.TH axe "" "" "X Application"
.PC "An X editor"
.fi
\fBaxe 
[\-\fItoolkitoption \fB...]
[ \-\fIoption \fB...]
[ \fIfilename \fB...]
[ \-buffer \fIfilename \fB...]\fR
.PP
.B axe
is an easy-to-use text editor for X.
It represents a significant improvement over
.BR xedit .
It is built around the Athena Text Widget, and features:
.IP \(bu 0.3i
Multiple windows.
.IS \(bu
Multiple buffers.
.IS \(bu
Default menu interface.
.IS \(bu
Configurable menus.
.IS \(bu
Optional configurable button interface.
.IS \(bu
Minibuffer for expert use and access to filters.
.IS \(bu
Provision for defining a keyboard macro.
.IS \(bu
Geometry specification and resizing in terms of characters.
.IS \(bu
File selection via a browser.
.IS \(bu
Knowledge of line numbers.
.IS \(bu
Parenthesis matching.
.IS \(bu
Regular expression searching.
.IS \(bu
Restricted or unlimited undo.
.IS \(bu
Ability to change font.
.IS \(bu
Easy entry of control codes.
.IS \(bu
\fBxterm\fR-like keymap feature.
.IS \(bu
Easy runtime setting of selected preferences.
.IS \(bu
Both brief and comprehensive on-line help.
.IS \(bu
Server mode with cooperating client programs.
.IS \(bu
Optional extension language using
.BR Tcl .
.IS \(bu
Optional
.B Xaw3d
widget-set compatability.
.PP
By default,
.B axe
provides a menu interface to some common Text Widget
operations and most of its extra features.
An optional button interface,
in which there is one button present for every static menu entry,
can be selected via the keyword 
.BR \-buttons ,
or by setting the top-level resource
.BR buttons .
A reduced-button interface is configurable.
.PP
When you first invoke
.BR axe ,
it allocated a separate window to each file that you name
on the command line.
If you prefix the file names with the option
.BR \-buffer ,
.B axe
writes the files into buffers that are all linked to the same window.
(An
older, still supported feature, enables the same to be achieved by
quoting the list of names.)
Note that if you use the
.B \-buffer
keyword,
files destined for individual windows must precede those for buffers.
.PP
You can specify the initial number of windows to open:
just use the keyword
.BR \-windows ,
or give the top-level resource
.B windows
a numeric value.
.B axe
ignores the value of
.B windows
if the files specified on the command line
require more than that number of windows.
.PP
If you provide a top-level geometry resource, e.g.,
by using the toolkit keyword
.BR \-geometry ,
then
.B axe
interprets the width and height fields to mean the numbers
of columns and rows, respectively, that editing widnows are to have.
.PP
.B axe
also acts as a server of editing windows to cooperating clients.
Two such clients,
.B coaxe
and
.BR faxe ,
are provided as part of the
.B axe
suite.
Server mode is the default,
but can be switched off by using the command-line keyword
.BR \-noserver ,
or by setting the top-level resource
.B server 
to
.BR False .
.PP 
.B axe
has comprehensive on-line help, so, to avoid having to keep
the information up to date in two places,
it will not be duplicated here. 
.SH "See Also"
.B
FileNominator,
X applications,
xedit
.R
.SH Notes
.II rc
.II "Rakitzis, Byron"
.II "Plan 9"
.B axe
use code from Byron Rakitzis' command interpreter
.BR rc ,
which is based on AT&T's Plan 9 shell of the same name.
.PP
.II "Wight, Jim"
.II "Pulley, Harry"
.B axe
was written by Jim Wight (j.k.wight@newcastle.ac.uk),
of the Department of Computing Science, University of Newcastle,
Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, NE1 7RU.
It was ported to \*(CO by Harry C. Pulley, IV.
