VEDIT
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Software |
| Founded | 1979 |
| Founder | Ted Green |
| Headquarters | United States |
| Products | Vedit (text editor) |
Vedit is a proprietary text editor created by Greenview Data, Inc. that operates on 8080/Z-80 architectures, Microsoft Windows, and MS-DOS platforms. Developed by Ted Green in 1979, its commercial debut occurred in 1980 targeting the CP/M operating system on 8080 and Z80 machines. Vedit was among the earliest software titles available for the IBM PC upon its 1982 launch and supported various environments such as MS-DOS, CP/M-86, and CSP DOS.
As an early adopter of visual editing, Vedit featured a command structure resembling that of TECO. Over subsequent years, versions were released for OS/2, Xenix, SCO Unix, and QNX, where it served as the default editor. Initially marketed in three variants—Vedit Jr, Vedit, and Vedit Plus—the first two editions were eventually phased out, with Vedit Plus continuing under the simplified name Vedit.
Following the shutdown of CompuView in 1989, Greenview Data assumed responsibility for further development in 1990. The inaugural Windows edition (Vedit Plus 5.0) appeared in 1997, succeeded by a 32-bit version the next year. In 2003, Vedit Pro64 introduced support for 64-bit addressing to handle files exceeding 2GB in size without necessitating a 64-bit processor or operating system.
Development efforts for Unix and QNX iterations were gradually discontinued. While the DOS version persisted alongside Windows releases, it is no longer sold or supported independently but continues to be bundled with Windows editions. In 2008, Greenview Data permitted free distribution of legacy CP/M and CP/M-86 versions.
With the release of version 6.20.1 in May 2011, Vedit transitioned from its traditional Windows Help system to HTML Help to ensure compatibility with contemporary 64-bit Windows platforms ranging from Vista through Windows 10.
In March 2017, Zix Corp acquired Greenview Data; since then, no further updates to Vedit have been issued beyond the 2015 version.
Technology
The CP/M and DOS iterations of Vedit were fully programmed in Assembly language. The Windows variant primarily consists of Assembly code with its user interface implemented in C.
Vedit utilizes a proprietary file buffering mechanism that surpasses Windows virtual memory performance. When handling large files, it loads only segments into memory while creating temporary files as necessary. This approach facilitates editing of multi-gigabyte files on 32-bit Windows systems concurrently.
Features
- Capable of editing any readable file type, including database files, binary formats, and EBCDIC encoded data. The standard edition supports file sizes up to 2 GB.
- Automatically recognizes and processes DOS, Unix, and Mac text file formats.
- Provides FTP editing functionality for direct modifications on remote servers.
- Supports multiple open documents through a Tabbed Document Interface, a Multiple document interface, or both simultaneously.
- Project management allows automatic loading of all related files, configurations, and session information.
- Search tools accommodate both regular expression syntax and proprietary pattern matching codes.
- The Wildfile function enables recursive search, search-and-replace, filtering, execution of commands or macros across groups of files stored on disk.
- Block operations integrate with the Windows Clipboard or utilize one of 100 internal text registers; columnar block editing is also supported.
- For developers, features include syntax highlighting, bracket matching, template editing capabilities, automatic indentation, compiler integration, function selection tools, and support for Ctags; language support can be extended.
- Incorporates an interpreted macro language resembling C for enhancing built-in functionality.
- Event-driven macros provide advanced automation options.
- The editor can be deployed and operated directly from portable media such as a USB flash drive or CD-ROM.
Documentation
Vedit offers online help along with an interactive tutorial. It features two detailed PDF guides: a 449-page User Manual and a 305-page Macro Language Manual, both of which are also available in printed form.
Further assistance can be found through the User Forum.
Limitations
- The existing Vedit release does not support Unicode editing; however, it is capable of converting Unicode files to Windows or OEM (DOS) character encodings, and the reverse.