Projects are the organizational unit that groups files together for processing. A project consists of a tree list of files cornered around a base directory. Once files are added, there are many functions that can be performed on the list of files.

Files can be easily accessed from the Project View. A file list can be generated for use with the compiler. Tags can be generated for all files in the project.

Each project is a file with the extension (.mep). This file stores information about the files and where they are located and their properties. Each file in the project can have properties such as, don't include in file list, etc.

FTP support is directly tied to projects, and at the moment can only work as part of one.

You can have several sessions associated with a project, including, if you wish, a privileged one with the same name as the project, which will load when the project does.

A project is a collection of files and some configuration settings, while a session is a snapshot of the current editor state.

You can tag by project, instead of file-by-file or wildcard.

Projects can be created by selecting Project | Create Project and filling out the dialog. Name of the project will be the name of the project file with a (.mep) extension.

Buttons

• Create Project: This in project operations
• Open Project: This is in project operations
• Project Properties: This is in project operations
• Project Notebook: This is in project operations

Project Name

• Name of Current project: Right Clicking on name will bring up a context sensitive menu.
Menu
• Open all files in Project: This does just what it says so be careful when executing this on large files.
• Add files: Brings up a dialog where files can be marked to be added to the project
• Properties: Brings up the project properties dialog.

Project Folder Tree

The Project folder tree represents only the folders and sub folders for your current project. The Root folder represents all files within the root directory of your project. Navigation uses standard windows tree navigation. Selecting a folder will show its corresponding files in the Project File List. You may also right click on a folder to perform context sensitive actions.

Right click menu – Standard folder

• Open files in folder: This will open all files in the folder. Note this does not open files in subfolders.
• Send files in folder: Send files via FTP to the remote site. This sends files in all subfolders.
• Receive files in folder: Receive files via FTP from the remote site. This does receive files in sub-folders.
• Add files: Opens files selections prompt for selection of files to add to project. Directory will be positioned at the current folder.
• Remove Folder: Remove the folder and all sub-folders and files from the project.
• Properties: Edit the folder properties.

Project File List

Lists all files in the currently selected folder. Navigation is via keyboard and mouse and multiple entries are selectable. In addition, the list supports a right click context menu. You may also navigate from the keyboard or the folder list while focus is in the file list by using the 'Ctrl+Arrow' keys.

File List Right Click Menu

• Open files: Open the files selected
• Send files: Send by ftp the files selected
• Receive files: Receive the selected files by ftp
• Add files: Add files to the project
• Remove files: Remove the selected files from the project

Files can be easily transferred to and from a server using the built-in FTP functions in Multi-Edit. FTP only works in combination with the Project Manager. Once you have configured a Project with the files you will be editing, select Project | View to view the Project Tools Pane. From here, select the Project | Properties and choose the FTP tab.

Associate Directories are used to map directories that are external, i.e. outside of the main project tree. A local directory can then be mapped to a directory on a remote ftp site. For example, if we have a project with the following set up:

Root
    htmfiles
    images
External
    d:\
        cgifiles

If our local root directory id mapped to C:\website, and our remote root directory is mapped to usr/local, then files sent from the cgifiles directory do not know where to go when received or sent. So we would set up a local directory of d:\cgifiles and a remote directory of usr/bin and now all files sent/received from the cgifiles directory will go to the usr/bin directory on the remote system.

The project manager controls sending and receiving of files in Multi-Edit. Every project may have an ftp site associated with it. This is set up in the Project Options. Once set up, any local file may be individually sent or sent in groups by selecting these files from the project list and then accessing the mouse right click context menu to send or receive those files. Since the project manager controls all access to the web site, currently, all files must first be located locally on the system. When marking files, if a sub-folder is selected, no files in that sub-folder will be processed.

In addition, all files in a folder can be sent/received by right clicking on the folder and selecting send/receive the folder. Note: this will process all files in any sub-folders in the tree. If it is desired to not send a particular file when multiple files are sent, you can mark a file as “Exclude from Group FTP operations”, which will exclude it unless it is the only file being processed.

Usually when you exit an editor and restart it you have to manually load all your files again. Multi-Edit has a session restore feature, so you can exit Multi-Edit and when you restart Multi-Edit it will load all your files and set itself back up to the way it was when you last exited. This includes restoring window location, cursor location within each window, bookmarks for each window, history lists for dialogs, and the last opened project.

A Session is saved based on the “Restore Status Method” option located on the Tools | Customize | Sessions dialog. To restore the last session, use the command line parameter /SR when starting Multi-Edit.

Multi-Edit's Session Manager provides the ability to have Multiple Sessions. You may wish to exit Multi-Edit, saving your current session, and then restart Multi-Edit loading a different session you worked on earlier and saved. The Session Manager allows you to save your current session and switch to a different session without actually exiting and restarting Multi-Edit. This is useful if you are working on several different projects at once. It's also useful for having different states for a single project or perhaps different states for each language used.

Prior to using the Session Manager, the “Encoded status files for each dir” option must be enabled on the Tools | Customize | Sessions dialog. This allows Multi-Edit to save session information in a .mew file in the Status File Path directory specified in the Sessions dialog. Multiple sessions can then be created and maintained. Once this is enabled, the Session Manager can be displayed by selecting File | Session Manager. Multiple Sessions can be created and configured using the Session Manager.

Creating a new Session: To create a new session, click on the 'Create' button within the Session Manager dialog. If the “Use Current Session When Creating” option is checked in the Tools | Customize | Sessions dialog, then a copy of your current session is created. Otherwise a clean session is created. Specify the name and working directory for this new session by filling in the “Name” and “Directory” text fields and then click 'Accept'. Clicking on the 'Select' button will then start this session.

Selecting a Session: To change to a previously saved Session, open the Session Manager, select the Session you wish to use and then click on the 'Select' button.

Protecting Sessions: Multi-Edit's Sessions Manager provides a “Protect” option, which will prevent the state of the selected Session from being updated. For example, if a session with two files open is marked as protected, then restoring this Session will open only the two files even if other files were opened prior to exiting this session. To protect a Session, open the Session Manager and select the session to protect, and then click on the 'Protect' button. A protection symbol will appear next to the protected session name.

Command line options are available to allow you to start a named session, start the last session, or to bring up the Session Manager on startup to allow you to pick from the list of sessions. To start the last session, append /SR to your command line which starts Multi-Edit. To bring up the Session Manager on startup, append /SM. To start a named session, append /SN<session name>. To not restore a session on startup, append /NR.