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To Use Outline Plug-in

The Outline plug-in is installed by default with EmEditor Professional. There are two major functions in this plug-in:

Outlining in the custom bar

1. A tree view appears when you click the on the Plug-ins bar. Or on the Tools menu, point to Plug-ins, and then click Outline. In the Outline custom bar, the outline appears as a tree.
2.  You can click on nodes to expand or collapse levels. You can right click on the custom bar and expand all or collapse all.
3. If you click on an item in the custom bar, the main text is synchronized.
4. You can drag and drop an item, to change the order of the text.
5. Selecting ALT+UP or ALT+DOWN moves the selected item up or down within the tree.
6. You can right click on an item and click Select, and the corresponding text will be selected within the main text.
7. The Outline custom bar shows up to 6 levels.

Outlining as a guide

1. A guide appears on the left side of the editor without the custom bar. By default this outline guide is synchronized with the custom bar.
2. To disable this outlining guide even if the custom bar is displayed, right-click on the Outline button on the Plug-ins bar, select Properties, and clear the Display Outline as Guide check box.
3. In the main text window, when the levels are closed, they display a [...] if there is more text. You can hover over the [...], to view the rest of the text.
4. You can right click and expand all or collapse all, or even expand or collapse to a specific level.
5. Some useful keyboard shortcuts include, ALT+RIGHT to expand, and ALT+LEFT to collapse.
6. ALT+UP jumps up a node and ALT+DOWN jumps down a node.

Properties

You can change the properties for each configuration. In a text document, by default the plug-in uses spaces to outline. C++ configuration uses { and } open and close curly brackets to outline. For C++ the custom bar only shows 1 level. Another example is XML. XML uses open and close tags to outline. XML can show up to level 6 in the custom bar. For each configuration, you can customize these settings to fit your needs.

Custom Bar Position

Selects where the custom bar should be positioned in the EmEditor window.

Turn off outline guide when custom bar is not displayed

Specifies whether the Outline Guide should be synchronized with the Custom Bar or not. It is set as synchronized by default.

Synchronize selection to cursor position

Specifies whether the outline tree selection in the Custom Bar should be synchronized with the cursor position in the editor.

Set focus in the custom bar at first run

Specifies whether the plug-in should sets the focus in the custom bar when the plug-in is launched.

ESC key to close the custom bar

Specifies whether pressing the ESC key should close the custom bar.

ENTER key or Go command to close the custom bar

Specifies whether pressing the ENTER key or selecting GO command should close the custom bar.

Configuration

Selects a configuration for which you would like to change the settings.

Display Outline as Guide

If this is checked, the plug-in displays the outlining as a guide on the left side of the editor without the custom bar.

Type

Determines how outlining is calculated. Select one from the following:

Number of Braces {}: outlining is calculated by number of braces. This may be useful for many programming languages.

Number of Spaces: outlining is calculated by number of spaces or tabs at the beginning of each line. This may be useful for general purposes.

Custom: outlining is calculated according to the specified settings below.

Number of Brackets []: outlining is calculated by number of brackets. This may be useful for some programming languages.

Custom (Specify Begin as Level 1/End as Level 2): outlining is calculated according to the specified settings below. Level 1 is set as the the begin string and level 2 as the end string.

Custom Bar Max Level

Specifies the maximum outlining level to be displayed in the Custom Bar. This, however, does not limit the maximum outlining level for the guide- it is always six.

Hide matched strings/replace with regular expressions

Specifies whether matched strings should be hidden in the custom bar. If the Regular Expression check box is checked, this option specifies whether matched strings should be replaced with strings specified at the Replace with.

Find

If the Regular Expression is unchecked, enter character(s) that a line should begin with. For instance, enter "." to match only the lines beginning with ".". If the "Regular Expression" is checked, enter a regular expression that should match for the specified level. For instance, enter "^\d.*?$" to match only the lines beginning with a number.

Regular Expression

Specifies whether the string entered in the Find text box is treated as a regular expression.

Replace with

Specifies a string to replace with when the Hide matched strings/replace with regular expressions check box is checked.

Make comments collapsible

Specifies whether comments should be collapsible.

Tips

• Press the F6 key or ESC key to set the keyboard focus back to the editor.
• The custom bar position can be set from top, bottom, right or left by right-clicking the plug-in button on the Plug-ins bar, and selecting the Properties.

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