(axe.info)Window

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Next: Editing Prev: Introduction Up: Introduction

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Enter node , (file) or (file)node

The components of an aXe window
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An aXe window consists of five visible parts. From top to bottom they
are:

`Filename'
     A line showing the name of the file currently being edited in the
     window. If a file has not been associated with this window then 'No
     name' will be displayed. The name is preceded by '*' if the text
     in the Editing buffer (below) contains unsaved changes. '~' at the
     beginning of the filename is shorthand for your home directory.

`Information bar'
     A line that is updated with brief help explaining the action that
     would be performed if mouse button 1 were to be operated with the
     mouse pointer in the current position. If an action can be
     performed directly from the keyboard then the help line will
     contain a description of the keystroke(s) that would achieve it.
     It is enclosed in square brackets, e.g. [ Ctrl-a ].  Note: Using
     the keyboard for speed, for an explanation of what that
     means.  The information bar is also used for displaying
     information arising from some actions, and for some error messages.

`Menu bar'
     A row of buttons having associated pulldown menus.  Pressing and
     holding down mouse button 1 whilst a button is highlighted (by
     moving the mouse pointer onto it) will reveal the menu. The *Show*
     menu shows the names of all of the files being edited - the
     current file in the window from which the menu was popped up has a
     tick against it at the right hand side of the entry, and dividing
     lines are drawn to group the files associated with individual
     windows.

`Editing buffer'
     An area displaying the text of the file that is currently being
     edited in the window. It may the topmost of a stack of buffers
     associated with the window, in which case a different buffer is
     made current by selecting its entry from the *Show* menu.

     When an aXe window is resized all of the the adjustment in the
     vertical direction is applied to this component. Also, the size of
     the other components is discounted by the window manager and the
     information displayed during resizing is the size of the editing
     buffer in terms of characters, rather than pixels. In other words
     the editing buffer can only be resized in character increments.

`Minibuffer'
     An area containing a menu button and a 1-line text buffer, called
     the minibuffer (Note: How to use the minibuffer.) The
     menu associated with the button provides convenient access to some
     of the more complicated facilities that are only available via the
     minibuffer. The selected ones feed the contents of the editing
     buffer to an external Unix command for processing and display the
     output, if any, in a fresh window.

The user can optionally suppress display of the Filename, Information
bar and Minibuffer components. Note: suppressFilename, for
details.