New command buttons similar to \"o in WinEdt

Question

I am not a serious programmer and this may just be over my head. But I would like to be able to create a few new buttons that would work the way buttons like \"o work in the WinEdt GUI Page Control bar do.

That is, you can select a letter, say "a", in your file, then click on the button \"o in the WinEdt GUI Page Control bar, and WinEdt will insert \"{a} in your file.

I have designed a few new commands sort of like \"{} (with help from Alan Munn How to use CJK ruby for diacritics only). And it would save me a lot of work if I could just select a character in the file and click a button and get one of these commands wrapped around that character.

Is there an easy way to do that?

As far as I can see the questions Quick Build commands in WinEdt and Adding a new command in Winedt 8 do not address my goal of getting the command wrapped around a piece of text.

Answer 1

Of course it is possible. Follow these steps.

1. Show the "Options Interface" (Options -> Options Interface)

   

2. Double-click the "Main Menu" item (MainMenu.ini gets opened)

3. Just before the line

   END="User_Menu"
   

   add the following lines

     ITEM="\""{}"  // use the name you want, but remember that this will be the name of your button
       CAPTION="\""{}"
       IMAGE="Delim"  // double-click on IMAGE and choose the image you want
       MACRO="IfSel(2,'>','SetSel(0);');IfSel(0,'=',|Ins('\""{}');"+
             "CharLeft;|,|InsLabel('','\""{','}');|);"
   

4. Press Shift+Ctrl+F9

5. Now (in the "Options Interface") double-click the "Toolbar" item (Toolbar.ini gets opened)

6. Put the line

     BUTTON="\""{}"
   

   wherever you want in the file in the point where you want the button.

7. Press Shift+Ctrl+F9

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That's it. Now you have a toolbar button

that inserts what you wanted.

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Notice that the character " is used by WinEdt as a string delimiter, so to obtain " you have to double it (""). The same might be needed for the character ' if you want to insert something with it.

For example, if you want a macro to insert \'{}, you'll have to use

    MACRO="IfSel(2,'>','SetSel(0);');IfSel(0,'=',|Ins('\''{}');"+
          "CharLeft;|,|InsLabel('','\''{','}');|);"