ne's manual

2.2: Loading and Saving

The first thing to learn about an editor is how to exit. ne has a CloseDoc command which can be activated by pressing CONTROL-Q, by choosing the `Close' item of the `Document' menu, or by activating the command line with CONTROL-K, writing `cd' and pressing RETURN. Its effect is to close the current document without saving any modification (you will be requested to confirm your choice in case the current document has been modified since the last save).

There is also a command Quit, which leaves the editor without saving any modification, and an Exit command which saves the modified documents before quitting.

This choice of shortcuts could surprise you---wouldn't Quit be a much better candidate for CONTROL-Q? Well, experience shows that the most common operation is closing a document, rather than quitting the editor. If there is just one document, the two operations coincide (this is typical, for instance, when you use ne for writing electronic mail), and if there are many documents, it is far more common to close a single document than all the existing documents.

If you want to load a file, you have to use the Open command, which can be activated by pressing CONTROL-O, by choosing the `Open...' item of the `Project' menu, or by typing it on the command line (as in the previous case). You will be prompted with the list of files and directories in the current working directory (you can tell the directory names because they end with a slash). You can move on any of them by using the cursor keys, or any other movement key. Pressing an alphabetic key will move the cursor on the first entry after the cursor starting with the given letter. When the cursor is positioned over the file you want to open, just press RETURN, and the file will be opened. If instead you move on a directory name, pressing RETURN will display the contents of that directory.

You can also escape with F1 or ESCAPE, and type manually the file name on the command line (or escape again, and abort the loading operation).

When you want to save a file, just use the command Save (CONTROL-S). It will use the current document name (and will ask for one if none is available). SaveAs, on the contrary, will always ask for a new name before saving the file.

If ne is interrupted by an external signal (for instance, if your terminal crashes), it will try to save your work on some emergency files. See Emergency Save.