A good text editor is one of the most useful tools you can install on your computer, particularly if you do a lot of technical work. If you are using a primitive utility like NotePad, you owe it to yourself to move up. The good news is that you can get a superb editor for free. ConTEXT is available at:
http://www.contexteditor.org/
Here are some improvements you can make after you install the program.
Add syntax highlighting for Field Precision programs
We have prepared ConTEXT syntax highlighting files for all our program input scripts. Syntax highlighting does more than improve the appearance. You can immediately spot spelling mistakes and invalid commands. Here’s how to add the feature:
1. Go to our resources site
http://www.fieldp.com/resources/resources.html
and download the ConTEXT syntax file.
2. Unzip it in the directory
\program files\context\highlighters
to create the following files
fpanalysis.chl (analysis scripts, *.scr)
fpsolution.chl (all TriComp and AMaze solution programs)
gambet.chl (GamBet scripts, *.gin)
gcon.chl (GCon scripts, *.gcn)
gendist.chl (GenDist scripts, *.dst)
magwinder.chl (MagWinder scripts, *.cdf)
metamesh.chl (Mesh and MetaMesh scripts, *.min)
3. Highlighting will automatically be applied to files with the listed suffixes the next time you run ConTEXT. You can edit the chl files if you want to change colors or other properties.
Add spell checking
One of the few things that ConTEXT lacks is spell checking. Here’s how to integrate the Aspell program.
1) Go to http://aspell.net/ and click on “Windows port.”
2) Download the “Full installer” to a temporary directory and also download a dictionary for the language of your choice.
3) Run the program installer (e.g., Aspell-0-50-3-3-Setup.exe) first and then run the dictionary installer (e.g., Aspell-en-0.50-2-3.exe).
4) Run ConTEXT and click on “Options/Environmental options“. Activate the “Execute keys” tab then click on “Add“. Type “txt” in the dialog box and click OK.
5) Pick an activation key like F9. Browse for or type in the program name
“C:\Program Files\Aspell\bin\aspell.exe”
in the “Execute” box. Enter “check --dont-backup %n” in the “Parameters” box.
6) Go to the “General” tab in “Environmental options“. Check the boxes “Detect file changes by other applications” and “Automatically update changed files“.
7) You’re ready to go. The next time you are editing a .txt file, press F9 to activate spell checking.
8) As set up, the F9 command operates only on files with the suffix “txt“. You can add other file suffixes like “html” or “tex“.
9) For information on Aspell’s other features, see the manual at