SYNTAX EDITOR

[Beckstead, Jason]

Does anyone know if there is one font that is better/best for use in syntax editor for v17.0.1?

No matter what font I choose, I find that various characters, such as  "_" and most importantly "." do not always show as present on the screen. this has lead to numerous unnecessary syntax errors.

 

_____________________________________________________________

Jason W. Beckstead, Ph.D.       

  Associate Professor/Quantitative Methodologist

  University of South Florida College of Nursing

  12901 Bruce B. Downs Blvd., MDC22, Tampa, FL 33612, USA

  phone: [phone]  fax: [phone]          

  website:  http://personal.health.usf.edu/jbeckste/

 

 

[Heidi Green]

I’m also interested in this answer…what you describes happens to me occasionally, but the “.” usually reappears pretty quickly. Sometimes I have to click on or near the character, and then it is visible again. I haven’t been able to isolate when it happens and when it doesn’t. I happen to be using Lucida Console font.

 

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From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Beckstead, Jason
Sent: Thursday, March 26, 2009 11:34 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: SYNTAX EDITOR

 

Does anyone know if there is one font that is better/best for use in syntax editor for v17.0.1?

No matter what font I choose, I find that various characters, such as  "_" and most importantly "." do not always show as present on the screen. this has lead to numerous unnecessary syntax errors.

 

_____________________________________________________________

Jason W. Beckstead, Ph.D.       

  Associate Professor/Quantitative Methodologist

  University of South Florida College of Nursing

  12901 Bruce B. Downs Blvd., MDC22, Tampa, FL 33612, USA

  phone: [phone]  fax: [phone]          

  website:  http://personal.health.usf.edu/jbeckste/

 

 

____________
DefenderMX2.

[SPSS Support]

Hello Jason and Heidi,

   I have seen the syntax editor behavior that you described and discussed it with SPSS developers. A bug has been filed and I’ll post the results of their examination.

 

David Matheson

SPSS Statistical Support

 

 

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From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Heidi Green
Sent: Thursday, March 26, 2009 2:41 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: SYNTAX EDITOR

 

I’m also interested in this answer…what you describes happens to me occasionally, but the “.” usually reappears pretty quickly. Sometimes I have to click on or near the character, and then it is visible again. I haven’t been able to isolate when it happens and when it doesn’t. I happen to be using Lucida Console font.

 

---

From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Beckstead, Jason
Sent: Thursday, March 26, 2009 11:34 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: SYNTAX EDITOR

 

Does anyone know if there is one font that is better/best for use in syntax editor for v17.0.1?

No matter what font I choose, I find that various characters, such as  "_" and most importantly "." do not always show as present on the screen. this has lead to numerous unnecessary syntax errors.

 

_____________________________________________________________

Jason W. Beckstead, Ph.D.       

  Associate Professor/Quantitative Methodologist

  University of South Florida College of Nursing

  12901 Bruce B. Downs Blvd., MDC22, Tampa, FL 33612, USA

  phone: [phone]  fax: [phone]          

  website:  http://personal.health.usf.edu/jbeckste/

 

 

____________
DefenderMX2.

[Mark Casazza-2]

I've grown accustomed to using Monaco.  It's a (free, as in beer) fixed format Mac font (available for Windows, haven't tried to install it on Linux) that has a slash through the zero to distinguish it from a capital letter O, and distinctly different number 1, lower case letter l, and capital letter I.  It's not a particularly attractive font, but for writing code it works very well.

All that said, regardless of the font, characters shouldn't be disappearing.  Maybe SPSS will respond.

Mark



Beckstead, Jason wrote:

Does anyone know if there is one font that is better/best for use in syntax editor for v17.0.1?

No matter what font I choose, I find that various characters, such as  "_" and most importantly "." do not always show as present on the screen. this has lead to numerous unnecessary syntax errors.

 

_____________________________________________________________

Jason W. Beckstead, Ph.D.       

  Associate Professor/Quantitative Methodologist

  University of South Florida College of Nursing

  12901 Bruce B. Downs Blvd., MDC22, Tampa, FL 33612, USA

  phone: [phone]  fax: [phone]          

  website:  http://personal.health.usf.edu/jbeckste/

 

 

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[Maguin, Eugene]

I'll bet anybody a small amout that spss never fixed all the problems with the 16 editor. What i mean is that if you compare the 16 editor to word (think just about all the standard things you can do in word), there are things that 16 will not do and 15 was able to do. Examples: Ctl-Shft-Arrow should select words of text; Overtype key doesn't work correctly when at end of line; in the search and replace box, the cursor is incorrectly positioned initially. text selection malfunctions sometimes.

 

And, then we can move onto the ouput window contents pane operation.

 

Anybody take me up on this?

 

Gene Maguin

 

 

[Oliver, Richard]

I’ll bet a larger amount that SPSS created a brand new syntax editor for release 17 that has many new and useful features not available in the release 16 or 15 (or earlier) syntax editor, such as auto-complete and color-coding that recognizes command keywords and also highlights unmatched parentheses and quotes. It even highlights LOOP and DO REPEAT commands that don’t have matching END LOOP and END REPEAT commands.

