What's New

New features include:

•Support for Regular Expressions in Search..Find and Replace dialogs. See Regular Expressions [August 2018].

•Indication of Loop scope: coloured lines at LHS of window show where Loops begin and end. See Loops [March 2018].

•GEMPACK usually stores copies of the TAB file in AXT/GST/SL$ files. Under the File menu, the command : Open TAB in AXT/GST/SL4 file allows you to examine these stored TAB files [November 2017].

•Type Ctrl-Space to open the Code Completion window [October 2017].

•Bracket matching aids: if you click just to the left of any bracket character, ie ({[]}), that bracket and its matching bracket are highlighted in a pinkish-grey colour; and you can use Ctrl-Left or Ctrl-Right to move to the matching bracket; or Shift-Ctrl-Left or Shift-Ctrl-Right to select text between the matching brackets  [October 2017].

•Line where the cursor is now has grey background -- to help see where you are [October 2017].

•New ability to select, copy and paste column blocks of text [October 2017].

•Much-expanded list of Keyboard Commands [August 2017].

•Indication of Zerodivide scope: light blue or green marks at LHS of window show which lines of TABLO code are within the scope of a Zerodivide  statement. See Zerodivide [August 2017].

•You can now see ALL errors in a window similar to how warnings are shown, you can search backwards for errors. See Errors Table [August 2017].

•Small changes to Search behaviour.  F3 searches in the current search direction, which is shown by an arrow at left of bottom toolbar. Shift+F3 searches the other way [June 2017].

•Use TAB key to indent selected text; Shift+Tab to unindent. Set indent width in Edit..Properties..Options  Block Indent Step Size [June 2017].

•The Edit..Toggle Comment Selection command can be used to comment-out or un-comment selected blocks of text [April 2017].

•The Gloss feature is enhanced and extended [Dec 2016].

•If you right-click on the tab at top (where filename is) a popup menu lets you close all tabs to the left or to the right, or open Explorer or a command prompt in the same folder as the displayed file. [Dec 2016].

•When opening a file suffixed LOG, TABmate now jumps to the last lines of the file -- which is normally where useful error messages are displayed -- but the Code and other Options  dialog allows you to switch off this behaviour. [July 2015].

•Since May 2014 both TABmate and ViewHAR by default delete BAK files more than 2 days old -- see Code and other Options [May 2014]

•A small panel at the right of the upper toolbar now shows whether the TABLO Code button produces FORTRAN or GEMSIM files, You can click there to change the option. See also Will TABLO generate FORTRAN or GEMSIM code? [May 2013]

•GEMPACK 11.2 and later allows lines in the TAB file to be up to 255 chars long (previous limit was 80). But, if your TAB file has lines longer than 80 characters, users of GEMPACK 11.1 and previous will be unable to process it. To assist with this problem, the new command Tools..Wrap TAB lines at 80 reformats the currently open TAB file so that all lines have length<=80. [Apr 2013]

•You can have two TABmates at once, via the menu command File...Another TABmate. This might be useful for comparing two files side-by-side. See Viewing 2 files at once [Dec 2016].

•A new Run CMF button appears if you are viewing a CMF or a TAB file. If you press it, you can run the viewed CMF or a CMF associated with the viewed TAB file [Apr 2013]

•It is possible to open a file with TABmate, and then, leaving the file open in TABmate, use some other program to replace or modify the original disk file. In this case when you return to TABmate you will be warned that the file has changed since TABmate opened it, and will be offered a chance to read in [reload] the modified file. More details here [Apr 2012]

•Since 2002 GEMPACK has allowed condensation instructions to be included in the TAB file, instead of in a separate STI file. The TAB alternative will often be clearer and more maintainable — in many cases a STI file will no longer be needed. Yet many older models continue to use a STI file to specify condensation. Now, the new command Create in-TAB condensation from STI helps convert legacy STI files to a sequence of new-style condensation statements which you can simply paste into the bottom of your TAB file. See Extracting Condensation statements from a STI file . [Jul 2010]

•TABmate now tries to warn you about the mysterious TAB file with no Updates problem. [Apr 2010]

•The Closure analysis now works better with complementarities. [Nov 2009]

• At the bottom right of the TABmate window is a button divided into 9 sections, like this:

Click the middle top section of the button to make TABmate fill the top half of the screen; click the middle left section to make TABmate fill the left half of the screen; and so on. Click corners to move TABmate to a quarter of the screen. Clicking the middle section makes TABmate fill the middle part of the screen. [Sep 2009]

•There have been various improvements to the placement and sizing of windows if you are using huge or multiple monitors. [Sep 2009].

