alien.png Overview -- The edit child
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edit child (overview).png
Figure 2. The edit child


A small introduction to the edit child
Before I start explaining what the edit child all can do, I first want to tell that you should realize that this part of the product is REALLY important for you. Not just because we say so, I say this because I KNOW so. There has been put hours and hours of work to complete this editor and it REALLY fits the MSX programmers needs.
What you see here is not just some editor. Maybe you notice the coloring and changing font styles of some words in the editor. That's one of the extensions to a regular editor. It is tuned to use with Z80 code and specifically the way Z80 code is interpreted by the compiler used with CA3 (TASM).
This is just a small extra feature of a default editor. What make this editor so special are the so-called code completion and code tool tips. To keep it short, code completion KNOWS what you are doing. E.g. when you type call startP it can drop down a menu which will contain all labels used in the source file (or an included file) and will try to find out if there's a label starting with startP. In this case that's true (label: startProgram) and the drop down menu will automatically select the label startProgram. When you then press enter, code completion will automatically insert startProgram after 'call'. That's the basis of code completion.
Code tool tips is something totally different, but equal as cool... Ever been in a situation where you couldn't recall if the command you typed was correct, or the parameter you used was correct Z80 language? Code tool tips can help you with that. When you type ld a, in a source and give a call to the code tool tips, this will show ALL possibilities of ld a,!

Those are the most significant additions to a 'normal' editor. More about these features will follow later on in this document.