Problems and Defects

Solutions to Common Problems

For a much more comprehensive list of common problems and solutions, see the NEdit FAQ. The latest version of the FAQ can always be found on the nedit web site at: http://nedit.org.

• P: No files are shown in the "Files" list in the Open... dialog.
  S: When you use the "Filter" field, include the file specification or a complete directory specification, including the trailing "/" on Unix. (See Help in the Open... dialog).
• P: Keyboard shortcuts for menu items don't work.
  S: Be sure the Caps Lock and Num Lock keys are both unlocked. In Motif programs, these keys prevent the menu accelerators from working.
• P: Find Again and Replace Again don't continue in the same direction as the original Find or Replace.
  S: Find Again and Replace Again don't use the direction of the original search.
  The Shift key controls the direction: Ctrl+G means forward, Shift+Ctrl+G means backward.
• P: Preferences specified in the Preferences menu don't seem to get saved when I select Save Defaults.
  S: NEdit has two kinds of preferences: 1) per-window preferences, in the Preferences menu, and 2) default settings for preferences in newly created windows, in the Default Settings sub-menu of the Preferences menu. Per- window preferences are not saved by Save Defaults, only Default Settings.
• P: Columns and indentation don't line up.
  S: NEdit is using a proportional width font. Set the font to a fixed style (see Preferences).
• P: NEdit performs poorly on very large files.
  S: Turn off Incremental Backup. With Incremental Backup on, NEdit periodically writes a full copy of the file to disk.
• P: Commands added to the Shell Commands menu (Unix only) don't output anything until they are finished executing.
  S: If the command output is directed to a dialog, or the input is from a selection, output is collected together and held until the command completes. De-select both of the options and the output will be shown incrementally as the command executes.
• P: Dialogs don't automatically get keyboard focus when they pop up.
  S: Most X Window managers allow you to choose between two categories of keyboard focus models: pointer focus, and explicit focus. Pointer focus means that as you move the mouse around the screen, the window under the mouse automatically gets the keyboard focus. NEdit users who use this focus model should set "Popups Under Pointer" in the Default Settings sub menu of the preferences menu in NEdit. Users with the explicit focus model, in some cases, may have problems with certain dialogs, such as Find and Replace. In MWM this is caused by the mwm resource startupKeyFocus being set to False (generally a bad choice for explicit focus users). NCDwm users should use the focus model "click" instead of "explicit", again, unless you have set it that way to correct specific problems, this is the appropriate setting for most explicit focus users.
• P: The Delete key doesn't forward-delete.
  S: See the X Resources section on nedit.remapDeleteKey.
• P: NEdit crashes when I try to paste text in to a text field in a dialog (like Find or Replace) on my SunOS system.
  S: On many SunOS systems, you have to set up an nls directory before various inter-client communication features of Motif will function properly. There are instructions in README.sun in /pub/nedit/v4_0_1 on ftp.fnal.gov, as well as a tar file containg a complete nls directory: ftp://ftp.fnal.gov/pub/ nedit/v4_0_2/individual/README.sun. This contains directions for setting up an nls directory, which is required by Motif for handling copy and paste to Motif text fields.

  Known bugs

Below is the list of known bugs which affect NEdit. The bugs your copy of NEdit will exhibit depend on which system you are running and with which Motif libraries it was built. Note that there are now Motif 1.2 and/or 2.0 libraries available on ALL supported platforms, and as you can see below there are far fewer bugs in Motif 1.2, so it is in your best interest to upgrade your system.

• BUG: Operations between rectangular selections on overlapping lines do nothing.
  WORKAROUND: None. These operations are very complicated and you probably wouldn't get what you expected anyhow.
• BUG: Cut and Paste menu items fail, or possibly crash, for very large (multi-megabyte) selections.
  WORKAROUND: Use selection copy (middle mouse button click) for transferring larger quantities of data. Cut and Paste save the copied text in server memory, which is usually limited.

  Reporting Bugs

The nedit developers subscribe to both discuss@nedit.org and develop@nedit.org, either of which may be used for reporting bugs. If you're not sure, or you think the report might be of interest to the general nedit user community, send the report to discuss@nedit.org. If it's something obvious and boring, like we misspelled "anemometer" in the on-line help, send it to develop. If you don't want to subscribe to these lists, please add a note to your mail about cc'ing you on responses.