•Edit..ReArrange selection command now lets you re-wrap text. See ReArrange Selection. [Feb 2009].

•Buttons and other elements now follow the appearance you chose for your Windows XP or Vista theme [Mar 2007].

•Mini-Gloss or Hints: Within a TAB file, if you hold down the Alt key (or the middle mouse button) and pass the mouse over any variable, coefficient or set, a hint appears showing the declaration (definition) of that item. See Gloss. Thanks to Davis Cook for suggesting this feature [December 2006].

•Changes to accommodate Windows Vista: The online help file is now in the more modern CHM format (used to be HLP) and small changes to fonts and layout have been made to suit the default Vista fonts. [November 2006].

•Click this button on the right of TABMate to close the current file. Or, right-click to save the file before closing it [September 2005].

•New Help..GEMPACK PDF Documentation gives you direct access to the GEMPACK manuals, if you installed them with GEMPACK [August 2005].

•New File..Save All command saves all modified files. You can also do this by right-clicking on the Save button [July 2005].

•New Tools...View/Create CMF command is used to build a template CMF for you to edit further [July 2005].

•You can clean up your HTML code from TABmate using the well-known HTML Tidy program which is built in to many HTML authoring tools. See HTML files and HTML Tidy [May 2005].

•Brief description of New GEMPACK 9.0 extensions to TABLO language: PostSim sections and Ranked Sets [May 2005].

•You can Remove duplicate lines from selected text. Handy when constructing set mappings for aggregation [Mar 2005].

•You can Sort selected text according to various criteria [Mar 2005].

•TABmate has syntax highlighting for BAT and FOR/F90 files [Feb 2005].

•Enhanced support for opening several files at once [Jan 2005]. You can:

-- type tabmate *.cmf from the command line to open all the CMF files

-- select a number of files in the File...Open dialog

-- drag a group of files from Explorer to the Title bar (top part) of the TABmate window.

-- open all the files listed within a given file -- see opening a file of filenames

•A note on Magic file-prefix characters [Jan 2005].

•An autocorrect feature will correct spelling errors automatically, or you can use it to speed up typing of common phrases. See Edit...Properties. [Dec 2004]

•Viewing two files at once is now possible, so you could, for instance, compare two TAB files. [Dec 2004]

•Right-clicking now automatically moves the cursor to where you right-clicked; previously, you needed to left-click before right-clicking. [Oct 2004]

•Ctrl-right-click on a variable or coefficient name to instantly launch the Gloss (Cross-Reference) window. And you can right-click anywhere on the Gloss window to close it. This allows for rapid glossing. [Oct 2004]

•A button in the Gloss window allows you to change the font size there. [Oct 2004]

•The Closure analysis now works better for levels variables. Eg, the equation E_X now matches levels variable X (linear variable p_X). [Oct 2004]

•The Closure analysis now includes a list of strangely named variables: variables that are ordinary change although this is not suggested by their name; or are percent change although their name suggests otherwise. [Oct 2004]

•Under the File menu, the list of most-recently-used files got even longer. [July 2004]

•TABmate remembers the extensions (suffixes) of files that you recently opened and files of that type are displayed when you press the Open button. [June 2004]

•If you type from the command line

TABmate filename

and filename does not exist, TABmate offers to create a new file. [June 2004]

•Diagnostic file contains more information, including the whole INI file [May 2004].

•Three user-configurable buttons can be used to run other programs from within TABmate. [Feb 2004]

•The Search ...Find command now has a new option. Continue search at file start [end] means:

if searching forward, and text not found, resume search from top of file.

if searching backward, and text not found, resume search from end of file.

