions, interactive macros, on-the-fly and after-the-fact text wrapping, full global undo, and strong multi file support.

VE comes in 8086 and 80386 versions. The 80386 version is for all CPUs of 386 or higher vintage, and takes advantage of the 386's ability to access PC extended memory. Hence the 386 version of VE can edit very large files, or simply very large numbers of small files.

Check out VE at www.campbellware.com

VE is open source freeware - the distribution zip file includes the 8086 and 80386 executables, a full PDF formatted user manual and the complete source tree, in case you should ever want to build it yourself.

You know what..i've.. heard of this editor before...and if this is really the same VE as the linux one, it's really a treat that one of the *only* new Dos/Win31 creations in a forever while has come from such a respected source...i'm gonna check it out..

Sounds nice... but don't you think that DOS's edit and Windows' notepad provide adequate text editing for reasonably sized files? If one wants more, why not step up to a word processor like Word or AmiPro? Or how about [also free] Write in win3.1?

It's good to hear that folks are still developing stuff for win3.x. What I'd like to see is a win3.1 driver for my Linksys WUSB11 wireless adapter. Well, just dreaming...

dominicus, you are right, this is the linux one. I ported the 3.5g release of it from Linux to DOS.

I am the original author of VE. It started life as a Qunix (linux look-a-like) editor. When I got a PC in the mid 90s, I ported it to DOS and added all kinds of new features. Then it kind of went dormant for a while. About two years ago, I got into linux, and immediately ported VE to linux (no surprise, it is my favorite editor - couldn't live without it!), and then went into another large development cycle, adding all sorts of new stuff. Now I have "closed the loop" and ported the result back to DOS. I hope you may enjoy it.

To mcamax, you are right, no one really NEEDS another DOS editor, but choice is good. I have made it available. If folks want to use it that is great, if not that is also OK.

Thanks, Mac57, I will try it out. One disadvantage of Notepad is that some of the Win3.1 readme files are too large for it. I guess VE does not have that limitation? And a disadvantage of a word processor to read and edit a readme is that it is awkward to avoid saving the formatting.

mcamax, if you are worried about being able to edit large files, try out the 386 version of VE. The executable is obviously (I hope) named ve386.exe. This version can use extended and virtual memory, and I have tested it on files hundreds of megabytes long. VE is quite graceful about out-of-memory situations anyway. If you should exceed its memory limits, it will simply warn you and refuse to edit the file. If you exceed its limits *while* editing, it has a two step process. First it warns you as available memory gets low, giving you plenty of warning and time to save off your work, and finally, when it runs out of memory, it simply discards the file and quits, so that no damage/corruption occurs in your file (athough you may lose the work you have done between the warning and final out-of-memory situation).

Note that the 8086 version of VE (VE.EXE) is limited to conventional lower memory. It is great for editing most files, but if you want to edit files larger than a 400K or so, you will need to use the VE386.EXE version.

I hope you enjoy VE. Post here if you encounter any difficulties!

How many pages, in the page up/page down sense, is a 400k text file? (wrapped to 800x600 screen width). Is there any downside to using ve386 versus ve?

The number of pages will be a function of how much text is on each line, and so it is difficult to say. It will be in the thousands of lines. A standard DOS VGA screen (hence a page) has 25 lines (a standard DOS VGA screen is 80x25). VE uses 2 of those lines for status info, hence 23 lines are left for each display page. Assuming the file is 3000 lines long, that would be 3000/23 = 130 "pages" - LOTS. I have never run into VE.EXE's low memory limits except when I purposely constructed very large files for use in testing of its behaviour as it exhausted available memory.

There is no downside to using VE386.EXE vs. VE.EXE. The code is 99% identical between them, differing only in the VGA monitor interface, where VE386's protected mode operation required different low level calls to address the VGA memory. In fact, subjectively, I see upside. VE386.EXE seems to load and run faster than VE.EXE, despite having a larger file size.

So, VE386 runs faster and addresses more memory, while having 100% of the same functionality. I guess the only downside is that you have to have a 386 or better to use it.

Personally I have simply alias'd "ve" to "ve386", such that I use VE386 exclusively. I use Norton Utilities' NDOS command interpreter, which supports aliasing of commands. If you are using straight COMMAND.COM, you won't be able to do such a thing, but you could simply put VE.EXE someplace safe and off your PATH and then rename VE386.EXE to VE.EXE. Now whenever you type "ve filename" you will get VE386.

Hello Mac57, thank you for your work fellow Canadian, i think it's interesting. I will gladly add a link to your work on my site, certain that VE will be useful to some of my visitors. Not a lot of people take the time to produce or adapt software for Dos anymore, so it's always welcomed when someone does.

Lightspeed.
The Oldfiles Network

Lightspeed, thanks for this. Much appreciated. I am very pleased as well for your post, as I had not heard of the The Oldfiles Network before. I have browsed through a few of the extensive resources there - VERY impressive. Just the history information alone is a great read! Thanks!