E (PC-DOS)

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E

E with Help
Developer:	IBM
Initial release:	June 1993
OS:	PC-DOS
Platform:	IBM compatible
Available language(s):	numerous
Use:	text editor
Website:	{{{website}}}

E is the text editor which was made part of PC-DOS with version 6.1 in June 1993,^[1] and later with version 7 and PC-DOS 2000. In version 6.1, IBM dropped QBASIC, which, in its edit mode, was also the system text editor. It was necessary to provide some sort of editor, so IBM chose to adapt and substantially extend its OS/2 System Editor (1986),^[2] a minimally functional member of the E family of Editors.^[3] The DOS version is extended with a wide array of functions that are usually associated with more functional versions of the E editor family (see below). In version 7, IBM added the REXX language to DOS, restoring programmability to the basic box. IBM also provided E with OS/2.

E is not an MS-DOS edit clone. Quite the contrary, MS-DOS edit is yet another version of the OS/2 System Editor. It is impossible to know whether Microsoft used the OS/2 System Editor code intact or simply rewrote the program based on the specification, but it remains that the menus and other details of the original editor a virtually identical to that of the original OS/2 System Editor. The DOS version of E is more capable than either Edit or OS/2 System editor, however. Much of the original IBM E Editor's configurability has been restored. The features include (for PC DOS 7):

online help
edit large text files
draw boxes around text
mouse and menu support
record and play keystroke macros
change case within a marked area
access multiple files in multiple panes
syntax-directed editing of C and REXX
add and multiply numbers in a marked area
locate and make a change globally within a file
select text and move, copy, overlay, or delete it
copy and move text from one file into another file

E for PC-DOS consists of four files:

E.EXE -- the executable program itself, (v3.13 in PC-DOS 7)
E.EX -- pre-compiled profile for E's behavior
E.INI -- text file allowing modification of a few E.EX defaults
EHELP.HLP -- text file used for E's F1 key help in Browse (read-only) mode

Since no tool was provided for building other profiles besides the supplied E.EX, PC-DOS users have limited access to the full exensibility offered by the version 3 of E (e3) available to IBM programmers themselves. Still. it is a powerful implementation, with many features supporting the needs of general programmers.

For PC-DOS owners who have moved on to Microsoft operating systems such as Windows XP, E still runs fine in the "Command Prompt". Its main weakness in that environment is lack of support for long filenames, forcing DOS 8.3 filenames (eg, if editing file "ImReallyTooBig.text", users would have to use the backwards-compatible name "IMREAL~1.TEX"). When editing is complete, the long name is preserved, however.

[edit] E family

The history of the PC-DOS version of E begins with Personal Editor, a key configurable editor that enabled limited programming using a GML-like language. Personal Editor was initially released in 1982 and became an IBM product not long after.

Limitations in Personal Editor led to the development and release in 1984 of the E editor, a much faster editor that supported very long files and included a substantially enhanced user interface. E2, released in 1985, provided enhanced programmability using a REXX-like language. Its UI programmability was designed so flexibly that it was used to develop user interface prototypes for other kinds of software, including Word Processors and Survey software. Subsequent versions, including E3, EOS2, and EPM, provided a wide range of other enhancements. The OS/2 System Editor was developed by the E programming team at the request of the OS/2 Development team. It was designed to be a fast and highly functional text editor with a minimal number of features and no configurability. EPM was later released as the OS/2 Enhanced Editor. The popular SlickEdit shares a common heritage, having been written by the principle original developer of E3.^[4] Other versions of E family editors have been released with IBM programming products.