For a much more comprehensive list of common problems and solutions, see the XNEdit FAQ. The latest version of the FAQ can always be found on the XNEdit web site at:
https://www.unixwork.de/xnedit/.
P: No files are shown in the "Files" list in the Open... dialog.
S: When you use the "Filter" field, include the file specification or a complete directory specification, including the trailing "/" on Unix. (See Help in the Open... dialog).
P: Find Again and Replace Again don't continue in the same direction as the original Find or Replace.
S: Find Again and Replace Again don't use the direction of the original search. The Shift key controls the direction: Ctrl+G means forward, Shift+Ctrl+G means backward.
P: Preferences specified in the Preferences menu don't seem to get saved when I select Save Defaults.
S: XNEdit has two kinds of preferences: 1) per-window preferences, in the Preferences menu, and 2) default settings for preferences in newly created windows, in the Default Settings sub-menu of the Preferences menu. Per-window preferences are not saved by Save Defaults, only Default Settings.
P: Columns and indentation don't line up.
S: XNEdit is using a proportional width font. Set the font to a fixed style (see Preferences menu).
P: XNEdit performs poorly on very large files.
S: Turn off Incremental Backup. With Incremental Backup on, XNEdit periodically writes a full copy of the file to disk.
P: Commands added to the Shell Commands menu (Unix only) don't output anything until they are finished executing.
S: If the command output is directed to a dialog, or the input is from a selection, output is collected together and held until the command completes. De-select both of the options and the output will be shown incrementally as the command executes.
P: Dialogs don't automatically get keyboard focus when they pop up.
S: Most X Window managers allow you to choose between two categories of keyboard focus models: pointer focus, and explicit focus. Pointer focus means that as you move the mouse around the screen, the window under the mouse automatically gets the keyboard focus. XNEdit users who use this focus model should set "Popups Under Pointer" in the Default Settings sub menu of the preferences menu in XNEdit. Users with the explicit focus model, in some cases, may have problems with certain dialogs, such as Find and Replace. In MWM this is caused by the mwm resource startupKeyFocus being set to False (generally a bad choice for explicit focus users). NCDwm users should use the focus model "click" instead of "explicit", again, unless you have set it that way to correct specific problems, this is the appropriate setting for most explicit focus users.
P: The Backspace key doesn't work, or deletes forward rather than backward.
S: While this is an X/Motif binding problem, and should be solved outside of XNEdit in the Motif virtual binding layer (or possibly xmodmap or translations), XNEdit provides an out. If you set the resource: nedit.remapDeleteKey to True, XNEdit will forcibly map the delete key to backspace. The default setting of this resource recently changed, so users who have been depending on this remapping will now have to set it explicitly (or fix their bindings).
P: XNEdit crashes when I try to paste text in to a text field in a dialog (like Find or Replace) on my SunOS system.
S: On many SunOS systems, you have to set up an nls directory before various inter-client communication features of Motif will function properly. There are instructions in README.sun in /pub/v5_0_2/individual/README.sun on ftp.nedit.org, as well as a tar file containing a complete nls directory: ftp://ftp.nedit.org/pub/v5_0_2/nls.tar. README.sun contains directions for setting up an nls directory, which is required by Motif for handling copy and paste to Motif text fields.
Below is the list of known defects which affect XNEdit. The defects your copy of XNEdit will exhibit depend on which system you are running and with which Motif libraries it was built. Note that there are now Motif 1.2 and/or 2.0 libraries available on ALL supported platforms, and as you can see below there are far fewer defects in Motif 1.2, so it is in your best interest to upgrade your system.
DEFECTOperations between rectangular selections on overlapping lines do nothing.
Work AroundNone. These operations are very complicated and rarely used.
DEFECTCut and Paste menu items fail, or possibly crash, for very large (multi-megabyte) selections.
Work AroundUse selection copy (middle mouse button click) for transferring larger quantities of data. Cut and Paste save the copied text in server memory, which is usually limited.
Submit bugs through the web at:
https://sourceforge.net/p/xnedit/_list/tickets
https://github.com/unixwork/xnedit/issues
Please include the first few lines from Help > Version, which identifies XNEdit's version and other system attributes important for diagnosing your problem.