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If you enjoyed using XEDIT on IBM's VM mainframe operating system, here's a freeware version for Windows. I wrote it for my own use, not pleased with the lack of REXX as a command language in all other editors for Windows.
Download.
You may download the editor: Xedit
v 2.1.0.19 (jan, 2012) and use it and distribute is as you like.
In Windows Vista or Windows 7 you should grant write permission to
the installation map if you want to add or modify the Rexx-commands.
Standard User Account Protection of Vista / 7 inhibits (or limits)
you to add or modify the Xedit command files that go with the
program. Click Properties and then security, to modify access.
Make sure you have Microsoft DotNet runtime 2.0 or higher
installed if you're still running Windows XP. Search in Microsoft.com
for the "NET Framework redistributable package" and install
it first.
My Xedit has the least possible internal commands. You may
extend the editor by writing your own commands. I think that I
provided for a 95% clone of Xedit, if you forget about the
fullscreen-processing that Xedit allowed you. But as in most
software, any ordinary user does 99% of the work with 25% of the
possibilities in the software! Don't try to recreate CMS's Filelist:
you'll miss all the fullscreen stuff. To show how little is needed
internally, I wrote almost all linecommands for copy and move in
Rexx. So if something is missing, just write it in Rexx. Or ask me to
write it for you!
You may mail me your new commands (AMBusy at
gmail.com; put 'Xedit' in the subject please), if you think they are
useful for others.
View a list of commands in HelpXedit.
I wish you a pleasant use of this editor.
If your looking for something like Filelist, why not take a look at Sedit, not free, but it has facilities similar to Filelist and has everything that Xedit was made of.
Why another editor?
As early as 1982 I've been using Xedit in
the VM/CMS environment, a relief after having been condemned to use
Edgar for some time previous. Working on a pc with Windows 3, I first
bought SPF/PC v4 (CTC, Command Technology Corporation) it being as
close as possible to Ibm's SPF editor, and thus to Xedit, as the 2
development groups always looked very close at each other. But with
the arrival of Windows 95, and it's long filenames, there was a need
to switch to SPF/SE, also from CTC. Rexx had gone, and they gave me a
clumsy kind of C to write my own commands.
So I decided, having
some spare time, to write my own Xedit first in VB6, followed by a
new release in MS Visual Basic 2005 for .NET. Guided by my large
collection of Xedit-commands for the Cobol-programmer, my
recollection of what Xedit had looked like, the University of
Kentucky's computing Center's XEDIT Reference and IBM's XEDIT EXTRACT
Help Information on the web for the appearance of Xedit; and Nicklaus
Wirth's Algoritms + Data Structures = Programs for showing how to
write an efficient Rexx-interpreter.
The program can't be used to
execute a Rexx-file as a batch file. Commands are only for editing.
But there's better software for batch available, for instance:
Kilowatt Software, try
them if you don't need the editor. They offer data entry screens for
interaction with users. Practically in terms of IBM's VM/CMS I allow
Rexx only for filetype XEDIT, not for filetype EXEC.
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