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Unicode text editor mined 2000 release 12

                             ANNOUNCEMENT

                         mined 2000 release 12
                              (Mar 2006)

Mined is a powerful text editor with a comprehensive and easy-to-use 
user interface and fast, small-footprint behaviour.

Mined provides both extensive Unicode and CJK support offering many 
specific features and covering special cases that other editors 
are not aware of (like auto-detection features and automatic handling 
of terminal variations, or Han character information).
It was the first editor that supported Unicode in a plain-text terminal.
Basically, mined is an editor tailored to reliable and efficient 
editing of plain text documents and programs, with features and 
interactive behaviour designed for this purpose.


Following:
* Hints and links
* Major enhancements in this release
* Mined Overview


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More information (with screenshots, feature overview and change log) 
and download are available from the mined web site at
	http://towo.net/mined/


Mined is co-hosted at sourceforge and has a mailing list 
which can be subscribed at
<https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mined-editor>


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Major enhancements in this release:

Character encoding support enhancements:
* Updated to Unicode 5.0.0 beta2:
  * Case conversion, Script information.
  * Combining character width properties.
  * Han information (from Unihan database) for CJK characters.
  * Radical/Stroke input method.
  * Added character input mnemonics for new LATIN characters.
* Supplemented Big5 character set with HKSCS-2004 update 
  from http://info.gov.hk/digital21/eng/hkscs/, adding more than 
  100 characters.
  Handling covers mappings to two Unicode characters, 
  like for JIS encodings.
* Revised interpretation of locale environment variables to 
  comply with de-facto locale standard but yet allowing flexible 
  locale configuration for both text and terminal encoding.
  This mechanism is supplemented by other options with useful 
  precedences.
  Command line options to specify text or terminal encoding were 
  revised, enhanced, and made more comprehensive.
* Revised terminal encoding handling to support also mapped 
  8-bit encodings including handling of combining characters 
  (with auto-detection).
* Generally revised handling of text and terminal encoding 
  to support all combinations of them.
* Supporting lots of additional 8-bit encodings for both 
  text encoding and terminal encoding. Structured Encoding menu 
  with submenus for comprehensive text encoding selection.
* Optional Unicode Copy/Paste buffer mode with implicit conversion.

Character handling support enhancements:
* Supplemented Cangjie input method with additional mappings 
  from HKSCS-2004 Changjie input code table.
* Case conversion is now always (i.e. in all encodings) 
  based on Unicode.
* Shift-F3 case cycling function now uses actual Unicode 
  title case characters when appropriate and available.
* Smart quotes enabled in all text encodings.
* Updated HTML character mnemonics to HTML 4.01.

Interworking enhancements:
* Improved intuitive assignment of copy/paste functions to 
  keypad, enhanced flexbility of usage.
* Further improvements on terminal interworking (even 
  version-specific), especially with KDE konsole. Added kterm 
  encoding auto-detection.

Other enhancements:
* New password hiding feature, selected by default for "hidden" files.
* Extended default installation by some aliases and wrappers:
  * minmacs, mstar, mpico for invocation of mined in 
    emulation modes for emacs, WordStar, pico (alpha), 
    respectively
  * umined, xmined for invocation of mined in a 
    separate terminal window
  * uterm to invoke a new terminal window with a 
    maximum of Unicode support achievable on the system, 
    including best-choice font selection


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Mined Overview

Good interactive features
* Intuitive user interface
* Logical and consistent concept of navigating and editing text 
  (without ancient line-end handling limitations or insert/append confusion)
* Supports various control styles:
  Editing with command control, function key control, or menu control
  Navigation by cursor keys, control keys, mouse or scrollbar
* Comprehensive menus (driven by keyboard or mouse)
* "HOP" key paradigm doubles the number of navigation functions 
  that can be most easily reached and remembered by 
  intuitively amplifying the associated function
* Immediate adjustment if the window size is changed, in any 
  state of interaction

Versatile character encoding support
* Extensive Unicode support, including double-width and combining characters,
  script highlighting, 
  various methods of character input support 
  (mapped keyboard input methods, mnemonic and numeric input),
  supporting CJK, Vietnamese, Hebrew, Arabic, and other scripts
* Support of bidirectional terminals, Arabic ligature joining
* East Asian character set support: handling of major CJK encodings 
  (including GB18030 and full EUC-JP with combining characters)
* Support for a large number of 8 bit encodings 
  (with combining characters for Vietnamese, Thai, Arabic, Hebrew)
* Support of CJK input methods by enhanced keyboard 
  mapping including multiple choice mappings (handled by a pick list menu);
  characters in the pick list being sorted by relevance of Unicode ranges
* Han character information with description and pronunciation
* Auto-detection of text character encoding, edits files with 
  mixed character encoding sections (e.g. mailboxes),
  transparent handling of UTF-16 encoded files
* Auto-detection of UTF-8 / CJK / 8 bit terminal mode and detailed features
  (like different Unicode width and combining data versions)
* Comprehensive and flexible (though standard-conformant) set of 
  mechanisms to specify both text and terminal encodings 
  with useful precedences.
* Flexible combination of any text encoding with any terminal encoding.
* Encoding support tested with: xterm, mlterm, rxvt, 
  cxterm, kterm, hanterm, kde konsole, linux console

Many useful text editing capabilities
* Many text editing features, e.g. paragraph wrapping, 
  auto-indentation and back-tab, smart quotes (with 
  quotation marks style selection and auto-detection) 
  and smart dashes
* Search and replacement patterns can have multiple lines
* Cross-session paste buffer (copy/paste between multiple 
  - even subsequent or remote - invocations of mined)
* Optional Unicode paste buffer mode with implicit conversion
* Marker stack for quick return to previous text positions
* Multiple paste buffers (emacs-style)
* Program editing features, HTML support and syntax highlighting, 
  identifier and function definition search, also across files; 
  structure input support
* Text and program layout features; auto-indentation and 
  undent function (back-tab), numbered item justification
* Systematic text and file handling safety, avoiding loss of data
* Visible indications of special text contents 
  (TAB characters, different line-end types, character 
  codes that cannot be displayed in the current mode)
* Full binary transparent editing with visible indications 
  (illegal UTF-8 or CJK, mixed line end types, NUL characters, ...)
* Print function that works in all text encodings
* Optional password hiding
* Optional emacs command mode

Small-footprint operation and portability
* Plain text mode (terminal) operation, supporting wide range of terminals
* Instant start-up
* Runs on many platforms: Unix (Linux/Sun/HP/BSD/Mac and more),
  DOS (djgpp), Windows (cygwin, Interix)
* Makefiles also support legacy systems


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Thomas Wolff
mined at towo dot net