SlickEdit Core is one of the most powerful programming editors available today, and one of the most flexible. SlickEdit Core contains hundreds of options to let you work your way. Most people don't have time to read the whole user guide. Take a few minutes to go through the Quick Start Configuration Wizard, and you'll be up and running with SlickEdit Core in no time.
The Quick Start Configuration Wizard helps you to set up common options and shows you where these options are usually accessed. Each set of options is accessible outside of the wizard, through the normal SlickEdit Core Options dialogs, by selecting Window → SlickEdit Preferences from the main menu. Several pages have Customize links to their normal Options location.
The Quick Start Configuration Wizard has two methods of navigation. You can use the Previous and Next buttons to visit the adjoining parts of the wizard. You can also jump directly to a section by clicking on the section name in the tree on the left side of the wizard. You can run the wizard again later by selecting Tools → Quick Start Configuration from the main menu.
The following items are configurable through the Quick Start Configuration Wizard:
Emulation - select which other editor SlickEdit Core will emulate.
Colors - set your color scheme.
Fonts - set your font for unicode and non-unicode languages.
Coding - set common coding preferences, like indentation, brace styles, and the use of syntax expansion.
Context Tagging - build tag files for common compiler libraries to aid in code navigation.
More Information - allows you to export your newly configured options, as well as see the Release Notes and some Cool Features of SlickEdit Core.
CUA is the default emulation, which provides key bindings familiar to Microsoft Windows users. Emulations are provided for other popular editors including Vim, GNU Emacs, Brief, and more. If you are already an experienced user of one of these other tools, you will find that these emulations will help you get up and running quickly. Otherwise, you may find that the CUA emulation is best.
You can change your emulations at any time by selecting Window → SlickEdit Preferences from the main menu. Then expand Window → SlickEdit Preferences → Keyboard → Emulation. For more information, see Emulations.
Many users are particular about the colors they use. On this form, you can select a color scheme that will be used to color all editor windows. You can also select your symbol coloring scheme, which defines how different symbols are detected and colored. Preview your selections in different languages using the preview window and the language combo box.
To change your colors later, select Window → SlickEdit Preferences → Appearance → Colors from the main menu. For more information on setting your colors, see Colors, Color Coding, and Symbol Colors.
Fonts are another matter of personal preference. The Quick Start Configuration Wizard lets you choose different font styles for Unicode (HTML, XML, etc) editor windows and Non-Unicode editor windows. Use the preview windows to view your selections in the languages of your choice.
To set fonts later, select Window → SlickEdit Preferences → Appearance → Fonts. For more information on setting fonts, see Fonts.
SlickEdit Core features many options to control your editing experience. On this form you can set three important ones for all language modes. Normally these are set one language at a time. You can set the following options:
Indent settings - controls your indent amount and tab size, as well as whether you would like to indent using tab or space characters.
Brace style - controls the location of braces in C-style languages.
Syntax Expansion - specifies whether or not you want SlickEdit Core to automatically expand block structures like if or for for all languages. This option uses a tri-state checkbox. A check indicates that Syntax Expansion will be turned on for all languages. Unchecked indicates that it will be turned off for all languages. When it is grayed in, the individual language settings will be retained and no changes will be made.
Line Numbers - controls display of line numbers for all languages. This uses a tri-state checkbox. A check indicates that Syntax Expansion will be turned on for all languages. Unchecked indicates that it will be turned off for all languages. When it is grayed in, the individual language settings will be retained and no changes will be made.
To see where these options are normally configured, click the Customize link next to each setting.
Context Tagging creates a database for all the symbols in your code. This allows SlickEdit Core to rapidly jump from a symbol to its definition or show a list of references. Other features, such as completions, also use this information. To properly work with your code, SlickEdit Core will need to tag the libraries associated with the compiler you are using.
You can choose to tag as many compiler libraries as you want. You can choose to build the tag files in the background.
If you choose to skip this step now, SlickEdit Core will automatically tag your compiler libraries if you are using Microsoft Visual Studio, GNU C/C++, or Java. For other compilers, you can tag them later by selecting Tools → Tag Files and then clicking the Auto Tag button. For more information about Context Tagging, see Context Tagging Features
The final step in the Quick Start Configuration Wizard, allows you to do three things:
Export Preferences - this is useful to save your settings. You can do this to share your settings with others or to restore your settings later.
View Cool Features - this is a list of the key features that set SlickEdit Core apart from other editors. Look through this list to learn how you can become more productive.
View the Release Notes - this contains a list of known limitations and other useful information pertinent to this release.