 

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From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Gene Maguin
Sent: Friday, March 27, 2009 1:11 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: SYNTAX EDITOR

 

I'll bet anybody a small amout that spss never fixed all the problems with the 16 editor. What i mean is that if you compare the 16 editor to word (think just about all the standard things you can do in word), there are things that 16 will not do and 15 was able to do. Examples: Ctl-Shft-Arrow should select words of text; Overtype key doesn't work correctly when at end of line; in the search and replace box, the cursor is incorrectly positioned initially. text selection malfunctions sometimes.

 

And, then we can move onto the ouput window contents pane operation.

 

Anybody take me up on this?

 

Gene Maguin

 

 

[John Fiedler]

The release 17 editor is very much newer and certainly better.

Nonetheless, I still miss the vertical highlighting  that ended with Version 6.1.3.

That alone would make the upgrade to 18 worthwhile to me.

JOHN

 

----- Original Message -----

From: [hidden email]

To: [hidden email]

Sent: Friday, March 27, 2009 1:41 PM

Subject: Re: SYNTAX EDITOR

I’ll bet a larger amount that SPSS created a brand new syntax editor for release 17 that has many new and useful features not available in the release 16 or 15 (or earlier) syntax editor, such as auto-complete and color-coding that recognizes command keywords and also highlights unmatched parentheses and quotes. It even highlights LOOP and DO REPEAT commands that don’t have matching END LOOP and END REPEAT commands.

 

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From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Gene Maguin
Sent: Friday, March 27, 2009 1:11 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: SYNTAX EDITOR

 

I'll bet anybody a small amout that spss never fixed all the problems with the 16 editor. What i mean is that if you compare the 16 editor to word (think just about all the standard things you can do in word), there are things that 16 will not do and 15 was able to do. Examples: Ctl-Shft-Arrow should select words of text; Overtype key doesn't work correctly when at end of line; in the search and replace box, the cursor is incorrectly positioned initially. text selection malfunctions sometimes.

 

And, then we can move onto the ouput window contents pane operation.

 

Anybody take me up on this?

 

Gene Maguin

 

 

[Gary Oliver]

 

Hi Gene

 

I  have been using SPSS since v8 for Windows. In all that time the one constant request I have heard from my fellow (novice and power) users has been for editor bug fixes and feature additions (including many word-like features).

 

SPSS has consistantly delivered negligible improvements. In some releases it has either gone backwards or been bug-ridden. Given that SPSS has coexisting its syntax commands and python options,  I have concluded they expect us to find our own editor application. Since v14 (which had very nasty syntax editor deficiencies in find/replace) I have done this.

 

In summary, I strongly echo your request for the long overdue and drastic improvement in the SPSS editor.

 

SPSS: Will you tell us you have made it a key development priority?

 

Warm regards/gary

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From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Gene Maguin
Sent: Saturday, March 28, 2009 5:11 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: SYNTAX EDITOR

I'll bet anybody a small amout that spss never fixed all the problems with the 16 editor. What i mean is that if you compare the 16 editor to word (think just about all the standard things you can do in word), there are things that 16 will not do and 15 was able to do. Examples: Ctl-Shft-Arrow should select words of text; Overtype key doesn't work correctly when at end of line; in the search and replace box, the cursor is incorrectly positioned initially. text selection malfunctions sometimes.

 

And, then we can move onto the ouput window contents pane operation.

 

Anybody take me up on this?

 

Gene Maguin

 

 

[Dennis Deck]

Gene

 

You may want to consider an alternative editor like TextPad for both syntax and data

TextPad is a generic text editor but it is configurable to provide visual cues about SPSS syntax as well as a number of other applications.

A unique feature is a columnar cut and paste feature that SPSS has never implemented.

 

You can specify an alternate editor (including TextPad) for SPSS (I assume this is still available in the latest versions).

An alternative strategy, however, is to use TextPad while creating the draft syntax file and SPSS editor while debugging and running.

That has been my own mode of operation.  I keep the SPSS syntax PDF open if I need to use a new feature.  

 

This does not directly address the issue you raised about the editor but does provide an alternate tool.

 

Dennis Deck

RMC Research

 

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From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Gene Maguin
Sent: Saturday, March 28, 2009 5:11 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: SYNTAX EDITOR

I'll bet anybody a small amout that spss never fixed all the problems with the 16 editor. What i mean is that if you compare the 16 editor to word (think just about all the standard things you can do in word), there are things that 16 will not do and 15 was able to do. Examples: Ctl-Shft-Arrow should select words of text; Overtype key doesn't work correctly when at end of line; in the search and replace box, the cursor is incorrectly positioned initially. text selection malfunctions sometimes.

 

And, then we can move onto the ouput window contents pane operation.

 

Anybody take me up on this?

 

Gene Maguin