Complete Idiot's Guide to Linux:Creating, Editing, and Saving Files function GetCookie (name) { var arg = name + "="; var alen = arg.length; var clen = document.cookie.length; var i = 0; while (i < clen) { var j = i + alen; if (document.cookie.substring(i, j) == arg) { var end = document.cookie.indexOf (";", j); if (end == -1) end = document.cookie.length; return unescape(document.cookie.substring(j, end)); } i = document.cookie.indexOf(" ", i) + 1; if (i == 0) break; } return null; } var m1=''; var gifstr=GetCookie("UsrType"); if((gifstr!=0 ) && (gifstr!=null)) { m2=gifstr; } document.write(m1+m2+m3);            Keyword Title Author ISBN Publisher Imprint Brief Full  Advanced      Search  Search Tips Please Select ----------- Components Content Mgt Certification Databases Enterprise Mgt Fun/Games Groupware Hardware IBM Redbooks Intranet Dev Middleware Multimedia Networks OS Prod Apps Programming Security UI Web Services Webmaster Y2K ----------- New Titles ----------- Free Archive To access the contents, click the chapter and section titles. Complete Idiot's Guide to Linux (Publisher: Macmillan Computer Publishing) Author(s): Manuel Ricart ISBN: 078971826x Publication Date: 12/22/98 function isIE4() { return( navigator.appName.indexOf("Microsoft") != -1 && (navigator.appVersion.charAt(0)=='4') ); } function bookMarkit() { var url="../../../../../www.itknowledge.com/PSUser/EWBookMarks.html@url="+window.location+"&isbn=0"; parent.location.href=url; //var win = window.open(url,"myitk"); //if(!isIE4()) // win.focus(); } Search this book:   Previous Table of Contents Next File Naming You can name a file nearly anything you like. However, there are a few restrictions you’ll need to observe. The new filename cannot be in use by another file in the same directory. If this is the case, the existing file will be replaced with the new file. Filenames are case sensitive; in other words, Linux considers introduction.txt and Introduction.txt to be different files. Certain characters—such as the asterisk (*), question mark (?), ampersand (&), vertical bar (|), circumflex (^), double quote (“), and apostrophe (‘)—should never be used, as these characters are special to the shell. Characters such as the dash (-) and spaces should not be used because they will be hard to work with and delete when using a shell. The dash is used to specify program arguments. Some tools will not run properly when the name of a file begins with a dash, as the tools will behave as though you are specifying arguments instead of a filename. The space will make the shell think that you are specifying two different files (surround such names with quotes to access them from a shell). You should avoid these characters even if you only intend to work through KDE or another graphical environment. Filenames will typically have an extension that indicates what type the file is. This extension is important because it tells KFM what application to use when opening the file by clicking on it. Some common file types follow: •  .txt for text files •  .gif for GIF images •  .jpeg or .jpg for JPEG images •  .zip for zip files •  .gz for gzip compressed files •  .tar for tar archives •  .pl for Perl scripts Saving Changes to Your Documents If you modify a file after you create it, you’ll need to save it again to store the new modifications. For this purpose, you use the Save command under the application’s File menu. You should save your files often during your work session to protect your work from being lost due to a program bug or power failure. Saving a New Version Many times while creating documents, it’s easier to create a new document based on an existing one. You can reuse and modify an existing document while still maintaining the old document by using the Save As command to save the document to a different file. You can also use the Save As command to create different versions of your document. This way, you can revert to a previous version of your edits. Text Editing Basics Besides typing, there are a few editing basics that you should learn in order to work more effectively with the computer. Keep in mind that some of the actions described here won’t work on all applications. Most text editing works on the premise of a selection. A selection is text that has been highlighted by clicking and dragging. Normally when you highlight text, it is because it will be the target for other commands. Read on for more details on selecting text. Selecting Text To select text, click the cursor where you’d like to begin the selection and drag the mouse where you want to end the selection (see the next figure). The highlighted area is the selection. You can apply formatting and editing commands to the current selection. To select text, click where you want to begin the selection and drag to where you want to end it. Some applications let you define a selection by clicking where you’d like to begin the selection and then Shift+clicking where you’d like to end it. To select a word, you can double-click the mouse while the cursor is over a word. Some applications allow you to select a sentence if you triple-click over it, and some even allow you to select an entire paragraph if you click your mouse four times over the paragraph. Copying and Moving Text The commands to copy and move text in your document are in the Edit menu. To copy text from your document, select the text and choose the Copy command (see the following figure). To copy information, select the text you want to copy and choose the Copy command from the Edit menu. To move text, first select the text and then choose Cut from the Edit menu. Then click your mouse where you want to place the information and choose Paste from the Edit menu. Paste will insert text that you copied or cut. You can even use this technique to move text between applications. Check This Out:  Under X (and KDE!), a shortcut to the copy and paste routine is to select text as you normally do, move your cursor where you want to place a copy, and then middle-click the mouse. (Or as you learned in Chapter 1, “The First Login on the KDE Desktop,” if you are using a two-button mouse, you can click both buttons simultaneously to simulate a middle click. However, for this to work, you must have specified the correct settings when you configured X Windows. See Appendix A, “Linux Installation.”) Text and information that you move in this way is placed in the clipboard. The clipboard is shared between running applications. This means that a selection you copy or move from one application can be inserted into another open application. Although this is true for most applications, some not-so-friendly applications don’t make their clipboard available to the rest of the system. Previous Table of Contents Next Products |  Contact Us |  About Us |  Privacy  |  Ad Info  |  Home Use of this site is subject to certain Terms & Conditions, Copyright © 1996-2000 EarthWeb Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of EarthWeb is prohibited.