The Quick Start Configuration Wizard helps you set the most commonly changed settings in an editor. This section lists some additional settings you may want to alter. SlickEdit Core contains a vast number of settings to allow you to work your way. It can be very helpful to browse through the options hierarchy and see what else is available.
Options are changed using the Options dialog, which is displayed when you select Window → SlickEdit Preferences from the main menu. Option settings are divided into two categories: General Options and Language-Specific Options.
General options affect all languages.
Clicking past the end of a line - To have the ability to place the cursor past the end of a line, select Window → SlickEdit Preferences → Editing → Cursor Movement, then set the option Click past end of line to True.
Specifying cursor up/down behavior - By default, cursor_up and cursor_down commands go to the same column of the next or previous line, unless that line is shorter than the current column, in which case the cursor is placed at the end of the line. To have the cursor placed in virtual space at the end of the line, click Window → SlickEdit Preferences → Editing → Cursor Movement, then set the option Cursor up/down places cursor in virtual space to True.
Changing the line insert style - In code, a line of text is a meaningful unit of functionality. SlickEdit® Core treats line selections differently than character selections. Line selections are pasted either above or below the current line, saving you from tediously positioning the cursor at the beginning or end of a line prior to pasting. To specify where line selections are pasted, click Window → SlickEdit Preferences → Editing → General, then set the Line insert style option to Before or After.
Expanding/collapsing with a single click - Selective Display Plus and Minus bitmaps can be expanded or collapsed with a single click rather than a double-click. To specify this option, select Window → SlickEdit Preferences → Keyboard → Advanced, then set the value of Selective Display, Expand/collapse to Expand on single click.
Language-specific options are configured for each language that you work with in SlickEdit Core. These options are accessed from the SlickEdit Preferences dialog ( Window → SlickEdit Preferences → Languages → [Language Category] → [Language]. All menu instructions below are relative to this path.
A quick way to access language-specific options for the current buffer is to use the Format → [Language] Options menu item (or the setupext command).
Setting symbol navigation - For C and C++, by default, with each attempt to navigate to a definition (Ctrl+Dot or Navigate → Go to Definition), you will be prompted for whether you wish to navigate to the definition (proc) or the declaration (proto). To specify that Go to Definition preferably navigates to one or the other, select the language-specific Context Tagging category, then select one of the Prioritize navigation to symbol options.
Showing the info for a symbol under the mouse - By default, as the mouse cursor floats over a symbol, the information and comments for that symbol are displayed. To turn this behavior off, select the language-specific Context Tagging® category, then clear the option Show info for symbol under mouse.
Configuring C/C++ preprocessing - For C and C++, your source code base will typically include preprocessor macros that you use in your code for portability or convenience. For performance considerations, Context Tagging® does not do full preprocessing, so preprocessing that interferes with normal C++ syntax can cause the parser to miss certain symbols. To configure your preprocessing to avoid these omissions, see C/C++ Preprocessing.