There is also a new button meaning Go to top and search forward

[Dec 2003]

•The Cross-Reference or Gloss feature now works better for levels variables. If you gloss on levels variable X, the gloss also shows occurences of linear (percent-change) variable p_X.[Nov 2003]

•Improvement to the Cross-Reference or Gloss feature. If you display all occurrences of a variable, TABmate will highlight the statement where the variable appears on the left-hand of an = sign. Usually, this will be the equation that defines the variable.[Aug 2003]

•Improved the help information for Closure analysis and extended the closure report [May 2003]

•Search function now lets you see a few lines above and below the searched-for text -- previously a forward search usually located text on the last visible line [Apr 2003]

•Bookmark system has been revamped [Dec 2002]

•Names of modified files in the tabs at the top appear dark red; other filenames are black. So, if you have 10 files open, you can tell which ones are modified. [Nov 2002]

•If you have several files open, the name of the active file appears bold in the tabs at the top. [Nov 2002]

•added Tools..Remove blank lines command: handy if UNIX has added unwanted linefeeds [Oct 2002]

•TABLO from STI now will create a template STI file for you to edit. [May 2002]

•Print dialog now allows you to just print selection.[Mar 2002]

•Normally TABmate treats report files as read-only. The Options..Switch off read-only command allows you to over-ride this.[March 2002]

•Use Control-Tab key to switch between several open files. [March 2002].

•You can change selected text to CamelCaps.

•File..Open dialog lets you use Shift-Click and Ctrl-Click to select several files at once for opening [Feb 2002].

•Have a look at the TABLO language and CMF syntax sections to get a taste of some new GEMPACK 8.0 features [Feb 2002].

•Reload button lets you reload the currently visible file from disk (perhaps it changed since you last opened it) [Feb 2002].

•Programs menu item allows you to launch various GEMPACK windows programs, or a command prompt [Nov 2001].

•Diagnostic file assists in fixing problems [Sep 2001].

•New system of locating temporary directory and INI files, see TEMP and KEEP folders

•Cut, Copy, Paste may all be selected from right-click popup menu [Sep 2001].

•TABmate has syntax highlighting for HTML files, in case you want to edit web pages.

•TABmate has proved useful for presentation work with an overhead projector. Sometimes, however, the TAB file text seems too faint. Use Edit..All Bold to fix this. Alternatively, use Edit..Properties..Highlighting..Font and experiment with Arial or Ms Sans Serif instead of Courier New. Later use Edit..Restore Default Settings to go back to normal.

•By default, the first time TABmate is installed on a PC, it shows line numbers in the left margin of TAB files. Use Edit..Properties..Options..Line Numbers in Gutter to control this feature.

•Beauty Parlor assists in improving the appearance of your TAB file.

•You can change selected text to upper or lower case, using Ctrl-U or Ctrl-L keystrokes.

•List of Keyboard Commands.

•TABmate will optionally compile and link FORTRAN code (see LTG) in the background while you continue editing files.

•Now your STI file can specify a GSS or AXS name different from the TAB file (previously TABmate did not accept this).

•Say you open two files, both called GTAP.TAB, in different folders -- how can you remember which is which? Only their short names appear on the TABmate notebook tabs. Simply click on the tabs -- and the full path name appears on the status bar at the bottom.

•Improvements to the Cross-Reference or Gloss feature. It now has two modes: if the cursor is on a variable, coefficient or set, it lists every statement in the file which mentions that symbol; otherwise it defines every variable, coefficient or set mentioned in the current statement.

•You can alter the font size used in the Gloss and Warnings windows. See Options.

•File..Command prompt in current folder command creates a command prompt in the same directory as the file you are editing. Sometimes a real timesaver!

•More friendly Search and Replace dialogs

•You can choose which copy of TABLO.EXE is used. See Options.

•Assistance for slow readers. Messages in the status bar at the bottom appear only for a limited time; click down there to recall the last message.

•CMF files have their own colour scheme. Theres an online summary of CMF commands to jog your memory.

•Help file includes examples of TABLO language syntax.

•assistance in backing up important files.

•assistance in deleting un-important files.

•analyzes closure and suggests substitutions

•Note on tab expansion

URL of this topic: www.copsmodels.com/webhelp/tabmate/hc_whatsnew.htm

Link to full GEMPACK Manual

Link to GEMPACK homepage