Laboratory – Week 1Computing Concepts and Practice2009/10
Getting started using a text editor
Today we’ll mostly look at becoming familiar with a few of the basic tools that we will be using and in some ways of setting up your computer to be most useful.
0.Before you begin
If you were here for the Computing Lab induction day, you should already be able to:
Log-in to the Kent Intranet
Access your email
Visit the module web page on Moodle
And you should have already mapped raptor
If you missed the induction, your fellow classmates or your class supervisor can provide any help you need.
Some words and phrases are underlined in the text. These are expressions that you should know the meanings of. If you don’t understand one of these expressions, ask your fellow classmates or your class supervisor or post a message on the class moodle forum.
NOTE: some of the procedures described here and some of the screen shots included are of Windows XP not of Vista. You may or may not be able to follow them exactly, but with a few changes you should be able to do what is asked for. Check with you class supervisor if you are having problems.
1.Text editors are not word processors!
Microsoft Word is a word processor you’re all probably familiar with. Word processors such as Microsoft Word are an easy way to create and edit documents suitable for everyday use in education and business.
Word processors allow users to easily format documents with appropriate styles, so that text can be bold, italic, in different fontsand styles.
In addition,today’s word processors are WYSIWYG (/wissywig/) in that What You See Is What You Get (what you see on the screen and where you do your editing, is pretty much what you see when you print out the document).
The printed out versions of documents that word processors create are good ways of communicating with other people (at least with sighted people).
In IT and Computing, sometimes the formatting that makes these documents look good just gets in the way. One time it really gets in the way is when we are providing files for computers to use directly (as when we are writing computer code or creating web pages or …). Text editors are one application that can create files that are of use to both humans and computers.
You have access to several text editors from the Kent Desktop. There’s Notepad, a text editor that’s available on all Windows machines (usually it’s found:
Start > Accessories > Notepad.
Exploring a word processing file with Notepad, a text editor:
Using Notepad, open the filecalled Lab1_CO332_StartingOff_08.doc (it’s a copy of an earlier version of the file that produced the document that you are reading) There is (or should be) a link on the course moodle site to it, but it’s also stored in raptor\courses\co332\wkOne.
You’ll probably need in opening this file using Notepad to set Files of type to all files. (otherwise the only files you can see or do anything with are .txt files (and this is a .doc file)
This file (a Microsoft Word document) when opened in a text editor looks something like this:
Why? What are all the ‘funny characters’ and shapes doing here?
Looking at an html file with Notepad:
Go to the module web page in your browser window (in Internet Explorer or Firefox or …) and then view the source of the web page; you can do this by:
Right-click on the web page and select in the menu View source
(Orgo to the view menuand select Source or Page Source.
This will open a Notepad window with the HTML code that has created the page.
HTML pages can be created using Text editors such as Notepad We’ll be creating web pages fairly soon in this course (often by using a text editor).
Exploring documents with Notepad:
In raptor\courses\co332\Wk1_Materials, there are two files; one is a text file (with the file extension .txt)Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights.txt) – the other is a word document (with a .doc extension) UDHR.doc. Copy and save both these files to your filespace (on raptorprobably). [If you do not see the file extensions, your profile is set to hide file extensions.
Open the text file Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights.txt using Notepad. (If you double click on this file it will automatically open in NotePad (Why?)
Try turning word wrap on and off (You’ll find Word Wrap option (it toggles between selected and deselected) in the Format menu in NotePad. (What is happening?)
Try using Edit > Go TO and go to line 5 (no special reason for 5) and then the same with word wrap differently set. (Sometimes I find that Go to … is greyed out, showing you can’t use it. If you find this happening, can you discover the reason that this is happening?)
Other text editors besides Notepad:
It is useful to become familiar with Notepad (It’s always available on Windows and is a text editor).
BUT, Notepad isn’t a particularly good tool to use for text-editing, especially the kind that we do in IT. Fortunately there are several other text editors available to us on the Kent Desktop: Besides Notepad there’s Notepad++ (“notepad plus plus”). There is also PFE and vim. We recommend Notepad++
Notepad++(start > All Programs > Departmental Software > Computer Science > Notepad++)
Free by download. It’s open-source with pretty good functionality including syntax colouring, bracket matching, regular expression support.
Notepad++ is our recommended text editor.
Getting started with Notepad++:
ExploreNotepad++
The purpose of this next activity is for you to explore a new application.
Notepad++ is one of a number of free text editors that are available for Windows. You can download it to your own computer. It has a number of advantages over NotePad. It has much better ways of indicating which line of a file you are at, it has much better ways of searching and replacing material in files, and it has a number of other features that can be very useful, as you’ll see as time goes on.
Open Notepad++:
To find Notepad++
start > All Programs> Departmental Software > Computer Science > Notepad++.
In raptor\courses\CO332\Wk1_Materials, there are several files including a text file (with the file extension .txt), a word document (with a doc extension) and an html file (with .html extension). Open Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights.txt using Notepad++.
Explore the icons that are available for this application. When you browse over the icons in so-called ‘Tool-tips’ appear which tell you what the icon does.
Have a look at the various menus. Explore the options in the File, Edit, and View menus. Much of what’s the options are should be fairly familiar. Some will be new.
First,open the Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights.txt in Notepad++ if you haven’t done so, see what happens when you go between the View menu options for ShowWhite space and tab to Show End of Line.
To see some of the functionality of Notepad++, in Notepad++
Select all text in the Universal_Declaration of_Human_Rights.txt file, TextFX > TextFXEdit > Delete blank lines.
Now open the HTML file in Notepad++. What’s happening with the various colours?
Try out clicking on the little minus signs next to the various tags (‘tags’ such as <p> and <html> and <body> for example. (You might want to open this same document in a browser and in Notepad.)
You might wish to check out what the doc files are link in Notepad++ as well.
Of course, if you’re so inclined, feel free to explore the other menus as well and try things out if you wish, but don’t be concerned if some of their functionality is likely to be a bit mysterious.
Page 1 of 4CO332Bob Keim
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