Managing the Script Editor and View

The Microsoft Script Editor provides several ways to control the view of your script. The information below describes how to work with these views.

Changing the view mode

The Script Editor features an additional new view mode called Tabbed Documents that allows you to have multiple editors and documents open simultaneously and to access them through tabs at the top of the editor. Alternatively, you can open the development environment in MDI (Multiple Document Interface) mode, where the windows are all joined together (but without the tabs) and each window can be tiled, minimized, and so forth.

To switch between view modes

1. Navigate to the General page of the Environment folder in the Options dialog box (Tools menu).
2. Under Settings, choose one of the following view modes:
   • Tabbed Documents
   • MDI environment

Splitting the View

The Script Editor can be split into two separate parts for easier editing.

To split a pane

1. Click the splitter bar (located above the scroll bar).
2. Drag the splitter bar downward.
3. To go back to a single pane, double-click the splitter bar dividing the two panes.

The new pane contains the same document, and any changes made to it are reflected in the other pane as long as that pane displays the same place in the document.

Word wrap

When you activate word wrap by pressing CTRL+R twice, the horizontal scrollbar is removed and lines of code that exceed the width of the editor's window size automatically wrap to the next displayed line rather than scrolling off the side of the window.

To activate word wrap

1. On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click Text Editor.
2. Click the HTML folder (or the All Languages folder to affect all languages).
3. Click Word wrap. Alternatively, pressing CTRL+R and then CTRL+R again toggles this option.

Enabling Virtual Space mode

In Virtual Space mode, the editor acts as if the space past the end of each line is filled with an infinite number of spaces, allowing code lines to continue beyond the side of the visible screen area.

To enable Virtual Space mode

1. On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click Text Editor.
2. Click the HTML page (or the All Languages page to affect all languages).
3. Click Enable Virtual Space.

When Virtual Space mode is not enabled, the cursor wraps from the end of one line to the first character of the next line and vice versa.

Note   Virtual Space mode is active whenever you are in Column Selection mode.

Displaying Line Numbers

You can turn on line numbering in your code. Line numbers are useful, for example, in Navigating Text.

Note   Turning on line numbering does not mean that the document will print with line numbers. For line numbers to print, you must click Line numbers in the Page Setup dialog box (File menu).

To display line numbers in code

1. Click Options on the Tools menu, and from the Text Editor tab, navigate to the General page of the All Languages folder.
2. Under Display, click Line numbers.

Enabling Full Screen mode

You can choose to hide all tool windows and view only document windows by enabling Full Screen mode.

To enable Full Screen mode

• Press ALT+SHIFT+ENTER to enter or exit Full Screen mode.

Additional view options

There are other ways to affect the view of your code or text:

• Fonts and size

  On the Fonts And Colors page of the Environment folder in the Options dialog box (Tools menu), you can change the fonts and colors that display in the editor, as well as how text appears when printed.