tsc2597@acf4.UUCP (Sam Chin) (04/30/85)
<>
Tonight I pulled out my Wordstar for the 1001th time to edit a huge makefile.
I discovered that I had to make a massive find and replace. I went through
the ^Q^A sequence and it started to replace. I was about to go watch TV
while it did its thing (Wordstar's normal find and replace is very very very
slow...) for about an hour. I was suddenly curious as to what would happen if
I pressed the 1 key. Well I did and voila! the normal find and replace
sequence which would have taken an hour zapped through in a few minutes. I
was amazed. Having used Wordstar for 6 years I felt rather silly. I can't
find this in the documentation. Is this feature documented. I know that you
can use the 1 key in a ^Q^Q sequence.
Sam Chin
allegra!cmcl2!acf4!tsc2597
tsc2597.acf4@nyuche@ptsfb.UUCP (Mitch Che) (05/01/85)
In article <1040017@acf4.UUCP> tsc2597@acf4.UUCP (Sam Chin) writes: ><> >...the ^Q^A sequence and it started to replace. I was about to go watch TV >while it did its thing (Wordstar's normal find and replace is very very very >slow...) for about an hour. I was suddenly curious as to what would happen if >I pressed the 1 key. Well I did and voila! the normal find and replace >sequence which would have taken an hour zapped through in a few minutes. I >was amazed. Having used Wordstar for 6 years I felt rather silly. I can't >find this in the documentation. Is this feature documented. I know that you >can use the 1 key in a ^Q^Q sequence. The Search/Replace command in Wordstar spends a tremendous amount of time writing to the screen. If you press ANY key after you start, WS will freeze the screen and do all of the work without showing it to you. Absolutely required for jobs like yours... Don't know if this is documented. Read this in a magazine originally, and I was amazed also... Mitch Che Pacific Bell ------------ Disclaimer, disclaimer, disclaimer...
greenber@timeinc.UUCP (Ross Greenberg) (05/03/85)
Sam Chin@acf4 asks why WordStar sped up when he hit the '1' key during
a massive search-and-replace mission.
Actually, this sorta is in the documentation, Sam. The slowness of the
^Q^A function can be attributed to the amount of screen I/O as it first
displays the 'found` string, then replaces it, and then moves merrily
onward towards its weekly meeting with the Unknown.
When you hit a space (or any other character actually), it merely stops
displaying the screen changes until it runs off the bottom.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------
Ross M. Greenberg @ Time Inc, New York
--------->ihnp4!cmcl2!timeinc!greenber<---------
"If ever the pleasure of one has to be bought by the pain of the other,
there better be no trade. A trade by which one gains and the other
loses is a fraud." --- Dagny Taggertdrick@hplvla.UUCP (drick) (05/06/85)
[re: speeding up find and replace in WordStar] Pressing almost any key (e.g. ctl-E) will turn off screen updating while doing a find and replace. This dramatically increases the speed, because WordStar otherwise wastes much CPU time providing a "video show." This is documented somewhere :-) in the WordStar manual. David L. Rick !hplabs!hplvla!hplvle!drick
W8SDZ@SIMTEL20.ARPA (Keith Petersen) (05/07/85)
Sam, press the Escape key to speed up the ^Q^A feature in WordStar. It stops the screen updating without adding any characters to the file. --Keith