GATE(1)GATE(1)NAMEgate - gather text input for PicoSpan or Yapp with word-wrapping
SYNOPSISgate [--<option>...] file
DESCRIPTION
Gate is a word-wrapping input gatherer designed to be used with the
PicoSpan or Yapp conferencing programs. (by Marcus Watts and Dave
Thaler respectively). It behaves very much like the built-in text
gatherers, with the exception that it automatically word-wraps as you
type, provides integrated spell checking, and has a few other minor
improvements.
Though it is possible to run gate directly (and it might have some
application in shell scripts that want to do nicer text gathering),
normally you would allow the conferencing system to run it for you, by
putting the following PicoSpan (or Yapp) commands in your .cfonce file:
set edalways
define editor "gate"
The latter command should give the full path of the gate command, if it
is not in your path.
Gate runs in cbreak mode, but it carefully simulates all the usual unix
line-editting keys, so whatever backspace, word-erase, line-kill, end-
of-file, and reprint keys you have defined with stty(1) will work as
usual (even with tabs in your text).
Gate allows you to backspace back onto previous lines (so long as those
lines are not longer than your screen width). For more elaborate edit‐
ing us the :edit or :/ commands.
In addition to the standard keys, typing control-L will redisplay the
entire body of text entered so far.
Text entry is normally terminated by either a dot (.) typed in the
first column, or the usual unix end-of-file character.
COLON COMMANDS
The following special commands can be entered at the beginning of any
line. All of them can be abbreviated.
:clear Empty out the text buffer, discarding everything entered so
far, and restart text entry with a clean slate.
:edit Start up the editor on the text. The environment variable
EDITOR selects which editor to use. When you exit the edi‐
tor, text entry will be continued. A colon alone on a line
will also start the editor.
:empty This is the same as the :clear command.
:exit [!] This is the same as the :quit command.
:help Print a short help message.
:quit [!] Terminate text entry, and discard the response without enter‐
ing it. Normally, it will ask for confirmation that you
really want to do this. If you give a "!" as an argument, it
will skip the confirmation request.
:ok Terminate text entry, and ask if you want to enter the
response or not.
:read [-s] <file>
Append the named file to the text you have entered so far.
Normally unprintable characters will be stripped out of the
file as it is read. If the -s flag is given, they will be
left in.
:set [<option>...]
Without arguments, this command prints the current values of
the various settable options for gate. If arguments are
given, those options are set. See below for a list of
options.
:spell Run a spell check on the current text. You will be shown
each misspelled word in context, and be asked for a replace‐
ment. If instead of entering a replacement you simply hit
return, all instances of the word will be left unchanged. If
you type a + (plus) then all instances of the word will be
left unchanged, and it will be added into your private dic‐
tionary so it will be recognized as being correctly spelled
in future spell checks. If you type a
(backslash), then the spell check will be cancelled. A ?
(question mark) prints help.
:visual This is the same as the :edit command.
:version Print out the current gate version number.
:write <file>
Save a copy of the current text buffer in the named file.
:edit command.
:!<cmd> Do a shell escape to execute a unix command. The colon may be
omitted.
:|<cmd> Filter the current text through the given unix command. The
command will be fed the current text on standard input, and
whatever appears on standard output will replace the contents
of the text file. This is normally used to pipe through for‐
matting programs.
:/<pattern>/<replacement>/
Each occurance of the given pattern in the text entered so
far will be replaced by the given replacement. As each occu‐
rance is found, you asked to confirm the substitution. Typ‐
ing "y" does the substitution, typing "n" skips the substitu‐
tion, typing "a" does the substition and all others without
further prompting, and typing "q" stops the scan immediately
with no further substitutions. Both the pattern and the
replacement may include the characters "\n" which represents
a newline character. This makes it possible to join and break
lines. A "\\" indicates a backslash character, and a "\/"
indicates a slash. The terminating slash on the command may
be omitted. Note that this is intended only for simple edit‐
ting. For complex editting tasks, use the :edit command to
start up an editor.
:substitute /<pattern>/<replacement>/
Equivalent to the ":/" command.
OPTIONS
Options may be set either on the command line (with a ``--'' prefix),
by the :set command described above, or by putting them in the GATEOPTS
environment variable. For example, from the csh(1) shell you could do:
setenv GATEOPTS "nonovice maxcol=70"
or from bbs(1) you could do:
define GATEOPTS 256 "nonovice maxcol=70"
Options currently supported are listed below. Default settings are
installation dependent.
[no]askok If askok is set, gate always asks if it is OK to enter this
response. Otherwise it only asks if you do a :ok command.
Askok is (more or less) implied by the spell or askspell
options.
[no]backwrap
If the backwrap is turned on, backspacing in the first column
will move you to the end of the previous line. If the termi‐
nal supports it, and the previous line of the text file is
the previous line of the screen, gate will move the cursor up
into that line. Otherwise, however, it reprints the line.
This behavior is a bit weird and confusing to people who
expect a full visual editor, it, so it may be good to disable
this option for beginners. Note that backwrap will not work
if the previous line is more than maxcol columns long.
cmdchar=<char>
Cmdchar specifies the character that is used at the begining
of an input line to indicate that the rest of the line is a
command. The default is a colon (:).
hotcol=<int>
Hotcol specifies the last column in which spaces may be
entered. If you type a space beyond this column, you will be
instantly moved to the next line. The length of your prompt
is included in your line length. Normally hotcol is set just
slightly smaller than maxcol. If hotcol is larger than max‐
col, it has no effect.
maxcol=<int>
Maxcol specifies the last column in which any character may
be entered. If you attempt to type a word extending past
this column, it will be moved onto the next line. The length
of your prompt is included in your line length. Normally it
should be no larger than 79, since typing in the 80th column
confuses some terminals. It can be set to a value greater
than screen width of your terminal with the :set command, but
not with the GATEOPTS.
[no]novice
If novice is set, gate will print additional help messages if
you commit any of several common novice errors, like typing
an input line with just the work "quit" on it.
outdent=<int>
When a response is displayed by PicoSpan or Yapp, each line
has a space prepended. This will indent most lines one col‐
umn, but lines starting with a tab will be unchanged. The
outdent option allows gate to adjust the positions of its
tabstops to correct for this. Effectively, it does tabbing
as if the screen started outdent columns to the left of the
end of the prompt.
prompt=<string>
Normally gate prints a > prompt for each line. The prompt
can be set to any string, including a null string. It is
slightly preferable to use a prompt whose length is equal to
outdent, since this gives a more WYSIWYG display, but this is
by no means necessary.
[no]secure
If secure is set, the buffer file being editted will be kept
depermitted as much as possible, to keep people from reading
your text before you are finished with it. If nosecure is
set, the buffer file will normally be readable to others.
[no|ask]spell
If spell is set, the spellchecker will automatically be
started when you exit. If askspell is set, you will be asked
if you want to check spelling when you exit.
AUTHOR
Jan Wolter
SEE ALSObbs(1), vi(1), pico(1), stty(1), spell(1)
6 June 1995 GATE(1)
