Launching An Editor

P4Web lets you launch an external editor to work on files. To launch the editor on a selected file, choose Edit file from the Action menu .

The Edit option in the interactive resolve program also launches an external editor.

The P4EDITOR configuration setting is used to determine which program to launch. If P4EDITOR was not set in your environment when the p4web executable was started up, a default editor is launched. You can change P4EDITOR in your environment while running p4web; it will use the updated editor that you have specified. For more information about P4EDITOR, please see the the P4 Command Reference on the Perforce Technical Documentation page.

Note that:

• Only the Windows, Unix, and Macintosh versions of P4Web can launch external editors.

• On Unix, the Edit File feature launches whichever editor P4EDITOR is set to. If you don't have P4EDITOR set to any particular editor, it will launch an Xterm window and run vi. You may also specify Xterm as your P4EDITOR. If you're familiar with X Windows, you can make use of Xterm to edit files on a remote machine. You don't have to be logged onto the machine where the workspace files are as long as you have a p4web executable running on that machine.

  On Windows and Macintosh, P4Web launches an external editor only if your browser and the p4web executable are running on the same machine.You can't use P4Web's Edit File feature to edit files in a workspace on a remote machine.

• If your P4EDITOR is set to a windowing application, P4Web launches that application, opening up a new window on your workstation.

• If your P4EDITOR is set to a console application, or if it is not set and the default editor is a console application, P4Web behaves as follows:
  • On Windows, a cmd window is opened and the editor application is started in that window.
  • On Unix, an xterm window is opened and the editor application is started in that window.