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Associating Run Commands with Menu Items

TextPad also allows you to create custom menu items that represent predefined run commands.

Thus, rather than having to manually configure the tool, parameters, and starting folder each time

you wish to run the command, you can essentially do so once and save the settings for later use.

Let’s create a custom item under the Tools menu named “Compile C# Code” that will compile all C#

files in the current directory using a response file.

1.

Select the Configure ➤ Preferences menu option and select Tools from the tree view control.

2.

Using the Add button, select Program and specify the full path to csc.exe (again,

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5 by default) using the resulting dialog box

and click OK.

3.

If you wish, rename your new menu item to a more descriptive label (Compile C#) by

selecting the name of the tool in the list box (to activate it for editing).

4.

Finally, select your tool name (Compile C#) from the Tools node, and specify @build.rsp as

the sole value in the Parameters field; the $FileDir token in the Initial Folder field instructs

TextPad to look in the folder of the active file (see Figure 2-8).

Figure 2-8.

Creating a Tools menu item

With this, you can now compile all C# files in the current directory using your custom Tools

menu item, provided that this same directory has a C# response file named build.rsp. Notice in

Figure 2-9 the Document Selector pane can be used to see each file opened within TextPad at the

current time. The Tool Output window shows the output of running our custom Tool menu.

This should be enough information regarding TextPad to get you in a good position for further

exploration. As you might suspect, this tool is a very rich editor that supports many additional plug-

in utilities (spell checkers, code formatters, clip libraries, autocompletion support, etc.). Check out

http://www.textpad.com/add-ons for further details.

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Figure 2-9.

Executing the C# compiler using TextPad