There are a few standard Windows keystrokes that some KEDIT users don't like, and KEDIT for Windows provides alternatives that you may find preferable. In particular, we at Mansfield Software make use of the changes discussed below for the Delete, Backspace and Alt keys.
These items are controlled by the Options Interface dialog box, which you can get to by selecting the Interface item from the Options menu:
The 'Keyboard and Mouse Conventions' box lets you change from the usual Windows-style CUA interface conventions to the text mode-compatible Classic interface.
Note that the following items only apply if you are using the default Windows-style CUA interface.
The behavior of these keys is different in KEDIT for Windows than in text mode KEDIT. Some users who have upgraded from text mode KEDIT prefer the older behavior.
In text mode KEDIT, the Home key moves the cursor to the command line and the Enter key moves the cursor to the start of the next line. In KEDIT for Windows, the Home key instead moves the cursor to the start of a line and the Enter key inserts a new line at the cursor position.
To make the Home key behave as it did in text mode KEDIT, select the 'Home Key Moves to Command Line, Handles Prefix Commands' item in the Options Interface dialog box. To make the Enter key behave as it did in text mode, select 'Enter Key Moves to Start of Next Line'.
You can press the Delete key repeatedly to delete multiple characters from a file that you are editing. If you get to the end of a line and continue to press the Delete key, the current line and the following line are joined together, and then the characters that were at the start of the following line are deleted.
This behavior makes sense in Windows applications like Microsoft Word, and in some applications of KEDIT, where it is common to work with text organized into paragraphs, and where line boundaries are of no particular importance. In KEDIT, which is often used to edit computer programs and other text where line boundaries are important, it is less useful to have the Delete key work across line boundaries.
To get around this problem, uncheck the box labeled 'Delete Key at End-of-Line Joins Text from Following Line'. Similarly, you can prevent the Backspace key from working across line boundaries by unchecking the box 'Backspace Key at Start-of-Line Joins Text to Preceding Line'.
When the Alt key is pressed alone, and not in combination with any other key, the standard Windows behavior is to activate the menu bar. If you do this by mistake, additional keystrokes can be lost until you notice the problem and press Escape to leave menu mode. It is particularly easy to press the Alt key by mistake in KEDIT for Windows, since KEDIT makes heavy use of key combinations involving the Alt key.
To get around this problem, uncheck the box labeled 'Alt Key All By Itself Activates Menu Mode'.